some more

I got a chance to exercise my whimsical side by creating a cake for a bridal shower. 

The top tier was a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream, and the bottom tier was a strawberry shortcake with real fresh strawberries - I'm always hesitant to use whipped cream in cakes that aren't going to be consumed immediately, so I instead used strawberry buttercream to make sure the filling was delightful and fresh, and to differentiate it from the other tier.

I was also asked to bring a cake to a family birthday party. The birthday boy goes to school for business (specifically related to fashion merchandising) and wanted something related to jeans. I only had time to make a round cake, but I dressed it up as denim-y as possible.

Until next time!

-Danielle

round 3

I didn't realize how popular this cake would be, but here is the third sushi cake:

I was asked to make a small sushi cake to feed 6 (similar to one I did a few weeks ago here)but this time I included three maki pieces to compliment three pieces of nigiri.

Can't wait to make number 4!

--Danielle

easter treats

Happy Easter! To celebrate the holiday and the arrival of spring (and an addition to my arsenal of cake tools) I created two spring-inspired cakes, one for my family and one for the better half's family.

This chocolate cake was layered with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream (flavours at my mother's request), covered in a turquoise fondant and trimmed with gold satin ribbon and a pink closed peony. I also had wanted to try an open peony, so I made this cake:

This lemon cake was layered with fresh strawberry buttercream, covered in yellow fondant and trimmed with a white satin ribbon and a matching yellow peony. I wanted the cake to taste as light and fruity as possible to compliment the colours. Creating this peony was a little bit more difficult, as the petals kept wanted to "close" when I hung it up to harden. I'm still happy with the result, and I hope the family is too!

Have a happy Easter!

-Danielle

showers of happiness

This cake was made to celebrate the arrival of a little girl.

I didn't think much of it at the time, but these little booties turned out to be quite tricky. I've been told they're quite simple to assemble if you have a cutter that stamps out the pieces; I don't, and so I cut the pieces out by hand. I trimmed the edges with pink fondant and finished them off with little pink flowers and bows.

Congratulations to the mom-to-be :)


-Danielle

a busy weekend

Two fun baking adventures this weekend:

 

These cupcakes were for a bridal shower. The theme was butterflies and flowers with a green and brown palette (my favourite!). Each cupcake had a gumpaste butterfly with three small blossom flowers atop a generous helping of swiss meringue buttercream. I made three flavour combinations: 

a. chocolate-chocolate (brown on brown, with green decorations) (2.5 dozen)

b. chocolate-vanilla (brown on white, with green decorations) (1 dozen)

c. vanilla-vanilla (green on white, with chocolate decorations) (4.5 dozen)

 

I made the stand out of 10", 16", and 22"cake boards and 5" cake dummies wrapped in matching green fabric and trimmed with a chocolate brown ribbon (finally putting my glue gun to good use).  And of course it rained. And of course I forgot to bring my camera to take pictures of everything set up at the venue. Thankfully some kind folks took beautiful photographs for me!

The second project was a smaller version of a sushi cake I made a few weeks ago for my better half's birthday:

 

The 'sushi' are cake balls covered in vanilla buttercream and coated in coconut flakes, topped with fondant or dried fruit. This cake fed about 25; however this one was smaller and only needed to feed the guests at an intimate birthday dinner party. I opted to make a smaller bento box with six pieces of nigiri 'sushi' instead. 

 

  

I'm convinced the sushi look even better the second time around! I added a bit more detail to the egg sushi by incorporating texture, and replaced the fish eggs with a piece of red snapper. 




-Danielle

crani-yum.

After almost eight years of studying the brain, it was only a matter of time until I made an edible model. It's too bad I didn't have this during my undergraduate neuroanatomy lab...

I couldn't capture every single sulcus or gyrus, but the corpus callosum is made of buttercream - the most delicious white matter there is.

-Danielle