Commission Tales: The Cutest Little Hallowe'en Cake

This past weekend was my beloved little nephew's first birthday party, and I was asked to bring the cake and some decorated sugar cookies.  I'm so there!  I also was tasked with making a little smash cake for him so that he could enjoy his first taste of cake too.  Done and done!

As he was born the day before Hallowe'en, his first party was going to be Hallowe'en related.  We'll see about future Hally-related parties once he reaches the Age of Reason...but in the meantime, his Mummy gets her way! (heehee...)

My sister and I used Pinterest to inspire us for what kind of cake would be the most awesome for the party; we must have looked through a thousand pictures between the two of us. We chose elements from a few of those cakes we loved the best, and with a few parameters (non-scary, at least one layer to be chocolate, and for about 25 people), I went to work! 

My friend, Erinith, made all of the teeny little punkins (her first time working with fondant!), and I think she did a fantastic job. Once they had a day to dry out a bit, I dusted them all lightly with Super PEarl luster dust and some holographic white disco dust, and they absolutely sparkled! There must have been about 50 or so of these little guys...and I used every single one of them in the final design (except the one that accidentally hit the floor; no "floor punkins" were utilized in this cake design).

While Erinith was working on the punkins, I was busy working on the other 2-D and 3-D elements of the
cake. There were the fondant bats, which I made a quick template from some cardboard (I strongly recommend using strong cardstock instead of corrugated cardboard like I did; I had forgotten that I gave away all my cardstock to our Beaver colony for crating purposes and had to make do with what I had on hand). Luckily, I wanted them a little rough-looking, so it didn't matter that there were some corrugation lines on them when I was done. I set them to dry in such a way that they would curl a bit at the edges, so they would look like they were flying away from the cake once they were glued in place.

Another 2-D effect was the "BOO!" I wanted to make for the side of the cake.  I found a font I liked online, downloaded it, then blew it up to the size I figured would work best on the cake.  I printed it off, cut it out with an exacto knife, then cut it out of the black rolled fondant, and cut out a larger size from the white rolled fondant.  I attached them to one another with some piping jelly, and let it dry before attaching.

I also was inspired by a spooky house I saw on another Hallowe'en cake, and found a similar line drawing online that I could use to emulate it. I followed the same process as with the black layer of the "BOO!", but then I left it to dry on a piece of paper which I then taped to the outside of a round cake tin, in order to allow it to dry in a curve that

would fit the contours of the finished cake. I also knew that it was so fragile, I could carefully remove any parts of the design I didn't want (or wouldn't fit) by using the exacto knife. I also cut out a thin circle of yellow and let dry for a spooky moon, and some windows and a door for the haunted house.


The best little thing I made for my nephew's cake, hands down, is a tiny little fondant mummy, wearing a cute little blue bowtie!  I saw the most adorable little gumpaste mummy on a different cake, and thought I'd take the inspiration and make one for the top of the cake.
This mummy is held up by a toothpick through the top to the bottom of the body, with another toothpick through the arms for stability.  I don't normally use non-food items on a cake, but I knew that fondant is so heavy and soft, and I found that my gumpaste had dried out to my chagrin, so I really wanted this little guy to work out!

SO, without further ado, here is the Halloween cake in all its gory glory! I left a space on the top in case there was a birthday candle or something that the parents wanted to add to the cake.

Blast from the Past: A Very Special Wedding Cake Commission

Reposted and updated from my previous blog, Chronic Masterbakers:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I've been thinking a lot about the past lately; I nearly splorted when I realized it has been over 18 months since my beautiful, smart, uber-rational baby sister married the love of her life in a lovely winter wedding ceremony in February 2012.

I was so pleased and honoured to be asked to make their wedding cake when they first announced their engagement the previous fall. What followed was a fun and informative journey into wedding cake research and formulation of a decision-making process for a wedding cake.

Eventually, after researching many different cake styles and pictures in books and online, they decided on a 9″ round top "bride and groom" cake, and 75 individual wedding cakelets (not to be mistaken for cupcakes, thankyouverymuch) for the guests.

Each cakelet and the main cake had a deep, dark chocolate bottom layer split with vanilla frosting, and the top was a vanilla bean layer split with milk chocolate frosting.  The two were combined and crumb-coated with more vanilla frosting to make a cakelet that was just about 4″ tall.

