Fondant Covered Pina Colada Cake

 

This was made for my sister’s birthday, we didn’t have a lot of people to feed so I went with a two-tier cake and just enough cupcakes to spell her name.

The cupcakes were Red Velvet with the same cream cheese SMB that I mentioned in the previous post. This cupcake was filled with White Chocolate Amaretto pudding.

 

I hand painted the tips of the circles with gold luster dust and lemon extract, the same was done for the flower on the top tier.

The bottom tier of the cake was made to look like the dress she was wearing. She loved the cake and matched the colours she was wearing for the big night.

Black and Red Birthday Cake

I was asked at the last minute to make a Red Velvet birthday cake. The birthday girl’s favourite colours are black and red so I went with that.

The cake is filled with Cream Cheese Swiss Meringue Buttercream…this filling and frosting was to die for. I couldn’t get enough of it. I’ll post the steps in a later post for achieving success with this frosting.

Here are some pictures of the cake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really enjoyed making this cake and it’s one of my favourites to date.

 

 

I cut out small individual “rhinestone” and attached them to the flower part of the bow.

Halloween Cake

This Halloween cake was made for my office potluck. The bottom cake is vanilla with white chocolate ganache filling. The Cauldron is a vanilla with a basic vanilla frosting.

The bottom is an 8 inch, I used a 6 inch Pyrex bowl to make the Cauldron. I have to admit that this cake came together a lot quicker and easier than I thought it would. I’m not complaining though, I loved the process and it looked very much like how I envisioned it.

I’ll have to figure out how to get the rest of the pics added to this post and my phone is acting crazy and won’t allow me to upload the rest.

Here is the best picture I have.

Halloween Sugar Cookies

My sis asked me to make a batch of sugar cookies for my nephew, he’s just a year old so they’ll be doing the  Trick or Treat thing in their “classroom”. They’re so cute at this age, I love seeing them out in their little costumes.

For the cookies I used the No Fail Sugar Cookie recipe, this recipe is hit and miss for me. There are times when the dough comes out perfect and there are times when it’s just too soft to work with. I think I allowed the butter and egg to beat a little too much this time around. I was multi-tasking and wasn’t paying attention. Lesson learned!

I did Ghosts and Pumpkins for the cookies and decorated them with Fondant, they tasted really good and looked equally as good.

               

 

 

 

Baker’s Wish List

There are so many neat gadgets and things out there for the budding baker, it can get quiet expensive if you’re not careful. I’ve put together a list of all the things that I would one day like to have, I’ll probably collect these over the course of a few years. I usually don’t buy anything unless it’s on sale or if I have a coupon of some sort, especially if I’m buying it from Michael’s.

Here’s my list, some of them I’ve already gotten…

Petal Pan Set
Hexagon Pan Set
Heart Pan Set
3-D Bear Pan
Cross Pan
Lady Bug Pan
Star Pan
#1 Cake Pan
Pillow Pan Set
Duff Brush Set
Duff fondant tool kit
Fondant impression mats
Duff brush set
Duff 12 piece cutter set
Spiderman pan
Fondant punch decorator
Fondant/gumpaste molds
Wilton Pattern Embosser
Flower drying rack
Luster dust in a wide variety of shades
Square pans set
Wilton Brush Set

I always look forward to those 50% off coupon days at Michael’s and utilize them as mush as I can afford to. I’ll be posting some reviews on some of these items as I get them as well.

Happy Baking!

1st Birthday Thomas Cake and Cupcakes

This weekend’s project was a Thomas the Tank Engine birthday cake and cupcakes, the bottom tier is a basic vanilla cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream filling and crumb coating. The top-tier is a marble cake with chocolate mousse filling YUM!

Cupcakes were chocolate and vanilla, also with SMB.

1st Birthday Thomas Cake

Railroad sign cupcakes

Train Tracks Cupcakes

 

1st Birthday Sweet Table

This weekend we celebrated my nephew’s first birthday, I was tasked with making the sweet table. I have to say that it was pretty stressful at times, and it took a lot of work. But in the end it was so worth it! He was all over the place and even fell asleep at one point throughout the day. The highlight of the entire party was when it was time to sing Happy Birthday…he just lit up and starting smiling…I think that’s when he realized everyone was there for him.

