Manhole Covers and Public Sugar Art

I decided it’s time to share some amusing and inspiring cake adventure related things that I’ve come across … even if I wasn’t involved in the creation … only in the photographing. 

Let’s start with my most recent find. I’m not sure if it’s still the politically correct name, but my hometown has some unusual manhole covers.  What does that have to do with cake? you ask.  Let me show you …

I’ve been doing some online research and while it was unveiled in 2002, the design is based on an advertisement from the 1955 Yellow Pages.  It causes me some glee that when the artists were deciding what would make an interesting design, they picked a cake shop.  I love how they have tried to capture the fine detail of piping on a wedding cake in cast iron creation.  

Apparently there are two other unique covers in the area … not cake related … but I may have to go find them and take a look.  I love finding public art in unexpected places.

Photos of the next find have been sitting on my smartphone since the end of March, but I wasn’t sure what to do with them.  The thing is they need to be shared with people who will appreciate the effort that went into creating a very ephemeral piece of public sugar art.

If  you think you’re looking at something made from ceramic tiles, you’d be incorrect.  Created during a residency at Open Space Gallery in Victoria, BC, the artist, Shelley Miller, made the work entirely from sugar.  There’s a great photo and lots of additional information about the artistic process on the gallery’s website. 

I was so intrigued by the idea that I did go back several times to see how the piece had changed. March and April tend to include a significant quantity of rain when you live on the west coast.  The first day I saw it, the icing that had been piped directly on the wall looked like it was still wet.  I did resist the urge to poke at it with my finger just to see how solid it was, but apparently others didn’t exercise the same restraint.

Despite the rain that had already caused the colours to bleed and run, the texture and depth to the ornamental work is a great example of what can be created with patience and sugar. 

Then there is the humour in having the bottom motif depict the harvesting of sugar cane. I almost forgot to mention how much I love the variation in colour used to create the sea.

My last visit to see how it was changing made me think that the creation had received some help to achieve the level of deterioration that had been achieved.  It did make me sad, but at the same time, I was amazed by how well the rest of the sugar art was surviving.  I know the panic I’ve felt when transporting cakes in the rain.  That terror that the smallest amount of water is going to ruin everything.  And yet, there is still something beautiful even as the art begins to disintegrate.

I’ve often been asked how I can watch people cut into and eat one of the cakes I’ve made.  It’s true, there’s a moment, just before the knife makes the first cut, when I agree with them.  There is a bittersweet feeling.  You’ve just seen the joy inspired by hours of creation, and now it’s about to disappear in matter of minutes.  I consider it a sign that I’ve been "successful” in my cake adventure when no one want to make the first cut.  At the same time, I know that the cake inside tastes just as delicious as it looks on  the outside and I don’t want anyone to miss out on that part either.  So I encourage them to cut and eat.  It’s why I made the cake.  The eating is an equal part of its enjoyment. 

For me there is a freedom in creating a piece of art so impermanent.  It makes it easier for me to let go of perfectionism and just enjoy the adventure of what I can create.  It allows me to focus on what’s most important to me … celebrating the people I love.

Fizz Candies and a Chocolate Shoe

Some cakes are clearly meant to be made. When all of the little details come together so easily. When you find just the perfect source for the item you need to personalize the cake. When you literally stumble across exactly the right supply that you didn't even realize you were looking for. When the cake turns out better than the one in your imagination. When the look on the face of the recipient is even better than you could have hoped. That's when it's obvious the universe decided to lay a gift right in your hands.

Those are truly special cake adventures. They are so full of joy that you never want to stop decorating. They are precious because they don't come along everyday. Hmm… it’s probably good that they don’t, otherwise I’d never leave my kitchen!

When it was time to celebrate our new manager’s 50th birthday, my co-worker Stacy and I knew there was cake making to be done but the only thing we knew was that it wasn’t time to make another transport truck!  That’s clearly not something you want to repeat a few months later.