Each cakelet was covered with handmade white chocolate molding “clay”, then covered with pure white rolled fondant, and placed on its own little 3″ round silvered cake plate.

The cakelet decor was kept relatively simple, with several hundred handmade gumpaste snowflakes in three sizes and four shades of sparkly glitter, from pearlized white to two shades of silver to black.

Each cakelet had a ruby red ribbon around the base, mirroring the bridal gown’s deep ruby red back slit and corset, and ruby floral embroidering along the front bodice and sparkly gems and sequins.  Each cakelet was also pearlized, then decorated uniquely from the others, with the different sizes and colours of gumpaste snowflakes, and large black and red sugar pearls.
The main cake was left plain, with the exception of a ruby red gauze wired ribbon around the base and a handmade bouquet of fabric roses for the top.

All in all, it took me 3 months to help the happy couple plan and sign off on the cake design, a few more weeks to research and locate the items/ingredients required, and then a full week to make, decorate, and assemble the final product, which was ready for pickup by the wedding planner the morning before the wedding.

So, anyone who tells you that a wedding cake is a waste of money, obviously hasn't seen all the work that goes into making one (hint: a LOT!).

I love hearing from our readers!  If you have any questions, comments or requests, please don’t hesitate to leave me a comment below!

Tutorial and Recipe: Pineapple-Vanilla Bean Jam

This was the third and final of my three jams I made for my wedding favours last month. 

I had a difficult time trying to decide which preserve I would make to follow as closely to my "yellow" wedding colour; I was originally considering:

• Lemon curd (rejected due to it needing refrigeration and having a short shelf life due to the eggs in the recipe),
• Meyer Lemon Marmalade (ultimately rejected because the season for Meyer lemons was August, therefore kind of late for me; they are very difficult to find even within season; and they are heinously expensive), and 
• Caramel sauce (rejected because it was more tan than yellow, and it also needs refrigeration due to the cream in the recipe).

When I found and read over this recipe for pineapple jam, I was so relieved!  Not only was it simple and inexpensive to make, the ingredients list was stuff I actually already had on hand. Score!

As you can see from the picture, the colour came out a beautiful, sunny yellow, and I was a happy camper.

My Photoshop-talented bridesmaid (at least in comparison to me) made up some incredibly amazing jam jar labels for my three jams, but I was a derp and didn't decide on the pineapple jam in enough time, so I couldn't get them printed in time...hence my narsty printing on the labels.  The very least I can do is show off how awesome the professional-grade labels are that she slaved over in these posts!

Ta Da!!!!

Recipe and a step by step tutorial on how to make this jam is below!

Pineapple-Vanilla Bean Jam 

Original recipe: courtesy of pickyourown.org

Yield: About 4 or 5 half-pint (8oz.) jars

Best Before: 12-18 months post-processing

• 1-20-ounce can of crushed pineapple, undrained
• 1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 3-1/2 cups of granulated sugar, divided
• 1-1/2 packets powdered pectin
• Jar funnel and jar grabber 
• 1 large saucepan
• 1 large ladle
• 1 Canner(sides must be high enough to cover the tops of your chosen jars with 1" to spare
• Ball or Mason jars, lids, and rings

Step 1 - Gather the Ingredients

Gather the ingredients. In this case, canned pineapple works better, due to its consistency.

Step 2 - Get the jars and lids washed

While you don't need to sanitize the jars prior to filling them, they do need to be washed in hot, soapy water so the jars are clean and hot, and less likely to crack when you put boiling hot fruit in them. I usually like to be safe rather than sorry, so I put my freshly washed jars into my canning bath and boil them for a couple of minutes; that way they are squeaky-clean and hot by the time I'm ready to fill the jars. I take them out of the canner one at a time using rubber-tipped tongs to avoid chipping the glass.

Lids:  Put the lids into a pan of hot water for at least several minutes; to soften up the gummed surface and clean the lids.

 

Step 3 - Mix the pineapple with the pectin

Mix the pectin with 1/4 cup of the sugar (set the rest of the sugar aside for now).  This helps to keep the pectin from clumping up.

 

Stir the pectin/1/4 cup sugar mixture into the chopped fruit. Put the mix in a big pot and put it on the stove.

