Cakes — Page 30

Rose Buttercream Cake

March 22, 2011 by Jenn

I’ve been dying to use this decorating technique since I first saw it here. So when I got a last minute request for a birthday cake, I had it already planned in my head.

For some reason, the local Superstore has a plethora of strawberries in stock . . . and surprisingly, since it’s March, and not strawberry season, they are in pretty good shape! Having strawberries on hand, and chocolate in the cupboard, I set out to make a Strawberry Chocolate Cake!

I used a cupcake recipe for the cake and it came from Sprinkles via Martha Stewart. You can find it here.

The strawberry puree smelled absolutely outstanding! I immediately made a fresh strawberry daiquiri with the puree . . . no I didn’t . . . but I thought about it, but I had a cake to make!

To make the cake, I baked it in my new 6″ pan (which has come in very handy!). I made two 6″ slabs, and hollowed out each one of them like a well. Inside the “well” I poured ganache . . . mmmm! Between the two layers of cake I layered sliced strawberries. Then, the chocolate excitement was not over! Chocolate buttercream was piped using Wilton’s 1M tip to make the roses. I love the peek-a-boo strawberries on the top!

Filed Under: Cakes

Engagement Cake!

March 18, 2011 by Jenn

Congratulations Christy and Jude!!

My great friends, have decided to take the plunge and tie the knot. Anyone who knows them is not surprised in the slightest. We all knew it was just a matter of time.

Mexico + All Inclusive Resort = Wedding Engagement!

(I’m not sure exactly how that adds up, but that’s what happened! Hmm, maybe a little tequila was involved? Just Kidding!)

What a beautiful spot to do propose . . . what could be better than during a trip to Mexico!

A special congratulations has to go out to Jude who managed to hide the ring from Christy for an entire week . . . as well as keep it from being stolen! I’m sure that was a stressful week for Jude.

Filed Under: Cakes Tagged With: cake, congratulations, engagement cake

Tutorial: How NOT to Cover a Cake in Fondant

March 13, 2011 by Jenn

1. Be too lazy to make more buttercream, and just use your small amount of leftover icing that does not entirely cover the outside of the cake. This will make it especially tricky to lay your fondant smoothly.

2. Roll your fondant so thin that you can see the marker lines from the mat, through it. If this is your first attempt, make sure you up the ante, and use a press to imprint a design in the fondant, and press too hard and make holes.

3. Lay the fondant over the cake unevenly. When you peel it off to re-lay it, make sure you scoop up some crumbs and buttercream in the fondant, so when you roll it out again, you have a nice, natural speckle to the fondant.

4. Do not watch any tutorial videos, or read any advice prior to finishing the smoothing process. Just slap the fondant down on the cake, squeeze the wrinkles out, and hope that the holes fill themselves.

5. Make a border to cover the huge gap between the cake board and the cake, because you didn’t carve the cake prior to icing.

6. That’s it! That is all you need to do to have yourself a completely ugly holey fondant covered cake!

Filed Under: Cakes, Tutorials Tagged With: covering cake fondant, tutorial, working with fondant

Fondant Bow and Overlay

March 12, 2011 by Jenn

This week in my cake decorating classes, we were to learning how to cover a cake with fondant, and how to make fondant inlays, overlays and bows.

The thing that I have started to LOVE about fondant, is that it is just like playing with playdough! It is so relaxing (when it works) and almost therapeutic! Had a bad day, take it out on a hard piece of fondant! That stuff is TOUGH if any air has gotten into it! Apparently you can put it in the microwave for around 4 seconds, flip it over and then put it in for 4 seconds more.

Here is a picture of a fondant overlay. As you can see, use two of the same cutters, of different sizes and simply put the smaller one on top. Super simple!

This bow looks very complicated, but it totally isn’t! All you have to do is cut out long ribbons of fondant, using your ribbon cutter, fold them in half, let them dry, and viola! You have the pieces of a bow ready to go.

When your pieces have dried, start with the ones on the bottom, space them out, build upwards, and you’ve got yourself a fondant bow cake topper!

