Monday, May 30, 2011

Sometimes life calls for chocolate covered strawberries....


Chocolate cake, chocolate ganache with strawberries, chocolate swiss meringue buttercream, and chocolate covered strawberries.  

The piping was done with PME Supatube 44 and PME tip 1.5.  I discovered it was a little tricky to maintain the icing consistency of the piping icing and the icing on cake because the weather is getting so warm.  Swiss meringue buttercream is entirely butter-based, so it is prone to softening.  

Still, a chocolate lover's dream! :)

Monday, May 16, 2011

Calvin and Hobbes Cake


When my friend Andrea asked me to make a cake for her boyfriend's birthday, I jumped at the chance.  Andrea is one of my favorite people to serve cake to... why?  Because if it were socially acceptable, Andrea is someone who would cut a slice of the cake and then run off with the rest of it. :)

It all started with chocolate cake, chocolate ganache, and fresh strawberries.



Then, in case there wasn't already enough chocolate (is there even such a thing?)  I covered the whole cake in chocolate ganache.


After the first coating:

After a whole lot of smoothing:

Yes, you can also see my laptop, which I use to play music while I'm working, and my 2 varieties of vanilla extract, because one just isn't enough for me.

After the ganache set up, I covered the cake in fondant and carefully stenciled on the black stripes using softened fondant and a designer stencil.

Of course, this was my first time trying the stenciling technique myself (and I see people mess it up on TV all the time.)  So obviously I chose to use the most unforgiving color combination: black on white.  If something does get messed up, you can fix it using vodka.  Really, there are two options.  Either use a clean paintbrush with some vodka to clean up your mistake or drink the vodka until you can't see the mistake.  ;)

I added the image to the top of the cake using a combination of pin pricking through a picture I had printed out and just drawing it using an edible food color pen.  Once I had the design outlined, I started painting it with a combination of gel colors and petal dusts diluted with vodka.



I was pretty excited about this cake and about sharing it with friends.  Of course it was a big success.




Happy Birthday, Abe!

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Baby Shower Cake

How I've missed you all!  (And I'm sure you've missed me too...)

I apologize for the recent lack of posts; finishing my semester proved to be hectic and after the Florida I.C.E.D. cake I needed a little time to let my apartment be clean.

I am doing 2 cakes this weekend, and here is the first one.  It was for a baby shower:


For this cake, I started using Massa fondant instead of my usual Satin Ice, and it was pretty nice to work with.  The bow is gum paste, and I was pretty excited about how the striping came out.

Since I had some creative license with this cake, I opted to not do the classic 'baby bump' cake and rather chose to do the figure on the cake.  While I might have created more work for myself, I really have a problem with the idea of people cutting into stomach and eating it.  Maybe it's just me.

I made most of the figure out of modeling chocolate and added the details using gum paste.




Thanks for looking and there's more cake headed your way very soon!  Now if I could just stop sampling the chocolate ganache...


Also, I will be teaching this summer-- I will teach my 2 day Gum Paste Stiletto class in Norcross, GA June 4-5 (http://www.nicholaslodge.com/classes.aspx?nd=423&id=167)  and in Austin, TX July 11-12  (http://dos.capitalconfectioners.com/index.php).