A Baker's Heart: A Cake in the Life of Sydney

Hellooooo! I've been away for so long! Well, I've been here I just haven't gotten around to posting anything for a loooong time. My apologies. Please forgive me. Okay cool, thanks.

So what have I been up to lately, you ask. Well let me just tell you. I've been working, studying for exams which start tomorrow, filling out papers for summer camp, baking (or course), and just enjoying life. Yes, that's about all. Now some of those are wonderful, some not so much, but I take what I can get: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

But let's talk about the good...because the good is good and good is good. Baking! Baking is always good. For my French exam this year I made a cake. Awesome right?! I know. Well...we had to present a biography and that was about the only restrictions on it. And since I bake (obviously), I figured a cake biography was appropriate, and fun!

Here she is! I'm pretty proud of this here beauty. It was pretty simple but it took FOREVER! And patience is a virtue I lack. But I got through it. And was it ever worth it! Now because sometimes, rarely, but sometimes, I think ahead..I took pictures of the process so I could make a tutorial for you! You're welcome :)

So let's talk about the inside of this cake. Looks pretty basic from the outside, but don't be fooled! Okay well you probably are...but take my word for it that it's not basic on the inside! I was experimenting with some cake stuff and found this method to make zebra print cake. And it worked! Score! And this is just how I did it.

These are actually test cakes prior to the real thing

Super easy! Okay so basically make a white cake and split the batter in half in two separate bowls and then color one (or both) halves whatever color you want.

After prepping your cake pans, I just grease and flour but do what you do, start by dropping a glob of batter in the middle of the pan. And then alternate between the two colors. Depending on the consistency of your batter you may have to shake the pan to spread out the batter.

Keep dropping the colors until you fill the pans as much you normally do, I did about 3/4 full.

And that's that!

Proceed with baking as the recipe calls for.

I wanted to share these pictures just for those of you who don't bake, to put somethings into perspective.

Us who bake know that the end result is usually beautiful and people "oohh" and "aahh" over what we make. But it doesn't begin that way. The picture above is what my cake looked like after I stacked it and after my dirty icing was done. Crap, yes it looks like crap. But after hours of work, it will look spectacular. I just don't think people appreciate how much work goes into cake decorating. Now I'm no professional and I don't make a living doing this, but lots of people do. And it's a crazy skill they have developed and worked on just to spend hours making creations for other people. So next time you eat something that was made by someone else, take a second and thank them for the hours of work they put into it.

Okay that was my rant of the day. Now back to the cake.

While I was letting the icing set, I took time to draw on some fondant squares I had cut out the day before.

I tried to include everything that was important to my life. Things like family, friends, my pets, my work, Christianity, camp, education, and some of the places I've travelled to. I just used some food markers and royal icing to draw on each square.

After my cakes were iced, stacked and ready to go I just iced each square on around each tier and that was that.