Thinking caps on, we decided to go with a Fabulous Fifty idea that included shoes and jewellery. We briefly thought about trying to make our own shoe out of chocolate … we’d made chocolate tires before, why not a shoe?  Then we thought better of that idea when I remembered a fabulous chocolate shoe that I’d seen at Chocolatas on Granville Island.  We made some phone calls, but couldn’t find anything comparable locally, so I placed an order and coordinated a trip over to Vancouver to see Tosca Cafe (which, by the way, was awesome!) with picking up an amazing blue shoe made from white chocolate.

I knew we’d made the right choice as soon as a I saw the shoe.  I took a picture less than 5 minutes later because I had to share my delight.  I really wanted to take the shoe with me to work on the Monday so that Stacy could see it in person, but I knew we’d be caught for sure … we wouldn’t have been able to keep the squeals of glee quiet!

So we had the shoe planned, but we still hadn’t figured out what to do for the jewellery.  Neither of us have any experience with sugar work and it seemed a little late to start learning when the cake was only a week or so away.  We didn’t want to have to use something non-edible. 

While we were still pondering our options, we got to work assembling some goodie bags for a Halloween fundraiser.  Some of the candies were a childhood favourite of mine, Lotsa Fizz. They used to come in a long strip, with individual pouches for the fizzy candy.  For me, they immediately bring back memories of the tuck shop at summer camp. 

Imagine our delight when we discovered two important facts.  One, our manger loves Fizz candies. There was a lot of rejoicing over the fact that they still make them even though they’re now in individual packages and are round instead of their old flat rectangular shape.  And two, the current batch of Fizz Candies?  They also added blue and green coloured candies, that just happen to be prominent colours in our manager’s wardrobe.  We quickly realized we had the perfect “beads” for a chunky bracelet. A little royal icing between to hold the candies together worked as spacers and made for super easy assembly.

We knew we wanted a simple design for covering the cake. We thought about making the fondant look quilted, but decided that would look too busy.  But we needed something to cover a few fondant issues … ever have one of those days when your fondant wrinkles no matter what you try?  Yup, me too! We decided to make our own fondant ribbon skirts for each cake. They helped balance the cake and matched well with the cake plate edge detail too.

Problem was, there was one visible flaw that ended up front and center.  Did I mention how much I love decorating with Stacy?  I came up with the idea of a bow and she came up with the perfect matching hat pin to use for securing the bow the next morning.

Oh, I almost forgot. The cakes were a delicious vanilla with lemon filling for the top cake and a divine chocolate with caramel filling for the bottom.  I need to get Stacy’s recipe for the lemon filling.  Talk about luscious lemon! 

We couldn’t have asked for a better response to the cake.  It was the talk of the office.  The shoe had such rave reviews that I sent a thank you email to Chocolatas.  They asked if they could post the picture and my email to their facebook page.  Of course I said yes!

Sometimes it’s all about finding just the right thing to make the cake perfect. 

Sometimes it’s all about knowing how to turn potential flaws into just the thing to complete the cake.

Sometimes, I’m pretty sure,  it’s also all just about dumb luck =)

Threadcakes 2011 … the rest of the story

 

"You're the cake decorator who said it was possible. I'm the kid with the high hopes. If we don't succeed, it's all on you."

That was my niece's comment when I was practically positive that I'd finally over-reached what I knew how to do with cake. I could easily picture all of our hours of work coming crashing down around us. Who really thought it was a good idea to say yes to making a cake with minimal support structure, that had the largest cake on the top, and that needed to look like the cakes were pointed at the bottom? Seriously, what had I been thinking?

Oh right. I remember. It's for a contest and I didn't what my niece to be disappointed. There's a long history of Aunt Karen making crazy cakes for my nieces' birthdays. I don't get to do it as often any more, but the tradition is still there. How could I not say yes when she took my suggestion seriously that we make her birthday cake together this year and make it an entry for Threadcakes 2011?

If you've never heard of Threadcakes, you should definitely check out the gallery on their website. There are some ridiculously amazing and complicated cakes that have been inspired by on printed Threadless t-shirts. My niece is a huge fan of their t-shirts. There were five new shirts already waiting at our house when she arrived this summer. She'd hunted through their designs, and picked Well Seasoned as her favourite. I knew it would be a challenge, but I had no idea how many hours of work or batches of cake, buttercream, rice krispies and fondant it was going to take.

