A Tale of 2 Cakes

This past week was a busy one.  I had 2 cakes to make, the Autism walk and Halloween.....not to mention school projects.....

The Walk for Autism was great and I will share pics of that next time......

OK so now to the cakes. 

Both cakes represent "firsts" for me.

My friend wanted a cake in the shape of a bottle of Henessey and a can of redbull (his favorite drink  mixture I think)

So I had to carve a cake.......never done that before.

I am sorry I have no pics of the process......my hands were busy :)

But here is the finished product.......

(I have tried in vain to turn the pic the right way!!!  Sorry.....) 

It turned out ok I guess.....

Now to my second "first"....a Halloween Topsy-turvy cake!!!!!!

I've always liked the way topsy-turvy cakes look but never tried one before.....I was nervous....
But.....I love the way this turned out!

The cake was inspired by a lot of cakes on cakecentral.com .....

Thanks for looking!

Happy Halloween!

love,

Bronwyn

Soccer

Went to see my boy Drew play soccer last night. I really enjoyed myself.....

Here he is....my baby...

Haven't been able to see many of his games because of other commitments so I was especially pleased to go....with camera in hand.

Now these pics have been edited on http://www.picnik.com/ because my computer has died and with it my photoshop.... crying here.....

But...Picnik is fun and free so thought I would give it a shot...

Hope you like these as much as I do.....

            Thanks for looking.....

Have a great Day!!

Love,

Bronwyn

Funny 50th Birthday Cake

Yesterday I decorated a cake for a 50th birthday party.
The cake was (of course) pound cake with a revised buttercream icing....

I have been having trouble with my basic buttercream keeping its shape and not 'melting'
The basic recipe is yummy....

2 sticks butter ( I use salted)
2 lbs confectioner sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp butter flavoring
and milk to get desired consistency.....
I added 1 cup butter flavor crisco  to the above and it held up wonderfully!
(Usually I would notice a separation in the color and sugar......so the color would look grainy)
But in adding the crisco it held the color and shape wonderfully!!!

So here is the pic.....

I was thrilled with the final product!  Finally got the buttercream to look smooth which is a HUGE accomplishment for me!!

Let me know what you think!!  Oh by the way, the idea for cake was inspired by a cake I saw on http://www.cakecentral.com/   made by aliciawilliams!  That is an awesome website by the way and free to join!  Cake decorators range in experience from newbies to pros and everyone shares tips and techniques!! 

p.s. this is not a paid advertisement :)  

Thanks for looking!!!

Love,

Bronwyn 

Pound Cake recipe.....YUM

I am, again, making a cake for this weekend.  This cake is for a 50th birthday party and I hope to post pics Saturday of the finished product.
As I sit here typing my house smells like baking pound cake....I think you can actually gain weight from the smell!
So I thought I would share my recipe.
This is the cake my mom (Alice) would bake for all of the party's......
So I named it after her even though I think someone gave her the recipe some 30 years ago ......

Alice's Pound Cake

Ingredients
3 cups sugar
2 sticks butter (softened)
1/2 cup shortening (I use the butter flavored Crisco)
1 tsp Vanilla extract
6 eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup milk

Directions:
grease and flour cake pan.  Cream together sugar, butter, shortening and vanilla.  Add eggs one at a time until mixed well. Add flour and milk in 3rds and mix until batter is nice and creamy.  Place batter in prepared cake pan and stick it in cold oven (just don't preheat)......
Turn oven to 325 degrees and bake for 90 minutes or until cake passes the toothpick/fork test

This cake tastes awesome alone or you can frost it with any icing......I have been using the decorators cream cheese icing from the previous post. 

Hope you enjoy!!! 

Happy Birthday Cake for Peyton

My cousins daughter Peyton is turning 5 and her dad asked me to make the cake

I made the pound cake (yum) and a new icing....cream cheese decorator icing.
I am hoping it holds together better than the buttercream icing I make.

There was no theme for the birthday so I was free to do my own thing....  uhoh!
I like having some idea of what to do.....
So I googled some birthday invitations and was inspired by one invite....it was of a pink and yellow flower

I changed the colors because they seemed spring/summery to me and this is the end product.....
To make the flowers I made a frozen buttercream transfer

I had a drawing of the flowers and secured a piece of wax paper over my drawing.  I piped the icing to color in the design.  First I did the brown and then the blue or pink.  When that was done, I filled in with the white and then covered the entire design in white and smoothed it down.  Then place in freezer for about an hour and a half.....or up to 24 hrs. 
I found a great tutorial on  this process if you have ???'s  google frozen buttercream transfer.....there is an article from cakecentral.com that covers this process with pics.....
I didn't take pics of this because honestly I didn't think about it.....maybe next time
Here's a closer picture of the buttercream transfers.....

