Monday, August 27, 2012

And, Darling, You are my Sunshine

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending a gorgeous wedding of some friends. And as an added bonus they had asked me to make their wedding cake! You have no idea how terrified I was at that thought but figuring this was a great opportunity, I had to take it. And after months of fret and millions of wedding cake-making articles, the time finally arrived to begin creating my first all real wedding cake.

The colors for the wedding were a deep red and yellow, so for the cake the bride wanted white and yellow. The yellow was a last minute addition but I think it really brightened up the cake and gave it a pop of color.

It was a three tiered cake with each tier a different flavor of cake. Starting at the top and going down the cake, it was chocolate, carrot, and vanilla on the bottom. For the chocolate and vanilla I used my favorite recipes and the carrot was made with the bride's favorite recipe. As far as the frosting goes, it was vanilla buttercream all the way. For the frosting, I just piped with a #47 Wilton tip and went all around each tier.

 
And so was the finished product! I was and still am quite pleased with it. For a first, I think it is wonderful.
 
For the most part, everything went smoothly. I had a small scare with the carrot cake, but in the end it all worked out. The carrot cake has a habit to rise and then fall very drastically. So I just had to make a second cake to make up for the height lost from levelling the cake out.
 
 
It was smooth sailing for the set up as well. Well...I had a small anxiety attack in regards to the flowers not being at the venue when I was told they would be...but they got there eventually and I got them on the cake before the newly weds arrived.
 
 
So thus was my first real wedding cake journey...and t'was an exciting one.
 
 
One the best feelings in the world would have to be when people run up to your cake and start taking pictures of it...slightly nerve-racking, but exciting nonetheless.
 
Well, I'm home from camp for good now...and school starts next week! Eeeks! Who am I kidding, I couldn't be more excited to get back into the routine.
 
Well I hope you had a superb Monday and have a great rest of your week.
 
Until we meet again,
Sydney :)

Friday, August 17, 2012

Love and be Loved

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, CHELSEA & DANNY!


So...this happened on Tuesday, while Chels and Danny were at work. Ha, Surprise! :) For those of you who do not know, Chelsea is my older sister and she got married last August, making this past Tuesday her first anniversary! Yay.


This also happened....beautiful, hey? Me and mom thought so! But I'm not ALL mean! I made cake too...therefore making me a nice sister!

My original plan was to remake the top tier of their wedding cake. It was just a dummy cake but the icing has yellowed and it was kinda gross looking.


This is their wedding cake from last year and they had saved the top tier. So after multiple hours spent between my mother and I, we finally chipped the topper off the royal icing. And then I decided to remake it with real cake instead.

 And then after I started making it I decided that I would just make a whole new cake. Who wants the same cake, twice? And my creative juices were just flowing!


Hello, anniversary cake! I used their cake topper and the same Lemon poppy seed cake recipe that they had at their wedding. And other than that, I flew by the seat of my pants. Pyjama pants...but whatever.

My tactic for this one was "grab a tip and go." Let me explain: you reach into your icing tip set, grab a random tip, and start piping! And it turned out quite lovely.


I worked with the #47 tip and just created some ruffle-type stuff. And that there, folks, was the most professional line I've ever written on this blog. Ha, sorry I'm tired! But anywhoooo:

The cake was pretty good, well I didn't try this one...but last summer it was! So I just assumed this one tasted the same. And with that said, I shall give you the recipe!

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake

  • 2 1/4 cups flour
  • 1 1/8 cup white sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 tbsp lemon zest (I used 3 lemons)
  • 4 1/2 tbsp poppy seeds
  • 1 1/3 cups butter
  • 5 eggs
*Pre-heat oven to 350..
*The recipe calls for a 9x13 loaf pan, but I used a 6" round with a 3" height...so a normal 8" pan would work
*Beat together flour, sugar, salt
*Mix in the lemon zest, poppy seeds and butter
*add eggs one at a time
*Pour into prepared pan and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes (I found that the time varies greatly depending on the pan..so check it often and use your nose)

The End!

Try it out, if ya wanna! You won't be let down, I promise!

Well my wedding cake progress is quite lovely! I just have to assemble and add flowers tomorrow before the reception! Here's a sneak peak at what the tiers look like!


3 tiers, 3 flavors, 2 colors, 1 design. Yes I am quite pleased with this.

The wedding's tomorrow so I shall post pictures afterwards some time. The cake will be decorated with some real flowers to match the bride's flowers. So excited!

Well that's all the time we have for today, folks. Join me next time as i take you through my very first wedding cake journey!

Have a gooder,
Sydney :)

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

A Swag here, A Swag there

I have to tell you guys a secret, but you have to promise to not tell anyone!

Okay...so cupcakes have always been my thing but I think I'm starting to like cake more. *gasp* I know, how could I betray cupcakes like that?! Well I still think cupcakes are fabulous but cakes are just as wonderful...if not a touch more. But that's just my opinion at the moment.

