Cake Endeavours

 These types of cakes are so much fun to do.  Over the top goodness!  Especially, when the original plan  was to use airplane size bottles of Jack Daniel's instead of one 300mL bottle.  When Mr T went to the LCBO he was told that they longer sell them, at least as this location, due to high theft.  The next smallest size available was the 300mL bottle; though I doubt the birthday boy was disappointed! This was a 3 layer chocolate 8" cake with Bailey's buttercream topped off with Hershey pieces, mini chocolate chip cookies, Ferrero Rocher and Whoppers sitting on top of the chocolate ganache.

 For this cake I was able to stretch my skills and use several different techniques.  It usually feels daunting to me at first, trying to figure out what I need to do, if I can pull it off and what tools I need to use.  Once I get going and things start to come together I get excited and really enjoy the process.  This is when my kitchen is usually at its messiest.  Ha! Cait sent me several pictures for what she was looking for and what she liked and didn't from both of them.  From there, I came up with a plan.  Though, it tends to change as I go.  First I made the horns.  I realized after the fact that I should have used wire to go the entire length of the horn and not just a bamboo stick that only went half way up.  It would have stabilized the fondant and I wouldn't have had to worry about it cracking and breaking apart.  Fortunately, they lasted at least to delivery.  I used light blue fondant and then painted them with sil...

This Thanksgiving is our 3rd annual Octoberfest celebration.  Though it was certainly celebrated much differently from last year.  It's our first Thanksgiving without my paternal grandmother which under normal circumstances would have been bittersweet.  However, combined with social distancing in our 2nd wave we had a very small gathering in my parents' backyard.  I am very grateful that we were fortunate to be able to celebrate with my parents and my brother.  It was a little chilly but we had good company and yummy food. My contribution was this 3 layer 6" pumpkin cake covered in cream cheese icing.  I know my family will take any cake that is a vessel to cream cheese icing.   Hopefully, next Thanksgiving we will be able to celebrate properly with extended family.

 Mr.  T kindly dropped this cake off to a coworker of his this afternoon.  Making cheesecake in the Instant Pot is life changing.  I've said it before, I know, but I can't stress enough how easy and foolproof it is.  There are a ton of recipes online to choose from.  You don't have to worry about making a bain Marie, using tinfoil or having the cake overflow and fall to the bottom of your oven causing your smoke detector to go off...It happened to me! It comes off the sides of the springform pan or cheesecake pan very easily.  I have the 8qrt version and can do up to an 8" round cake in the Instant Pot.  

This 6" blackforest cake was for a coworker of Mr. T's for him and his wife's anniversary.  This time Mr T was able to find cherries with their stems.  I much prefer them with their stems for decorating.  It looks so much more decadent.  I'm not sure if his co-worker was able to have any of the cake as I believe his wife took it to work to share! 

 Buffalo plaid is so popular this year and it's spilled over into cakes, which I adore!  For this special first birthday the cakes were decorated to coordinate with the decorations for the party. For the main cake, it was an 8" two layer vanilla flavour with fresh raspberry filling.  I did not add the filling in the smash cake for the birthday boy to avoid a gruesome looking mess. Ha! For the bears, I used the same one as the decorations and laminated them before adding to the cake.  For the topper I interested "Wild One"  first before printing and laminating.  The trees, I painted them by hand directly on to the fondant with edible dye. For the 4" smash cake, I added the banting upside down to match the main cake.