Showing posts with label Ariel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ariel. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Let Them Eat... More Doll Cake!

This past Saturday, we celebrated the birthdaysO of 4-year-old twin girls with a pajamarama party!  Obviously, they like princesses, so their mom asked for Rapunzel and Ariel doll cakes (and she provided the dolls and design in mind).


The Ariel cake was chocolate cake with strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream and strawberry crispearls.  The "ocean" was the same buttercream tinted blue and had a few seaweeds, flowers, and pearls throughout.  The fin and scales were piped with green buttercream.


The Rapunzel cake was chocolate cake with chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream and milk chocolate crispearls.  Under the fondant dress was dark chocolate ganache.  It was a triple chocolate combo!


Transporting the cakes was fun... I had to actually hold the Ariel cake, since it was stuck on the cake stand.  Rapunzel sat in a box, so no worries there.  Good thing our friend didn't live that far.

The only thing I didn't really like about the doll cake pan (I've only used it once before) was the baking time.  My chocolate cake is pretty moist, so I was afraid of burning it by leaving it in the oven longer than the recommended time of the pan's manual.  Having said that, the concern was whether the cake would slide easily out of the pan without leaving any cake stuck to the sides.

I was happy that the girls and everyone loved the cakes... this will be the end of doll cakes for a while...
 
Happy 4th Birthday, Clara & Giuliana!

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!

* * *
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.
 
* * *

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.