♫ Fa la la la la....♫

Where has this year gone?  It's now December for crying out loud!  So, with time a-ticking it was time yesterday to wedge the laundry room door closed, out of sight out of mind and all that and get on with doing some holiday cakes.  I've started small with some cupcakes - well they take way more time than anything else as everything has to be so small to fit on the top.  For that read, they take more time which means less time to do laundry, are you with me now?

The cakes themselves are regular yellow cake with vanilla buttercream and fondant tops.  Now I've been using this same recipe for a good while now, so much so that I can make it without the instructions, smarty pants huh?  Well the fall usually comes after some silly show of pride and fall I did, or rather the 6" cake did.... I used 1% fat milk in the recipe instead of whole milk (that's what I usually use).  Well you know it's the season of over indulgence and I thought if I could save a few cals here and there it'd all be to the good.  Regardless that the recipe has 12oz of butter and there's another 6oz in the buttercream, ahem... Anyway, the recipe like all scientific formulae didn't like being messed around.  The cake took way longer to bake, of course I kept checking it every 5, then 10 mins past the time it should have been ready and yes I ended up with a divot in the centre of it, d'oh!  So what did I do?  Well, what any self-respecting baker would do.  I cut the cake in half, filled the sink hole with the oh so yummy buttercream and turned it upside down for the cut side to be decorated, 'ta da'.  And, yes, it does completely, utterly and unquestioningly blow away the calories and the reason for trying to reduce them in the first place, but what the H, it's Christmas, or nearly.  The Coca-cola ads have been on so it's definitely on its way!

Everything is edible and everything was hand cut/made by yours truly.  How cute are these?  I've got loads more designs to come, these are just a taster but first I need to get on and do a baby shower order due for tomorrow.  Pop back early next week to see what else has been going on in my kitchen.

Here they are individually too.

'lego, lego, lego what's goin' on 'ere en?

It's been a while since I've posted but that doesn't mean I've not been baking! What it does mean is that I've been going from one cake and week to the next without really knowing how I've got there!

This week I've been making lots and lots of lego bricks out of fondant. Now, you'd think that with the amount of Lego stuff out there they'd have a mold of some kind but no, nope, nada! Each brick on the cakes, oh yes there are 2 of them, are hand made/cut and to within a cat's whisker in dimensions of the real sized bricks. Now of course I could have stayed with just the one size of brick, but where's the fun in that? So, a variety of sizes completes the look.

The first cake is a cupcake pull apart cake, a first for me, with a frozen buttercream transfer, another first - gotta love a challenge! and with a few of the fondant bricks scattered for good measure.

I was intending to take more photo's of each step but I got carried away and so all there is to show is the before and after. To get a true idea of how it all went add whatever sweary words you like and it'll be as though you were right in the kitchen with me. 




Before....

 

After



  

  


















The 2nd cake is a 10 inch square - I could have sworn I had a 10inch square pan but it turns out that I didn't (and still don't). I cut a 12 inch square down to 10 - cake pops coming later today with the leftovers = yummy! It's a rich chocolate cake with whipped(Madagascan) vanilla buttercream - the buttercream is whipped, not the Madagascans! Covered in white fondant before being decked out in the lego mat (hand made by yours truly), logo, name plaque and border bricks around the other 3 sides. The best bit about these cakes? Aiden loved them. His little face was a picture when I delivered them this morning. I had purposefully left off a few bricks so that he could size them up with the real McCoy but before he got close to doing that he'd eaten one and was ready for more. That was my cue to leave and let Mom manage that one :-)

Sophie's turning 8!

The end of the summer vacations are nigh. 11.5 weeks and we've all survived it unscathed, well except for my baking or rather lack of it. Temps of +100ºF have meant that I've been poolside for most of the summer. Honestly it's all a girl can do to keep cool in those temps without the oven adding to it, of course the cold beer helps too ;-)

The start of a new school term also means it's Sophie's birthday, this year it's the day before school so we had her sleepover party last night (Friday). 7 girls partied, 6 stayed over and had a blast. Who knew that after pizza, cookies, cake, candy, more fizzy than the World of Coca-cola, and 2 movies that there wouldn't be time for tattoos, nail painting and karaoke? Lights were out at midnight, lights back on again at 5 minute intervals there after until 12.55am and they were warned to sleep or they'd be separated - sometimes being a grumpy Scot. with wild hair has it's advantages, lol, but it did the trick. Silence fell until 8.45am and I was delighted. After a big breakfast of fruit, croissants, pan au chocolat and juice - okay not so much fruit but I did try, they went off to complete total destruction of the basement phase 2!

