31st of October Birthday Cake

Last night, I made my special chocolate cake for one of my Husband's colleagues at work, who was celebrating his birthday. The reason why I call it my "special chocolate cake" is because some time earlier this year, (like I always do) I decided to try out a new recipe for chocolate cake. It turned out to be one of the best best chocolate cakes I had ever had (I'm not kidding). We had too much cake left at home, so I told my husband to take the rest of it to work and offer it to his colleagues. Much to my surprise, he called me and told me that one of his colleagues loved the cake so much that she wanted to order one for one of her friends who was going to celebrate her birthday in just a few days.The great news is that the cake was a hit and one of his colleagues even said that he normally does not like cake, but this cake was very delicious. 

This chocolate cake has now become one of my signature cakes and I was privileged to bake another one. (pictures below) 

It is a dark chocolate cake frosted with whipped chocolate ganache and decorated with two daisies. 

If you like chocolate, you will definitely love his cake. 

Professional Cake Decorating Class

Last month my family and I traveled all the way to Darien, IL and took a class called "Professional cake decorating by Colette Peters" at the Wilton school. In all my years that I have spent in school, this was the most fun I had ever had. I honestly did not want to stop, but I believe that a time will come when I will be able to not only go to school full time, but also be able to bake and decorate on a full time basis, Lord willingly. 

Not only did I meet with people who came from different parts of the world just to take this course, but I also learnt a lot from Colette Peters who has been in this business for so many years. It was a joy and a wonderful experience. I know and understand that the only way you can improve and be the best you can be is to also learn from the best. 

Below is are a few pictures of the 3 tiered cake I decorated. 

Fyi, this was not an edible cake, just a dummy cake which I still am in possession of and have kept and preserved.

3 tiered cake from my professional cake decorating class

Oriental Peony

Roses

Orchid, Stephanotis

3D Birthday Car Cakes

I just realized that it's been a very long time since I posted anything.  With many other activities going on, it feels really good to be back. I had a pretty huge project a couple of weeks ago, and that was to make two car cakes for my dear nephew and niece (brother & sister). 

The idea was to make the cakes shaped into the color of a toy that they enjoy playing with. Interesting enough, they both love cars. It was a very interesting experience, very time consuming because there is so much detail that goes into making a custom 3D shaped cake, that's why it's always good to plan.

Both cakes were marble flavor and filled with traditional butter cream then covered and decorated them with marshmallow fondant. The wheels were all made from rice crispy treats. I found a really good recipe on the cakejournal website. As always, whenever you do something for the very first time, you always come away with ideas on how to you will do things differently the next time around. It was a lot fun and I was pretty impressed with my work. 

Colorful Ribbon Rose Cake

For some time now I had been meaning to bake a cake and decorate it all with fondant to put some of my skills to work and try a few things out. I must say that I am pretty impressed with the turnout of the cake. It is very colorful, beautiful and attractive to the eye.

 

 I baked and covered the cake in marshmallow fondant. Marshmallow fondant is an easy fondant (sugar paste) made of mini marshmallows, water and confectioner's sugar. The cake topper made of fondant ribbon roses. They very simple to make, yet time consuming especially since I covered the entire top of the cake with them. I'll make sure to come up with a tutorial on ribbon roses some time in the near future.

My Husband, as always thought it was a very good effort i put in to produce something like this and more importantly, enjoyed the cake. My daughter is not yet old enough to eat cake, but it will great when she can join him and taste some of Mommy's delicious baked goodies :)

Surprise Birthday Cake

This cake below was for a surprise party we had for my Pastor & Spiritual father. Praise God we were able to pull it off, without him finding out before the surprise moment. There was no better idea to come up with, than to make a cake that was shaped like a bible and top it up with an image of an eagle. His favorite animal in the whole wide world is the Eagle and everyone who knows him or has heard him preach would know.

This bible cake is a strawberry cake filled with strawberry butter cream and iced with blue Swiss Meringue Butter cream. I placed two edible images; on the right is the image of an Eagle and the scripture that goes with it and on the left hand side is the Happy Birthday message. The bible marker and the borders of the pages were all made using colored fondant which I then brushed with a combination of brown shimmer dust & gold luster dust.

 

The cake was a major hit at the party. There were a few things I would probably change the next time around I make another bible cake. Stay Tuned!!

Steak & Onion Pies

 I remember when I was in high school back in Zimbabwe, the minute the bell rang for lunch break we would run to the tuck shop (snack shop) to make sure we would get some pies before they ran out. Believe me, when I say that if you got there 10 min after break had started, you would not get anything. This goes to show just how good they were. I've never had pies as good as those, ever in my life.

I made my own version of steak & onion pies and I must say that I was pretty impressed with the turnout, My pies are not as large as the ones we grew up eating, that is because I utilized what I had in my kitchen as best as I could.The pastry was flaky and very nice and the the meat filling tasted just the way I remember it.

I made my own version of steak & onion pies and I must say that I was pretty impressed with the turnout, My pies are not as large as the ones we grew up eating, that is because I utilized what I had in my kitchen as best as I could.The pastry was flaky and very nice and the the meat filling tasted very, very good. 

1st Birthday Cake

I made this number one shaped birthday cake for my nephew Josiah who turned one in the month of February. It was a marble flavored cake filled with Swiss meringue butter cream and iced with chocolate butter cream. Instead of piping a border I thought it would be creative to use M&Ms to make it look very colorful. The border was a perfect match for the candle display which says "HAPPY BIRTHDAY". 

It was pretty labor intensive, but I  really enjoyed baking and decorating this cake and it was very delicious too