As this was the first time I had ever covered a cake in fondant, I made a crucial mistake and rolled my fondant too thin. It ripped, it wrinkled, I had to peel it off and got chocolate cake all over the white fondant. I cried. It sucked. I hated fondant. But, I persevered, made a slightly better mess of things than I had previously, and managed to produce this-far-from-perfect fondant covered cake! My cake from this week, is MUCH better (lessons learned) and I will post that soon!

Filed Under: Cakes Tagged With: covering cake fondant, fondant bows, fondant overlay, working with fondant

Popcorn Cupcakes and A Movie Cake?

March 8, 2011 by Jenn

I love movies.

I love rom-coms. I love dramas. I love action.

I don’t love sci-fi.

I love popcorn.

It sounds like I’m one of my Kindergartener’s writing a poem! I think that means I should stop. I hope you get the idea.

When a friend of mine asked me to make a birthday cake for her daughter’s 12th birthday, she happened to mention that I would need to drop the cake off at a restaurant after the movie. Movie? I had JUST the idea!

I used to go to the movies all the time . . . it was one of my favourite pastimes in University. I love the smell of the butter and the huge lazy boy type chairs that the super theatres now have (not that we have one of those in Cranbrook!) I just don’t seem to have much time to go to movies these days. Also, it doesn’t seem like there are many quality movies making their way to the local theatre.

To go with the bad habit of filling up on a big bag of popcorn, I had was always falling asleep once the movie started!

I blame the dark.

My friends developed the “helpful” habit of elbowing me to wake me up. Thanks.

What else goes with popcorn, and a nap at the movies? Candy of course! To go with this cake, I went searching the aisles of the movie theatre . . . Mike n Ike’s, MnM’s,and chocolate covered caramels.

These popcorn tubs were so fun to make! I got the idea for Hello Cupcake, and had seen it months ago. I was so excited to finally get to make this cute addition for a cake.

How to Make Marshmallow Popcorn:

You will need one bag of white mini marshmallows, and one bag of multi coloured flavoured marshmallows. Separate out all of the yellow marshmallows. You will be making around 200 kernels of popcorn! Take one marshmallow and cut it into three pieces. These become the “petals” of the popcorn. Put a dot of icing on the bottom a whole marshmallow, and attach the three pieces of cut marshmallow to the whole one. That’s it! Super easy, but time consuming. Make sure you have a good movie to turn on 🙂 Edited to add: Thanks Paul for putting together so many of the popcorn pieces together. You’re the greatest helper.

The cake is chocolate with chocolate buttercream, and the cupcakes were vanilla with salted caramel buttercream, and vanilla with vanilla buttercream.

I LOVED making this cake. It was so much fun.

What’s your favourite movie?

Filed Under: Cakes, Cupcakes Tagged With: cakes, cupcakes, movie cakes, popcorn cupcakes

Valentine’s Day Cake

February 22, 2011 by Jenn

Yes, Valentine’s day was last week, but I have been so busy with the early success of Jenn’s Custom Cakery. A new website, with a photo gallery, order form, product listing, and of course a link back here to my blog is in the works. I can’t wait!

On to the post . . . and away from the excuses!

My parent’s have been married for 33 years! Their anniversary falls on February 1st . . . every year . . . duh. The funny thing about this is that the only person who remembered was my younger brother! Normally, he forgets everything and it’s me reminding him to call home. Kudos Steve 🙂

To make it up to them, (even though they both forgot too, I felt guilty) I made them a Valentine’s Day Cake. I’ve been dying to make a Tuxedo Cake, from a blog I follow (Annie Eat’s).

To give you a good idea of what goes into this chocolate, whipping cream and more chocolate creation, I have a step by step tutorial for you! I used 3 heart shaped cakes, which proved to be WAY too small for the amount of batter the original recipe calls for (3- 9″ layer cake pans). The math conversion proved to be too much work as well.

Tuxedo Cake

(from Annie’s Eats)

Ingredients:
For the cake:
1 cup unsalted butter
2 cups water
1 cup canola oil
4 cups sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 cups all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 tbsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 tbsp. vanilla extract

See the big crater? That's why you use flour on your pans! I managed to make up for the mistake, and fill it in with frosting.