We'd originally talked about making it on a small scale, but that was before we had figured out what we were going to use for our structure. A trip to the local Michaels store resulted in the purchase of a Wilton stand that used 10, 12 and 14 inch cakes. Suddenly the cake was getting much larger and that meant more rice krispie treats to attach to the bottom. There's no question that decision caused us some issues. I did learn a lot about working with rice krispie treats in cake decorating ... even if most of it was from learning what not to do first. Isn't that how all the best lessons are learned?

It might still be an understatement when I say that both of us were utterly exhausted by the time we were taking the final pictures. I wrote up our entry, sorted through all the pictures we'd taken to find the best ones to show the whole creation and eating process, then it was time to upload our photos and submit our entry. After looking at all the amazing 3D entries for 2011, we didn't think we had a chance of being in the top 5.  We had laughed a bunch along the way that Kerry Vincent (from Food Network Challenge) would not have approved of our technique, but we were proud of what we had accomplished.  If you’re curious, there are about 30 photos and lots more detail about the process in our Threadcakes entry.

After the winners were announced ... including several of our favourites ... they decided that a finalist banner would be added to all entries that had received at least one vote from the judging panel. The eleven judges all submitted a list of their top ten cakes. Imagine our surprise and our joy when we discovered that out of 190 3D entries, our creation was one of 35 3D finalists!

Crazy though it may be, we've already talked about making a Threadcake next year too. What can I say? The adventure was worth the exhaustion and the memories will last a lifetime.

Birthday Celebrations

I first taught myself to decorate cakes from pouring over a 1974 Wilton yearbook that my mom kept on her recipe shelf.  I’m not really sure why she had it.  They got married in 1963 so it wasn’t from deciding on her wedding cake and cake decorating has never really been her “thing”.  Don’t get me wrong, she a fabulous baker and I would have her Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake with Raspberry Jam filling and Apple Icing any day of the week.  Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.  It’s still my only choice for my birthday cake!  Whatever reason caused it to be there, I’m so grateful.  I found that book intriguing.  Back before there were Wilton classes available at the local craft store or before you could purchase any combination of cake decorating supplies and icing in several places in town. I taught myself how to make royal icing and make color-flow pieces to use on cakes.  I even learned how to make fondant from scratch from that yearbook.  Cake decorating was a lot of fun and I even wondered about making it a business.

Then my brother got married and I gained a fabulous niece who was almost two.  Her second birthday party was all about 101 Dalmatians and her Mom decided that she would rent a puppy dog pan and decorate it to look like Lucky, Holly’s favourite puppy.  I volunteered to do the decorating and I remember my brother sneaking quietly into her room late at night to snitch her Lucky stuffie so that we could make sure the spots matched up perfectly.  I haven’t found a picture of that cake.  I’m sure one exists somewhere, but that cake deserves a mention here because Karen’s Cake Adventures wouldn’t exist without it.  The joy that cake brought made me fall in love with cake decorating and started a tradition of Aunt Karen decorating crazy birthday cakes for her two amazing nieces.

It’s hard to believe, but today, Holly turns 21.  I don’t get to see her that often and it’s been a lot of years since I’ve been able to make her birthday cake, but I am super proud of her.  She’s an amazing young woman and she’s worked hard to make her dream of becoming a chef come true. 

It seemed only fitting to dedicate this post to her.  I’ve sprinkled it with old photos of the birthday cakes that followed Lucky: a Carousel ice cream cake for a circus theme birthday party, a puppet theatre cake to match the puppet theatre her Dad and her Poppa made just for her, and a magic pink castle cake for a princess theme. 

By the way, I don’t recommend asking a 6 year old what a castle cake should look like.  I made that “mistake” and was told “It should be pink and sparkly.  There should be a dragon and the queen should be in her garden picking flowers.”  YIKES!  Guess when I learned how to make fondant? 
Looking back at the pictures now, I’ll admit I cringed a bit.  I had so much fun making them, but I was completely self-taught.  I’ve taken 4 Wilton classes since then and decorated a lot more cakes.  My skill level has changed and when I first looked at the pictures I didn’t want to share them.  I could see all the flaws and knew all the things I would now do differently or with more skill. 

