Big, deep breath!

You know how you plan and plan for that one big day, say it's your wedding day... and all you can think, leading up to it, is Oh My God... if I can just through through THIS, I'll be all set. Well that was me with this week with the ginormous order I had. And another aspect I felt for the first time was similar to how they feel on the cake shows on tv... where they play up all this drama and will they get the cake finished in time for the event, and you think it's just for ratings, but oh no...  I felt this way on Thursday night and there ARE no ratings! LOL

I don't want to make it sound like I am complaining, not at all. It was a divine cake to work on, a testament to my skills.... if I could just do THIS, I can do anything. It was just a lot of pressure because it was going to be in a venue, and I'm working out of my tiny kitchen LOL!

So, I knew about this order roughly three months ago. When I broke it down, and there was simply no other way to work this cake, it was way more manageable. I like to have my cakes done the day before the due date, but that just was not possible this time around. The major reason was that I simply did not have the space to store them.

The cakes were a half slab each. I've done half slab cakes from home before, but not with fondant, and it's only been one cake, not two, such as the case this time around. I make a lot of cakes from mixes (sorry to spoil anyone's image of Denise's Custom Cakes) however, I have been slowly venturing out and making my own flavours from scratch, which I admit, is way more satisfying... so when I got this order, I panicked... but the web is a useful tool to the cake decorator!

The client wanted a red velvet and cream cheese cake for one of them... no problem, I already had a tried and true recipe for that. The other one sent me into panic mode, chocolate raspberry truffle... which sounded so decadent. Could I find something online for that? Could I make that and have it turn out well? Wow... and I would need to test the cake and have the client over for feedback. Big event, I wanted her to be SURE of the choice.

So I found 3 recipes online and went to work making it. I thought I would have to do several cakes, but I took one basic recipe, and just modified the icing and the filling... and made one cake into two different options. As posted last time, the testing was a success and the client was in awe... couldn't wait for the event!

So a week before the event, I had to get started. I had all the supplies and ingredients, and got to work on one of the hottest weekends we've had yet... but I paced myself by baking a cake or two each day. Then I took one evening after work and filled all the cakes and returned them to the freezer (any smart decorator knows that canvassing a cake is easier when it's frozen, and produces fewer crumbs!). The day of the pick-up was the day everything had to be put together and completed. Thank God my husband gave me a hand with mixing buttercream, cleanup and helping to shape the cakes by handcutting them. The cakes were being picked up at 9, and we were done at 8:45.

All the hard work paid off, she was enthralled and ecstatic with the results... and asked for business cards to hand out at the event. I am happy about that, but I can definitely wait for the next big one like that! LOL

So here is the final result of the cakes in their final resting place... I hope the party went well!

Do or Die!

Today marks the beginning of the biggest cake order I have to date and I'm freaking out! LOL I know I have the flavours down perfectly, the taste testing went amazingly well... but I want everything to be perfect and most of it needs to be put together RIGHT before pickup. No stress!

It's for a 40th birthday party and the cakes are absolutely stunning. I am sure I'm just freaking myself out but I can't help it!

Wish me luck... I have cakes to bake!

Stay sweet!
D

New & Improved... or is it just New or Improved? ;)

I had an awesome day yesterday! I have my biggest and most expensive cake order coming up, and well, folks, I have to admit, I was VERY intimidated by it. Two cakes, one being a flavour I have never made before, and the magnitude of this cake compared to everything else I've done thus far... wow.... scary! But I forged ahead, did some research and produced two versions of the cake for the client. She came over Wednesday evening to taste test them, and while she LOVED both, she picked one and went on her way.

So, I obviously had leftovers of the cakes, which I decided to bring in to work to share. My coworkers all know I bake, and I've sold cakes to many of them. When I began talking about this flavour though, I had them drooling... lol.. so I had to bring it in. Besides, the more I share, the less that ends up on my butt, right?

A repeat customer of mine tried it, and remembered that she wanted to ask me to do a shower cake for her daughter-in-law (how sweet, right?), and another co-worker reached over for a forkful and fell in love. Sometimes, it's hard taking compliments... especially after having some indifferent or negative people in your life, but it was so great to hear that my creation was not only liked by the client, but also by others, who placed orders! And it was merely by fluke, which makes it even better. I guess I have a bigger market at my fingertips than I thought!

So what was the flavour, right? Chocolate Raspberry Truffle. Yes, it's truly as divine as it sounds. I made my best chocolate cake recipe, and added 1/2 cup raspberry jam to the batter. I wasn't sure if it would be enough, and will be adding probably another 1/4 cup to the final cakes, because we wanted the flavour to be a bit more pronounced. It left a nice lingering chocolate raspberry aftertaste, a nice blend of flavours on the tongue.

After that was baked and cooled, I made a batch of chocolate buttercream. I cut each 8 inch cake in half, because I wanted to do two versions. I piped icing along the edges of the cake to hold the filling, which was a delicious raspberry mousse. I did this for both cakes.

Now here is where I switched things up, and they weren't major changes, but enough to make a difference. On one cake, I used straight chocolate buttercream to ice it. Left it at that.

