Early Mardi Gras

This cake was for my cousin, Katie's 22nd Birthday. Her sister Meagan and Dad asked me to do this cake for her. They came up with the Mardi Gras theme. One of Katie's favorite things is New Orleans and Mardi Gras.

I was a little short on time for this one so I made it a bit smaller than I normally would have made a birthday cake for a party of about 25 people.

So someone brought brownies too, which worked out nice.

I decided to make a chocolate coffee flavored cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. I must have been having an awesome lucky day or was in the zone while I made the cake and frosting because it was SO yummy. A lot better tasting than some of my other cakes have been.

I was really proud of the flavor of this cake.

As I said before I was short on time so I didn't get the chance to make the Mardi Gras mask out of gum-paste like I wanted to. So I went to the local party store down the street and bought one. And what do you know, becuase Mardi Gras is right around the corner they had a plethora of choices. What great timing.

So for the design I decided to do purple fondant over the whole cake, with green fondant diamond shapes. I added gold sugar pearls to put between the green diamonds. The gold bead around the bottom and on top of the cake (by the mask) is a beaded necklace from the party store. Although it wasn't totally edible (like I'd prefer) I still think it turned out quite nice.

This is Katie, showing off her Mardi Gras cake, isn't she cute? I just love her!

Animals

My cousin Morgan is adorable. She reminds me so much of myself when I was her age. Except from the hair color difference we look a lot alike, some (including Morgan) call her my twin.
If you look at a picture of me when I was her age, and a current picture of her, it's difficult to tell us apart.
She's my favorite cousin named Morgan (If you're a member of my family, you'll get that joke) anyway, ever since I started this blog and made my first custom cake, she's asked me "will you make me a cake for my birthday?" And my response is always, YES!

And every time I've seen her since then she reminds me that I am making her birthday cake, and she wants "a red heart shaped cake with animals on it, but please don't make it chocolate cake, I don't like chocolate."

Morgan has to be the only kid I know who doesn't love sweets. She loves fruit & veggies, she'll happily choose a piece of watermelon or cucumber over any kind of sweet treat.

So yesterday was her birthday, she turned 9.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MORGAN!!!

I bet you can't guess what kind of cake I made for her.

Yeah, you guessed right. A red heart shaped cake with animals on it.

I used the cutest little heart shaped sprinkles for the outside of the cake... and I had so many, I decided to throw a few inside the cake too.

So this was my very first time using gum-paste. HELLO, gum-paste, where have you been all my life!?

This stuff is Amazing, yeah that's right, Amazing with a capitol 'A'.

For me, the texture felt very similar to play-dough, only I am sure tastes much, much better. For sculpting it is much more pliable and easy to shape.

I used fondant to cover the heart. And a vanilla butter-cream frosting, colored pink, for the rest of the cake. Then I took those cute little heart shaped sprinkles and stuck 'em to the side of the cake.

Cute right?

The actual cake was just your basic yellow cake, but don't forget about those cute heart shaped sprinkles I put inside too. Yum!

Wait, what about those animals, what kind were they, you ask?

Well lets take a gander....

First there was the Elephant.
He's probably my favorite (not because I made him) but because he just has this expression that makes me smile. Hi Buddy!!

Then the Panda Bear. Hello!

And the Monkey. My second favorite. His little head is tilted to the side, and he just looks so curious.

Hi there fella!

And a Giraffe, Hello pal!

The Alligator. Oh, he just looks so happy. Hi!

And a Turtle, so tiny.

And a Dog.

So maybe I shouldn't tell you this... or maybe I should.

Ok, I will.

So this little guy was suppose to be a Lion... can you see it? Yeah, I couldn't either, so he became a dog. His little furry mane just wasn't working. But I think he's cuter as a dog anyway!

I have to give props to my dear Mother, and my cousin Kierra, they helped sculpt some of the animals. Without their help, I wouldn't have been able to make as many.

So THANK YOU both, I sure appreciated it and I know Morgan did too!

Not to mention is was a super fun night sculpting the little guys with you both.

I had to add this picture in there too.... it's pretty damn cute! The Monkey and Alligator just look like the best of buds. Only in a gum-paste world.

Here's the whole gang.

I had to throw these in too.

SURPRISE!!!

The cuteness levels of this cake were out of this world. Really, I mean how can these little guys not make you smile?

This is the most fun I've had making a cake. And this probably sounds totally cliche, but there's really nothing like giving a child something you've put so much love & energy into and then getting to see their  sweet little smiling face. Yeah, it made my day.

Oh not to mention she's family (and my twin too, ha ha), so I already love her to death... um yeah, that made it a little easier to be super happy about it.

 

I sure hope to do a lot more cakes for kiddies in the near future!

East Coast Baking!

Just got back from the East Coast. Tri-State area, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
WOW, there are some amazing bakeries there.  I had a wonderful opportunity to bake bread with the head baker, Rachel, at my favorite East Coast bakery; The Patisserie Fauchere in Milford, Pennsylvania.

My boyfriend suprised me with a cookie baking class there and after talking with Rachel during the class she offered to let me stay after and bake bread with her.  How could I pass that up?!?
We were there until 2:30 in the morning making all kinds of bread, ciabatta, foccocia, rosemary, olive bread, ginger-bread shaped into Christmas tree's, rolls, baugettes and much more. I learned how to use a starter, and how to fold and shape bread using different techniques. It was an amazing experience and certainly the highlight of my trip, I'll never forget it.

The cookie class was a blast too. We were put into groups of two and each group made at least 2 different types of cookies. Linda (Jesse's sister) and I made chocolate dipped macaroon's, checkerboard cookies, and chocolate-chip cookies. Each person was sent home with about 6 dozen different types of cookies. We had everything from ginger-bread men, sable's (a french cookie made with almond flour), to checkerboards and pepermint meringue's. We were also sent home with about 20 recipes. I can't wait to try them all out.

My favorite part of the cookie class had to be making the checkerboard cookies. I saw that recipe and knew that I had to be the one to make it. The technique for that cookie produces a perfect 1 inch square cookie that looks just like a real checkerboard. AND it tasted amazing. I plan on making this cookie every year for the holiday's to give to family and friends, from now on.

Here are some photo's

Rachel showing me how to cut out the dough for the checkerboard cookies

Linda placing the cookies on a sheet for baking.

It's bread time baby!!!!
Here I am folding some bread dough, ever so gently.
With Rachel in the background measuring.

Focaccia. Yum!

Olive Bread. Aren't these gorgeous?!