Directions:
To make the cake layers, preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Line three 9-inch round cake pans (or two 10-inch round cake pans) with parchment paper. Butter and flour the inside edges of the pan, shaking out the excess flour. (I did not do the flour step

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the butter, water and canola oil; heat until the butter is melted. In a large mixing bowl, combine the sugar, cocoa powder, and flour; whisk to blend. Pour the melted butter mixture into the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth. Whisk in the eggs one at a time, then whisk in the buttermilk. Add the baking soda, salt and vanilla to the bowl and whisk just until incorporated. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool in the pans for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of each cake layer and invert onto a wire cooling rack. Allow the cake layers to cool completely before frosting, at least 2 hours.

For the frosting:
4 cups chilled heavy whipping cream
1¼ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

To make the frosting, add the heavy cream to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whip on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. Add the powdered sugar and continue to whip until thoroughly combined and stiff peaks form.

Here is where you cover up the “oops”.

To assemble the cake, place one cake layer on a cake platter and spread a layer of the whipped cream frosting over the top. Top with a second cake layer, more frosting (and the third cake layer, if using). Frost the top and sides of the assembled cake. Refrigerate until the frosting has stabilized, at least 1 hour.

Slap that cream on, spread it out!

And again!

Until you get this! YUM! You could stop there, but don’t! The best is yet to come.

For the chocolate topping:

4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
½ cup heavy whipping cream
¼ cup light corn syrup
2 tsp. vanilla extract

To make the chocolate glaze, place the chocolate in a medium bowl. Heat the cream in a small saucepan over medium heat until simmering. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and let sit 1-2 minutes. Whisk until the mixture is smooth and homogenous. Blend in the corn syrup and vanilla. Pour the glaze into a pitcher or measuring cup and let cool for 10 minutes. (Do not let the glaze cool longer or it may become difficult to pour over the cake.) Slowly pour the glaze over the cake, ensuring that the top is covered and the glaze drips over the sides.

There is an important lesson to be learned at this stage! Just because chocolate is a food group reserved for greatness, does not mean that you should go overboard pouring it on this cake. Don’t make the same mistake that this chocoholic did! I used ALL of the ganache that the much bigger than needed recipe called for. I left it ended up without the beauty that you can see in the original post . . . dark on white . . . hence the tuxedo effect!

Refrigerate the cake until the glaze is set and the whipped cream frosting is firm, at least 1 hour. Slice with a long, sharp knife, wiping the blade clean between slices.

I should have stopped here!

Add some sugar roses . . .

And some sugar lilies . . .

And some sugar petunias!

Thank you Annie for making such a delicious cake and providing me with the inspiration to treat my parents! My dad who “doesn’t like sweets” (H. E. L. L. O! how am I his child?) phoned me the next day to say it was “to die for”. If you know my dad and his issues with “sweets” you know what high praise that is!

Filed Under: Cakes Tagged With: cake, chocolate, chocolate cake, chocolate ganache, valentine's day

Hockey, Eh? Root Beer Cake!

February 14, 2011 by Jenn

Many like to think that hockey is Canada’s unofficial national sport.

There once was a time when I lived in rinks, and watched hours, upon hours of my brother’s hockey games. All of my teenage girl crushes were on the local hockey players. I used to cut their pictures out of the papers! Hello, stalker! I’m sorry if you were one of those boys 😉 I don’t do that anymore. It wouldn’t really fly with Paul.

When my brother left home to continue his hockey career, I listened to hours of internet radio broadcasts, and drove to every one of his games that was within three hours! Surprisingly, there was limited webcasts at that time (and it was only about 10 years ago). After he finished playing in the States, he went abroad, and I was hooped. There was no way (that I discovered) to get to watch or listen to him.

My love for hockey (and hockey players) stayed strong despite the fact that I no longer had a family member on the ice to root for. Let me tell you, it’s much more relaxing to watch a game when you’re not glued to one particular person the whole time. Every hit meant a grimace, every touch of the puck meant a cheer!

In 2003, I moved to London for a year to teach abroad and travel. Hockey? What is hockey? At the time, they had a London hockey team, but if you know anything about England, you know it’s FOOTBALL (soccer) all the way! So what did I, the dedicated hockey fan that I was, do? I paid 16 GBP to have the one and only channel that played Hockey Night in Canada! At 3 in the morning! It was live in Canada, but not so much in London. One night, I was so desperate to watch it “live” that I stayed up! Oh, the dedication . . . and amount of time on my hands I had then.

