Cake Love...

I made cake today.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Cream Cheese Italian Butter Cream Icing and strawberry jam filling.

You know you want some....

My friend Garth has decided to live with us for a but and to celebrate his arrival, I baked a cake and of course I had to try out a piping technique I saw on pinterest.

Cheers,

Kate

The Lego Cake.

Boy have I been busy working on this an that lately.  I finally got the 18th C Polonaise done, so I'm free to work on other sewing projects now.  Yippee....

Recently my oldest son had a birthday...he requested a lego themed party and of course one of the main things he wanted was a lego shaped cake.  Its not my best work BUT I did what I could with the limited supplies I had.  Everyone enjoyed it!

Hope you do too!

I made the rounds with a cookie cutter and "dirty" iced them before forming the fondant over top.

I used the Plain Eggless cake recipe, an Italian buttercream, and fondant.

It has a few dents in it, thanks to my wonderful kids who couldn't stop touching it.....

"I'm just looking"

"Ya, with your fingers"

One of my favorite sayings "Look with your eyes, NOT your fingers"

Cheers!

THE Wedding.

A week or so ago we went back to BC for a wedding.  Boy was that fun! Can you hear the sarcasm?  Well the wedding itself was fun, the bride and groom sure threw one heck of a party!  It was the events leading up to the wedding that were crazy!

We had been in the new house for about a month when we had to go back to BC.  It was an expensive trip that honestly we could have done without, but since we gave our word we made it happen.   There's no doubt we could have used the 4000 elsewhere, but we had made commitments, Willow had asked me to make her wedding cake and DH was a groomsman in the bridal party.

So Since DH was working in The Fort, we got to drive to Qtown, whereas I had the pleasure of flying with all for boys across the country, TWICE!  Boy was that a challenge.  Its amazing how many people think you are a super hero for doing that and while I appreciate the sentiment, it's still a very irritating venture.  One that had to be done whether it was alone or with help.

The Kids were so excited to fly...their first time on a plane, (and their last with me for a very long time, lol).  Security in the airport was a gong show.  I thought going through security by myself was crazy....try travelling with kids.  They search and test everything!   Like I, a mother travelling with 4 children, is gonna highjack the plane and crash it....I have enough to contend with without adding to the pile.

The Baby ended up getting an ear infection from the trip and even though he was sick he was a pretty easy traveller.  I on the other hand lost a boarding pass after going through security and left my wallet on a plane.  Thankfully it was the last one and they managed to find it and put it in lost an found for me.  I swear I'd loose my head if it wasn't attached.  I'm forever loosing things and was very glad I didn't leave a kid behind somewhere. lol


We arrived safe and sound in Qtown, and thats when the pre wedding craziness started.  It took me 3 days to make the cake and it was pretty ambitious.  I thought for sure I would get to visit with the DH, since I hadn't seen him in a while, but alas, cake had to come first.  To the disappointment of both of us, (to top it of I was having that girly thing we have every month, LIKE COME ON!!! lol)  The first day we made a run to Prince to get some cake supplies, 200 bucks later, we arrive back to moms an I started the roses all hand mae and all edible.  It took me two days to make 20 roses.  Then here was the cake, the icing, the edible hand painted lace, then putting it all together.  THEN I found out that it all had to be done by the 30th, when I had originally been told the wedding was on the 31st.  So frustrating.  But the cake turned out fabulous an I assume everyone enjoyed it.

I sorta left before they did the cake cutting....I couldn't bear to see it cut into and boy was I glad I didn't stay!  You know the part when the bride and groom feed each other cake and someone ends up smooshing it into the others face....well this turned into an all out food fight.  WITH THE CAKE!!!!  That I spent 3 days FREAKING MAKING!!!!  I was not impressed.  But of course I had to laugh and smile and say thats funny BLAH BLAH FREAKING BLAH, all the while I wanna cry.  All that work demolished!  I'm pretty sure nobody ate the cake and if I knew it was gonna be like that I would not have spent all that time making sure it was edible and pretty.  I felt like it was a complete waste of my time, the 4 grand it took to fly us there and a slap in the face.  I will never waste my time and energy in stressing out over something like that again.  I can understand having to cut the cake and eat it...it's inevitable, BUT A food fight!  COME ON!!!!

Finally!  Its feels to good to let that out.  It's been pent up inside since the wedding.

The Cake Project Part 3....

WOW!  So have I ever been lazy at writing in my blog! 

Well I did finially get the Louis Vuitton cake finished and it turned out fantastic!  It took a couple of hours to hand paint the pattern and form the accessories, but it turned out better than I expected!  I have another commission for the same cake for another lady for the end of the month.

The Cake Project

So a friend of mine wants to comission me to make a cake for her for a friends birthday and I accepted. I love a challenge and this is definately a challenge. I'll post the progress here.


THE CHALLENGE:

To make an eggless cake with rolled rondant in the shape of a Luis Vuitton purse AND have accessories to go with it also made outta fondant.

Oh and it has to be done by the 20th of February! You wonder "How is she gonna make a Luis Vuitton cake while taking care of 4 boys, going to the gym, keeping up the house and doing errands? Will she EVER sleep?"

Fear Not my young deciples! I, the Master of my Universe, will show you that it CAN be done!

I may go crazy a few times, but I will get it done.....LOL

Step 1: Find an eggless cake recipe that does not taste like crap! (oh I guess I forgot....Why an eggless cake? Because the lady whose birthday it is, is allergic to eggs and I don't realy like killing people. Its bad for business and friendship....VERY,VERY BAD!)

So In my quest to find the perfect and elusive eggless cake that tastes good I happened upon a few pages of recipes at http://www.allrecipes.com/.  I came across a recipe called Plain Eggless Cake. It had 91 reviews and a 4/12 of out 5 star rating. So I read through the reviews and since most of them sounded quite positive, I thought, what the hell lets try it.

So I printed off the recipe and read the ingregient list and thought orange juice? in a cake? Hmmmmm. Okay I'll roll with it. Here's the recipe....

Plain Eggless Cake

2 1/2 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk

1 cup orange juice

1 cup melted butter

2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees C. Grease and flour a 9x13 cake pan

2. Combine flour, baking powder and baking soda together and then make a well in the center. Add condensed milk, orange juice, vanilla, and melted butter. Mix until batter is smooth. Pour into the cake pan and put in oven for 30 to 40 minutes.

In all the while that I have been making cakes I have had yet to find a scratch cake that could measure up to the box cakes in the store. The scratch ones were always either to heavy, to crumbly, to gross tasting, to labour intensive and tricky, to this, to that, etc, etc. But I can't believe how easy this was to make.

The trick in this batter, and it's such an easy trick that we learned when we made volcanoes explode, is that the acid from the orange juice mixed with the baking soda creates a chemical reaction that makes bubbles form in the batter. This is why it is so fluffy and light. OMG, How incredibly simple is that! It just astounds me!

Look at all those holes!!!!!



My next experiment is to take out say 1/3 cup of flour and replace it with cocoa powder to make a chocolate cake, but that will be for another time.

EDIT: I have made this cake a billion times now, and I have made a few changes to the recipe.  I have cut the melted butter down to 1/2 cup and increased the orange juice to 1 1/2 cups in order to have the 2 cups of liquid.  I have also substituted oil for butter successfully.