Cakes — Page 27

Fortunate Friday-Top 5 Cake Decorating Tools

December 16, 2011 by Jenn

I haven’t done a Fortunate Friday post in quite some time and since I’m fully immersed up to my elbows in the cake world lately, I thought I would make my Fortunate Friday about all of the CAKE DECORATING TOOLS that I find helpful. . . and of course, we can’t forget the cupcakes!

Before I jump into the Cake Decorating Tools that make caking easier, I HAVE to thank Paul for the early Christmas present! You might have noticed the blog got a makeover! Isn’t it pretty!? I love it . . . thanks P! I’m so fortunate to have him <3

5 Cake Decorating Tools

1. Edible Ink Printer– This has been a tool that has come in extremely helpful. It allows the cake decorator to print pretty much ANY image onto edible paper, and place it on top of a cake or even cupcakes!

We currently use a Cannon MP640 to do our edible prints. What’s important to remember is to make sure that you do not ever put non-edible ink into the machine. The first ink that runs through the machine, must be edible ink.

Edible Inks are a specially formulated food coloring mixture for printing onto icing sheets. The colors are matched with regular inks, then modified to hold their coloring better on the icing sheets.

We get our edible ink and edible paper from Icing Images.

We have a step by step guide for you to watch on YouTube as well. Check it out here.

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How to Make a Fondant Reindeer Cupcake/Cake Decoration Video

December 16, 2011 by Jenn

We are on a roll with the Christmas decorating videos these days! It’s so much fun! The ideas are endless, there are unending Pins to Pin on Pinterest and it’s just a jolly good time around this holiday. The thing that gets me every year, and I’m guilty of it, is that WHY IS IT SO STRESSFUL?

Every year, I approach the season with excitement, but as soon as December is two weeks old, I’m freaking out and a ball of stress!! There is always so much to do at home- baking, decorations, finding the perfect tree, wrapping all the presents. At school- Christmas Concert practice, Secret Santa, decorations, Gingerbread Houses, and now, add a business to the mix- cupcakes, cakes, cookies, platters!

There are always so many gifts to buy, despite the fact that every year I say “I’m going to give the gift of time with my family” as if I’m gift enough . . . hahahaha! I’d like to think that I am 😉 but I’m sure they would think differently. I know that I must be on crack when I have those thoughts as they just delay my inevitable freak out, as I run around shopping to buy things I swore I wasn’t going to.

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Filed Under: Cakes, Cupcakes, Holiday Baking, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: cake, cake decoration, Christmas, cookies, cupcake, cupcake decorating, cupcakes, fondant, Fondant Reindeer, gumpaste, Gumpaste Reindeer, Holidays, how-to, red nose, reindeer, Rudolph, winter

Cricut Cake — Cutting Fondant and Gum Paste Basics for Cake Decorating

December 13, 2011 by Jenn

I’m going to be honest with you right now and tell you that if there is an easy way, or a short cut, or a lazy way to do something, I will find it. Just ask Paul about my housekeeping “abilities”.

Sweep? Isn’t that what a vacuum is for? Dishes? Dishwasher! Bleach? I don’t want to wreck my clothes!

When we first bought the Cricut Cake, I thought, “Awesome! No more hard work!” Boy, was I ever wrong.

Paul and I have filmed a tutorial on how to use a Cricut Cake, but before you go off an watch it, I have a little bit of stuff to tell you . . . let the honesty continue!

Background Information:

The Cricut Cake™ Personal Electronic Cutter is specifically designed for decorating cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and confections in no time at all. Just choose a shape, a size, and press “cut”. Decorating like a professional has never been faster or easier. (source) The idea of the Cricut Cake is brilliant. How awesome would it be to have a machine that would cut out whatever shape you wanted, in a matter of seconds? Cake decorators everywhere would be lining up to buy them by the truckload!

The Cricut Cake is different from the Cricut that scrapbookers use with paper, as all of the parts of the machine that come in contact with food are made from food safe plastic or stainless steel. Cricut also added silicone covers to protect the machine and to make clean up easier. Also, according to the Cricut website, the machine was specially designed for cutting food materials.

