Buttercream: Why They Invented Fondant

So, admittedly this cake is pretty horrendous. Buttercream is next to impossible to make smooth (especially when you don't have the correct tool, OR enough icing... I had neither). I just wanted to make a completely buttercream cake because I hadn't tried it yet. It wasn't easy, and it came out looking like... well, you've seen the pictures. But hey, it was my first try. I'm sure I'll get better with practice. The only good part of this cake is I got to use the candy pearls that Eamonn and Laura gave me :)

Laura's Baby Shower!

Laura, my sister-in-law, had her baby shower yesterday. She and my brother are expecting their first baby (a boy!) in the beginning of February!! Everybody's soooo excited and we can't wait for him to get here! In the meantime, I made the cake for the shower. I got the design idea from a rubber stamp that my mom has (which is actually what the little topper is made from). I thought the clothesline idea was different and REALLY cute. It didn't come out as perfectly as I wanted it to, but isn't that always the case? Anyway, my sister, Alison, gave me a BIG assist on this one by helping me cut the little clothes out of fondant and making the topper, so thanks Al!! Its pound cake again (and it probably will be pound cake forever, unless the person its for wants something different. Pound cake is GLORIOUS) with vanilla buttercream. I got a TON of cake stuff for Christmas, including a silicone roling mat, a silicone rolling pin, and an AWESOME tool carrier, so I had a great time playing with all of it!

Everyone at the shower seemed to really like the cake, the only problem was carrying it 3 blocks from our parking spot to the restaurant. The shower was in Hoboken, so I was afraid Buddy Valastro was gonna walk by and point out all of its flaws. Luckily that didn't happen :)

Congratulations Eamonn and Laura!! Can't wait to meet the Little Nipper!

Happy Birthday Mrs. H!!!

I made this cake for my boyfriend Jay's mom's birthday, which is today. Happy Birthday Mrs. Hribar!! I really wanted to use some of the fondant shape cutters that I got for my birthday, so I thought this would be a good opportunity. I decided on the daisies because they're a little more sophisticated than the "funny flower" shape cutters that I have (and love). Also, this was the first time I got to use my pearl dust, which you can see best in the closeup picture. I laughed a bit cuz I thought it made the cake look like Edward Cullen's skin, which worked out great cuz Mrs. H is a HUGE Twilight fan. Unfortunately when I was putting it into the box I was transporting it in, I smushed the letters on the top. I felt like an such a moron. The rest of it was fine and you could definitely still read what it said, but it was stupid nonetheless. So, here is what your cake was SUPPOSED to look like Mrs. Hribar :) Hope you had a great birthday!!

In other (good) news, I just got asked to make the cake (well, cupcakes) for my Aunt's neighborhood's holiday party, aaaaaannnnddd they're paying me!! (so does that make me a professional??) Very exciting stuff! I feel like a legitimate cake decorator now! Bring on The Food Network!

Gobble Gobble

Here's my Thanksgiving cake! As simple as it looks, I nearly threw myself into oncoming traffic on several occasions while making it. I only have an 8 inch square pan, so i just trimmed an inch off each side of an 8 inch cake to make the top layer. MISTAKE. the sides were too weak to hold the buttercream and I wanted to stab myself with my (incredibly blunt) icing spatula. Good news, though, is that I got to use a TON of my birthday presents! I used my turntable (thanks Tommy and Monica!) my leaf icing tips (thanks Aunt Peggy!) my aforementioned icing spatula (thanks Alison!) my cake lifter (thanks Mom and Dad!) and my new apron and disposable pastry bags (thanks Mr. and Mrs. Hribar!)
It also took me the better part of forever to figure out how to make leaves that weren't square. Guess I just have to practice though. And God help me I will one day make a rose as fast and as beautiful as Buddy Valastro .

Happy Birthday Mom!! (aka, Mom's Birthday Cake Part 2)

It is FINALLY done. If you look at the time stamp on this post you'll see that its late, and I'm very tired. It took me somewhere in the realm of 10 hours to make this cake, but I actually finished it. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!! The cake is chocolate chip with buttercream filling. I have NO clue who's gonna eat this massive amount of cake, but I really wanted to try a cake with taller tiers as they're much better to decorate because of all of

the surface area. Its a little bumpy and lumpy, but I'm hoping that will be remedied when I get the right tools for trimming the cakes and smoothing the icing. We'll see though, I could just be a lumpy cake maker.

