Chocomint Brownies

Mint and chocolate... how can you go wrong? :) I whipped up a batch to bring to work (part of my holiday baking tradition). I hope everyone enjoys them tomorrow!

P.S. This update is short and sweet on purpose! :)

CRAZY, BUSY DECEMBER!!!

I haven't been updating my blog/website for the past couple of weeks due to CRAZINESS! Did I already mention that I have 4-hour commute to work in total, a husband, and 2 boys under age 4? Adding orders to the list make for lack of sleep and the feeling of not finishing in time (but I always do).

So, I will try to *briefly* mention what has kept me so preoccupied...

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Pittsburgh Steelers Cake

Made for a football fan, this chocolate cake with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream (SMBC) icing was topped with a royal icing transfer. Surprisingly, I was told it was easy to cut into; possibly due to it resting on the buttercream, which broke up the molecules in the royal icing. A test for me to experiment with in the future.

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Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada Snowflake Cookies

The cookies were sugar and gingerbread cookies for the staff at the IRBC. The design is similar to what I made in the past, but with the addition of an edible image of the IRBC logo in the centre. Did I mention I love my edible ink printer? :)

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Red Velvet Minis with Rose

So, my colleague wanted to bring these cupcakes for her niece's birthday. Initially, the niece said yellow was her favourite colour but then changed it to purple. Her mom wanted a rose on the cupcake, so I made them in purple and rested on cream cheese icing. The kids went to town so fast on the cupcakes that my colleague was not able to take even one photo of her niece enjoying them. To be 4 years old again...

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Trifecta of Destination Wedding Cakes
Another colleague requested to have cakes made in honour of her daughter's wedding. The wedding was in Punta Cana, so parts of the cakes had a beachy theme. She was very generous and shared the cakes with us at work (which was her intention all along!). To make my life easier, I decided to change the order into three smaller and shorter cakes instead of two higher cakes (I had to commute by transit, after all).

Bride's Cake

Her daughter had calla lilies in her bouquet, which I made with fondant. Ruffles were everywhere to make it look like a bridal. The cake was vanilla with vanilla SMBC icing.

Beach Cake

Palm trees meeting together was the idea for this chocolate cake with vanilla SMBC icing.

Message Cake

So, I didn't end up having room for the text on both the first two cakes above. It was written on this one instead. This cake ended up having one layer of chocolate cake and one of vanilla, all iced and filled with vanilla SMBC.

Congrats Melissa and Lee!

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26th Anniversary Cake

My colleague wanted a little vanilla cake to celebrate her anniversary. I put puddle dots and a couple of fondant flowers to decorate it very simply.

Happy 26th Anniversary!

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13th Anniversary Cake

Another colleague's anniversary was on the same date as the above client - weird, huh? She specifically requested for a chocolate ganache filling, which I did but also covered the top and sides of the vanilla cake with it. The sides were finished off with SMBC. The second request was to make it colourful (for her kids) because this was also the first anniversary cake that was homemade (she never had time to make it herself).

Happy 13th Anniversary!

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"Just Because..." Cakes

A colleague wanted to do something nice for a couple of people at work, so she ordered two generic cakes that could be served over the holidays. The cakes are vanilla with SMBC: the first one with fondant calla lilies and sugar pearls; the second one with rosettes and sugar pearls.

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Snowflake Birthday Cake

This short vanilla cake with sweet vanilla icing just had snowflakes piped all over the fondant top.

Happy Birthday Nana!

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21st Birthday Cake

This was the chocolate birthday cake with teal vanilla SMBC for the last surprise birthday party my colleague was going to give her son. SMBC 21's were placed on the black fondant top. It looked kinda retro, but I'm glad to hear it was enjoyed by all.

Happy Birthday Josh!

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Gingerbread Christmas Tree Cookie

Of course, with all the baking I do, I had to bring something to work to share. I made some gingerbread cookies and sugar cookies (not pictured) topped with royal icing.

