Sports Bag Cake 05/06/2012
 This week's creation is for a celebrant who loves hockey, badminton and loves playing Mafia Wars. His girlfriend prepared a surprise party for him and ordered this special cake. Isn't she sweet! This is an eight (8) layer Butter Pecan Cake with Pecan Italian Meringue Buttercream and frosted in Chocolate Ganache. It is pretty yummy I find anyway. I tried two kind of recipes for this cake. The first one is great but not quite a show stopper. The second is a White Almond Sour Cream recipe without the Almond Flavor and doubled the Vanilla Flavor. And then I added 1-1/3 cups chopped pecans. It turned out great. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIEN! A very lucky guy to have such a sweet girlfriend Michelle. Thanks Michelle for trusting me on your surprise cake to your sweety!    Here are more photos!              Add Comment May is Asian Heritage Month 2012 05/06/2012
 The Asian Heritage Scoiety of New Brunswick asked me to make a cake for the Asian Heritage Month Celebration Opening ceremony at the Centennial Building in Fredericton. It is also the association's 10th year anniversary. The Guests of Honour: His Worship Brad Woodside, Mayor of Fredericton and other government officials. The theme of this year's celebration is “Celebrating Canadians of Iran Origin". Please visit the society's wesbite, AHS NB Website, to know more about the festivities. Here are more close up photos of the cake.                     Angry Birds Cake 05/06/2012
 I was excited when I got this project as I have been anxious to make an Angry Bird Themed Cake. There are too many versions of Angry Birds Cake. Even this design is not that original really. Any cake artist around definitely likes to put its own touch on her/his creation. For one, the clouds, which is actually an effect of an explosion, I have not seen it done before (or maybe it has been). Below is my draft which I made using Paint.Net software.  I molded the figures two weeks in advance.   I posted the cake on Cakesdecor.com, a popular cake community, and I was happy to be #1 in the Daily Top 15 of the day,  Here are more close-up photos of the cake.       Blue Batman for Liam 04/24/2012
 i Love making a birthday cake for this little boy. Last year, I made him a Spiderman Cake / Cupcakes. He doesn't even want anyone to eat the treats. It's so cute to see his excitement when one Saturday I sat down with Liam and we drew a draft of his birthday cake. He wanted a Blue Batman Cake. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to keep a copy of the drawing. I decided to make him a Batman Themed Dessert Table. Here's my work table a week before the event.  I made the Sugar Cookies and Cake Pops a week in advance. Kids and adults love them! It would take a long investigation to figure out who took the most home. LOL!      I also prepared in advance the details of the Batmobile Cake and the cupcake toppers. I made the wheels. name plate and the fire, that red/yellow thing in the photo. Okay! It's not chicken feet! My friends (are they really my friends..lol) were teasing me on this. Not funny! But I agree, it does look like it.   THE BATMOBILE CAKE It was my first time to make a car cake. I was terrified in the beginning. But as it turned out, it wasn't hard at all. I mean, it does require a lot of time I must admit. It took me at least four (4) hours to carve and frost the cake with chocolate ganache.        I placed the cake in the fridge overnight and covered the cake with black fondant the following day.             THE DESSERT TABLE  HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY LIAM! May all your wishes come true this year!  Thanks for visiting my site. Here are more photos for your viewing. ENJOY!             Saying Thank You! 04/10/2012
 What a nice way to say THANK YOU with delicious decorated Sugar Cookies! A friend ordered three dozen vanilla sugar cookies for her boss' retirement party. I chose the following three designs. BLACK AND WHITE  BEACH SCENE  SPRING AND DOVE   Hope you like them! Happy Caking! Whimsical Castle Cake 04/10/2012
 HOW TO MAKE AN ALL EDIBLE CASTLE CAKE The whole design is actually NOT my original. I have seen several versions of Castle Cakes online which I used as inspiration on this cake. I cannot specify one particular as this is not a copy of any actual cake design. As an example: I saw the carriage in a magazine – got the idea from that. The carriage is not an actually copy on the magazine neither it specifies the maker of the cake. It was an ad for a fondant. So I improvised. Tower can be prepared 1 to 2 weeks ahead. CAKE BOARD Cut a 6-inch diameter foam board and cover with white sugarpaste. TOWER To make the towers, roll different sized sausage shapes fondant with tylose or gumpaste in varying lengths or heights (depends on how high you’d like your tower to be). I roll each tower using two smoothers to ensure a neat and smooth sausage shape without any finger marks. I used a very sharp knife to cut the ends and also two smoothers to flatten. Poke a long skewer on each tower for support. Set aside all towers to dry. Note: The Wilton Wave Flower former set is very useful in drying the tower on a surface so it will retain its shape while it dries flat on the surface.  