Friday, November 30, 2012

Once a Princess, Always a Princess

Tutorial Alert! I've been wanting to get to this one for a while now, but life happened and I got caught up in various things. So here I am now, and I am still very excited about this cake!

The background of the cake you ask? Well one of my co-workers asked me to make a "girly" cake for her sisters, one of my previous youth leaders, daughter's dedication. Not gonna lie, "girly" was a hard theme to narrow down! I literally spent hours just thinking of all the possibilities. But finally I decided upon this here cake:


I did a similar design on a previous cake made for no occasion in particular. But absent minded me forgot to take pictures of the process and therefore I never made a tutorial. Does anyone even try my tutorials? Hmm...who knows. Either way, I appreciate you taking time out of your day to read this,

What does one need to make a cake like this...what shall I call it? Fish scale-type cake...or something like that. Well it's pretty simple actually:
  • Cake to be decorated (mine here are two 8" round vanilla cakes)
  • Icing in the color of your choice
  • Icing bag(s)
  • Large round tip and coupler
  • A spoon or offset spatula (either will work)
  • Patience!!!
So start with the usual, you know things like fill your icing bag and stuff. For this cake I didn't crumb coat it but if you want a thinker layer of icing than go for it.

Alright, let's begin. Take you icing bag and pipe a dot on the bottom edge of the cake.

With the back of your spoon (or spatula) flatten the dot, pulling slightly to the right


Pipe the next dot on the tail of the previous one. Continue going around the cake until the first layer is completed.

Once you get to your starting point, your dot may be squished and kinda ugly, but once the whole cake is done I promise you won't even notice it.


The top is the same idea just with a slightly different angle. When you get to the middle, add a few dots in the centre to fill it in completely.


That's about all, I believe. Now the ombre coloring is totally optional, I just thought it was
super girly. And for that, I shall share my action plan:

So  basically make your icing and add a very small amount of whatever color you are using. Pipe the first row around the bottom of the cake and empty your icing bag into the remaining icing in your mixing bowl. Add a few more drops of the color until you notice a subtle difference. Re-fill the bag and do the next row. Continue this until you finish the cake.

Near the end of this, I had a really hard time darkening the pink so I added a few drops of red to make it different.

And that folks, is how your make a ...fish scale...cake. I really need to come up with a more creative name for this.

Thanks for joining me here on this lovely Friday evening.

Stay warm,
Sydney :)

Friday, November 09, 2012

Forget Love, I'd Rather Fall in Chocolate

Well Halloween has come and gone once again, and just like every year...my participation was limited to baking. How can one not bake when pumpkins and ghosts are in season? That only has the potential to be the cutest thing ever baked..well maybe not, but pretty close.
 
Well regardless, my third annual Halloween-baking-for-my-classes continued into my final year of high school. Once again, it's the days I bring baking that you would never believe how many people wish they were my friend...and the main reason people like me is revealed!
 

Just as a catch-up, since I haven't been blogging for the last three years, these are my past (and most recent) pumpkin themed desserts. I have to say, my first ones (the bottom left) are still my favourite. I literally spent days making each little pumpkin and giving them all different expressions.

This year, since I was feeling so adventurous, I did some pumpkins AND some ghosts. I'm brave like that.


I call this picture "Ghosts in the Pumpkin Patch." So if one day I die (which according to science, is inevitable) I'm requesting that this picture be printed and hung in a museum somewhere near the Mona Lisa. I'm trusting you, my faithful readers, to take care of that. Please and thank you.


These pumpkin guys, I must admit are not my design. I saw them somewhere and I cannot for the life of me remember which site it was! But nonetheless, I loved the idea and adapted it to my own use.

I used the #70 leaf tip for the orange part; starting from the outside of the cupcake and working my way to the middle.
For the green leafy p
arts, I used the #66 leaf tip, just slightly smaller than the one used for the orange-ness.


These guys are great. Not to throw my own parade, but they are adorable. Let's be honest.

And not only are they just the cutest, but also the easiest to make!

Yes, it's the whole deal, folks.

Take y'er  #12 big circle tip..ha forget that. Cut the end of a piping bag and don't even dirty a tip! Self-proclaimed laziest baker on earth, right here.


Okay so now you're wondering why after posting a picture of four different ghost guys, this cupcake gets it's own picture. Well let me tell you! THEY'RE TWINS! Twin ghosts. Ghost twins. Ha, I thought they were extra cute because there's two of them on one cupcake. Like double the cuteness.

Well even though Halloween was over a week ago, I still felt the need to do a Halloween post.

So that was it.

Boo.

Happy Halloween!
Sydney