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Girly Cupcakes

I had a request to make fuchsia SMBC cupcakes with girly teal and white toppers. The cupcakes were vanilla, chocolate and red velvet, topped with alternating white/teal butterflies, flowers and pearls. I really liked how the teal glitter made the pearls shimmer.

Let It Snow...flakes!

I finally got to make my cookie donation for work's United Way bake sale this past week: snowflake gingerbread cookies. I'm glad they sold out, as well as most of the other baked goodies; more money for the charity!

My other set of snowflake cookies were for a colleague's university alumni event. She wanted half the order gingerbread, the other half sugar. They were so cute and enjoyed by all!

My last snowflake item was for little girl's party. Blue and white cake pops with snowflakes; sounded like a simple order at the time. I had problems with the quins because they didn't want to stick onto the chocolate (too much chocolate coating resulted in the quins drowning; too little chocolate dried up quickly and the quins wouldn't stay on). The snowflake quins were also a bigger sprinkle, so it made it harder to work with. If I had more time, I would've attached each quin individually onto the pop.

Blue pop: chocolate cake; white pop: vanilla cake; both pops have Swiss meringue buttercream mixed in the cake, then dipped in white/coloured chocolate and snowflake quins

Christmas is less than one month away! Let all the bake-a-thons begin! :)

Something Blue Manolo Blahnik Shoe!

This was my first completed shoe ever... fortunately, it only took me the second try to get it right! Researching online, I encountered someone who made as many as nine attempts before she was satisfied. I do not have that sort of patience.

So, my colleague turned 24 and wanted me to create a shoebox cake (she's shoe-crazy). She decided to challenge me to make Carrie Bradshaw's satin "Something Blue" stiletto from the first "Sex and the City" movie. And challenging, it was! If the shoe was a sandal, instead of a closed-toe full pump, it would've been a breeze.

For structural purposes, it had to be made out of gumpaste, with a bamboo skewer in the heel. The blue parts were brushed with pearl lustre dust to give it a satiny look. The blue shell and the beige lining were on top of each other so that it would match up when it was cut. I cut a rectangular opening in the insole, then wrote the label onto a frosting sheet to appear under the opening (because my research showed the label in inset in the insole instead of on top of it). Finally, all the edges were finished with stitching marks, including around the label.

The shoebox is made up of three layers of chocolate cake filled with ganache, iced with ganache, then topped with marshmallow fondant. The real shoebox is just plain white, so I wanted to give it some flair with some contrasting striping, which was also brushed with some lustre dust.

I truly enjoyed the process of making this shoe (not the first attempt, though) and the results. I could not find a template for closed-toe pump, so it was only by trial and error that I was able to form the shape. At least I know now to use a sole pattern that is slimmer in width to achieve a slender toe box.

Bring on the next shoe order!

Happy Birthday, Vasiola!

Buttercream Galore!

19 years is a long time... it may feel even longer, if you're talking about marriage. Well, my colleague's wedding anniversary was this past week, and she specifically requested for it to be a heart-shaped vanilla and chocolate cake with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream icing. Other than that, it was up to me to do whatever design I wanted. My intention was to colour the icing orange, but it turned out peach instead (because the buttercream was originally a pale yellow due to the butter).

I decided to make buttercream roses. I haven't done that since my first Wilton class, so I was kind of rusty and this was my first time creating flowers with real buttercream (Wilton's class buttercream is made up of icing sugar and shortening - also known as "American buttercream.") It was very melty because of the butter, so I had to work quickly. After a few tries, they managed to resemble roses. The goal was to put 19 roses on the cake, but they didn't all fit within the heart. I was told that everyone enjoyed the cake with the not-too-sweet icing.

Happy 19th Anniversary!