Notes about pectin: With pineapple I usually add about 50% more pectin (just open another pack and add about half) or else the jam is runnier than I like. BUT pineapple usually thickens pretty well, so try 1 packet and see how well it thickens. With a little practice, you'll find out exactly how much pectin to get the thickness you like. 

 

Step 4 - Bring to a boil

Add the vanilla bean and seeds, and bring the mixture to a full boil. 

Step 5 - Add the sugar and return to a full boil

Add the remaining sugar (about 3.25 cups) and the lemon juice, and bring the mixture back to a full boil.  Once it hits a full, rolling boil, stir and boil for 1 minute.

Step 6 - Fill the jars and put the lid and rings on

Fill them to within ¼-inch of the top, wipe any spilled jam off the top, seat the lid and tighten the ring around them. Then put them into the boiling water canner!

Step 7 - Process the jars in the boiling water bath

Keep the jars covered with at least 2 inches of water. Keep the water boiling. Boil them for 5 minutes (at sea level; see the table below for times at other altitudes).

Recommended process time for Pineapple Jam in a boiling water canner.
		Process Time at Altitudes of
Style of Pack	Jar Size	0 - 1,000 ft	1,001 - 6,000 ft	Above 6,000 ft
Hot	Half-pints or Pints	5 min	10	15

Step 8 - Done

Lift the jars out of the water and let them cool without touching or bumping them in a draft-free place (usually takes overnight). Once the jars are cool, you can check that they are sealed verifying that the lid has been sucked down. Just press in the center, gently, with your finger. If it pops up and down (often making a popping sound), it is not sealed. If you put the jar in the refrigerator right away, you can still use it. Some people replace the lid and reprocess the jar, then that's a bit iffy. If you heat the contents back up, re-jar them (with a new lid) and the full time in the canner, it's usually ok.

It may take up to two weeks for the jam to set and thicken up. It will be runny until then!

Once cooled, they're ready to store.   I find they last about 18 months.  After that, the get darker in color and start to get runny. They still seem safe to eat, but the flavor is bland.  So eat them in the first 12 to 18 months after you prepare them!  

Blast from the Past: Under the Sea Baby Shower Cake

Almost exactly a year ago, a friend and I made a lovely baby shower cake for my little sister's first baby shower.

As the theme was "Under the Sea", so the cake theme was as well.  We expected around 40 people to the shower, and boy, did they all come!  It was quite the event; obviously my sister is very much loved for some reason....heh heh...

In any case, the cake was 4 layers, 4 different flavours, and awesome all over! I had to personally transport the cake from Toronto to Ottawa the day prior to the shower (of which I was also the Kitchen Lead for all of the food for the party - eek!), so I made sure to box each layer separately to minimize the chance of a gravity-hates-you cakey disaster on the way.

The fondant figures were not made by me; I concentrated on baking off the cakes, making the fillings/frostings, and torting, filling, and crumb-coating each cake. I also tinted each ball of fondant to the exact colours we were looking for (not an easy task, letmetellyou...).

The cake flavours were:

• Bottom Layer: Bourbon Vanilla Bean with Strawberry-Vanilla Buttercream filling
• Lower Middle: Deep Chocolate with Chocolate buttercream filling
• Upper Middle: Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Buttercream filling
• Top Layer: Tropical Carrot Cake with Pineapple Cream Cheese Buttercream filling

Some close-up pics of the little fondant sea creatures:

I just love this little goldfish!

Great little seashells and starfish

Crabby Dude sez "hi!"

Crabby dude's brother

Our work station during production, with the inspiration cake pic

Well, a cake that could easily have fed 80 people ended up with only a few pieces left at the end of the day...not that I'm complaining! Everyone raved about the cake, and I was gratified to have been able to deliver on a daunting commission -- it just *had* to be right.

This is what the serving table looked like when the cakes had been cut and plated (this was only about 1/2 of the cake cut at this point):

Holy gigantic servings, Batman!

A last little note to all; don’t be disappointed if your cake doesn’t turn out *exactly* like your inspiration cake; after all, you're supposed to take your inspiration from the original image, not make a carbon copy! We made some small errors with this cake, ’tis true, but we learned some things and also improved a few things, too. 