But then I looked at my niece’s face she saw the cakes and I remembered the joy of those moments.  That’s the part that matters.  When her eyes would go wide with surprise and I’d get a great big hug because she loved her cake … that’s what makes the time you invest in decorating a cake worth it … that’s why it’s okay to watch it get devoured and to see all the hard work eaten in a matter of moments. 

Those are memories that last a lifetime … and just maybe, they helped her find her path to being a chef.  I’m proud to say that for her seventh birthday I bought Holly her very first decorating set and we used it to make a bear cake together!
Happy Birthday Bear!  I love you forever =)

Cupcake Cakes & a Happy Birthday Panda!

I've decided I'm a big fan of icing a bunch of individual cupcakes like it’s really one large cake. Quick to cool and no crumb coat required – that makes them a perfect option for a cake decorating adventure that fits into a single evening.

 

 

You can go for something straightforward like a circle of cupcakes that becomes a pizza or a truck tire. A few strategically placed Oreo cookies between the Cookies 'n' Cream cupcakes added structure in places where the gap between cupcakes was too wide to ice over. Who’s going to complain about icing on a cookie?  Nobody at my workplace apparently.

While my recent adventure that led to the truck tire reminded me of how much fun cupcake cakes can be, my favourite cupcake adventure is thanks to Grace, the younger of my two nieces, who turns 16 today. Most Julys, she comes to spend the month with us which means I still get to make her a birthday cake.  A couple of years back, she decided that we would make her birthday cake together using a new “toy” from Wilton – Animal Puzzle Cakes Silicone Build-A-Cake Set – that I hadn't been able to resist purchasing.

There was much discussion and planning about what we could create using the three-quarter moon, diamonds, triangles and round silicone cupcake forms. Yoshi was high on the list, but the winner was Rice, an adorable panda created by my friend Christine at Crumpled Paper. Grace's birthday present had included a hand-drawn card and an fabulous blue monster puff that Christine had graciously made.

The basic bear shape was carefully adapted to make a panda and the extras forms became a present.

Only problem, none of us really wanted to eat Rice.

It seemed a little mean ... definitely a potential hazard when a cake takes the shape of a favourite character!  Hmm, …I seem to recall a similar concern when I made a Winnie the Pooh character cake for Grace’s second birthday. =)

Happy Birthday Grace! I can't believe you're already 16 ... and I can't wait till you get here this summer so we can share another cake adventure creating this year's birthday cake.

HUGS =)

Cross-Stitch and Buttercream?

I first learned to cross-stitch back in the eighties. It was so much more flexible than the needlepoint that I'd learned to do in the seventies ... Wow! I'm really dating myself here. Somewhere around the same time, I first started to teach myself how to decorate cakes based on my gleanings from a 1974 Wilton Cake Decorating Yearbook that lived on the shelf with my mom's recipe books. Never would I have imagined that two of my favourite hobbies could actually be joined together. One can't help but get a bit messy at times, and the other should ALWAYS be kept far away from sweet, sticky things ... unless you decide to trade in your floss for an icing bag with a really fine tip and your cloth for a cake covered in fondant. Add in a cross-stitch pattern that just happened to be on the bib I'd purchased to cross-stitch as a gift for the same baby shower for which I was thrilled to be making a cake and you've got great cake inspiration ... As long as you're crazy enough to think cross-stitching with buttercream sounds like fun. This blog post does come with the warning that mixing these two hobbies is not for the faint of heart. Consider yourselves warned =D

To celebrate the pending birth of her first grandchild, my friend Lynn asked if I would make a cake for the baby shower. I couldn't resist. I knew how excited she was about the little one's arrival and she'd already been a great source of encouragement on my cake decorating adventure.  She’s the same one who got me started making goodies for work and who needed the Scrabble cake for a friend’s birthday.

I'd seen the idea of cross-stitching on fondant when we’d been looking through books for inspiration with a cake decorating class I'd taken several years ago. I can remember thinking it looked gorgeous, but who would be crazy enough to do that for a cake! It’s one thing to do that kind of detail work on a piece of cloth that will likely be kept for a long time, but on something edible, that will be eaten in less time than you spend creating it? That seemed ridiculous. It still does, but doing the ridiculous and making realistic looking things out of cake and icing is exactly what I love best about cake decorating. You just need to make sure you take lots of pictures to remember the moment while it lasts.