TURRET  Roll out different sized cone shaped pink sugarpaste. You can design the roof as you wish (Option 1) or leave it simple (Option2). Option 2 Without Shingles  Roll out a cone shaped pink fondant. Flatten the base so it sits level on top of a tower. You may wish to leave the tower cone shaped or you can go further just like the photo. Pinch the base of the cone using your fingers to flatten forming a “witch hat”. Get a circle cookie cutter (with a bigger diameter than your tower) and place it over the top of the “witch hat”. Cut out the excess sugarpaste to get a perfectly round shaped base. I don’t have a picture but I do have these photos, which is basically the same idea on what I am explaining here. You can actually use a flower cookie cutter to acquire a prettier base.  Option 1 Roof With Shingles  Follow steps in Option 2. Use the smallest circle cutter to cut each shingles. You can indent a design on the shingle or you can leave it smooth. Attach each shingle using edible glue. ASSEMBLE TOWERS ON THE CAKE BOARD Get a skewer and put a hole on the spot where you are placing a tower. This is so it will easier to put the tower on the cake board (Remember in the above step where we put a skewer as support for each other). Cut the excess skewer if it’s too long to go on the board. Again, this really depends on the height of your tower. Secure the roof using royal icing and toothpick. Now to cover the side of the cake board, measure the circumference of the cake board. Use this measurement to cut out a long sugarpaste. Use a small square cutter to cut out the castellaton (see photo below):  CARRIAGE To make the carriage (this is the one I saw on the Cake magazine in the advertisement section for fondant, I think( but not the exactly design).  Roll out a sugarpaste and cut the carriage using a circle cookie cutter (the size depends on how big you like and proportoniate to the cake size). This is about 4 inches in diameter. Score a line from the top to the bottom of the carrige, this is like making a 2D Pumpkin. You can use the end of the brush or a stick or gumpaste tool, Cut a small square black fondant and attach it in the middle of the carriage. To make the curtain, roll a thin piece of fondant, cut in the middle and attach it over the black fondant creating a curtain drape. I made sure that a little piece of the black fondant is showing (see photo).  To create the side of the carriage, I roll a long sausage shaped white sugarpase. Make both ends pointed and then attach to the carriage and make both ends rolling in (just like the circled part of the photo) TO make the wheels, I cut two circle shaped sugarpaste. I used a small cutter (which came with the snowflake cutter set) to cut the design on the wheels. If you don’t have it, you can use your x-acto knife. To create the top of the curtain, you can use any mold or cut any design you wish. ASSEMBLE THE WHOLE CAKE Aseemble the cake as you would normally do. Put dowels to support the tower topper. Consider the Tower topper as a second tier of the cake. If using Rice Krispy Treats for the towers then your topper will not be as heavy as using fondant/gumpaste. But I will still put dowels, probably about 4 to 5 dowels. Brush the cake with water or clear piping gel. Measure the circumference of the cake and the height of the cake. Use these measurements as guide in cutting the strip that will cover the cake. Cut out the castellation (same as the one in the cake board above), use the smallest square cookie cutter or triangle cutter, whatever your preference.  Leave the strip to dry a bit so it will not stretch when lifted. Not too dry though that it will crack. Dust the strip with icing sugar or cornstarch and roll the strip around your rolling pin. Roll out the strip little at a time to cover the cake. This way you are not stretching the fondant. Put Royal icing on top of the cake and place your Tower Topper. For the door, use circle cookie cutter and then cut the base straight so it sits flat on the cake board. As for the four pillars (towers, see the circled part in the photo below) on the cake, follow the instructions in making the towers. If you have any further question, don’t hesitate to email me. Good luck! Happy Caking!  French Macaron Adventure 12/04/2011