Sophie had asked for a lemon/blueberry pound cake with a buttercream finish, using light pink, dark pink and light purple. This is the same girl who 2 months ago tried to tell me she was a tomboy, yeah right! And that's what she got. The buttercream finish is worse than shoddy as I had next to no time left to actually ice the cake, all of the time went on the very fiddly but fun gumpaste popcorn box & popcorn, the pizza, the heads & hands (with painted fingernails), not so much on the sleeping bags, I did mention they were fiddly right? As usual, I was lastminute.com with the cake but it tasted good and that for me is the main thing.

Bottom tier of the cake before it was smothered in white chocolate buttercream and topped with 2 more layers of cake and cream = yummy!

A bird's eye view!

The whispering and gossiping of a slumber party!

"So she said, that I said that you said..."

"No way!"

Yesterday I played with beavers.....

That sounds so wrong on so many levels, but it is the truth! What's this got to do with cakes? well, everything the cake on order was a Beaver Dam birthday cake. So, I spent the morning making beavers out of chocolate marshmallow fondant (of course I made the choco-MMF the previous night) and then a gazillion sticks and logs too! This was a fab cake to do, not only because I'd never been asked to make one like this before but also there are not many images of beaver dam cakes out there so much of this was my own idea - believe me, 'google' beaver cake and see what hits you get.

***Disclaimer*** I take no responsibility for the content that the google hit will give on that search!

Whilst modelling the beaver heads out of fondant, I learned that I can actually do Pooh Bear, Arthur, cows, pigs and a big toe so a very successful morning! With the heads, bodies (with limbs) and big criss-cross tails complete I spent the next 4 hrs at the pool - well it's Georgia and 36ºC, kids are off school and going bananas in the house as I'm fiddling with fondant! I did give in and give them some to play with though. Sophie made an eye-pod (copied from a birthday card I bought but don't tell her I remember that!) and Jessica made beavers on their bellies swimming which look really good but .... bad mother alert... not good enough to put on a cake that someone's paying for! So, today we're (Jessica and I) making another cake for her to put her beavers on, thankfully it's father's day tomorrow.

Anyhoo, here's a pic, or 2 of the beaver dam cake.



It's a 10 inch marble cake filled with vanilla buttercream and iced in buttercream, piping gel for the water and chocolate marshmallow fondant for the beavers & logs.

Underneath the mango tree....

No, you'll be pleased to know that no eyesight or indeed white bikini's were abused in the making of the following cake productions, lol.

A friend dropped round a whole load of mangoes and after we'd had them in a fruit salad, smoothied them, diced them to make salsa, the only thing left to do with them was make cakes - or rather mango (with a hint of lime) buttercream atop some spiced cupcakes.

With the cupcakes baked and cooled x 12 and a little 6" round to make cake balls or bites if you prefer, it was time to get the mango buttercream on the go.

Mango Buttercream

1. 2-3 yellow ripe mangoes, diced
2. juice of one lime

Heat the mango with lime juice over a medium heat until the mango softens and easily breaks down with a wooden spoon - depending on how ripe the mango was to begin with this will be around 5 minutes-ish, any longer and the fruit wasn't ripe enough :-(

Blitz in a blender until smooth and leave aside to cool.

3. Buttercream - I use the easy 1 part butter to 2 parts icing sugar (powdered sugar if you're in the US) with a few drops of vanilla extract and beat the bejesus out of in the kitchen aid.

Add in the cooled mango purée until it's all smooth and then add more icing sugar until you've got the right consistency and pipe away!




Of course the orange and yellow non pareils are not essential but....


And for the cake balls... I had my 2 trusty assistants helping with these today (7 weeks and 6 days until the summer holidays are over), so go easy on any critiques! They had the job of rolling the cake balls and then dipping them and covering them in the chocolate (for anyone not in the know, a cake ball is crumbled up cake mixed with buttercream (or any frosting for that matter) and dipped in chocolate). My job was to scoop them out again and shake the excess 500g of chocolate off of each of them! Still it passed an hour or so, well 3 if you count clean up but I got to do that part alone.