The mom-to-be liked elephants and they found their way into practically every part of the shower. I’m pretty certain I did actually squeal in the craft store when I discovered that the bib I needed to buy for my planned cross-stitched gift came with a pattern for dancing elephants.  Combine that with an idea that our manager had seen in a magazine to make a onesie out of cake and I had to try the crazy idea of cross-stitching with buttercream. 

Add some blue strips of fondant marked to look like stitching to make the bias tape edgings and some stars and hearts for to make an overall pattern and you’ve got a onesie … good thing it was for a baby boy since the shoulders are pretty broad.  Football player anyone?

If I’m ever crazy enough to cross-stitch in buttercream again, I’d make the icing an even thinner consistency.  It’s a lot of fine piping and the combination of icing that was a little too stiff and a very tired hand meant that the detail was not as clean as I imagined in my head.  The end result looked more like stamped cross-stitch than my preferred counted cross-stitch, but …

… when you pair it up with the matching bib, the combination was everything I’d hoped for.

It’s hard to believe, but Lynn’s grandson turns one today. 

Happy Birthday Cutie Pie!

Can’t wait to see you and celebrate you on Friday.  HUGS!

Friends, farewells and Devil Ducks

A wonderful WyzWmn commented on my most recent cake adventure and I was reminded of two adventures that she inspired long before I started chronicling my forays into cake decorating. The first one made a brief appearance on a post about piping gel transfers, but it rates a second visit as thank you to a very special woman.

Back in the day, she was my team lead at a call centre for a large American cell phone company. Our team had recently lost a contest due to a weird twist in the rules. We were all feeling pretty frustrated by the situation because the whole team had worked so hard and felt our defeat was unfair. Being the WyzWmn that she is, our team lead decided we needed to celebrate what we had accomplished even though we didn't win the prize. She bought us pizza and I made a cake featuring our team's mascot that another member had drawn. We'd all still tell you the same thing the cake said that day ... Devil Ducks Rock!

Much to our sadness, eventually our fearless leader announced that she would be leaving for a new job. We debated a cake with a picture of the Pickle (her green three-wheeled motorcycle) but back then I couldn't find anyone local to print on edible paper. So, instead, we collected a list of our favourite WyzWmn sayings, and I wrote them all over the cake.

While the words on that cake might not mean anything special to someone who wasn't a Devil Duck; for us, they are reminders of so many moments that made us laugh in the midst of a crazy job.

The call centre is long since closed and we've all moved on to new places and jobs, but I'm certain I'm not the only one who still has their devil duck sitting where it's a constant reminder of what we learned from a very WyzWmn.

Thanks my friend. I want to be just like you when I grow up.

Sometimes desperation leads to inspiration

Sometimes inspiration comes from funny places and in little bits at a time. That was the lesson I learned on my most recent cake adventure.

In the middle of post-truck cake exhaustion, it's my mom's birthday. For just about anyone else, I'd have found some way to have someone else make or buy a cake, but it's my mom. What else could I do but make her the chocolate cake that she requested? And really, we're not talking just make a cake and slap some icing on it either. It's my mom and it needs to be special just like she is. But my brain feels like all creativity and potential inspiration have been, well, shall we say run over by a large truck ... that seems about right.

You need to know that my mom collects miniature watering cans. A few weeks before i had picked up a cute little bird holdings blue watering can that I'd planned to wrap up since she already knew about the Riverdance tickets that I'd bought. When still desperately seeking inspiration on the morning of my mom's birthday, I decided that the bird could go on top of the cake in a little nest. It seemed like a good idea that couldn't be too hard to execute.

Time and energy were running short so I quickly ditched the idea of baking my own perfectly shaped macaroon nest and went for picking up some store bought chocolate drizzled macaroons that I knew were soft enough to be shaped a bit and formed into a nest on top of the cake I'd already iced with white buttercream. If you're thinking I may have made a critical error in icing color, you'd be totally correct.

