Here comes the Bride!

Did you guess what the white dome was?

This past weekend was Z's wedding shower and bachelorette party, and I made her this little bride cake for the occasion!

I can't quite remember when the obsession started, but for the longest time I have wanted to make a Barbie doll cake (just ask D). I saw one like this on Cake Central, and loved how elegant it looked as a black dress form modeling the wedding gown. Inside, it's a lemon cake, doused in lemon syrup, filled with lemon curd and blueberry preserves, and iced with cream cheese frosting under the fondant. All the details are piped with royal icing.

I have to say, this is my favourite cake to date....it was a super fun to decorate - just like being a kid again and dressing up my dolls. I want to make another one already!! I guess I can, now that I own the Wonder Doll cake pan. Any future brides out there? :)

So, Saturday morning the cake traveled (quite well!) to the shower, where it received many 'oohs' which got a bit embarrassing (although, really...who minds a little ego-flattering??) It appears the bride-to-be enjoyed her cake...here she is, about to make the first cut:

If you look carefully, the groom is peeking out of her hoodie

Between nine of us, we ate about half the cake. I heard that Kodiak enjoyed a nice big chunk of shower cake...lucky doggy!

Ouch! That's my bum!

Considering the outer layer was ripped off and reattached, the inside doesn't look half bad:

* * HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN BRIDE CAKE* *

This took a little bit of planning, as I didn't want to be making it last minute and messing up the decorating. So, my cake schedule was as such:

Tuesday: I made the lemon curd with Devon (in an impromptu baking lesson)

Wednesday: I made the lemon syrup and cream cheese frosting

Thursday: I baked, filled and iced the cake. There was a bit of a disaster with the cake - the entire outer surface ripped off when I was turning it out of the pan, probably because the cake was still too hot, and unfortunately this was one of the only times I didn't line with parchment thinking that a cone shape would be easy to invert. Luckily, I managed to salvage the outer portion and stick it back on and glue the whole thing together with the cream cheese icing. The whole thing went in the fridge in two layers of plastic wrap to settle.
Friday: Dyed the fondant, covered the cake and piped the royal icing details.

Having a schedule was really helpful, and I think being organized made the process more enjoyable, rather than running out of time for decorating (like I have done several times in the past). Plus, there would be time to make another cake if the baking didn't go well. And, it felt like there was less clean up because everything was done in stages.

1. Dye a walnut-sized ball of fondant black (wear gloves, or prepare to have black hands). Dye a large clump of fondant in ivory for the dress and the bust.

2. Covering the doll pick:

• First, pull off Barbie's arms and head (I know it sounds mean but how else will you have a lovely dressform?) Snap off the little pokey bit on the neck. Form three tiny 0.5 cm balls of black fondant and press them on the neck and two shoulder sockets to create a smooth edges for the rest of the black fondant to mould to.
• Roll out the remaining black fondant to about 1/8 inch thick and drape over the neck and shoulders, as if covering a cake. Gently press the fondant against Barbie's upper body.

• To reduce bulk on the dress bodice, trim the black fondant where the top of the bodice will fall (just use a paring knife)
  

• Next, wash your hands thoroughly! If there is any trace of black, it will stain the ivory fondant, so put on gloves if you have to (or, you can do these steps in reverse order starting with covering the cake first)

• Roll out a walnut-sized ball of ivory fondant, and drape over the pick-end of Barbie's body. Carefully press the fondant against the doll to the edge of the black fondant. Again, using the paring knife, trim the ivory fondant in the shape of the bodice. Press the black and ivory edges together to form a complete seal.
  

3. Covering the cake:

• Ice the cake so that it has a nice, smooth, domed shape. I applied another layer of icing to the photo below.
  

• Roll out your fondant and drape over the cake, which will create the dress ruffles naturally. You can straighten the ruffles out a bit if they fall unevenly, if that bothers you. Trim with scissors or a sharp knife.

4. Almost done! Time to insert the doll pick into the centre of the cake:

5. Finally, make a small amount royal icing tinted in ivory. Pipe the dress details on the bodice, the waist, and the skirt, and anywhere else you want. You could pipe a necklace, or add ribbon trim, flowers, dots, lace...the possibilities are endless! (Gold or silver dragee would be pretty too - I searched my entire apartment but couldn't remember where I had stashed them, so no sparklies for me).

Last but not least, giving credit where it's due. Here's the photo from Cake Central that inspired my cake:

Whew, that was a long post. Enjoy!

What's this?

Still putting together the blog post, but here's a sneak peek. Can you guess what it is?

Raspberry Chocolate French Macarons

My first batch of the French macarons...and look! They've got feet! They've got feet!!

French macarons are infamously finicky to make, and supposedly even experienced pastry cooks can botch them up too, although probably far less frequently than amateur bakers. I had a lot of egg whites leftover from making a lemon tart, so I thought macarons would be a fun thing to try - they look so pretty and dainty. Tiny food is fun!

I had no idea French macarons were so popular to bake among pastry bloggers and foodies! I couldn't believe the number of blogs I found that referenced them. Here are a few: My Food Geek, Tartelette (who wrote a fantastic 'Macarons 101' article in downloadable pdf format), Serious Eats, Veronica's Test Kitchen, Mad Baker. You'll be able to link to lots of other info on macarons from these sites.

After a ton of reading, I decided on a chocolate raspberry macaron based on this recipe from Epicurious, but used the basic macaron batter recipe from Serious Eats. I was honestly expecting my macarons to be pretty disastrous - cracked, mishapen and footless (macarons form little ruffles at their base if made properly). Imagine my shock when the macarons turned out beautifully! Yippee!