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Filed Under: Cakes, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: Cricut Cake, fondant, gum paste

How to Ice (Frost) a Cupcake

November 27, 2011 by Jenn

I’m back into the land of blogging, after WAY too long of a break. They (who “they” are I have no idea, but lets just go with it) say that having your own business is like having a baby. You have to feed it, love it, encourage it, encourage it, promote it . . . and while all those things are being done, my blog has been NEGLECTED!

Over the last couple of months, some of our encouragement, promotion and love for our business has found us doing Bridal Fairs, craft fairs and Winter Markets! My favourite thing about running this business is getting out and hearing from our fans. It makes the hours and hours of hard work worth it. Here are some of the comments that we get regularly:

“How to you make your cupcakes look so beautiful?”,

“They look like pieces of art!”

. . . and the number one comment I get?

“They look too beautiful to eat!” . . . and my response . . . “Then buy two! One to look at, one to eat!” Duh.

Paul and I put together a number of YouTube videos to teach our readers, customers and watchers exactly how to do it yourself! It must be the teacher in me . . . and the marketer in Paul. Watching others decorate cupcakes on YouTube is exactly how I learned to do this myself . . . a mere 8 months ago (how times flies!). Google searches and blog pictorials were helpful as well. Watching someone else do it and then trying it myself, is definitely my learning style.

The following four videos are going to show you how to do the following things:

How to get the perfect swirl on a cupcake using the 1M tip,

How to pipe hydrangeas as a cupcake topper,

The 1M Open Star Tip (Swirl) is also sold as Tip 2110 from Wilton. Find it here.

How to decorate a cupcake using the 1A round tip:

1A Round Tip. Find it here.

How to use a 2D drop flower tip to create a swirl top to your cupcake

2D Tip Drop Flower Tip. Find it here.

My tips that I use in the video are from Wilton, but you can purchase similar ones from any cake decorating supply store. Hope you find the videos helpful!

Filed Under: Cakes, Cupcakes, Tutorials, Videos

White Wedding Cake

October 3, 2011 by Jenn

This weekend, one of was my biggest challenges as a cake decorator was on my plate. It was a four tiered, white fondant covered, and required piped royal icing designs that were different on each tier!

Some problems that come with working with white fondant . . . it picks up EVERYTHING and everything can be seen on it! Good thing that was Paul’s department ;). With white, there is NO forgiveness when it comes to covering the cake and what is underneath . . . if your fondant is rolled out too thinly, the whole world can see what’s underneath (of course the whole world is looking at my cake). But, the great thing about working with an all white cake, is that when it’s finished, it is stunning!

When planning out this cake, the more and more I thought about it, the more and more I realized how much work it was going to be.

In order to assemble the cake, we built a 14″ round plywood base, that had a support beam screwed into the bottom, with which the cakes would stack onto. This, of course, was Paul’s brilliant idea, as I would have been working with my piddly little dowels I’m sure . . . still fighting with them . . . a day after the cake was due. Thank goodness for him.

Each tier was to be 6″ high (that makes a very TALL cake . . . 24″ . . . who says you never use your times tables?), and to make it even more difficult, each tier was a different flavour of cake, filled with a different filling, and covered with a different buttercream.

The 6″ top tier was a banana cake, filled with chocolate ganache and covered in peanut butter icing. It was then covered in white fondant, and the monogram “W” and vertical dots were piped with white royal icing.

The 8″ second tier was a Guinness chocolate cake, filled with a Whiskey chocolate ganache, and covered with Bailey’s buttercream. It was then covered in white fondant, and I piped triple layered scrolls.

The 10″ third tier was a champagne cake, filled with strawberries and covered with champagne buttercream. It was then covered in white fondant and vertical lines were piped.

The 12″ forth tier was a styrofoam cake dummy, and while we were transporting it, we were sure glad the rest of the cake was on the fake bottom layer! It made it studier than it would have been if the bottom had been made of cake.

