i'm thankful for...

Thanksgiving: historically a holiday to celebrate and give thanks for a good harvest, and for a community to come together and rejoice after a season of hard work. Well, I didn't sow my own grains or mill my own flour but that doesn't mean a lot of hard work hasn't been done this year. This Thanksgiving I'm grateful for family. And friends. And wonderful opportunities. And pumpkin puree. And gumpaste.

Many pansy species bloom in the fall and with such rich colours I thought they would make a lovely topping to some fall-inspired pumpkin spice cupcakes.

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes:
recipe yields ~24 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups butter

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 cups flour

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp all spice or ground cloves

2 tbsp baking powder

pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Whisk together eggs and both brown and white sugar. Add eggs and vanilla extract and continue mixing. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice in separate bowl. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, mixing until incorporated. Mix on high for additional 2 minutes. Line baking tray with cupcake inserts. Carefully place batter into inserts and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into cupcakes comes out clean. 

 
Cream Cheese Swiss Meringue Buttercream Icing:

recipe yields 2-3 cups

Ingredients: 

2/3 cup egg whites

1 cup white sugar

2 cups butter (4 sticks)

1/2 cup cream cheese

2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Heat egg whites in a double boiler stirring frequently so that egg whites do not become cooked. Slowly add sugar and mix thoroughly for about 5 minutes or until mixture reaches 55C. Transfer mixture to mixing bowl and whip on high until stiff peaks form. Switch mixer attachment to paddle and slowly incorporate butter. Turn the speed up until mixture becomes uniform. Add vanilla and cream cheese and continue to mix until incorporated and mixture is creamy.

Don't forget to give thanks at your dinner table this Sunday! Happy Thanksgiving!

-Danielle

birds and blossoms

One of my closest friends that I've known since gradeschool recently returned to Canada after spending several years teaching English in Japan. Her birthday happened to be close by and I decided to welcome her home and wish her happy birthday with a small cake.

This 6" and 4" vanilla cake included my attempt at elements of Japanese design, mostly in the form of white and pink cherry blossoms and branches.

I wanted to include a big red feature so I cut out sparrows (ish) from deep red fondant and applied them against the soft blue background. They really popped against the delicate flowers and provided a lovely contrast to the ephermeral backdrop.

Happy birthday and welcome home, Allie!

-Danielle

phalaenopsis

My mother and her twin sister (mom II) are avid gardners; unfortunately, a green thumb doesn't appear to be carried on the X chromosome. The one plant I was tasked with taking care of this summer, a gerbera daisy, has been reduced to sadness.

Sadness.

Thankfully sugar flowers don't require as much upkeep; like real flowers, the initial time invested to get them "growing" is taxing but once it's done, they take care of themselves. No watering required. That's why I decided to make a flower pot cake for my mom and aunt's birthday(s).

The cake itself was a chocolate cake with peanut butter-chocolate buttercream filling, their favourite combination. The orchids are made of gumpaste; each leaf was hand cut and painted with petal dust and then assembled with floral wire. 

Hanging from the stem of the orchid plant were two silver charms with their initials in them ("I" and "L"). Also hand cut because I foolishly lost my shape and letter cutters.

Happy birthday, moms! I hope you love your cake (because I'm counting on you to plant my garden next season...).

-Danielle

quilts and brushes

This chocolate and vanilla buttercream cake was made for a bridal shower.

The bride-to-be's favourite flower is the tulip, so I crafted a small bouquet out of gumpaste and painted them with orange, magenta and yellow petal dusts. 

I absolutely adore tulips and can't believe I never thought to try to make them out of sugar before. Here, they are attached to painted gumpaste stems tied together with black satin ribbon and resting atop the quilted cake.

Lastly, I made a dragee-bordered gumpaste decal to rest on the corner of the cake with the BTB's first initial. Congratulations to the bride on her upcoming nuptials!


I also had a request to replicate this cake for a sweet 16 birthday. Wanting to change it up a little bit, I modified the colours and added a gumpaste cutout of Van Gogh's Starry Night:

 The birthday girl's favourite colour is blue, so I played that up and added several tubes of blue paint and lots of blue buttercream on the palette. 

I added a few more tubes of paint and included the birthday girl's age in the paint tubes ("1" and "6" in the background).


Another busy day of baking!


-Danielle

the big one

Wedding season is now upon us and to ring it in this weekend I prepared the largest cake I've made yet:

This cake is made of 160 servings, with a 14" bottom, 10" middle and 6" top for the bride and groom. I made this cake a little bit taller than usual (5.5") to make sure the servings, while slim, would still be generous. Each tier was made of lemon cake with different buttercream fillings - strawberry and vanilla in the 14", chocolate and blueberry in the 10", and strawberry and chocolate in the 6".

The bride and groom requested a swiss meringue buttercream finish in gray (to match the chrome theme of the reception) with brightly coloured gerbera daisies as accents. Because swiss meringue buttercream doesn't form a crust, it's nearly impossible to achieve a fondant-like finish - but this was close!

It was a tremendous undertaking but I'm very pleased with the final result. Hopefully you agree!

-Danielle

bai mudan

More popularly known as the white peony, this gumpaste flower was made to dress up a cream cheese buttercream-filled chocolate cupcake.

Another sweet and splendid way to spend an overcast Saturday afternoon :)

-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