August 10th: My Father's birthday! So cake it is! As some of you know, I'm making a wedding cake for Saturday so I needed to do a practise run with one of the recipes and that is just what I did. One of the tiers for the wedding cake is a carrot cake so that is what my Dad's birthday cake was. It was just so convenient that he likes carrot cake! So everyone wins in this situation.

I have an obsession with swagging...not like swag...I don't fully understand "swag" but I do get swagging. And I love it to death! It's so easy and it always looks nice! So swagging is what I did! And I also have a weakness for HUGE icing tips...Hence the huge border I put on this cake, slightly over sized, but bigger is better right?



I just used buttercream icing and colored it to whatever colors I desired. Super simple but I thought it turned out quite nice.

I also thought you guys, as my readers, should see what kind of a pig sty I decorate cakes in. This picture here is after I cleaned up for a good half hour....but I like it that way. Everything is within an arms reach so I don't have to run around to find stuff.


Nothing fancy, just a nice birthday cake for a great dad!



Well I don't have much to say today, just some pictures for your beautiful eyes to examine. I have a wedding anniversary cake done too, so as soon as I get that post done I'll share it with ya, I promise.

Take care and enjoy the last few weeks of summer,
Sydney

Thursday, August 02, 2012

Cupburgers...Hamburcakes...Hamcakers...

Good day, y'all! A good day indeed. Can you believe that summer is half way over already? That's crazy! But it has been wonderful thus far and I only expect it to get even better! I haven't really had time for much baking but I'm not complaining...I've been pretty occupied with other stuff.

I've been working at Winkler Bible Camp and it has been a party, let me tell you! There's so much awesome stuff going on at camp I don't even know how to explain it! To sum it up: God is just so sweet. Over the week and the weekend camp I helped out with, five of my campers became Christians!!! FIVE! It was so amazing! All my girls have been super sweet and really obedient, I had zero issues in my cabin.

Ya, so I've just been chillin with my awesome campers and a bunch of super cool staff. Needless to say, I haven't had time to miss baking. But now that I'm home for a few weeks I thought I would get back on it.

And that I did.

Hamburger anyone?


Yaa....that's a cupcake. But it looks like a hamburger? Ya it is! BAM!

I've been itching to make these guys and were they ever a blast to make. Okay, I guess that depends on your definition of a blast. If your definition of a blast doesn't include two hours of baking, another hour of dishes and a kitchen that looks like a bomb just exploded....then I can't help you. But for cereal, these are great.

So how does one make a cupcake hamburger? Well you start with some ground beef...no just jokes, don't do that! Maybe try making some brownies first!

I just halved my brownie recipe because you don't need much. And I spread it out in a cookie sheet because you want it to be pretty thin.

Then whip up some vanilla cupcakes. I added some yellow food coloring and used wholewheat flour to make them look more "bread" like.


I used silicon liners for my cupcakes because you won't need to worry about a decorative liner and they're easier to clean than baking directly in the pan.

And that's it for the baking part of it. Now the real fun begins! Okay so first you want to wait until both the brownies and the cupcakes are cooled. And after that the fun can begin!

As far as icing goes, I stuck with my favorite vanilla butter cream and colored it with Wilton Gel Colors. Green for lettuce, red for Ketchup, and or course yellow for mustard.


The best part of these cupcakes is that they're part of the "no tip" icing family. What does that mean, you ask. Well let me explain. When you use an icing bag you usually use a tip and a coupler. Now these two things are wonderful, but man are they hard to clean. So "no tip" decorating is when you don't use either of these things. Which means less dishes!


So just fill the bag and snip off the ends. I gave the "lettuce" a bigger hole just because I wanted to make sure it looked different than the other condiments.

I hope you all appreciate the extra work I put into making you a step-by-step tutorial on how I did this. And now you have no excuse to not try it out yourself!

Alright, after your cakes are cooled you can begin to assemble the hamburgers! Now is the time you'll want to cut each "patty." I used a two inch round cookie cutter to cut the brownie up.

Then grab a knife and cut each cupcake in half, to create the top and bottom of each "bun."


Take one of the "patties" and place it on the "bottom bun." I put a small dollop of icing under it just to make it more secure.


Now it really doesn't matter what order you do the "condiments" in, I just grabbed a bag and went with it. So taking one of the bags, pipe a sloppy line around the outside of the burger.


Get the next bag and do the same thing.


The only thing is to make sure that the "lettuce" is different than the others. I made it more squiggly and thicker.


Alright, so grab the "top bun" and use a food-safe paintbrush to rub a little bit of water on the middle. Then sprinkle some course sugar on it, to look like the sesame seeds. You could omit this step, I just thought it made them look more realistic.


And lastly, place the "top bun" on the burger and you're good to go!

 These are so much fun for a BBQ or a camping trip!


And that concludes my picture tutorial for the Hamburger Cupcake! I had so much fun with them. I'll warn you though, you might not want to eat them afterwards because they're so stinkin' cute!!

Well I'm off to plan some last minute details for a wedding cake! Woohoo! Ya man. So anywho, you have yourself a good day and we'll be in touch again soon!

-Sydney
:D