All in all, we’re proud of our little cake, and we’re glad we had the opportunity to make it.

Commission Tales: So many little'uns, so many birthday cakes...

Right after I had completed the birthday cake commission mentioned in the previous post, I had to start work on the next one due only a few days later.

Also a vanilla funfetti flavour (totally a coincidence, whodathunk...) for the bottom tier, and deep chocolate for the top tier, this cake was a gift to an amazing couple I've known for a while now.   The dad, A, and I met back in 2009 while working part-time at my college's bookstore while I was going through pastry school, and I met his lady love, K, in 2011 when they started dating. Now they have an adorable little boy with a *kick-ass* name, and I wanted to give them a special gift of the cake for his first birthday party. 

This cake was to be safari animal themed; a friend and I had made a jungle/safari themed baby block cake back in early 2012 for another client, and I was interested to tackle it a little differently this time around.

This time, the cake was to be two-tier, with zebra stripes on the bottom tier, and a jungle/safari theme (my design discretion) on the top tier. Unfortunately, I had managed to fillet my right index finger quite messily the evening before I was to do a dry-brush edible paint technique along the sides of the top tier, emulating tall grasses, trees, birds and swinging monkeys, so I sadly had to leave that off the final cake. At least I had already made the fondant figures for the top, so they were good to go...with one exception..dun dun DUNNN!

I had made a sweet articulated fondant monkey figure for the top tier that was to hang off the side of the cake, like he was playing in the (to be) painted trees, but as I was boxing the cake up the morning it was due, he suffered a fatal fall and shattered.  Creepily, the few pieces to survive the fall were both of its wee front paws, which I must say looked super-disturbingly realistic, and reminded me uncomfortably of the novel, "The Monkey's Paw".  No monkey-related pictures were taken prior to the accident, and I was just too disappointed after the fall to document the tragedy, so nobody but myself, my friend Miss Kitty, and the Hubster will ever know how cute he was going to be.  *sniff*

Moving on...!

Of the other fondant figures, I made an elephant and a python, as well as two golden fishies for a small pond circled by stones.  My technique continues to improve; I'm hard on myself, but I know there's nowhere to go but up!

In any event, here's the final cake in all its (unpainted) glory:

  

Zebra stripes hand-cut and layered. First time for me, and I think I know how to do it even better next time (thinner pieces, more slight curves, fewer white spaces).

Yes, I know you can see the layers through the fondant in the top, but that would have been covered over by the brush technique mentioned above. Shuzbut.

 

My next challenge looks like it's going to be a monster-themed cake for Hallowe'en. Miss Kitty and I have some ideas of auctioning off the cake for fundraising purposes for our local Scouts Canada group, of which we are both active volunteers.  Watch this space!

Commission Tales: Elmo says,"Tee hee, that tickles!"...or something.

Pulled myself through a bad case of the flu in order to complete this cake commission last week.  One of two commissions, actually. Ah well, illness never arrives in the right time anyway, so we must soldier on regardless!

Of course, I made scrupulously sure that all of my baking surfaces were cleaned and disinfected, and that I was appropriately masked and aproned, not to mention I washed my hands frequently. I figured that, after five days of illness, I was no longer contagious, so most of these precautions were a bit paranoid and over the top...but I don't take chances with other people's health, especially when I make a cake for a child.

In any case, my commission was for a delightful little girl who was turning one year old. Being a big fan of Sesame Street Elmo, it only made sense that her birthday cake would feature the giggling, furry creature.  Working on an inspiration picture gleaned from the internet, this cake was a delightful vanilla-lemon funfetti five-layer round cake, with vanilla lemon buttercream and homemade raspberry jam filling between each layer, vanilla lemon buttercream frosting in that characteristic Sesame Street bright yellow, and Elmo's face piped in bright red buttercream on the top with "Happy birthday" greetings surrounding it.

I had originally attempted to pipe the Elmo character using the "pinhole" technique, where you cut out a simplified picture of your intended design and place it on your cake, then use a sharp pin to delineate the outline that you then pipe over with frosting. This technique works very well on fondant-covered cakes, but the buttercream came to temp too quickly to be effective. So, I just hand-drew it from the reference picture.

Not bad for never having drawn an Elmo before, eh? *winks*