Mom & Dad's Cake

I'll preface this by saying that I'm really bad at surprises. Mostly because by the time I come up with an awesome idea, I never leave myself enough time execute the plan in secret. Like my dad's Father's Day cake. The whole cake was supposed to be a surprise, and I was going to create it while he was at work, but I didn't leave myself enough time, and I ended up having to tell him I was making a cake and that he couldn't see it yet so he wasn't allowed to go in the kitchen until I finished. So the design was still a surprise, just not the cake.

This time, I wanted to make a super special cake to celebrate my parents' 25th wedding anniversary. 25 years is kinda a big deal, ya know?

Though I think I pulled off the "surprise" aspect of it better than I expected.

I've got quite a few cake projects scattered throughout my house: gumpaste flowers, a competition cake I was unable to enter and still haven't finished, boxes of supplies I keep meaning to organize but haven't...

So I guess they thought this cake was just another one of my mini projects. (It probably helped that I baked, frosted, and covered the cake somewhere else.) I don't think they knew it was for them until I put the 25 topper on and told them I finished their cake! 

The cake had to be chocolate AND vanilla, because my dad basically only eats chocolate and my mom is not a big fan. As far as the icing goes, it's a vanilla butternut flavored IMBC with a chocolate cream cheese filling. (Don't judge me; I used canned cream cheese icing mixed with melted chocolate chips, that stuff was delicious)

Aren't they cute? Here's to another 25 years! I can't wait to see what last minute design I come up with for their 50th anniversary! ;)

Your Cakes Are Falling Apart, or: Why Cake Related Nightmares are the Worst

The night before my best friend's brother got married, I barely slept at all. And surprisingly, it's not because I shared a bed with a puppy and a small child (beds were hard to come by that night, lots of family from out of town and all that). No, it's because I had awful, terrible nightmares.

And honestly, I can only remember one other cake which struck such terror into my heart, and that was the peacock cake that I had to deliver the week my boss was out of town (and which went over much more smoothly in real life than it did in  my dreams). 

Why do I keep putting myself in these situations?

The central theme of these nightmares (yes, that's plural) was that the cake fell apart, which was a real fear for me because a) I was making this wedding cake completely 100% by myself (which some untrained help in the form of my best friend), and b) because I had to take apart and re-bake the 2nd tier on the cake mere hours before the wedding. Ok, so it was just the day before. But, still. Nail biting stuff!

Everything about the cake went ridiculously smoothly the day of and the day before the wedding. Before that? Not so smoothly. I completely understand all the ridiculous melodrama on cake shows now: that stuff is not made up. There was the fact that my A/C went out in my apartment, that I completely ruined an entire batch of icing, that I had to rebake 3 layers of cake because they cracked and crumbled, that I got Rickroll'd by Pandora (I mean, so traumatizing, right?), that I kept knocking over the green petal dust for the BILLIONS of leaves I made...

Can we just have a moment to admire how
smooth this fondant is?

But once I started frosting those cakes and covering them in fondant (ok, I'll admit that I did re-cover the 8" and 6" tiers because I couldn't get them smooth enough the first time) and cutting dowels and stacking them (that was the exciting part!) and airbrushing the leaves and intricately placing them all over the cake at 2 in the morning the day before the wedding as the groom's mother rushed around getting everything perfect (and it was all perfect)... everything came together. It was beautiful. It was bliss. It was zen.

And when I got the cake to the reception and it was all set up on the cake table with the cake topper and the bride and the groom saw it and everyone said it was beautiful and delicious... I remembered, over and over again, why cake decorating is not just my job, but my passion.

Now if only I could remember to make business cards...

Betty Cakes

I love decorating cakes. I could do it all day long, and in fact, some days, I do decorate them all day long. Or at least as soon as I get out of class until the bakery I work at (it's called Betty Cakes, if the post title didn't clue you in ;)) closes. Mostly I make "counter cakes" which are the standard cakes that are sold to the general public, and occasionally birthday cakes. I did make a 2-tier wedding cake a couple weeks into starting the job, but nothing too crazy.

That's where the faux cakes come in. Decorators pretty much have creative freedom to do whatever they want with the styrofoam cake dummies (as long as it's awesome, of course), and since the shop is decorated for autumn, I made an autumn-themed wedding cake, complete with gold basket weave, roses, and fondant acorns. It's so pretty... :)

I love my job!

Play My Music

 

If you can't tell, the cake is supposed to be a guitar.  Actually, it's supposed to be an acoustic guitar but the pick guard looked weird so I took it off, and according to the directions, it's just a guitar without the pick guard.

This cake was destined for greatness from the beginning.  Don't believe me?  Just look at the picture!  I took it out of the pan, and it didn't fall apart!  That's always a good sign.  (Thanks, Ruthie, for showing me how to flatten the bottom of the cake!) I used the cake mix extended recipe with a Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix.  However, I didn't use all the batter, so I make a little 8" cake with the leftovers and stuck it in the freezer.  More cake balls, perhaps?