On the other cake, I lightened up the buttercream by blending whipped cream into it to make it lighter and fluffier. But before I iced it, I melted some chocolate and drizzled it over the raspberry mousse filling. As it cooled, it would harden and give the cake a little chocolate crunch which would be the truffle part of the cake. Then I iced the cake with the lightened buttercream and I was done.

She chose the one with the melted chocolate in the filling, which also happened to be the cake I brought into work. :) What I thought was awesome was how the jam in the batter made the cake denser, richer and made it seem fancier. It would be something you might find in a restaurant.

Another great thing is now I have another flavour to add to Denise's Custom Cakes!

Have a great weekend and stay sweet!

D

Hiyas!

So... I've been pretty quiet lately, and thought I'd post a couple of pictures! My brother just celebrated his 27th birthday and in his honour, I baked cupcakes and invited him and his gf and her adorable daughter over.

These were delicious! I baked frozen mini Reese peanut butter cups in the center of chocolate cupcakes. I iced them with peanut butter icing and topped them with either mini Reese peanut butter cups or a combo of Reese's Pieces ( I had to hide them or hubby would have eaten them before I had a chance to use them!)


Three days later, it was my son's 12th birthday. I had been looking for ideas online for a couple of weeks and thought I had settled on a Scout's cake for him, but they looked pretty boring, so I checked out some ideas for camping and blew his mind!

I saw an idea online that involved a candle as a campfire.. and I thought it was ingenious! That was the cake for Tyler, for sure!

I baked a white cake the night before. I really should have done more the first night because the night of was busy, with us getting our taxes filed and ordering out for dinner (something we rarely do but I was starving and it was getting late, plus it would be a nice treat for his birthday!). At any rate... I set my husband on mixing and forming rocks out of dark gray fondant, while I took care of filling, canvassing, trimming and decorating the cake.

I took a sugar cone and did green drop flowers all over it, and placed it as a pine tree. I mixed piping gel with blue colourant to create a river and had my husband line it with fondant rocks. I coated two graham crackers with yellow icing and placed them like a tent in the background. My husband made a log out of brown and white fondant, and I put two mini marshmallows on pretzel sticks. He placed the fondant rocks around the tea light and we finished it with writing and rocks on the front.

Once the cake was baked, it took about an hour to finish it, between the two of us, and although it was a little late in the evening by the time we got to present it to him, the reaction was well worth it!

The birthday boy was delighted, the cake was delicious and I am still getting the "Wow!"s from people I show the picture to. I was so happy that we made his day that special, and once again, thankful that I took the courses necessary to learn to do this! (And for the record, his actual gift was a bow and arrow set that he will be learning to use at Scouts!)

So, for anyone who thinks they might be interested in taking cake decorating classes.. it is worth it. Every birthday and special event just brings so much more joy to your heart, because you have helped to make someone happy!!! :)

I have a busy time coming up... a cake on May 24 weekend... and two cakes in June... one I am especially nervous about, because it involves cake flavours I have never done before and the pressure is on because it's for an actual venue. If there is anything to ever make you doubt your skills, it's something like that! However.. this is a repeat customer, and we're doing a cake tasting evening, and I know she trusts me... otherwise I'd be a lot more nervous! The other order is a Mermaid Barbie cake I've been wanting to do for over a year... and I am SO excited to do both of these cakes! Thankfully it's before the summer heat sets in, so that's even better! :)

That's it for me for now!
Stay sweet!
Denise

Slaaaaaacking!

So... I haven't baked nearly as much as I have wanted to! It's been all about the kids this week, hanging out with them, cooking for them, making sure they are entertained, and have a decent amount of quiet time. They are loving movie nights and camping out in the basement on the pull-out!

On the weekend, my husband and I went through our little guy's room, Caleb, and cleaned out all of his small clothes and junk toys that he never plays with. We cleaned out ALOT! Over a tote of clothes and a whole tote of toys.. mostly toy cars. He's never been into Hot Wheels cars, and we had this big collection... it was so nice to unload the clothes to my sister-in-law, who's little guy, Thomas, will be 1 on June 30th.

You really never can plan too far ahead... and both my sisters-in-law had pitched in and got us a ton of boys' clothes for Caleb when he was a baby, from eBay, which was awesome! So it's nice to return the favour.

I did bake chocolate chip cookies from a cake mix... it's so simple and they are so soft and delicious! I take a box of yellow cake mix, 2 eggs, 1/3 cup of oil and half a package of milk chocolate chips, and I mix it all up thoroughly. I have this awesome Pampered Chef scooper that is perfect for scooping dough so that the sizes of the cookies are pretty much the same.. so I use that, and pop 'em into the oven for 10-12 minutes at 350*C, and YUM! These cookies never last long in my house! I have also tried the same trick with chocolate cake mix and white chocolate chips! I was kind of in a rush that night so I didn't want to stand around and bake for the whole night... I scooped the dough into an ice cube tray, and froze it overnight... and the next day, I popped the frozen dough into a container and stored it back in the freezer. Perfect for the next time I want to bake some cookies in a flash! That ice cube tray idea was from Pinterest... my newest addiction! LOL We also had ham n cheese crescent rolls today... my husband's reaction to that was that I was clearly putting him to shame because he never is awake enough to make a lunch like that for them lol...