I first learned about the French macarons about a year ago, when I was reading lots of cake blogs. I read that even years and years ago, half of the world seems to be into them. My enthusiasm grew and I became very interested in making what appears to be the most popular little snack in France or I think even New York. I don't want to be left behind. I have to follow this macaron trend. So I started researching and reading every blog I stumble upon. As I read more about these things, I am more and more drawn to making them. There are so many tutorials and recipes online and I thought... seem very simple and easy to make...Wrong! This dessert is so delicate to make. I must say that I am still discovering the best recipe to stick with... however, I am quite happy with the latest macarons I made. I see "Feet" and they're round and smooth - Taste wise - it's delish and I haven't even put any filling yet. But I cannot stop here! Need to search further, try other recipes and techniques to get that PERFECT result that I am looking for. So I have to get my "Bake" on! For now, here are the ones I have done recently. Look at these cute green ones.  This is the best time of the year to make them. Great for gifts. I got nice gift boxes at Winners and they are inexpensive.  CHRISTMAS PARTY INVITATION I was invited to a Potluck Christmas Party yesterday, so I decided to create another dessert arrangement of cupcakes and macarons. I must say that the macarons were gone in a flash! Got great feedback on the red velvet cupcakes and the french macarons. They love the chocolate cupcakes as well but I think I have made too much of this flavor lately. So I guess it's time to present different cupcake flavors now. Here are photos of the arrangement I made for the party.     Look at the lovely faces! The hostess loves me more than ever now. LOL!  MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR! Watch out for more creations in the coming year! Thanks for visiting my site. I really appreciate it. Take care all!             Oh Baby! Oh Baby BOY! 11/20/2011
Our friend Riza is expecting a baby boy. We threw her a lovely little shower in Mae's house yesterday. I have to admit that I do get a little excited with any party preparations. It actually started a year ago when I prepared my daughter's 5th birthday. Remember the Barbie Princess Themed Party? So this time, well I have to say that I was excited again about coming up with the whole design concept of the baby shower. I decided to concentrate on a color schemes BLUE, WHITE and SILVER. So where to begin. DECORATIONS Yes, of course the decorations. I absolutely love paper pom poms and balloons. I saw Martha Stewart pom poms for sale at Walmart and bought them...arrghh big mistake. They are just tissue papers and you need to make them into pom poms. Why oh why did I not buy tissue papers at the Dollar Store instead, it's definitely cheaper. Definitely do my own next time. They are so easy to make. I will definitely recommend giving them a go - will cost $1 per pom pom to make! There are some great tutorials out there on the web. How about Martha Stewart tutorial.  DESSERT TABLE I decided to prepare a dessert table with a lovely selection of sweet treats & savory goodness. I really wanted the lighter color blue - powder blue or the cornflower blue. We served cake, cake pops, peanut butter balls, french macarons. A week before I prepared thirty (30) cake pops with 19 baby design and 12 rattle design. I wrapped each cake pop in cellophane and tied it with a nice light blue ribbon. I'd like to thank Lisa from It's time for a Cake for allowing me to copy this design. I tweaked it a little to give them my own touch.  GIVEAWAYS My friend Mae gave me some treat boxes which are leftover from her store. I decided that it would be a good idea to give treats for party favors. I decorated each box with the plastic confetti and printed "Thank you" notes. I placed one Peanut butter ball, which is yummy and easy to prepare ahead, inside each box. Made sixty (60) of these giveaways.  FRENCH MACARONS I will be very honest that this is the first time I made this treat. They are easy ingredients to prepare but boy, they are very delicate to make. A macaron is a sweet confectionery made with egg whites, icing sugar, granulated sugar, almond powder or ground almond, and food coloring. It is commonly filled with buttercream or jam filling sandwiched between two cookies. It is meringue-based: made from a mixture of egg whites, almond flour. I tried making blue macarons but it was a failure. So I decided to put off the coloring and concentrated on just making the uncolored with great dome macaron. I asked Shim and Shai (my friend Mae's lovely daughters) to put the filling - chocolate ganache and peanut butter.  THE CAKE I decided to make the Crying Baby Design (from Debbie Brown's Baby book) I made the baby figurine weeks before. I had the most terrible time with the fondant I used on this cake. There is no way that I will be using the Virgin Ice Fondant to cover a cake. It was tearing like crazy. I actually had planned to make a simple design but because of the imperfections (tear and crack), I had to revised the design. The big clouds were actually added to hide the tear. So this design I now call, DAY AND NIGHT CRYING BABY  Oh wait, it's not done yet. How about adding five (5) glass jars filled with Yogurt covered almonds, Yogurt covered pretzels, Hershey kisses and Lollipops.     Congratulations Riza, Jonathan, Jeanna, JenJen and Jeriz! We cannot wait to meet your little man! Thank you to my dear friends Mae, Sally and Lai for helping in organizing this event. Special mention to Mae for letting us have the party at her beautiful house AGAIN! Here are more pictures for your viewing! Enjoy and thank you for visiting my site.  