Cake Endeavours

This is cake is for a co-worker's niece.  I was sent this picture to replicate a few months back.  I was very excited at the thought of making the cake.  We settled on cookies and cream for the bottom tier and the ladybug and chocolate with peanut butter feeling for the second tier. So, this morning I got up bright and early to bake the cakes.  The bottom was 10", middle 8" and for the ladybug I used the Pampered Chef Small Batter Bowl .  It worked really well.  However, when I had put the cookies and cream layers in the over to bake I realised I forgot to add the eggs.  Yikes!  I had a momentary lapse of judgement and thought I could leave them in there, but then I came to my senses and dumped everything back into the mixing bowl and added the eggs. I bought the Wilton Decorative Press Set several months ago and had yet to test it out.  Today I pulled it out and put it to good use.  Definitely $20.00 well spent.  I used it ...

My pod at work is well known for it's treats.  It is very rare that there isn't a candy or chocolate of some sort to nibble on.  This past Friday was no exception.  We were celebrating our director's birthday so I brought in some cupcakes and my co-worker brought in some homemade fudge and chocolates.  Yummy! The way to my director's heart is definitely through chocolate, so it is no surprise that she asked me to make a cake for her to take to the cottage to celebrate her (D) and her BFF's (J) birthday. She had requested the rosettes on top, for the extra shot of icing and their initials.  The filling for this cake was salted caramel. Happy Birthday D!

Carrot Cake is popular this month.  I made this one for another co-worker for a family birthday celebration. This was an 8" two layer cake.  While it is a pain to peel the carrots and shred them, the great thing about making carrot cake is that the batter is thinner than batter is normally so when it bakes it bakes evenly on top.  No waste of cake. I used the icing method from Bake with Anna Olson again.

Last weekend on of Mr. T's high school friends and his family came over for dinner to celebrate his birthday.  He left to teach in Japan a few months before we got married so he couldn't be in the wedding unfortunately.  Last year along with his wife and two kids they moved back to Canada. So, on top of a birthday cake I also made dinner.  Along with the dinner we have my brother's homemade Pesto Bread and dinner rolls.  They were awesome. Earlier that day we had gone out to Newcastle for the launch of Krumbs Breadery&Stuff .  My brother and his good friend's latest endeavour.  We bought lots of bread and treats.  So good!  Needless to say our company loved the bread too. For Shawn's birthday celebration I made the Perfect Chocolate cake with the original filling.  I haven't made the "original" in a while.  I did see this new technique for icing on Bake with Anna Olson that is super easy.  I tried it out on this cake. ...

Last Friday at work we celebrated the birthdays for June and July.  I made carrot cake with cream cheese icing this time.  It is not a very blog worthy picture of one of my cakes.  I was late getting to bed so I iced the caked, stuck it in the fridge and went to bed.  In the morning when I got up, after hitting the snooze button several times, I scored the lines on the top but the icing was too hard to put the raisins on.  I added the raisins on top when I got to work.  As I'm putting the raisins on I realised I should have bought the lighter coloured ones too and alternate them to add a little more to the decoration. Oh well! I haven't made carrot cake in ages and I was pleasantly surprised at how many people liked carrot cake. I love carrot cake.  Without nuts and raisins though; it's just not right.  My mom has made this cake for me for my birthday several times.

I asked my Dad if he had a request for his birthday cake this year and he picked the Perfect Chocolate Cake but with salted caramel filling instead of the whipped cream.  So that's what I did.  Dad is an avid golfer as you can probably tell by the fondant decorations. We celebrated Dad's birthday at the restaurant where my brother works, The New Massey House in Newcastle.  He was able to take a few quick breaks to come out and chat with us.  He even had the staff come and sing happy birthday to Dad.  The best was part was when they got to "Happy Birthday to (add name)" they added "Geoff's dad!" Too funny!  The staff each got to have a piece too.  Spreading the joy of the Perfect Chocolate Cake. Chef Geoff, Dad and Miss E

After last week's wedding cake, I was happy to get an order for the Perfect Chocolate Cake. Really, it was a co-worker asking on Wednesday if I could do a cake for her grandson for Friday. He liked chocolate. So I persuaded her that this cake would be doable. I know the recipe by heart! Brody is a fan of NASCAR and I thought two flags would go well. Imagine my surprise when I searched through my tub of cookie cutters that I had a flag one. Everyone at work was threatening to take a piece of cake before the end of the day.  But it survived.

Yesterday we had the pleasure of attending the wedding of a good friend and co-worker of mine.  It was a beautiful wedding in her parents' backyard.  Albena had asked me to make her wedding cake even before she was officially engaged.  After a few weeks of sending pictures back and forth, Albena settled on the Rainbow Wedding Tree Cake .  Even though I swore I would never do more than a 3 tiered cake, I couldn't say no to Albena. This is my version of the cake.  I did the tree trunk and branches in dark brown fondant.  On the original it looks like it was painted on in black. I drew the sections freehand and traced them onto the fondant.  Cutting out the 100 odd leaves were so easy compared to piecing the trunk and branches together. The bottom tier is a 10" cookies and cream cake; 2nd an 8" chocolate cake; 3rd and 8" coconut lime cake; 4th a 6" vanilla with banana and strawberry filling cake. It was incredibly humid.  When it was time to p...

I made this cake for a co-worker who was having a bridal shower for a friend.  The cake was supposed to be completely covered in roses, but with the heat of the past week I just couldn't get it to work on the sides, so I improvised.  I added silver and lime green dragees to match the cupcakes I made to go with the cake. The cake is 2 layer 10" chocolate cake with peanut butter icing for the filling.  The peanut butter icing is really good! The icing is butter cream coloured to watermelon pink. I also made 3 dozen cupcakes, 1/2 were Oreo and 1/2 were red velvet with cream cheese icing.  I love the cupcake liners that I bought from Flour Confections in pink and lime green. Another co-worker needed some cupcakes last minute so I was able to get two dozen from the extra batter from these cupcakes and the cakes I made for the wedding cake that I put up in my next post.