The theme for his party was Thomas the Tank Engine, he loves trucks and trains and things like that so what could be better.

Here are a couple of pics…

Thomas #1 Cake

I also added some marshmallow pops, the kids LOVED these and they were gone in mere minutes, these were covered in coloured sugar. I think it’s save to say they were a hit…and SO easy to make.

Marshmallow Pops

Next up were the cupcakes, I decided to try something different with these. I’ve been wanted to try the cupcake in a cone for awhile and this was the perfect opportunity. Almost all the kids thought these were really ice cream, in the end they got a pleasant surprise.

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

Next up we had his smash cake, it was a basic vanilla cake covered in Swiss Meringue Buttercream, his face was priceless after he tasted it…so many little smiles! His topper was a pair of converse, he actually has these shoes!

Smash Cake

Brownies are always a hit with kids, so I decided to make a batch and just sprinkle them with icing sugar to give it that extra touch.

Brownies w/ icing sugar

And finally, I made a batch of sugar cookies and customized them just for him…there are no words to describe how quickly there cookies went. I used these for the sweet table and we also gave them out as party favours.

Custom Sugar Cookies

Custom Sugar cookies, party favours

Custom sugar cookies, party favours

Just over the table, I strung pictures of the birthday boy, there was a picture for every month since he’s been born. Everyone loved the idea and complimented how great it looked.

Sweet Table

It was a great experience, in all I baked around 5 dozen cookies and my sister helped to decorate them.

Here are a few pics of what was left…

Sweet Table remnants

Sweet Table remnants

It was hard to see two days of work done in about 10 minutes and even though I literally felt like crying, I was happy to do it.

Canada’s Baking and Sweets Show Review

I attended the second day of Canada’s Baking and Sweets show yesterday, It was my first time at this event so I didn’t really know what to expect but I was really excited to see what it was all about.

The venue was nice, it was held at The Toronto Congress Centre, admission was $15.

There was so much to do and see, there were vendors from all over Canada and even the U.S., I was really happy about this because there were a couple of store such as McCall’s and Flour Confections that I’ve been wanting to check out but just haven’t had the chance. These pop up stores had great selection and for great prices too. I managed to get a few new toys that I’ll cover in another post.

The samples where there in abundance, anywhere from cupcakes to spinach pies, some where great and others were just not for me!

The competition cakes were CRAZY! One of the themes this year was Alice in Wonderland and I have to say that some of these bakes really went all out and presented some really good show stoppers. I’ll have to add a few pics later on.

The bonus of my day was meeting the Cupcake Girls, Lori and Heather were really nice and so approachable and were even taking pics at their booth.

Overall, it was a great day, I’ll definitely be going back next year!

The Gentleman Cake

I was asked to make a cake for a special Dad, when I got the initial order I had no idea what I was going to do. Then, they mentioned the colours they wanted…purple and red and I immediately thought “what the heck am I going to do with purple and red?!”

After giving it much thought, I decided to go with a bow tie cake, it worked perfectly, the colours came together well and the end result was better than I expected.

Here are a few pics…

The “Tuxedo Vest” was done free hand.

Hot Wheels Porsche Cake

This week I had the opportunity to make a cake for my nephew’s Dad. He’s a really big Hot Wheels fan and have been collecting these little things for my nephew, so I thought it would be a great idea to model one of the cars for his cake. It turned out pretty good, my only disappointment was that the colour didn’t turn out the shade I wanted it to.

Overall the I was pretty happy with my first attempt of making a Hot Wheels cake.

I started out by baking the cake in the Wilton’s car cake pan and trimmed it down to the shape of a Porsche.

 

I crumb coated and then went back and put a second layer of icing on. I made the wheels out of fondant using the medium circle cutter.

 

The final result…like I said, I didn’t get the shade of blue I wanted but it came out ok for a first try!