Cake Endeavours

We had a charity bake sale last week at work and I donated a dozen cupcakes.  I was planning on my making chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing but then I thought since it was the 2nd day of Spring supposedly I would do something along that theme. I went with vanilla cupcakes with an Oreo in the bottom because to me plain vanilla is just boring.  Of course I'm making these decisions in the evening on the eve of the sale.  I discovered I had 15 Oreo cookies, which was great.  I needed 12 for the bake sale and I could use the remaining in extra cupcakes for bribery at work. :)  At 10pm when I decided to get down to business I went to the Oreos and saw that some were missing; 4 to be exact which left me with 11!  Grr!  I went to Mr. T and casually said "Please tell me that you didn't eat the Oreos that I was using for the cupcakes."  A look of horror spread across his face and then resignation.  However, without hesitation he said"I'll be...

Last weekend I had my parents over for dinner.  They were bringing back Miss E from a visit at their house over the March Break.  As a thank you I thought it would be nice to make them dinner.  For dessert I wanted to do something a little different. I love ice cream sandwiches!  So, I sent Mr. T off to buy some premium ice cream since my brother still has my ice cream maker.  That's my excuse for not making the ice cream.  I had no intention of making the ice cream for this dessert.  However, you can't skimp out on the cookie portion.  They definitely needed to be homemade. We all love chocolate chip cookies but what I don't like about them is that after the first day they lose their lustre.  What separates a good cookie from a great cookie for me is that it is crunchy on the edges but chewy in the middle.  I discovered this recipes for Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies and it is fantastic!  They stay chewy!  I neve...

For Mr. T's birthday this year I decided to continue on the theme of a doughnut cake.  Last year I made him the Simpsons Doughnut Cake which he loved.  One of his favourite doughnuts is the Double Chocolate Glazed from Tim Horton's.  So of course I thought a super sized double chocolate glazed doughnut was a great idea.  The cake is covered in Nutella butter cream icing.  Then topped with a chocolate glaze. We celebrated his birthday at the Lonestar followed by the cake for dessert.  Mr. T took the left overs to work the next day to share with his coworkers.  At least that's his story.  It hasn't been confirmed that he actually shared. :) Hmm...what will next year's doughnut cake be?

This year's birthday party theme for siblings Erika and Stathis was Toy Story.  Their mom supplied the figurines for the cake toppers.  Both cakes were 10" 2 layer cakes; one chocolate with Nutella butter cream filling and one Oreo cookies and cream with butter cream icing. When I went to cover the cakes in fondant I realised that I was almost out of white fondant.  Thankfully I had enough butter cream to cover Stathis' cake properly with the icing.  Then I added the cow print around the cake in black fondant.  The lettering for his cake was done with chocolate molds.  Originally his name was supposed to be standing like on Erika's cake but it wouldn't hold.  So down they went! For Erika's cake I coloured in the cow print on the bottom half with edible ink which is a lot less time consuming then cutting out the individual print pieces. 

For the birthday boy, the request was a TML jersey cake, with their last name and the number 88 on it.  Chocolate with Nutella icing filling. Let me tell you Nutella icing is amazing.  I think it might rival the Perfect Chocolate cake icing.  I made a two layer 9 x 13 cake and a third layer to make the arms.  Mr. T had some left over icing and cake and requested it for his birthday cake.  High praise considering the Perfect Chocolate cake is his all time favourite.   I wasn't planning on adding the trim around the bottom, but I rolled out the fondant perfectly for a 9 x13 cake forgetting about the extra two inches or so for the arms.  Thankfully Fondex is forgiving enough that you can stretch it but the edges were a little rough. I was delivering this cake to the West end and fortunately I had already booked my delivery boy, Mr. T because after the snow storm from the day before I did not want to drive on streets that haven't been plo...

Earlier this week I found this recipe for Cinnamon Toast on Pinterest.  I love cinnamon toast.  I used to sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top of buttered toast.  This recipe takes it to a whole new level. Since I am in a lull, happily, for baking this last few weeks I thought I would post about something different.  This is super easy to make and is amazing!  I made it for Mr. T and his friend for a snack during the Super Bowl.  They loved it. For the bread I used Honey & Oat from  Krumbs Breadery & Stuff .  Fortunately, I had a loaf hidden in my freezer.  The bread on its own is so good.  It's my favourite.  But this topping made it even better.  One recipe did one loaf of Honey & Oat.

The request for this cake came by way of Googling Super Mario Cakes.  Quinn's mom happened upon the Super Mario Cake I made Miss E for her 5th birthday and found my Cake Endeavours Facebook page .  She inquired about a cake for her son.  I was very excited.  She even liked the Neapolitan idea for the three flavours of the cake.  This cake was a 3 layer 8" cake covered in blue butter cream icing, then decorated with fondant decorations.  I did the lettering for QUIINN in the same colours as MARIO. I also did 2 dozen Oreo cupcakes and a dozen chocolate with chocolate icing, for the grown-ups.  So, the problem with not covering a cake in fondant is that it's really hard to get the icing perfect.  Sometimes I just can't leave alone and I try to make it smoother, only to have it look like it does above.  I don't know what I was thinking because I normally strategically place decorations over these imperfections.  For some reason I ...