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The movie "Sixteen Candles" was the theme of this birthday cake, for a teen turning 16. She loves all movies of the 80s (for now) so I surrounded the cake in pink ruffles and rosettes. Did I mention the cake was six inches wide and six inches high? Yes, you heard right... due to the three cake layers. The cake box lid had to be propped open.

The cakes were chocolate with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream filling. I dressed up the border with sugar pearls and made chocolate transfers for the text. I hope she'll be happy with my cake rendition of a frilly pink party dress.

Happy Birthday, Celeste!

Something Old, Something New...

Yes, it's been a while since my previous post... made even longer because Blogger did not want to upload my images (WARNING: this will be a long update)... I was busy with my latest order, which is now complete!  So, here were my projects over the past few weeks:

 Maple Leaf Gingerbread Cookies

Fall Gingerbread Cookie

These not-too-spicy cookies were made from my standard recipe which produce soft and chewy results. My boys love them (especially Owen).

My intention was to donate two dozen cookies for a United Way bake sale at work. Unfortunately, the event was postponed and there was no way that the cookies would still be fresh a month later. So, I gave them all away to my colleagues, but I didn't have enough. I had to bring the extra circle cookies I made for the people I missed in my department. Hence, two different designs.

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Piano Keys Birthday Cake

A colleague's husband's birthday was coming up, and I was asked to make a cake in the shape of piano keys. Keeping in mind that she commutes by transit, I made it 4"x12" to fit inside a 12" square cake box. The keys were white fondant/gumpaste mix and black chocolate fondant/gumpaste mix, and the moist chocolate cake was surrounded by chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream.

Happy Birthday, Mr Pianist!

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Louise & Ken's Wedding Cakes and Cupcakes

My good friend got engaged two years ago, and at the time, we were working at the same office. She asked me to make her wedding cake, and of course, I didn't refuse! She wanted 50 cupcakes and a small bride's cake. In addition, she wanted to surprise her husband-to-be with a Batman-themed groom's cake and 50 cupcakes. All the cakes were red velvet with cream cheese icing.

I was also invited as a guest, so it made delivery of the cakes pretty tricky. Her venue, Old Mill Inn, could not guarantee fridge space and would only allow me to set up at 4pm (the reception started at 6:30pm). I had to scrap my original plan, which was to drop everything off before the 2pm wedding ceremony, then return to the venue to set up. So, to ensure the cream cheese icing wouldn't get spoiled, I had my husband buy 10 bags of ice to put in the trunk to act as a fridge (and thankfully, the weather wasn't too warm).

Set-up took longer than expected, but everything was completed on time, thanks to the help of my husband (<3). Oh yeah, the boys were with the in-law's, so that was also a bonus (who wants noisy kids at a wedding?). I was disappointed with the lack of lighting at the cake table (you can barely see the bat) but I guess the room wasn't designed to spotlight certain areas.

Bride's Cakes

Groom's Cakes

All the decorations were made out of a fondant/gumpaste mix. The bride requested mini calla lilies, roses, orchids, and hydrangea's - all in white. I made these to top the cake, as well as for the cupcakes (orchid only on cake). The groom's cake consisted of chocolate fondant buildings and bat on top. The bat cupcake toppers were made up of black royal icing transferred to a fondant/gumpaste mix disk.

I made the cupcake stands and the cupcake wrappers. It wasn't the brightest idea to start the projects the night before delivery, but they turned out OK. The beautiful bride and handsome groom loved their cakes, and that's exactly the reason why I do the things I do for my clients. :)

Congrats, Louise and Ken!

Running Graduate Birthday Cake

This request is for a guy who is a runner and has also completed his Master's degree. Yay, for higher education! :)

I thought it would be great if I merged the two things... I made a dark chocolate transfer of a graduate, running, and also sporting shorts and sneakers. White chocolate was used to outline the figure and it was placed on top of a dark chocolate disk.

This was a very moist, 3-layered chocolate cake with whipped vanilla icing.

Happy Birthday Uncle Marc!