Cake Endeavours

Back in the summer I donated a 2 layer 8" cake to a silent auction for The Weekend to End Women's Cancers at work.  Jaime's mom had the highest bid and chose to cash in the win for Jaime's 9th birthday cake. The cake was to be vanilla with a music theme and funky flowers with bold colours. Yesterday, after sleeping in and lazing about til noon I walked into the kitchen and suddenly remembered that I was supposed to do this cake.  It was going to be picked up at 2pm!  I quickly did up the batter and put the cake in the oven.  Thank goodness I had cleaned up the kitchen and put things away before we left 2 days before for Christmas celebrations.  It made it so much easier to get things ready.  While the cake was baking I phoned Michelle to see if she wouldn't mind picking it up later or rather I could deliver it.  Fortunately, she lives very close to us (10 minutes away by car in Toronto is close) and had no problem with me delivering it later. I...

For Joy's 34th birthday celebration I couldn't think of a better theme to her cake than Hello Kitty.  I added princess to it as I'm sure Joy plans to rule the world with everything Hello Kitty and with Miss E as her assistant.  Living with 3 boys and 2 male cats is it any wonder why? I made a 3 layer 9" chocolate cake with whipped cream filling.Decorated with some dragees to add some bling.

This cake was for my co-worker's son 19th birthday.  He's in school to become a firefighter.  Underneath the black fondant is the Perfect Chocolate Cake.  For the ladder and fire hydrant I piped out royal icing.  Originally the cake was going to be picked up from my place but I procrastinated getting started and instead delivered it up to Aurora so I wasn't on a time crunch.  I took Mr. T and Miss E out to the  Lone Star restaurant for dinner for making the trek up with me.

For Christmas this year I didn't attempt any new recipe for my baking.  I went with my favourites. I started off with Chocolate Pretzel Treats .  I used chocolate, candy cane, and hugs Kisses along with Smarties for the topper.  I prefer Smarties to M&Ms.  I do recommend turning off the oven and watch the Kisses very carefully so that they don't over melt or in my case seize.  I did this to 8 dozen of these treats!  Not fun unwrapping all those Kisses!  Mr. T's work were treated to the rejects.  At least they went to a good home. Then I made the Easy Orea Truffles .  They really are easy.  The most cumbersome part is dipping them into the chocolate and ensuring that you have got all the excess off.  I recommend freezing the Oreo/cream cheese balls before dipping so they hold their shape. Next I made some mini cupcakes.  2 dozen chocolate with chocolate icing, 2 dozen chocolate with buttercream icing topped with can...

Alexander's request for his cake this year was Wolverine and he's not fond of fondant.  I seriously think, no I know, Joy gets great pleasure in announcing that the cake is icing covered and not fondant.  One day I will get the icing super smooth and it won't phase me.  Thankfully, I get to do the decorations in fondant. This was a 10" two layer vanilla cake.  When I went to dye the icing yellow I realised I only had buttercup yellow instead of lemon yellow.  Ugh!  So the yellow wasn't the cartoon yellow that I would have liked but at least those who know X-Men knew immediately who it was, so I guess it wasn't that far off.  Mr. T was of no help since he didn't know who Wolverine was (Hugh Jackman, DUH!).  Even I knew that!  Plus, he thought I had dyed it green.  Him being colour blind can be so entertaining. I love the Marvel Pop figurines and I was going to do this similar to my Holy Birthday Cake Batman cake but with the funky...

A coworker asked me to make her birthday cake for her to celebrate her 50th birthday.  She does NOT look her age.  She sent me a picture of what she wanted and this is my interpretation.   Fortunately, I had a chocolate mold for Eiffel Tower pops for the top decoration that worked perfectly.  This was a 8" and 6" layers, both chocolate with buttercream filling.  The bow turned out different from the original plan but it still worked.  I added some flowers on top and to the centre of the bow, since I didn't foresee needing a centre loop!  

Terry's birthday celebration was a gaming party.  The pictures that Vicky sent me had a Playstation controller on it so that's what I went with.  I traced out the controller and then scored most of the design in.  For the SONY label and action buttons I used royal icing then with the edible markers coloured in the colours.  Originally I had planned to have the cord coming out of the top and then wrapping it around the base for the trim.  Mr. T informed me that the controllers are wireless now.  So I scratched that and just piped out the black rope. This was a 10" two layer Perfect Chocolate cake with buttercream icing then covered in fondant.

My 4th installment of my work birthdays celebration cake.  This time I stuck with the Perfect Chocolate Cake with salted caramel filling and decorated with buttercream icing.  I do forget that butter combined with pure vanilla extract that the colour will be distorted.  I was going for an ice blue but came out Tiffany Blue.  Oh well!  I scored the cutting lines to make sure that there would be 50 pieces. The final touch was a snowflake on each piece. The floor was most appreciated of the cake, which is always good news that everyone liked it.

This sweet little cake was a treat to make.  I love Toopy & Binoo!  Alia's mom sent me a picture of a few samples and this is the result. The bottom tier is 6 inches and the top is 4.  Both are marble with buttercream icing. 

Again I have fallen way behind in posting my latest creations.  I'm going all the way back to Halloween.  Yikes! These cupcakes were for a celebration at work.  Half were pumpkin and half were chocolate. When I went to make them, the night before of course, I thought I had everything I needed including Halloween cupcake liners.  After a 20 minute search I had liners for every other occasion but Halloween.  I was left with using the white liners, which I officially do not like using.  They look so dull! I'm not overly thrilled with the look.  Thankfully they tasted just fine!