Drooling yet? I hope not over the styrofoam layer 😉

I piped the scrolling work by using a template I found, and basically, traced it with a toothpick to sketch the design. Then I moved onto tip number 9, and piped the first layer, then, piped over top of it with tip 4, then lastly tip 2. Each layer added dimension to the design and gave it look very regal I think.

The travelling part of this cake’s journey was quite nerve racking! Every bump, jostle, and pot hole was torture! I had my handy-dandy cake fixing kit, but I really, really, really didn’t want to have to do any emergency repairs. And . . . thankfully, my driver got me to the event in one piece . . . as was the cake.

Joy, oh joy . . . safe!

Filed Under: Cakes Tagged With: tiered cakes, wedding cake, weddings, white wedding cake

Summer Wedding Cakes

September 4, 2011 by Jenn

Well, unfortunately summer is close to coming to an end 🙁 . . . and it JUST got here! The smell of the school supplies fills the stores, and the sound of the school bells start to ring. That means that as a teacher, I must pack my lunch and get my head back in the game. But first, I must show you how our summer went with the many wedding cakes that we did!

Fondant covered two tiered cake. Branches and blossoms are fondant/gum paste mixture.

Making a wedding cake is actually pretty stressful. It has to be perfect, or you’re going to ruin someone’s very important day. Pressure. Pressure. Pressure.

Buttercream covered three tiered wedding cake, with piped hydgrangea centre tier.

Baking wedding cakes requires planning endlessly for flowers, designs, colours, covering, stacking, tiering, taste, texture and size. Did I forget anything?

Fancy coconut cake top for cutting

It is actually quite an honour to be asked to make someone’s cake for their wedding day. I especially find it touching that people believe in me to make their cake the best one yet!

Piped buttercream roses, with an edible image.

My goal as a cake decorator/baker/cupcake artist has always been to make my cakes taste better than they look!

Cheesecake tier

I think that the days where wedding cakes were looked at and not eaten should be over!! Cake is meant to be eaten, not served, nibbled on and pushed aside.

Buttercream covered two tiered wedding cake. Flowers and ribbon were provided.

Is it too pretty to eat? Well, buy one to look at, and eat the second one. It might be a little damaging to your pocket book, but it sure helps pad mine!

Buttercream covered three tiered wedding cake. Flowers are royal icing and fondant. Ribbon was provided.

Fondant Daisy's for cupcake and cake decorations. Cake is chocolate w raspberry buttercream filling.

And now, this cake decorator by day, turns into cake decorator by night. It’s back to the “real” world and to teacher by day. The last long weekend of the summer is upon us.

Filed Under: Cakes Tagged With: cake, wedding cakes, weddings

Edible Images For Cakes Review

August 25, 2011 by Jenn

This video is for anyone who is interested in purchasing an edible ink printer! In it, I review the icing sheets, the printer and the ink that we use on a regular basis to create some amazing cakes. Watch and enjoy 🙂

Here are some of the recent edible images that we have done with the printer.

Working with an edible printer is a little bit more difficult than working with a regular ink printer. The type of liquid that runs through the print head, makes the print head prone to clogging. My advice to you is to make sure that you run the ink through the printer at least once a week, and this will help with clogging.

If you are so unlucky and have the print head clog on you, there are a couple of things that you can do to get that (*#(@ head cleaned out. One is to take all of the ink catridges out (carefully) of the print head and let the print head soak on a wet piece of paper towel. If this doesn’t work, then what we do is use a steamer (like one that you use for steam cleaning) to blow out the clogged heads. If you don’t have a steamer, you can try it the old fashioned way, and use the steam from a kettle. This tends to loosen up the liquid that is clogged, just enough for you to get it out.

One more detail that you need to be aware of when working with edible images and edible sheets . . . which we didn’t know until summer hit . . . is that they are VERY prone to bubbling/wrinkling in humidity! If your fridge is high in humidity, your cake will not come back out as smooth as it was when you put it in. I discovered, after many failed attempts, that using parchment paper, and the warmth of your hand helps smooth out an image that has wrinkled. I lay the parchment paper down on the image, and rub with the flat palm of my hand until it is smooth.