The icing recipe I also found on cake central but I will list it here too.....it's yummy!!

Decorators Cream Cheese Icing

8oz block of cream cheese (room temp)
1 stick butter (room temp.)
1/2 cup shortening
1 Tbsp vanilla
2 pounds confectioner sugar
1/2 tsp salt

.....I also added 1 tsp butter flavor just because I like it......
.....It was very thick without milk so I added a little of that as well.....

Cream together first 4 ingredients (and butter flavor if you so choose) and then add sugar and salt.....Add milk slowly until desired consistency....

Hope you enjoy this as much as I do....Its a little sweet but yummy and so far, holds up very well.

Thanks for looking and let me know what you think!
Love,
Bronwyn

Birthday Girl...and Cake

OK...My baby girl is officially 14!!! 

How did that happen?  It seems like yesterday she was  running a round in a diaper.....her head full of unruly curls and loving on her thermal blanket animal......

Now she's a beautiful young lady  and I am so proud........but how did this happen so fast!?

She had a party and of course....I made the cake.....

I had a vision for this cake.....
Alice in Wonderland....3 tiers
The top tier would show Alice falling into the hole
The second tier would show the room with all of the doors
and the third tier would be Wonderland....with all of the wonderful creatures and characters....

Didn't happen that way......
In the end, after much struggle  (and after working a 12 hour shift.....and needing to go back to work in the morning.....)
This is how the cake turned out........


The top still represents Alice falling into the rabbit hole next to the Tim Burtonesque tree......

                                                    

The second Tier represents the Queen of Hearts.....

 And on the back of the third tier I had a Mad Hatter quote....

Here is the birthday girl with the cake......I wasn't thrilled with the final product (cake) but she liked it and it tasted great which is most important anyway right!?

Happy Birthday my first baby and only girl! I love you!!!

So.....oh forgot to say and am SUPER excited that I just got my Cake Pops book by Bakerella!!!!! Check out her site....she is awesome!!

http://www.bakerella/

Have a great day and thanks for looking!!!

Bronwyn

Baby Shower Cake for Triplets

Hello!  I have had a very busy week and more cakes to make....
The last cake I made was for a coworkers baby shower...
She is having Triplet GIRLS!!! (sending my prayers for her now and continuing til they're grown!)

That said...I love you Morgan! :)

i started demonstrating how these gumpaste figures are made with the wedding cake I did so I will just skip to the good stuff....

Remember these....my little heads :) 

Then I added bodies.......

Then I added little hats and pacifiers....aren't they so cute :)  I am proud ( and surprised) of myself!

In case you don't work in the NICU, when multiples are born they are labeled Baby A, Baby B etc....that's why there is an A,B &C on the front of the babies......

I wasn't sure how in the world I was going to add little baby arms and legs so my fabulous wonderful husband made said "Babe, wrap them in a blanket, they're babies"......

So that's what I did!

And then I had their little baby feet and toes stick out of the blankets!! (Again, I surprised even me!!)

Here they are!!!

Now I wasn't certain what else I was going to put on the cake and in the end I kept it simple.....

Thanks for looking!!! 

Love,

Bronwyn

Finished Wedding cake

Well we had a lovely lunch at the Olive Grove to celebrate the marriage of my Uncle Pat and Lisa.
I just wanted to share with you the finished cake.....
Baked in a heart shaped pan, covered with buttercream icing and lined with pink chocolate hearts....

The heart were made by melting pink candy melts...I spread the melted chocolate on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. When the chocolate hardened, I cut out the hearts using a heart shaped cookie cutter.
Here's a closeup of my finished people.....

I made a little heart and placed their monogram on it......

Here is the Lovely Lisa (she really is lovely.....inside and out!) and Uncle Pat.....

My dad and Special K (his wife Kelly) were there.....

Mary Jo and Uncle Eric were there too.....

And of course, no party is complete without the Matriarch of the family......
Gammy....(The people at the restaurant nicknamed her Trouble....)

Welcome to the family Lisa!!!!