Cake Endeavours

My director's daughter threw a surprise party for her today and I volunteered to bring the cake.  She was definitely surprised! Meaghan had sent me a picture of what kind of cake they were looking for to go with their Hawaiian theme.  Last night I made the decorations.  The flowers were painted with diluted food colouring to make them look like watercolour flowers and leaves. This was a 9 x 13 cake that was half chocolate and half vanilla flavoured.  Then covered in turquoise coloured fondant. I don't often do slab cakes; I always forget how annoying the corners are to do.  Whether it's with icing or fondant they can be such a pain.  It's so important to get the icing as square as possible otherwise the fondant over top will look wonky.  This one came out pretty good.  Regardless, the birthday girl enjoyed it. :)

I was asked to make this cake for Lina's daughter's 23rd birthday.  This is only my 2nd time doing a naked cake.  A naked cake is a cake without a full coating of icing or fondant.  It is  basically a crumb coat.  For this cake I a three layer 8" chocolate cake with chocolate fudge filling.  First, I leveled off the three layers, then piped the white butter cream around the top edge of two layers to form a dam for the chocolate filling.  I let them set in the fridge for about 15 minutes.  Once set I added the chocolate filling and covered in icing.  It was so strange to be done at that point.  I just had to add the flower. The flower is made out of fondant; made a few days in advance starting with darker fuchsia to lighter to give it an ombre affect.  I added a dab of icing underneath to offset it slightly. Mr. T was kind enough to deliver out to Brock St. where conveniently a 7-Eleven was close by again so that he could get himself a Slurpee on the way home.

For the baby shower I made 4 dozen cupcakes; 2 dozen in vanilla and 2 dozen in chocolate.  I covered the vanilla cupcakes in blue buttercream icing and added a blue gum ball to finish it off.  I love these gum balls that the Bulk Barn now carries.  They come in pink and blue and a beautiful pearl finish. For the chocolate cupcakes I first covered them in white butter cream icing then added the fondant decorations.  The little feet are so cute. Mr. T delivered these out to the east end.  He has no problem delivering a cake when there is a 7-Eleven close by.  For this delivery it was practically next door.  He loves himself a Slurpee.  They are slowly disappearing from Toronto which makes him very sad. So, he does not miss an opportunity to grab a Slurpee when he can. 

I'm so glad I got to make Santiago's cake for his first birthday!  He is one of the sweetest most adorable baby ever.  Though he's not a baby anymore :( His mom's request was for a Lion King theme cake with cupcakes.  The cake and cupcakes were both banana flavour with peanut butter icing.  Oh boy!  It is an awesome combination.  So glad we had left over icing. :) First I baked the cake and cupcakes.  While they were baking I started on the decorations for the cupcakes and the cake.  This took most of my Friday evening.  Thank you Albena! It was so humid even with our a/c blasting.  I could not get Simba to look right.  It was so frustrating.  I resorted to printing off a picture and laminating it.  At least Santiago can have a keepsake if he wants.  When I went to decorate the cupcakes the liners had peeled off on their own.  It looked nasty so, I took them all off and had mini cakes instead.  Each cupcake was topped with peanut butter icing and

It's been a while since my lovely co-worker Clover sent me a picture and said that she wanted me to make it.  Of course, it's never a simple cake.  She likes to challenge me.  Especially covering a chocolate cake in white fondant in the middle of a heat wave... For this 6" cake I made five layers filled with chocolate filling,  The cake was over 6" tall.  Not easy to cover in fondant.  Thank goodness there were lots of decorations to cover up some of the wrinkles.  Next time, I would cover it differently.  Rather than rolling out one big circle and draping over the top I would do it in two parts; 6" disc for the top and then a 6" x the circumference to have one seam at the back.  It could easily be covered by the dripping gold.  The roses were made a few days in advance to allow them to dry out.  This morning we dropped off Miss E to catch her bus to camp.  She's going for a month and is super excited.  We had the day off for Canada Day even t