I’m telling you this story because I think that it is funny that something I spent hours upon hours doing, I no longer even think about now. I used to have the Vancouver Canucks schedule memorized, and now, I can’t even tell you what their logo looks like.

I’m also giving you this trip down memory lane, and what things used to be like, so I could tell you that I was super excited to get to make a hockey cake! It was for Jackson’s Birthday . . . a “Montreal Canadiens root beer cake”. Your wish is my command sir.

Rootbeer Cake

Cake:

1 cup butter

2 cups granulated sugar

3 cups cake flour

1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 1/2 teaspoons water

4 eggs

1 tablespoon root beer extract

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup milk

Directions:

Make the Cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 2 (9-inch) cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter; then add the sugar and continue mixing until light and fluffy.

Meanwhile, sift together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt.

With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the water and eggs to the butter mixture until blended. Mix in the root beer extract and vanilla. Alternately add the flour mixture and milk to form a smooth batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake until just set, about 30 to 40 minutes. Let cool in pans for 5 minutes, and then invert onto cooling racks to cool completely before frosting.

Root Beer Frosting

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

4 cups icing sugar

3 tbsp milk

2 tsp root beer extract

In a large bowl using an electric mixer, or a food processor fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter until very pale and soft, about 2–3 minutes. Gradually add icing sugar, beating on medium speed, until it is fully incorporated. (The icing will seem very thick at this point, but that’s OK.) Beat in milk, 1 tbsp (15 mL) at a time. Beat in root beer. If you feel the icing is still too thick, add an additional 1 tbsp (15 mL) milk.

How to decorate this cake:

1. Bake the cake and freeze when fully cooled.

2. Base coat cake in root beer icing.

3. Prepare a new batch of white buttercream (which means you need to leave out the root beer extract as it makes the icing a shade of brown). It is possible to use clear extract, but then you are adding an extra flavour to the cake. I recommend that you use this recipe for the icing decorating.

4. Tint one cup blue, one cup red and leave 3 cups of the icing white.

5. I started with a gel transfer of the logo (remember to trace it with your piping gel onto a backwards image, so it transfers the correct direction onto the cake).

6. I piped,with star tip 16, the white of the logo first, as I thought that it set the image in my mind, and it seemed the easiest place to start.

7. I used star tip 18 to complete the white part of the cake, as it took less time than 16. I continued to use 16 for the red and blue sections.

Making this cake didn’t remind me to watch hockey, but it made me study the logos of the NHL more closely!

Go Canucks go! Maybe I still have it in me.

I’m ready to make more hockey cakes people, bring them on!

Filed Under: Cakes Tagged With: cake, hockey cake, montreal canadiens, rootbeer cake, rootbeer icing

328 Cupcakes Baked

February 13, 2011 by Jenn

Perhaps I will be needing a better tracking system?

Yesterday I baked 106 mini cupcakes (hello, BEST teacher EVER . . . they’re for the upcoming celebration for 100 Day!), two dozen Cookies and Cream cupcakes, and two dozen Lemon Drop cupcakes.

15 Dozen Mini and Regular Cupcakes

Last week, I baked 15 dozen cupcakes. . . that’s 180 cupcakes in case you are wondering! I know because I used my calculator. I baked a 9×13 Rootbeer cake (I will post it soon!), and a heart shaped Buckeye Cake!

Two cakes and 328 cupcakes! Mother.

That’s a lot of baking for someone who couldn’t ever find the time to cook a box of Kraft Dinner.

My first batch of cupcakes had to be shipped out on Friday afternoon to Richmond. I’m scared to think about what they’re going to look like when they get there! Fingers crossed they survive!

One Dozen Regular Assorted

Mini's!

Yum!

I’m working on icing the rest of the 15 dozen orders today! I can’t wait to deliver them to everyone who ordered.

I hope you are having a great weekend!

Filed Under: Cakes, Cupcakes Tagged With: cupcakes, valentine's day