Cake Endeavours

Several years ago I swore I would not do any mini cakes, rather multiple mini cakes in one request, especially at Christmas time.  Clearly, I forgot that resolve!  I'm hoping I won't forget again.   The 8" vanilla cheesecake was not a problem.  I made it in the Instant Pot and it came out beautifully.  Even the red with gold mirror glaze went on with ease.  If only it stopped there!   The decorations were simple enough, fresh cranberries, some sugared and some left as is, along with fresh rosemary and silver and black dragees.     Then there were the two dozen mini cheese cakes.  Yikes! I made up a cheese cake in a 9 x 13 pan, then cut into 2" square pieces and set them in the freezer.  When it came time to covering them in the glaze, it did not go so well.  It was a mess!  It would have definitely gone smoother the cheese cakes were a no bake recipe done in individual molds but I knew my friend wanted baked and ...

 It was so nice to be able to celebrate this milestone for my cousin and her husband in person!  I was asked to make cupcakes and a special cake for the two of them as they are both celebrating their 60th birthdays this month.   This was a 4" four layer carrot cake with cream cheese icing.  The theme was black and gold.  I splattered edible gold paint all over the cake then topped it with black fondant flowers and gold dust covered malt balls.  We lost two of them on the ride over to the floor in the car, but it wasn't that noticeable.  This is why I usually take a picture before a cake leaves the house.  Ha! The cupcakes were carrot and red velvet.  I didn't check to see if I had red dye before I made the cupcakes, so they were more of a maroon/burgundy velvet colour.  No one complained, so that's good.  :)

 I love getting to do a sweet cake like this for a first birthday!  For this 6" three layer vanilla cake it had salted caramel butter cream filling.  Mr. T was on a roll delivering cakes this week. All the decorations were made using cutters, which makes it go much faster.  I love the clouds.  They are such fun. 

I'm so happy that Beauty and the Beast is popular again and was thrilled to get to do this themed cake.   This was an 8" and 6" tiered vanilla cake with butter cream icing.  For the ruffles I used tear drop shaped cutter and overlapped them for three layers to make the skirt of Belle's dress. For "KEIRA" I used the Disney font to cut out the letters.  Very thin and finicky to work with.  But definitely worth it. Fallen rose petals from the rose I made for the top of the cake.  Just like in the movie. I also made 2 dozen mini chocolate cupcakes.  It was so humid that the cupcake liners came right off so I called them bite size cakes. :)

Remember at Christmas when I swore I would never to mini cakes again?  My coworker, Clover, convinced me to make her some for this weekend.  I am swearing again to never make these again.  They are such a pain to do! I made a dozen of these vanilla 2" cakes.  Covering them in fondant is not easy.  I even had to double layer a purple one because the fondant started split and I couldn't get the first layer off.  Making the bows was actually pretty easy to do and I love how they turned out, I do love the polka dot cakes as well. They took a lot longer than I had planned to decorate but they got done.:)

It's Christmas Eve and I am finally done all my baking.  Phew!  This last bake fest was for another coworker.  25 vanilla mini Christmas cakes, 2 pans of Salted Caramel Butter Bars and a pan of Lemon Bars.  Doing the bars were so quick and easy to do compared to the cakes. Since I ran out of the red glitter pen and gold spray I had to change things up.  For the berries, I took some clear alcohol, red dye and shimmer dust and painted them.  For the holly leaves with the gold glitter pen highlighted the vein down the centre. Mr T and I delivered these up to Aurora and now we're doing a mad wrapping session before heading out to my parents' to relax. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

On to my 2nd co-worker who decided on 25 chocolate flavoured mini cakes, 2 pans of lemon bars, a pan of salted caramel bars and a "pine cone" cake. I had just enough gold shimmer spray and red shimmer pen for this order.  I sent Mr. T on a mission to get more gold spray.  It was no where to be fond at this time of year.  I'm not sure what I am going to do for the third order but I will figure that out later on.  Ha!  The chocolate cakes were a lot harder to cover in a crumb coat than the vanilla.  Good grief.  They looked like globs of cookies and cream ice cream.  I did manage to bring my time down to just over an hour to cover the 25 in fondant. This cake was an 8" two layer chocolate cake.  This went together pretty smoothly.  Mr T delivered these out to the west end and of course picked himself up a Slurpee on his way back. On to the next cake...

One of my coworkers asked if I could to do mini-cakes for her mom's 80th birthday party.  I had a perfect idea in mind that I had seen on  Pinterest .  She thought it was great and also liked one with a rose on it so it wasn't just Christmas.  I told/warned her that I had no idea how long these would take me as I had never done petit-fours before but I was up for the challenge.  What I didn't account for was that she would show other co-workers what I was doing.   My order of 50 ballooned to 100.  Two other co-workers wanted 25 each.  Good thing I took the week off before Christmas.  Though it's not turning out be the relaxing week that I had planned! So, to make these cakes these are the steps I took: - baked four 10" vanilla cakes. - with a 1 7/8" round cutter I was able to get 25 rounds out of each layer. - filled with vanilla butter cream and sandwiched two rounds together, set in fridge for 20 minutes - covered in butter cream e...