They say necessity is the mother of invention, well apparently it's also the mother of inspiration. The bird's nest looked, well, silly on the white icing. I didn't have enough icing made to re-ice the cake brown to make it look like a tree trunk which would have been the best "thinking ahead" original choice. But I did have enough that I could make some brown and green to make a tree branch across the top of the cake.

I piped the branch and some bonus twigs, started to add some green leaves but it still wasn't looking right. Now the it wasn't just the nest floating on a sea of white, the branch was just laying around with no context. Oh did I mention that my mom was sitting watching TV in the family room attached to the kitchen and she picked that moment to turn around and ask how things were going. Talk about needing to have my brief moments of panic be very quiet along the way.

Next solution, add a tree trunk down one side of the cake and finish adding the leaves, all while keeping my fingers crossed that this was going to be enough. I wrapped the bird's little feet and bottom with plastic wrap since I couldn't guarantee food safety and placed him on the cake thinking that I had no more ideas left and still wasn't convinced it was going to look right.

Much to my surprise, lo and behold, while I wasn't paying attention a rather cute cake emerged that seemed just right. I wish I'd taken pictures along the way when I was panicking because looking at the finished cake makes my stress seem silly. You'd almost think I knew what I was doing when I started... Nope! But thankfully, sometimes it all works out the way it should even when you've totally failed in the planning part.

Sometimes you’ve just got to go big…Part 2

There was still a long night of decorating ahead before the cake was finished, but before we were ready for that, we’d had a couple of other challenges to figure out.

Given where we work, it had seemed right that we should have an official out of service notice for the truck. I had access to create a personalized form in our test environment, but then we needed to get it printed on something edible. Several emails with another cake decorating friend, followed by a couple of phone calls to local grocery stores … oh, plus one false start because I didn't think to ask about what file formats their software would accept … and we discovered the joy of printing with edible ink on rice paper to make the logos for the truck and our Out of Service CVSA Inspection for the truck's driver. It definitely paid to ask around since one store was almost half the cost of the other.

When we started planning we had two toy trucks to use. One that had great tires and one that had a cab shape we liked so that I could use it as a mold around which the gum paste could dry to get a smooth finish for the cab. Tightly wrapping the truck in plastic wrap solved the food safe problem. Spray on food colouring avoided the potential issue of gum paste fading as it dries. Even with a few issues of the spray nozzle getting clogged (pulling the nozzle off and soaking it in hot water solved that issue), it looked like it should be a smooth road ahead when we were ready to assemble the truck. But sometimes, there are still unexpected bumps.

When we were stacking the truck portion of the cake, we discovered it needed to stick out over the edge of the wooden structure so that the tires could be positioned correctly. The other choice would have been to mount the legs in an inch or so from the edge, but we were a little late realizing that. Expanding the truck width wouldn’t have been an issue, except for that previously mentioned gum paste. Problem was that meant the final size of the truck was larger than the hardened and painted gum paste and there was no time to make new ones. A little creative use of black fondant added some black stripes to the cab that ended up working to make it a better look for to go with our trucking company name of Queen Bee Trucking.

A late night of decorating had us almost complete with a few last details to add the next morning once the cake was safely transported.

While we may have had a few snags a long they way, there were also some unexpected bonuses. I found some leftover yellow fondant roses from the scrabble cake tucked safely away when I was pulling out some piping gel to use to add lighting detail. Since yellow roses are our manager's favourite flower, I tucked them in the bag with all the last minute bits in cases they were useful for repairing any damage during transport. They turned out to be exactly the right thing to tie in the out of service notice so that it didn't look like it had just been stuck on as an afterthought.

The other bonus... Our manager happened to wear an outfit in one of her favourite colours that was a perfect match to the color of the clothing of the fondant figure I'd made of her to drive the truck, complete with the ever-present hair bun.  It just wouldn’t be her without it!

 

We did some creative cake cutting to keep everything looking pretty during the open house and to prove it really was all cake.

It was crazy amount of work and it definitely stretched my decorating skills pretty close to their current limit, but I learned so much, had a great time creating a cake with a friend, and the look on our manager's face when she saw what we'd created, made all the work and sleep deprivation worthwhile. On the day we presented the cake I wasn't sure I'd be able to say this, but I'd do it again ... Or better yet something just as big but different, because who wants to repeat the same creation!

