Sweet Escape Baking

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My 1st Wedding Cake

Aug 23

Posted by admin in Cakes, Uncategorized, baking | 1 Comment

Isn’t it beautiful?

Inside is white cake with vanilla frosting and raspberry jam. The tiers are 14″, 10″, and 6″ from top to bottom respectively. Cupcakes are white cupcakes, filled with raspberry jam, topped with vanilla frosting and a special fondant decoration.

Creating this cake was so much fun thanks to my new assistant, my tadpole Kristall, who helped me with all of the details the day before the wedding. I also figured out some new tricks while making this cake that will definitely help me in the future.

First of all, kneading the fondant before rolling it really makes a difference. When I covered the middle and top tier and realized how much smoother and shinier the fondant became because I had kneaded, I ripped off the fondant on the bottom tier and started all over (crazy, I know!). I still didn’t get the tier perfect, I’m not sure exactly how to perfectly cover such a big tier, but the decorations were enough to hide any imperfections.

Next, with the help of my tadpole, I began using my diamond quilting marker to put the diamond patterns along the edges of the top and bottom tiers. This took patience….I’m not always so good with my patience. I then went over each mark with an mini-pizza cutter type instrument that I clearly don’t know the real name for.

Kristall was responsible for all the silver dragees/balls, then came the ribbon and we were done and onto our next cakes, an engagement cake for my stepbrother and a personal cake for Kristall.

The cake was stacked at the location, because a. cake is heavy and b. I was not driving a 3-tier cake on my lap through the Bronx, pothole central.

Oh! One last thing. Congratulations to the bridge and groom, Rosalie and Pedro on their exciting new life together.

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Happy Birthday to ME!

Jul 27

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Last year I wondered if it was normal to make yourself a birthday cake, and then I made two. This year I restrained myself and only made one.

The cake is marble and has chocolate fudge frosting. I used left over frosting from the baby shower cake I created the same weekend as my birthday, which I dyed to purple. I recently got a brand new cupcake cookie cutter that I finally found a use for. I used the same technique as the onesies on the shower cake, and rolled different colors of fondant into the white to create sprinkles, as well as the striped letter for the “Happy Birthday!”

For now, I think making your own birthday cake is okay, I’m hoping it doesn’t go farther than that in the future (i.e. my own wedding cake, or baby shower cake) ;)

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Welcome Baby!

Jul 27

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Having no job during the summer really allows any cakes I have the opportunity to create to get my full attention. I worked very hard on the details of this cake to create a great baby shower experience for a friend. The first layer of the cake is red velvet with cream cheese frosting, and the top is yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Yum!

I am really satisfied with the overall cake but extremely unsatisfied with the bow. Despite making a bow two days ahead, then remaking it, the humidity in the air refused to let the fondant dry out accordingly and I got two droopy bows. Next time, I think I will do the bow farther ahead of time to give adequate time for it to dry.

The bottles and onesies came out great. I molded the bottles myself and created placards for them to sit on with my fluted cookie cutters. For the onesies, I created a template from cardboard that I then cut around to create the shapes. To get the stripes, I rolled different colors of fondant together, which is my new favorite technique!

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Foofa Cake

Jan 30

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cake_top

This week I created a cake designed around the character Foofa from Yo Gabba Gabba. I created the character out of marshmallow treats and modeling chocolate.
I made the marshmallow treats and modeling chocolate from scratch. The modeling chocolate was not the right consistency and that caused some problems, including getting the character as smooth as possible and making the arms look normal. I will buy the chocolate recommended by Chris Rossum and his team from my class at the NY Cake Convention to see if it makes a difference.

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The cake is red velvet with cream cheese frosting. I covered it in white fondant and decorated with flowers and butterflies. Overall, I think it turned out great.

I’m looking into taking Wilton classes at my local Michael’s because I want to get the techniques a little more perfected, specifically getting my cakes to lay flat when I tier them.

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A Lucky 30th

Aug 12

Posted by alissa in Cakes, baking | 2 Comments

finalcake
The boy’s big brother had a milestone birthday last weekend and I had yet another chance to try my skills at cake making.
A set of dice was requested because of an upcoming trip to Atlantic City. I got to thinking, and was excited to make a cake that represented something fun and playful.

An exciting trip to the cake decorating store with Shirlene and Luka (I’m determined to make his first work “cake”) ended with already dyed red fondant and some really cool chocolate molds.
The next day I got to work with the assistance of Alicia, who was interested in seeing how a cake was put together after I made her this. We rolled, molded, cut, and generally just made a mess out of my kitchen.
Lately, I’ve been watching a lot of cake shows on TV (Cake BossandAmazing Wedding Cakes) and have noticed that after they crumb coat the cake they use a pastry bag, or ziploc in my case, to add an even layer of frosting around the edges. After trying this on the last two cakes I have made I have found that it makes covering the cakes easier and allows a bigger buffer zone between the fondant and the cake. Anyway, who doesn’t love extra icing.frosting
fondantrolled
I seemed to have a lot of trouble with the red fondant. At times it was too soft and I would stick my fingers through, other times it was too dry and it would crack. Does anyone have similar problems with pre-colored red fondant?

We finally managed to cover the cakes (one was a mess, but strategically placed chocolate playing cards helped) and decorate with molded chocolate.
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Overall it was a success. Especially the eating part of the cake. Chocolate Sheet cake from Cooks Illustrated and Cream Cheese Frosting with chocolate chips. I think that combination is my new go-to when making any cake.
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Lastly, I have to thank Alicia for the awesome photos! I’m going to have to invite her over more often so I can get more pictures of the process, however messy it might be.

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