Cake Endeavours

My friend Hibah had booked me to do this cake months ago, but we both forgot about it.  I think I completely forgot about and she forgot to remind me.  But that's okay, I still had plenty of time to make this cake when we talked about it a few days beforehand. Strangely enough the Perfect Chocolate Cake was the perfect cake to do for what Hibah had envisioned.  This was a 3 layer 9" cake with whipped cream filling and the chocolate fudge icing. To make this cake look like a construction zone I sent Mr T off to the dollar store to pick up some toy trucks.  He did not disappoint.  I would tell you what each one was, but I only can confidently say one of them is a dump truck. I trimmed off a portion of the top layer to make it look like it was being dug up and then roughly iced the cake and spread the icing onto the cake board.  The dirt was made out of crushed up Oreo cookies.  The cones were out of fondant. This cake came together fairly quickly and easily. That'

For this order I got an education in soccer.  Before doing these cupcakes I couldn't name one team in the F.C.  Actually, is it the Football Club?  Regardless, I can name three, PSG (Paris St. Germain), Arsenal, and A.C. Milan. I made 4 dozen cookies and cream cupcakes.  I printed of the three teams' logos and punched them out with my 1 1/4 inch punch. Then added them to a toothpick.  Originally, I had planned on making the tops of the cupcakes look like a soccer ball.  However, I don't have a pentagon shaped cutter of any size.  I tried cutting a few free hand and it wasn't pretty.  Instead, I opted to put 18 on each cupcake since the birthday boy was turning 18.

This cake was for a New Year's birthday.  I was so excited to get to do a minion cake.  I love the Despicable Me movies. Again, I was told to choose the flavour.  Quelle surprise, I chose chocolate.  :) Love him!!! I did up a recipe of the Perfect Chocolate cake, pour it into 2 6" round pans, one half of the ball pans, and one cupcake to form the minion. To cover the cake in fondant, I first started with an 8" circle of yellow to go over his head.  Then I took a rectangular piece rolled out to wrap around his body.  There is a seam going down his back that's visible but I was able to conceal the seam joining the head and body with the strap for his goggle, or is it a monocle?  For his "hair" spikes, I stuck a toothpick in each one and let them dry out before sticking them in. I love how this cake turned out.  Sometimes what I envision in my head is not what the end result is.  This one worked out even better.

I became aware of this cake while watching YouTube one day and this  advertisement  came on first.  Instead of skipping the ad I watched the whole video on how to make this cake.  I had to make it.  I just needed the occasion to do it. We had the Sturgeon family Christmas the Monday before Christmas and so I volunteered to make this dessert.  It was a labour of love and a good thing I started the day before!  I bought the ginger crips from Costco.  They are in the baking area; little heart shaped cookies in a tub.  The cake had to travel with us from the city to the burbs so I didn't do decorating until we were at my parents'. I loved this cheesecake.  I would make the jam alone just to use on toast it was so good.  You can find the recipe at this link:  Dorie Greenspan's Raspberry-Cranberry Spiced Cheesecake .

The Ecig Flavourium  was having a party the Saturday before Christmas and one of the owners asked me to do a cake like their logo for it.  The flavour was up to me. When you leave the flavour up to me, I usually choose to do chocolate with chocolate filling.  Sometimes, I wonder if I'm a one trick pony with the chocolate cake, but if I am going to be, it might as well be with the Perfect Chocolate Cake.  It really is the best cake.  I think it has super powers. Ha! Anyway, the cake was a recipe and a half to make  two 9 x 13 layers.  I trimmed the corners off to give it an oval shape then covered it in buttercream and fondant. We delivered this cake to the store.  It is such a cool store in white and orange.  They even had this awesome orange Christmas tree.  I wish I had taken a picture of it.  It's across the street from the Garden Gate Restaurant, otherwise known as the GOOF to locals.  We met up with Mr. T's parents afterward for dinner. The cake was a hit.

I can't believe it's been over two months since I've updated my blog!  Fortunately there is not too much to get caught up on what I have been baking. These adorable snowman cups were for Miss E's winter concert bake sale on December 17th.  It's been so long since I've made them, I'm not actually sure what flavour they were.  Looking at the picture it looks like they were chocolate.  I saw these on Pinterest (of course) and have been wanting make them for a few years.  This was the perfect opportunity.  First you ice the cupcakes with some buttercream.  Then to cover the icing to make it look like snow, in a small bowl I had the white sugar crystals and dipped the cupcakes in to cover each one.  I used an orange jelly bean for the "carrot" nose, black dragees for the "coal" mouth, and cut out fondant for the eyes.  It was a simple but long process.  Thankfully it was for only two dozen of them.