Sometimes you’ve just got to go big…Part 1

Have you ever bitten off more than you chew? I really thought I'd done that on one of my recent cake adventures.

I work in a government office and deal with large commercial vehicles all day long. I'll admit it's a funny job for a girl who really only knows where to put the gas in the car. Stacy, one of my colleagues, also likes decorating cakes and when our senior manager announced her retirement for the end of April, our brains got dreaming about what kind of cake we could create together for the celebration.

Since we work with government regulations about trucks all day long and that’s what our manager had been doing for approximately 30 years, we quickly decided it would be a blast to make a transport truck out of cake. We figured there could be more than 100 people show up for the open house that was being planned so we decided to go with the "go big, or go home" perspective on cake decorating.

After a trip to a second hand store to find some toy trucks we could use for parts, we had to figure out how we could make tires. We've watched all the cake shows, so what else could we do but make a silicone mold and make chocolate tires. The first trick was finding some place local that sold the right materials for a food safe silicone mold. I struck out on a bunch of phone calls to local craft, kitchen and restaurant supply stores but one suggested a hobby shop who then suggested one of my dad’s favourite stores Industrial Plastics & Paint.  Not where I’d have ever thought to look for cake decorating supplies but they had exactly what we needed. 

I went with a liquid silicone and Easymold was great to work with though we learned some important lessons about really making sure the tire was solidly attached to the bottom of the plastic tub that we were using to hold the liquid silicone while it dried and that it may take longer to dry than the instructions seemed to say. Turns out, that was a good thing though when we checked the mold assuming it would be almost ready to unmold and discovered that the tire was floating at the top of the silicone. We weighted it back down and kept our fingers crossed overnight while plotting backup plans in case of an epic fail. I’m certain it was a pretty amusing sight watching us unmold the tire the next morning at work, all while trying to be quiet so our manager wouldn't realize that anything was up.

Oh! the other important lesson... Make sure that the object you're using to make the mold is actually solid and doesn't have tiny holes the liquid silicone can go in ...the unmolding process gets trickier when the silicone is inside the object you're trying to remove. A few bits of mold repair later and chocolate tires could be made. Not sure if either of us will ever use a tire mold again, but you just never know.

We had recruited Stacy’s fiancé to make us a wooden cake board and a four legged structure for the base of the transport truck. When we had the cake stacked and the trailer portion covered with fondant my brother helpfully pointed out that it more like an AT-AT from Star Wars and I can't sat I disagree with him.

Stay tuned for part two with the final results after a long evening of decorating.

White Chocolate Grand Marnier Cake

First made for Chris' birthday, 29-Jan-2011, inspiration provided by Hunter1

For the story behind this cake adventure, check out It's all about flavour ... Yum!

White Chocolate Cake

Beat until fluffy
	1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese
	1 c sugar
Beat in
	2 eggs
	1 tsp vanilla
Stir until blended
	1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
	2 tsp baking powder
	1/2 c grated white chocolate

Bake at 350 F for approximately 45 minutes.  The top should be lightly golden and pick inserted in the centre should come out clean.  The bake time is approximate.  For the cake pictured in the "It's all about flavour" post, we made a double batch, filled 6 cupcakes and baked the rest of the batter in a 9 x 3 inch round pan.

Orange Mango Grand Marnier Filling

Combine in a saucepan
	2 1/2 c mandarin orange segments (3 small tins, packed in juice, drain and reserve juice)
	1/2 c frozen mango, medium diced
	3/4 c sugar
	3 tbsp cornstarch
	2 tbsp reserved juice
	1 tbsp Grand Marnier

Bring to a boil; boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.  Mixture will thicken.  Set aside to cool.

Grand Marnier Buttercream

Cream
	1/2 c shortening
	1/2 c margarine
	1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Gradually add	4 c icing sugar
	2 tbsp milk
	1 tbsp Grand Marnier

Beat until fluffy.

To assemble cake:

Once cooled, slice cake in half and scoop out a thin layer from the centre of the top and bottom of the cake to allow extra filling without it spilling out.  For the cupcakes, I cut in to them like I was coring a tomato and then scooped out a bit of the bottom of the cupcake to give space for filling.

