Jordan Retro 5 Shoe Full Sheet Cake

Hello, all! I have been super busy lately because I got a second job! Yes, on top of working at a bakery full time, I also work as a cashier at an all-natural grocery store as well. Time to start saving for the Big Day next year. I just hope I have the time to make cake orders at home when the time comes.

This cake was the first full sheet cake that I've ever made at home! I've done plenty at work, but actually having a full sheet cake in my tiny kitchen makes me realize exactly how tiny it is!

It's a half-chocolate, half-yellow cake iced in vanilla buttercream. I really wanted to take the easy way out and use a big edible image, but I realized that I should do my best no matter how tired I was. So I set to work scoring the design into the cake. This was my reference.

Courtesy of Google

I attempted to score the design into the cake a few times until I just gave up and had my brother help me. We drew a lot when we were younger, and he was always the one that drew the shoes better than I could! I modified the colors a bit to incorporate more pink. The shoe was a lot bigger than I thought, so I ended up spending quite a bit of time on it.

I'm happy with how it turned out!

Well, not how this picture turned out.

Ah, that's better! The partygoers loved it too!

Note to self: when house hunting in the future, look at the size of the kitchen first!

Hopefully my posts won't become scant due to my work schedule. I hope to find some time to still bake and sharpen my scratch-baking skills. I'm going to Florida in about a week and a half, so I am super excited to have some time to relax and spend time with family. :)

Super Bowl XLVII Cupcakes

Hello again! Such a rare moment, blogging two days in a row! I hope in the future to have more posts to share, though. Well, today is the Super Bowl, and up until about 2 days ago, I had no clue who was in it. I pretty much watch for the commercials. I saw a preview for a commercial where a baby,  panda and a bunch of other animals are going into space!! I want to see that one! I love pandas! And space! *ahem* Anyhoo...

This is perhaps the 4th or 5th year that I've made Super Bowl cupcakes, and it's the only way I remember which teams played! For the San Francisco 49ers cupcakes, I went with a caramel buttercream, so they would already have that tan color for the background. The cupcakes were almond flavored (love that combo!) 

The Baltimore Ravens cupcakes were vanilla cake with vanilla icing. I decided to keep the background white, so that people don't get a mouthful of black icing. Blech!

I went with the simple "B" because the raven's head would just be far too much detail for me (I was making these at 1 am this morning!) I think they turned out pretty nicely, and I hope they're a hit tonight at the Super Bowl party.

No matter what team you're rooting for, have a fun and safe Super Bowl! I'll be on the lookout for the space panda!

Pretty in Pink Birthday Cake

 Hello, all! First, I must say, I finally got a kitchen scale.

Yay! It's so shiny and new! Now to find a fancy recipe to try it on...

I recently made a very pink and girly cake for a really good friend of mine, Violet. She loves everything pink, and even had pink in her wedding! I've made her a pink cake before, but I wanted to make it special-- inside and out. I started with a white cake mix with almond emulsion. Then I stirred in a few shakes of pink nonpareils to add a little extra something. They melt into the cake, so don't worry about crunchiness. Also, don't stir too much or the sprinkles will start to melt into the cake.

I divided the batter into one 6" pan and one 8" pan to make a mini 2-tier cake.

After the cakes were baked and cooled, I iced the tiers in white and stacked them (with a few dowel rods to prevent any sagging).

I rolled out some pink fondant and used my diamond cutter set to make a pink harlequin design on the bottom tier.

 On the top tier I added some fancy scrolls and matching roses. I finished the cake off with a pink "26" made of white chocolate.

Violet loved her cake and she said it made her day, so my mission was accomplished. :) Happy birthday, Violet!

Zebra Coconut Cake and Lion King Cake!

Hello, all! I have been away for a bit due to wrapping up the holiday season and going on a mini-vacay with my Betrothed for our anniversary (9 years!)

I recently made two birthday cakes that I would like to share with you. The first one is a zebra coconut cake. I was given free reign to design a coconut cake for an 18-year-old's birthday, so I went with something most teenage girls like (or at least wouldn't mind)-- zebra print! So I started on the coconut cake. I wanted to go with quick and easy so I went for a mix-based recipe.

I mixed the cake according to the package but added 1 1/2 tablespoons of coconut extract and 1 cup of sweetened coconut flakes. Then into two 8" pans they go...

I like to weigh my pans to make sure they are equally distributed. I don't want uneven layers!

Sidenote: I'm getting a new kitchen scale. More on that later...

 After the cake has cooled, I filled it with vanilla buttercream and added a little sprinkle of extra coconut.

I iced the cake in more vanilla buttercream and got to work on the stripes. I decided to shoot a tiny video to illustrate how to put on the zebra stripes. But! It ended up upside-down when I went to review it! Yeeeea, I definitely don't know how to shoot or edit video... So if anyone knows how to fix this, I would live to be able to put my first video up! In the meantime, I'll explain how I got my zebra stripes on.

To start, I rolled out black fondant to about 1/8" thick. Then I cut pointy-ended stripes that started in the center of the top of the cake. Then I alternated those with different length skinny triangles on the bottom, making sure the flat side of the triangles met the bottom.

I topped the cake off with a bit more of shredded coconut and numbers made of a mix of milk and white chocolate. The birthday girl loved it, and so did the party-goers! :)

My next cake was for a two-year old's birthday, and he loves Lion King! I was also given free reign for the design of this cake, so I went with a jungle scene with edible images of the characters. (I must say, I can draw certain things, but getting down the exact features of some Disney characters gets quite tricky). I iced the square cake in white then spread teal on the sides to create a gradating sky then I also spread yellow, orange and red on the top to create a sunset. Since I don't have an airbrush machine, I was able to get a similar effect with this method. I added the edible images and vines on the side and the trees to the top, and voila!

This was also a hit at the party, and I was excited to make Caleb's second birthday cake! (his first one was the Baby Mickey smash cake).

In other news, I have been reading Bouchon Bakery by Sebastien Rouxel and it is really inspiring.

I want to try making all of the recipes in it! I like the little stories that are intertwined in it. It makes me want to just up and fly to Paris to eat all the bread and pastries I can! I noticed that the ingredients in the recipes are weighed. It's apparently the best way to measure to ensure consistency and a quality product. Thus, the need to get a new kitchen scale. I like the manual one that I have, and it's served me well,  but to tare it is a nightmare. So look out for some fancy recipes coming up. Oui oui!