Happy to share that this dessert table became Daily Top 3 the day I posted it on Cakesdecor Site and third most saved cake on CakeCentral.                  This week's creation was requested by a dear friend for EID L' ADHA's Feast. What is Eid L' Adha? From Wikipedia "Eid al-Adha (Arabic: عيد الأضحى ‘Īd al-’Aḍḥá,IPA: [ʕiːd al ʔadˁˈħaː], "feast of sacrifice") or "Festival of Sacrifice" or "Greater Eid" is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrificehis son Ishmael (Isma'il) as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a sheep— to sacrifice instead" My dear friend requested for something simple. I thought this is a celebration so a gift design will do. A dove which symbolizes peace is a great topper for the cake. HOW TO MAKE THE DOVE  1. Get a ball of gumpaste or fondant (w/ tylose powder) and roll using your hand to form a cone shape. 2. Then shape the head and the neck using your two middle fingers. I will probably make the head a little smaller than the one shown in the picture. 3. Bend the bird and insert a stick (skewer or lolipop stick). Flatten the smallest end to make the tail and score the tail using your pallete knife. 4. To make the beak, get a small ball of gumpaste and roll into cone shape. Get a scissor and cut halfway to form the open beak. Attach using melted chocolate. Get a piece of paper and put in between the cut (beak). The paper will be replaced by the twig that you will be making later. 5. To make the wings, use the Wilton leaf cutter (the biggest one). Try to reshape the widest end to make it more rounded and then score the wings as shown in the photo. 6. Get a small bowl and put cornstarch powder - you will use this to dry the wings so it will dry to the position you want. 7. The next morning attach the wings using melted chocolate. 8. Make the twig using gumpaste and let it dry. Once dry, attach to the beak using melted chocolate.. HOW TO MAKE THE CAKE Bake two (2) 10 x 3 in round cakes and two (2) pillow pan shaped cake. Torte the round cakes into four and fill with your favorite filling. Create a dam or circle of icing just inside the edge of the cake. This will prevent any filling from seeping out when the next layer is added. I frosted the cakes using chocolate ganache. I really love frosting the cake with ganache compared to buttercream when covering the cake with fondant. It is true what the experts say that you can get that perfect sharp edges using ganache frosting. I placed the cakes in the refrigerator overnight (or 4 hours will do). It took me about 8 hours to decorate the whole cake. Starting from the cake board, the bottom cake, the lid and the pillow cake. I put five (5) dowels on the bottom tier with the dowels cut slight higher than the cake, to make the open lid effect. I used styroform for the lid although I could have used a 10 x 2 in round cake instead. Hope you like my creation this week! Until my next cake! Here are more photos of the cake.            Gift Box Cake 11/04/2011
 Simple but Elegant design for a cake. The celebrant loves green. I got the sweetest message from the celebrant today. "Luisa, I want to thank you for the most beautiful cake I've ever seen. If you went on TV you would surely win. Everybody was so amazed at how everything was perfect. I hope to get to meet you one day, you must be a great person. Thank you! Jeannette" Wow, it did made my day. So nice to be appreciated by someone that I have not even met. I love this new found passion! ~ ABOUT THE CAKE ~ If I have more time, I probably would have added flowers but since I have 3 days (I mean 3 nights) to make this cake, I thought a Satin looking ribbon will do. I remembered that awhile back I bought a cake stencil. Perfect time to put it to use. I used Satin Ice Ready Made Fondant and gumpaste for the board and ribbon. Love how this cake turned out. Hope you like it too! I posted this cake on Cake Central, an online cake community I visit daily, and the next morning I saw that it was second cake in the most saved cake of the day. I had to capture that moment as this happened only three times on all my creations. Here is a photo.  HAPPY 70TH BIRTHDAY JEANNETTE! Thanks John for trusting me on this cake. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!   Updated 2011.11.24 I had been asked twice where if I got my inspiration for this design I had been making ribbons since last year on most of my cakes. Example as shown below made in October 2010. However, my real inspiration for this cake was the one created by Inspired by Michelle Cake Designs. Michelle Rea made the version in Oct 2010 I also bought Sharon Zambito's Box and Bow DVD Tutorial, which is very helpful.  | 
 CategoriesAll AuthorMy family and friends call me Bobie. An IT Specialist and have discovered cake decorating, a new hobby...my new passion. Flickr PhotosArchivesMay 2012  |
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