Add filling and replace the cake top.

Ice the cake with the Grand Marnier Buttercream.  If you want to ensure a clean circle of filling on top of the cake, you should probably pipe an outside ring.  I didn’t and there was a small issue with the filling running down the side of the frosting.

Distribute a thin layer of the filling in the centre of the frosted cake.  Sprinkle more grated white chocolate around the outside edge.  For the cupcakes, we sprinkled grated white chocolate on the icing and then added a tiny dollop of the filling to tie things all together.

It’s all about the flavour … Yum!

Surprise birthday parties can be a lot of fun and this cake adventures included a great one.  Not only did we manage to pull off a perfect surprise without giving anything away, but my friend and I managed to come up with an amazing flavour combination for the birthday cake.

The idea started out knowing two things about the type of cake the birthday guy liked, white cake and jelly filling.  My friend who was throwing the party suggested we could make something with an orange, Grand Marnier filling.  I immediately thought of the White Chocolate cake recipe that has become one of my favourites and we were pretty sure we had a winning idea.

The end result was our White Chocolate Grand Marnier Cake.  We made our own orange filling with mandarin oranges, a little frozen mango and about a tablespoon of Grand Marnier.  We also substituted one tablespoon of Grand Marnier for some of the milk in the butter cream frosting.  With some of the filling spread on top of the icing and grated white chocolate around the edge, we had a lovely outside to go with the fabulous flavours inside.

Since our story to have time for baking was that we were trying out cupcake recipes that I might use for their wedding next spring, we made matching cupcakes.  I pretended I was coring a tomato and then scooped out a bit of the cupcake so there was extra space for the orange filling.  There were more of them but I forgot to take a picture until after we eaten the first round. =)

Because we had some extra time,  I  tried out a new recipe for Cookies ‘n’ Cream Cupcakes that I couldn’t resist.  The recipe was easy as could be and really just added some crushed Oreo cookies to a vanilla cupcake and the buttercream. While they might not be quite as pretty, the taste and texture was just right and they have a great chance of making the final cut for wedding cupcakes.

If you want to try it for yourself, you can find my recipe for the White Chocolate Grand Marnier Cake here.  It was yummy enough to deserve it’s own post for the recipe =)

Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!

As might be obvious from my recent cake adventures, there has been a lot of staff changes in the office where I work.  This month is no exception.  There are two more staff leaving at the end of the month.  With the cakes so far, I’ve managed to come up with something personalized for each one, but these two people are so different.  Their jobs in our office are really different, the jobs they’re going to are really different, and their personalities are also really different.  It was easy to come up with ideas for one of them, but I was completely stuck for the other.  I really didn’t want the cake to feel like the one was an afterthought so I went with something completely unrelated to either one.

Our office can be a bit of a zoo at times.  The workflow is always busy and the office is full of people with big personalities who like to have a lot of fun while they work hard.  It’s a good place to work but it can be a little crazy at times.  I got inspired by Wilton’s Silly Critters baking cups and decided to go with a zoo idea.  The thing was I didn’t want animals that large.  I thought about making fondant animals to stand on the cake, but decided I really only wanted animal faces. 

The challenge was how to make animal faces that I liked.  I looked online to find some generic cartoon animals that I could use as a pattern, but didn’t find any that seemed to be the right fit.  My options were getting limited and the time was passing on, so I decided to try drawing my own. My pencil drawing skills are really best for stick figures, so I made the animal face equivalent to give me at least the right shape to work with.

Some piping and a little painting with food colouring for some extra details and I had royal icing animal faces ready to go.  That sort of thing really should have more time to dry, so I left them overnight with a fan blowing on them, with my fingers crossed that they’d be dry enough to put on the cake in the morning without falling apart.  I couldn’t resist taking a picture of them still on their wax paper, just in case they didn’t make it.

Some careful use of an offset spatula while peeling the wax paper and the animals made it safely to the background of leaves and vines that I’d piped the night before.

Drawing with a pencil may not be my thing, but drawing with icing, that’s a lot more fun in my books!