Today, I was working with my son Caleb in teaching him to ride his bike. He is hellbent on his tricycle and doesn't comprehend that he is too big for that thing. We bought a bike trailer a couple of years ago.. and even as amazing as that thing was, it's now too small. Last year, we had to leave it unzipped, because he is too tall for it... lol! Soooo, we had a chat today and I explained to him that he needed to be a big boy and ride a big boy bike like his older brother, Tyler. Our kids measure everything by when we go camping in August, so I also added that into the equation. I said, if he wanted to go for a bike ride when we go camping, we aren't bringing the trailer, so he either sits at the site by himself, or he learns to ride a bike! He is so stubborn, I really have NO idea where he gets it from (smirk)... So he whined and complained about his bum hurting and how much he hated his bike, and asked me if I had ever fallen off a bike.. My answer was MANY times.. we didn't do training wheels in my day... so scraped legs and bleeding ankles was the story of my life when I was bound and determined to learn to ride a bike! That seemed to give me a bit of status in his eyes, so he stuck it out and kept on...

He is not looking terribly thrilled here, but it's nearly the end of the ride home, so he was happy about THAT.

I am really loving my time off from work this week. We actually had a destination today, and it was... work. Ugh! I wanted to replenish some of the clothes we had upcycled (which reminds me, the reason Caleb's pants were so big when we were at that indoor playground yesterday is because they were a size 8, and he is a size 5-6!!! LMAO... I didn't want him to wear his brand new jeans and I knew these particular ones were bigger but I didn't check to see how MUCH bigger they were... LOL.). We did good... and the kids don't look like they are wearing floods anymore... instead, they look like they are about to drown in their new clothes :D Mom's work is done here!

Hope everyone else is enjoying our gorgeous weather/temperatures... savour it... never know how long it will last :)

Stay sweet,

Denise

What a fun weekend...

I am so thankful to my clients! Without them I'd be baking for myself and my family and I'd have a butt the size of Texas! :)

I had a request last weekend to do a cake for this weekend for my second cousin's birthday.. no problem! I could handle it! Then I checked on the deadline for another request I had already accepted, for a baby shower cake. They were for the same weekend, lol! No worries... when I was in the bakery, it wasn't unheard of to have 10-15 orders for one day, especially on holiday weekends... but it's different when you are making stuff from scratch, and working with fondant.

So I got to work baking and freezing and filling the cakes... and everything turned out beautifully. Both were picked up yesterday by some very happy clients.

Here is what I made for my second cousin, Jackson:

And this is the baby shower cake:

I was more worried about how I was going to do the Toy Story cake... I had no plan, really, except that it was a road scene with Woody and RC... but as soon as I had all my colours mixed, it was easy to whip together. I was surprised when I was done because it didn't take as long as I had thought it would!

The baby shower cake was time-consuming, only because of the fondant pieces. I was up late the night before working on them because the pieces for the bow had to dry. I hadn't done a bow since my cake classes, and I needed to pull out my books and make sure I was doing it right... but it all came back to me and turned out awesome :)

The cake was HEAVY too! Four layers of cake, with filling and icing and fondant... I am always surprised on cake shows when they say how much the cake weighs. Really? It's JUST a cake! I mean, okay, so it's the size of a body- building bouncer, but really... how can it be that heavy? But cakes can really weigh alot if they have multiple tiers.

So yes, it was a successful weekend, and even though I am still worried about the baby shower cake sinking (I need to rely more on dowels!!!), I am very proud of what I've done, and thankful to my clients for choosing me to make their special cake instead of going somewhere else. :)

Stay Sweet!

D

I'm lovin' it!

No... not McDonalds! I love that business is picking up again... and I knew it would happen. Check out my latest creation:

This is a chocolate 1/4 slab with whipped cream and strawberry jam mousse filling. I used chocolate buttercream and lightened it up with whipped cream. Trimmed and decorated with buttercream flowers, butterflies and hearts, not to mention silver dragees to make it extra fancy.

What isn't pictured on the cake is:

Yup! Cake pops! Chocolate cake mixed with buttercream, rolled into balls and a lollipop stick inserted. Dipped in chocolate candy melts, cooled, then decorated with more candy melts. Unfortunately, I couldn't put them altogether because it still needed to fit into the box... so they were delivered separately.

I figured it was time to delve into the world of cake pops because I've been seeing them everywhere, and knew that sooner or later, people would be asking me to make them :) Gotta keep up, right?

Some of you may know that I used to work in a bakery department, and I was recently asked if I missed it. Truth be told, not at all. I had little desire to spend quality time on a personal cake order when I got home from decorating cakes all day. Now when I am asked to make a cake at home, I look forward to spending time on it. Definitely one of the best decisions I've ever made, to step out of that department.

Anyway, things to do, so I must go. Until next time, stay sweet!

Denise