Actually, I should say they looked beautiful; the texture was a little off. French macarons are meant to be crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside. Unlike American style macaroons, they are made only of egg white, ground almond, and sugar. My guess is that I overbaked them, or that it had something to do with the egg whites not whipping up properly. No matter. I'm still very happy that they developed feet! Plus the chocolate ganache makes everything better.

A few notes from my first batch:

• All the recipes said to leave the egg whites out at room temperature, with the length of time varying anywhere between 30 minutes to 72 hours! This freaked me out somewhat, as I was expecting a moldy mess, but it was fine. Apparently this helps them whip up to a greater volume.
  
• I had trouble whipping my egg whites up properly, probably because there was some residual grease on the beaters (from making buttercream icing). Note to self: wash all egg white equipment very well next time, and wipe down with a bit of lemon juice.
  
• The whites only ever reached a soft peak stage, so batter was quite loose and runny.
• All the recipes and notes I read online said to mix the batter until it reached a 'magma-like consistency'. How am I supposed to know how magma flows if I've never seen it? I can only imagine. So I guessed.
  
• When I piped my macarons, the batter was so runny that each one spread rapidly and looked very flat:

• I left them out for about 20 minutes to form a skin (to avoid cracks, I think) and encourage the development of feet (I think)
  

OK, I'll be honest. Not all of them turned out prettily...here is the tasty reject pile. Stay tuned for more adventures with macarons, this time with lemon!

Deep River Mugs

Last week D's mum mailed us our finished Deep River mugs - they turned out great! The glaze is looks so nice. Thank you, Alison! See here for pictures of the mugs before the glazing. I'm a little tired still, but since it's been so long since I posted something, I wanted to share something that didn't require too much chatter.

Ok. Here are the pottery pics:

D's glorious pencil jar

My morning coffee mug

The weather is gorgeous this weekend, so get out there and enjoy it while it lasts! Yesterday Z's bridal shower was actually outdoors in the sun (an unusual but welcome October experience), and we all went out for her stagette (a foreign word in Ohio) in the evening. Lots of fun, and there was a cake involved on my part - pictures to come soon.

This aftenroon we're heading out to try and see Bruce Springsteen on campus - maybe Obama will be there. Go Obama!

Happiness is a KitchenAid Pro600 Mixer

When I started my freelance cake work, I decided that I'd use my earnings to buy myself a stand mixer (actually, this may very well be the first gadget I've ever saved up to buy). When I was paid for my work in September, I finally had enough for the mixer - except that now I was short a coupon - you know those 20% off coupons from Bed Bath and Beyond they send through the mail all the time? That would take about $80 off the price! Sigh. I should wait for the coupon. Wait. Wait. Still no coupon.

So, I had been waiting for weeks (4 to be exact) for one of those coupons to come in the mail, and it finally arrived on Monday, and so I went out and immediately brought home my brand spanking new KitchenAid Professional 600 series stand mixer, with 6-quart capacity - that's a whole 14 cups of flour you can put in there!

Yes, I realize it's huge and clunky and takes up all my counter space. But I don't care. This things does wonderful, magical things - no more aching arms hand kneading bread dough, no more standing there for 15 minutes to whip egg whites! I can even walk away for a few minutes to go read the recipe!

I have been happily bonding with my mixer all afternoon - not a hugely high tech piece of gadgetry, but still totally exciting. I made cream cheese frosting (OK, a bit boring but whatever) but next I'm going to make a cake. And bread, to try out the dough hook. And then whipped cream to try out the beater. And many many more...

Um. I stand corrected...already.

I should know better than to publicly disparage something, because as soon as it leaves your mouth you just know it will come back to bite you on the bum. I was just saying how I don't like those wonky cakes...what I probably should have said was, "I'm not a fan of tacky, crazily decorated cakes in weird colour combos"...

Now THIS!!

This is how to really do justice to the crazy, whimsical shape of the Mad Hatter cake...this has got to be the cutest cake ever. I love how simple it is, what a great sense of design. And those sprinkles on top - adorable. This one is made by a very talented lady over at Cake Journal, go visit her site to see more of her super cutie cakes.

The Undying Mad Hatter Cake Trend

It's been a gorgeous weekend, hopefully you've been enjoying the sunshine like we have! Just a brief post - we're off to Sage Bistro for dinner very soon (and having heard many good things about it, I'm quite excited).

This morning I had a freelance cake to do - a fortieth birthday cake. I'm thinking something kind of classy, delicious-looking...personally, when I turn forty, I'd prefer a more sophisticated kind of cake. You know, something a little more age appropriate. I sighed when I saw the photo of the cake we would be making:

When the customer says, "Can you make it look like this?" then I suppose it is our responsibility to do our best. The Mad Hatter cake is something that has appeared in wedding cake magazines, bake shops and cake decorating books for some time now, and it has all these weird asymmetrical layers stacked together in very bright, crazy colours. The first time I saw it, I thought it was kind of cute, but now that I've seen thousands and thousands of these things, they're just not that special anymore. But they seem to be an undying trend. I have decided that if I ever run my own bake shop, I will refuse to make this particular cake (probably losing some customers, but at least I will preserve my cake integrity).

So here's my copy cat version - I think it actually looks a little nicer and more polished than the one in the picture. What do you think? I hope the birthday person likes it, and is humoured by the 'I can't decide what pattern I like best, so I'll include them all' theme.

Aside from cake decorating, we ate pizza in the park from BonoTogo - I had the Hulk, and D had #2 and both were excellent. Fresh mozzarella and asiago...mmmm.