When life gives you lemons, make cake!

The sun has been shining here which makes for a very hot kitchen and not so much baking, but.... I did manage to do one cake this week. This was for my friends at Moms Club for our end of year banquet. After much thought a lemon cake was requested so a lemon cake is what they got in the form of a 10 inch round, 4 layer lemon sponge with lemon buttercream filling. Avocado coloured (not flavoured, although...) buttercream with fondant dots and just a tiny bit of pizzazz on top, because we're worth it!

Don't look too closely at the pic. as this cake was in the wars before it made it to the restaurant, nothing unsanitary of course but a few knocks and dints as I drove along a 55mph limit at 40mph with horns a-tooting and people waving at me with just the one finger, I guess their other fingers were busy with driving? The wires were swinging and one of the balls dropped off and dinged the top! I won't say who put their finger in the side of it whilst moving it either... but it's all about the taste and that got a resounding thumbs up!

Footballs coming up this weekend as Pompey (Portsmouth FC to give them their proper name!) take on Chelsea in the FA Cup Final - ♫ Play up Pompey, Pompey Play UP ♫

Life's a beach....

This week I've been making the biggest cake I have ever been asked to make. It's for a beach themed Bar Mitzvah - that's the only direction I was given. I went and met with the mom ordering the cake and learned that her son is very much into Chess so I tried to tie that into the sand-castle theme. There are also 60 mini cupcakes iced with aqua blue buttercream and sprinkled with blue sanding sugar but you'll need to just take my word for that as I've boxed them up ready for collection.

This is a 16", 12" and 8" square cakes construction of rich chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling.

Whilst typing this one up, I got the call to say they were on their way - nervous doesn't cover how I was feeling. But, I needn't have been, they loved it and to show how much they did the whole family got out of the car to come see it in my dining room, lol. It's all now safely tucked into the trunk of their car and en route to the W for the celebrations to begin - Mazel Tov!

Speedy Slipper!

I received an email on Thursday from a friend saying she had a friend who wanted a 'slipper' cake made for the coming Saturday, i.e. 1.5 days away! I was on my way out to a PTA meeting, because I do get involved in things that aren't cake related - honestly. Anyway, no email from said friend so I presumed she'd found one somewhere else. Roll on Friday morning. I got the email... 'Can you make a cake for me and I need it for 6pm tomorrow night?' I called the lady and had a chat and was all set to tell her no way totally impossible but she sounded lovely so guess what??? Yip, Friday I baked a 1/2 sheet marble cake, filled it with scrummy vanilla buttercream and carved it into a slipper. Now thankfully it was just a regular 'pj's' type slipper and not an intricate cinderella-esque one or I may have still been working on it now. Anyway, a white slipper with black and hot pink was ordered. Here's what I came up with.....






Of course I could have stuck with plain fondant stripes but where's the fun in that, this is for a sassy 6 year old (I have one of those myself!), so 1/2 drum of black sanding sugar 1.5 hrs and a hell of a mess later, the cake was finished. I did take a dry soft artist brush and gently sweep the stray bits of sugar off the white areas (I know, I think I'm slightly OCD but I can assure you it's only where the cakes are concerned, don't ever look in my closet!) but soon realised I was fighting a losing battle.

Pick up is in the next hour or so, just hope she likes it!

Hello, Hello, is there anyone there?

Wow! I've actually done it! I've managed to create a blog for my cakes in 3 easy steps, who'd have known it'd be this simple?

Although, I suppose now it's going to get tricky whilst I work out a) what to babble on about and b) how to get some pictures of my cakes on here for you to see.

I'm not entirely sure how successful this is going to be as I was never one for keeping a journal or anything like that, mostly for fear of someone finding it and reading it and now here I am about to expose myself, well not literally and believe me that's something to be thankful for, but almost as I'm not the most objective about my own cakes, to the world at large or maybe just one or two of my good friends who will remember to check from time to time.

Alrighty, enough about what's hopefully to come for now. Let me tell you a tiny bit about me. I'm married with 2 beautiful daughters who are still in elementary school. I currently live to the north of Atlanta with said family although I'm originally from Scotland, complete with accent and UK passport - not like some of my new friends who are 6th generation American but who still claim to be Scottish - y'all know who you are :-)