I made a batch of regular white buttercream and half a batch of chocolate buttercream.  I crumb coated the entire cake:  white at the top; chocolate at the bottom.  Then I carefully did a second coat along the sides of the cake and smoothed them out nicely.  The entire top of the cake is made out of marshmallow fondant.  To get the different shades of brown, I used MMF with chocolate MMF and a bit of yellow food coloring.  I also used CMMF and black colored CMMF.

Actually, I lied.  The entire top is not exclusively made of fondant.  The guitar strings (#5 tip) and "Congratulations" (#2 tip) were buttercream. 

Why does the cake say "Congratulations" anyway?  Well, because I am congratulation my little brother's 4th grade teacher because he is getting married next week!  I was asked to make a cake because the class was throwing a little surprise party today during lunch.  I was told by a very good source that everyone loved the cake and said it was delicious and awesome, etc.  So I'm glad that everyone liked it, because, critical cake decorator that I am, I couldn't help but notice the little imperfections with my piping.

So that's my guitar cake.  I'm not done yet, though.  Today is my other brother's 5th birthday and I'm making him a cake this weekend.  He can't decide if he wants a Yoda cake, Lego Starwars cake, Rintoo cake, or an orange electric guitar cake.  He needs to decide pretty soon though.

Oh, and by the way, Cakes by Kelsie now has a Facebook Page!  So please join, if only because I have seven nine friends. ;-)

Cake Bliss

This is the first (and only-- so far) wedding cake that I have ever made. My uncle and his financee asked me to make the cake while they were at my 15th birthday party (well, actually, just decorate, but I'll get to that part in a bit). I was ecstatic and, of course, nervous. A wedding is a very special day, and I didn't want the cake to downplay the event at all-- it had to be spectacular!

Although I definitely think that I did a spectacular job (especially considering I really hadn't mastered the elusive buttercream rose until quite recently at that point), this cake is certainly not a fancy, Ace-of-Cakes expensive, over-the-top cake. That being said, even if this cake didn't cost a couple thousand dollars, in my humble opinion, it turned out beautifully and served its purpose of celebrating a wonderful and special occasion.

Now let's get to specifics. The bottom layer is a chocolate cake (absolutely tasty), but I didn't make it. No problemo. One less thing I needed to worry about. The bride's mother made the two tiers and I must say that she did a delicious job! The top tier was carrot; certainly not my favorite cake flavor, but tasty nonetheless (especially if its homemade as this one was). She also made the cream cheese icing, a nice compliment.

Now my part comes in. I actually got to miss a day of school for this. :) I assembled and decorated at my grandparent's house because they live closer to where the wedding was held. The cream cheese icing was spread over the bottom cake layer in a nice, healthy layer. Most people ice both the layers, then put the top layer on top of the bottom layer. Well, I didn't do that. Probably because the icing wasn't the crusting variety and I was apprehensive about messing up. And I didn't!

It was necessary for me to put dowels in the cake for support. I owe many thanks to my grandpa for cutting them down to the right size for me. After the support was done, and I carefully iced the top tier, the fun part could begin!

(This is turning into quite a long post, isn't it?)

First stop was the buttercream roses. I learned early on that these roses are especially finicky in the hot, Georgia October weather. That's what a ceiling fan is for, huh? :)

The way I do my BC roses is to freeze the cone for a few minutes before preceding with the rest of the petals, so that the base is a bit firmer and easier for me to work with. I also freeze the entire flower before putting it on the cake, that way the icing is firm when I peel it off the wax paper (essential for making BC roses) and plop it on the cake. The icing can then harden while on the cake. Otherwise, I would have to wait for the roses to sit at room temperature for a couple of hours (at least overnight) to harden enough to handle without breakage. I didn't have the time (I did most of the work the day before!), so my method (well, really, the method of my mentor and aunt) worked wonders.

(I used tips #104 and #12 as well as flower nail #9)

To make the roses sparkle, I used Wilton's Elegant Shimmer Dust (which I bought because I thought was pretty... not because I had a specific usage in mind). I lightly brushed the dust on with a new unused make-up brush (no need to get Covergirl all over the cake!), and bam! sparkly roses that matched the bride's dress and shoes!

For the final touch, I felt a boarder was in order. Despite this gut feeling, though, I was apprehensive about learning a new skill on such an important cake. However, I managed to create something very pretty and, although not perfect, really good for the first time. It may be hard to tell in the photograph (or easy, if you know for what you're looking, as I do), but the garland border isn't even. They have these fancy little tools that give you even garlands, but I had to get creative with wax paper and toothpicks. (I have since bought a cake diving set from Wilton.) After I marked with icing with toothpicks, I used a 3 tip to go over the dots so that I knew exactly where to put the border. I haven't done this border in a while, but I'm pretty sure that the wide end of the #104 tip should be touching the cake.

And that is how (in great detail, I might add) I made my first wedding cake. Everything went relatively smoothly, and we put the cake on no-skid mats in the car, and my grandpa carried it in for the reception, so that part went well too. None of my little cousins stuck their fingers in the icing, even though they really wanted to (I think I also told one of them that I would make him a cake one day... I need to work on that). Most importantly, the wedding was beautiful and everyone had a good time! :)

Oh, and I got a really cool cookbook for making a really cool cake. [=