Showing posts with label chocolae cake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chocolae cake. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Welcome, Sweet Baby!


She's here... Baby Amy... 4.5 weeks early!!!

No, she is not the daughter I've always wanted ("Amy" was also the name we had chosen if we had a girl), but a couple of good friends'.  I can't envision having baby #3 right now, but my husband seems to think I'll change my tune once I reach 35 and both boys would be in school.  We shall see.

To celebrate Amy's arrival, I made this cake for our friends... chocolate cake with pink Swiss meringue buttercream.  I thought I'd try the "naked" look with shell-like piping.  It looked really girly, I must say.

Welcome, Amy!

Friday, November 23, 2012

Cookies 'n Cakes

Baby Boy Onesies Cookies

My favourite CIP (insurance courses) instructor, Melanie, was due to have her first baby (note: since I made contact with her last, she was having her baby!).  I wanted to ship her a box of cookies to celebrate (she ate them before the baby was born, so I guess he had a taste of them, too).


Little boy onesies for a really lucky baby!  Mel is into ATVs and such, and I would not be surprised if he rode on that before a tryke.  Oh, the poor Mennonite neighbours! :)

Welcome, Baby Boy!

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Theatre Birthday Cake

My friend, Yahaira, wanted to practice making a cake for her son's upcoming birthday, so we made a cake for her friend's birthday, as a test.  This was also a test for me, because I haven't taught anyone how to decorate anything before.

He was into drama, so we made that our theme.  We made marshmallow fondant (it was giving our hands a workout!) to cover the chocolate cake (not homemade but the vanilla filling was).  Luckily, she had gloves so we didn't get red or blue stained on our hands when we coloured the fondant!


Pretty good work for a beginner, eh?  Hopefully, the birthday boy appreciated the effort!  I am proud of my students' (her husband helped out, too) work!
 
Happy Birthday, Dan!
 
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Ariel Birthday Cakes


Big girl Nikki turned 5, and she loves the Little Mermaid.  Now, this is my first Ariel cake, so I had a few challenges... one being working with the gumpaste!  It didn't want to harden, so I don't know what's up with that.  Gumpaste is supposed to dry faster than fondant, so how come it didn't work for me?  Oh well.

The chocolate cake was filled with pink vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream and covered in blue fondant.  I added ocean details as finishing touches.  The brown sign is made with chocolate fondant.

I made a second sheet cake, because there were a lot of guests.  It was decorated with flowers, lettering and buttercream. 


Happy 5th Birthday, Nikki!

* * *

Brownies with Cream Cheese Icing

Sorry, don't have pics of this one... I had to make it twice because I forgot the add sugar the first time (don't ask how I missed it!).  This was for a playdate lunch, so I cut out pieces with a heart-shaped cookie cutter, then piped a heart with the icing.  It was so yummy!  I will make this recipe again, and I'll do the same design so I can post up the image.
 
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The following two items were for a bake sale at work to help raise money for the United Way: 

Milk Chocolate Fudge Crackles


A new recipe... had to use 1/2 tablespoon scoops because 1 tablespoon-sized made the cookies spread horrifically.  The smaller size made the cookies bake evenly and enticed those who would've refused a larger cookie (due to diet).  What a mess I made when rolling the cookie balls into icing sugar! :/

Snowflake Gingerbread Cookies


A classic, just in time for the holidays!  I changed it up by having a darker blue tint for the royal icing, as well as adding silver dragees and random pearls throughout.  These, I packaged then tied with blue curling ribbon, as I thought it would be great to save for later or for a loved one.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

William is 4!

Another year has passed (it seems to go by very quickly now!  So, we had his birthday party yesterday.  12 kids... it's not as bad as you'd think!


William wanted a Spider-Man cake.  With 5 villains on it plus Spidey.  I feel bad that I couldn't deliver!  Lots of things came up and I lost a lot of time, and before I knew it, party time came.  Last year, I was on maternity leave, so I more free time.  This year, time is eaten away by my work commute and work itself.  I spent most of my time on everything but the cake. :(

"Wha-sa matta you face?!"

So, the chocolate cake comprised of 3 layers, all filled and iced with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream.  That's all I did.  We purchased a Spider-Man in a buggy, so he could play with the toy after.  I also found personalized candles (so glad his name was spelled the common way).

The banner, I ordered through www.vistaprint.ca, when they had it on special.  The numbered photos represent the age in which it was taken.

"What?!  I'm eating here!"

I had a few activities planned, but due to damp weather, only one survived: Decorate Your Own Cupcake!  I made vanilla cupcakes, iced them, then used wraps with spiders on it.  I got a bunch of red/blue/black/white jimmies, sprinkles, jelly beans, gummy bears and yogurt-covered peanuts for the kids to use to their hearts' content.  Clean-up was not too bad, so I'm glad we did it.

Owen mixes up the cupcake toppers.

The rest of the time, the kids migrated down to the basement where all the toys were.  When the party was over, the basement wasn't terribly trashed, so it's safe to say we got a tidy bunch of kids (what luck!).


Even though my cake wasn't up to my standards, at least my gingerbread cookie favours were.  I used royal icing (red was made with a ton of red icing paste, gel, and food colour) and food-grade marker to decorate.

We think the party went well; no injuries to report, only a couple of hurt feelings.  We're pretty satisfied with our first daycare-heavy guest list.  The only thing I would've changed is to have a better design and execution of the cake.  I'm going to start planning next year's now, so I won't be in this situation again!


Happy 4th Birthday, William!
xoxo