Until then, though, I hope you all like my newest cake (especially you, Mom! Happy Birthday!)

Happy Halloween!!

SO. I went to the store and finally bought myself a 10 inch and a 6 inch round baking pan. Henceforth, my first 3 tier cake and the biggest cake to date. This was also my first experience with modeling chocolate, which I made myself. I made the pumpkins and the grave stones out of it, but it gave me a bit of trouble because of how greasy it was. I guess I handled it too much or my hands were too hot, but I plan on fiddling around with the recipe a bit to see if I can remedy that, cuz it really is great to sculpt with.

Another mistake I made was making the ghosts out of buttercream instead of fondant. They're way too messy and I wasn't too happy with it. What I WAS happy with, however, was my zombie hand coming out of the ground. I thought it was a decent touch :) I was also happy with how the "grass" came out. I think it looks sort of spooky in a way.

A mistake my mom and dad made when trying to eat it was cutting into the bottom tier first. Its 3/4 of the way eaten, but whats left is having some stability issues because of their rookie move. Way to go mom and dad. Mom, your birthday cake is next, so remember this: EAT THE TOP TIER FIRST!

Gettysburg Alumni Weekend 2009

The weekend of October 17th was Alumni Weekend at my alma mater, Gettysburg College. I'm so glad I got to go and see all my friends from school and hang out like we used to. I missed those clowns.

I wanted to make something special for the occasion, and that resulted in my very first tiered cake! I saw the argyle design on a cake once and I wanted to try it out myself. It didn't come out perfectly, but I thought it was cute nonetheless. The top tier is yellow cake with buttercream filling and the bottom is chocolate with buttercream. The "Alumni Weekend '09" sign was my first attempt at lettering, so it's pretty poor but it got the message across. This was ALSO my first time coloring fondant and it was a pain in the butt. It took forever and my hands hurt for days after. I used liquid food coloring, which was a mistake. ALWAYS use gel. Lesson learned. The G on top is one of Gettysburg's logos (my favorite) and I wanted it to be standing up on top of the cake, but it wasn't strong enough to stand on its own nor did I have the structural supports to help it.

All my friends at Gburg seemed to really like it though! Thanks guys!

My First Cake

This is the first cake that I ever decorated using rolled fondant. I made it after the Phillies clinched a spot in the playoffs, but we could all REALLY use this cake tomorrow night for game 6 of the World Series. GO PHILS.

It's a chocolate cake with buttercream filling. The "P" is made out of gum paste, but everything else is rolled fondant. I made the fondant myself from a recipe on foodnetwork.com, but I added a little something to try to make it taste better, and it worked out pretty well.

Little tidbit about this cake... when I was cutting the P out of gum paste, I managed to cut through the several layers of parchment paper that was underneath it into the rolling mat thats been around way longer than I've been alive. So my mom's rolling mat is now a proud supporter of the Philadelphia Phillies for life.

My First Blog. I hope I don't sound like an idiot.

So, here I am, but more importantly, here are my cakes. I've started this blog so that my family and friends can see the cakes I've baked and decorated recently, butttt if a stranger stumbles across it and wants me to make them a cake and pay me for it, thats cool too.

I'm a novice at this. I've only been decorating cakes for the past few months, but I absolutely love it and I make a DELICIOUS batch of buttercream icing (if I do say so myself). I'm trying all kinds of techniques and different mediums: rolled fondant, modeling chocolate, royal icing, buttercream, painting, etc. I just bought my first rose nail (which was 99 cents, so jackpot) and piped the first thing I've ever piped that looks remotely floral. It was a proud day for me. I'm completely self-taught as of now, but I'm DYING to go to culinary school for pastry arts so I can really start a career with this.

So here we go. Every cake I make I'll be sure to add to the blog ASAP.

Hope ya like 'em!