A Different Kind of Cake

Last week, I ventured into a new decorating adventure, only this time it was a DIAPER cake! My older sister's best friend is having baby Coen in January, and my sister needed my help with the cake. She put it together, and I helped with the ribbons and bows.

Then, she finished it with the toys and baby things. I thought it looked wonderful! What do you think?

The finished cake! Looked awesome.

Please excuse the gross pics. iPhone doesn't always do the job right.

Cake Class, Part Dos

Alternate title: "I Never Said I Was Good At Spanish"

I'm sure all three people who read my blog are anxiously awaiting an update on how my cake went and, it was GREAT! I went straight to Blue Cake Company after work yesterday and worked tediously until about 10 p.m. WHOA. Crazy. Also crazy to think that I did not bake anything, make anything, prepare anything, NADA. I just decorated, and it took me SEVEN HOURS.

And people wonder why cakes cost so much.

Here's everything before I started:

One of the things we went over was icing a cake. I am terrible at this but I guess it turned out okay. Luckily I covered it with fondant so you couldn't see my streaks.

Buttercream iced and...

...fondant covered. Recognize that bow?

Anyway, enough of the boring stuff. Here's the thing you really came to see! The presents!

Doesn't Elfie look so cute perched up on his gift?


Rest of the class elves. Elfie's on the left again :)

Since I had a huge cake, I decided to take it into work this morning. I figured I would never eat it at my house (who would cut it for just one piece?!?!?) and my work buds are pretty big fans of food. Actually that might be an understatement.....They didn't disappoint and the entire thing was almost gone by 5. Luckily one little piece will stick around for a bit:

'Til next time.

-Kati

Elfie, my new best friend

Welp, I finally broke down and took a cake class. The class was at Blue Cake Company, and was so fun. I had never been there but walking in was really neat. There were only 3 of us in the class, and it was taught by the owner, Jan Lewandowski who was the nicest person I've ever met. Here's the description that got me pumped up about a month ago

Tiered Present Cake Class: Each student will fill, frost and fondant a 4" and 8" square tier and decorate with a present theme. We will demonstrate a variety of bows and tags to personalize the gifts. We will cover fondant covering and coloring, bow making, dowelling and traveling with tiered cakes. We will also cover figure modeling and make a figure for our cake. This is a two day class and will be Tuesday November 16 (filling cakes and making decorations) and Wednesday November 17 (fondanting and decorating cakes).

(sidenote: is fondanting a word? Okay, back to blog)

Last night was the first night of it, and although we didn't stick to the schedule exactly, I had a TON of fun. We ended up making decorations for our present cakes. AKA: bows and ELFIE (new best friend).

Anyway, I guess you want to see pics. Here are the bows.

I know, I know. Exciting, but no Elfie...

After the bows, we moved on to our figure. Thus, Elfie was born!

Is he cute or WHAT? How could you not love those little ears? And those buttons? Sheesh!

I had to leave little man at the bakery to dry overnight, so I tucked him into the corner with his friends. They love each other.

That's Elfie on the left.

Tonight I will embark on another adventure at the bakery. Can't wait to blog about it tomorrow! So come back and see the finished creation.

Peace.

-Kati

Hi Hat Cupcakes!

I have been dying to try these out ever since I saw Bakerella's post here. I made a small batch of Razorback cupcakes for my cousin, and decided the leftover cupcakes provided the perfect opportunity to try these babies out.

First thing (after making the moist chocolate cupcakes...MMMMM) was to make the frosting. I had never done the double-boiler thing before, so it was tricky, but I just followed Martha's recipe here and it worked out! Here's the picture of the "stiff peaks" the icing is supposed to achieve:

After I did that, I piped the icing (which was suprisingly light) onto the cupcakes as TALL AS I COULD (about 2 inches-ish) and put them in the fridge while I melted the chocolate goodness.

And finally, dip the frosting (upside down..YIKES) into the melted chocolate. This, I must confess, was truly frightening and I was scared more than once that my icing would plop off of the cupcake. Luckily, it stayed in place! Although I would say that next time, I'd double the chocolate so that I don't run out!

And here's the finished product!

For the recipe, try Martha's.

And yes, I do sometimes take my pictures outside. A point-and-shoot camera doesn't exactly take the best photos and I need a lil help from Mr. Sunshine.