Overall, despite the clogging, the edible ink printer that we have is a great tool. Like many tools, it takes maintenance, and work to keep it running as it should. The paper and ink has been relatively easy to find, and we purchased ours from Icing Images. We have had a positive experience with this company . . . someone even emailed me back when I had a question!

Filed Under: Cakes, Videos Tagged With: edible image cake, edible images, edible ink, edible printing, iphone cake, Justin Bieber cake, product review, RCMP Cake

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream Cake

August 3, 2011 by Jenn

My favourite SUMMER time treat is ice cream . . . maybe I should say cupcakes? Cupcakes don’t hold a candle to ice cream for me. I swear that if I were to open an ice cream shop to go with my cupcakes, I would be 500 lbs in about two months. I could never get sick of ice cream . . . but wait . . . I said that about cupcakes too. Maybe having an ice cream store isn’t a good idea.

What is better than diving your spoon into a bowl (or pail) of cold ice cream on a hot summer evening (right about the time that cravings start to hit after dinner has digested)? The best way to have ice cream . . . in the form of a Blizzard from DQ! Especially if it is a Buster Bar Blizzard . . . my new favourite flavour.

I can eat ice cream in disgusting portions. As in, I-don’t-need-a bowl-proportion . . . why bother dirtying a bowl when you’re just going to eat the whole container? Gross. I think I have a problem. Seriously.

Last summer, The Real Canadian Superstore, started marketing their “Ice Cream Shoppe” brand of ice cream flavours . . . and because my gluttonous indulgences last summer were enough to prove that these special ice cream flavours could be financially viable, the flavours are BACK this summer. Lucky me? Maybe, but unlucky pants.

I dread going passed the display every time I go to the store. It is SO tempting! I’m pleased that I have managed to put my cravings aside, and have by passed the display 7 times so far this month. Yes, I go to the store a lot. I have to. I run a bakery. Duh.

Here is my own creation! My first “original” food post. I do give credit to DQ though 🙂

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream Cake

Oreo Crust.

Chocolate Ganache.

Vanilla Ice Cream.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake.

More Ice Cream.

Chocolate Chips.

YUM!

For your first layer, you need to make one 9×13 Oreo crumb crust. You can do this by combining the following:

• 1 1/2 cups of finely crushed Oreo cookie crumbs (approximately 20-22 cookies)

• 3 tbsp of melted butter

Press it firmly into the bottom of a greased pan, and bake for 10-15 mins at 350 F.

While the crust is baking, you can start on the ganache layer.

Heat 3/4 cup of whipping cream over medium heat for about 5 mins, or until warm. Remove from heat. Pour 1 cup of chocolate chips into cream and let sit for 1 minute. Stir until chips are combined. At this point, you can add any kind of flavouring that you feel would fit. I wanted to add one teaspoon of whiskey, like in the Irish Car Bomb, but knew I was going to be serving children, so I opted for 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Pour over cooled crust and spread to fill pan.

The next layer is easy! Vanilla ice cream baby! If you make your own ice cream, obviously use that, but for me, the Superstore ice cream lover, I opted for theirs. I let my ice cream sit out for about 45 minutes before spreading out on the cake as it makes it much easier for spreading.

Ever wonder what to do with the extra cake scraps you end up having covering your counter at the end of a day spent caking? Well, you can make cake pops, or you can crumble them up and use them on ice cream cake like I did here!

Putting more ice cream on top of the cake crumbs is next. This part proved to be the most difficult to spread in the process, as the ice cream kept sticking to the cake, and pulling up the crumbs. It looked messy, but tasted fabulous.

Top the whole thing off with chocolate chips, and there you have it . . . a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream Cake!

With all this talk of Blizzards . . . I’m off to get one.

Filed Under: Cakes Tagged With: cake, chocolate chip cookie dough cake, ice cream cake

Fortunate Friday-Top 5 Cake Decorating Tools

How to Make a Fondant Reindeer Cupcake/Cake Decoration Video

Cricut Cake — Cutting Fondant and Gum Paste Basics for Cake Decorating

How to Ice (Frost) a Cupcake

White Wedding Cake

Summer Wedding Cakes

Edible Images For Cakes Review

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