Well, yes, it can be considered a magical cat, but no, what I meant was a Magical Tree and a Cheshire Cat (^_^)
This week I was so stressed about the Cheshire Cat, I wanted to do it since last weekend... but come on! the cake was for this Saturday, so I had to wait until the last minute to make it and and be sure it was fresh :P
The cake was my first ever sculpted cake and I learn a thing or two about gravity... and about making cakes when I'm still awake so I can use the common sense and avoid some gravity issues I had. The cake was for a friend of a friend, and I told her a while ago I will send her some Red Velvet cupcakes so she could tell me if those were as good as the ones she had eaten, but I never really had the time to made them, soooo, I made the Cheshire Cat using Red Velvet cake <3 
For more pictures click here
A Magical... Cat?
From outer space to a shoe box!
You may be wondering: "what the heck?"... well just let me tell you the story and everything will be perfectly clear (I promise).
This time I'll be posting about 4 cakes and very different themes.
The first one is a cupcake that I made for a Flickr Throw Down, I didn't win but I was proud of it and also got many votes (wooohoo!!). The TD was about the space, and I'm not really into the space (I kinda hate it... it's a long story), but the thing is, this was the perfect opportunity to make Marvin the Martian! (oooh yes, I love that little crazy guy!).
My second cake was a sheep cake, it was a request from a coworker for Mother's day (nop, I'm not posting this late, in this side of the world we celebrate Mother's day on August 15th). I have to confess I wasn't quite happy with the cake, but I was following the client's request. The cake was an All American Chocolate Cake filled with "dulce de leche".
The third one, uuuh the third one is a wonderful one I have to admit it (and I do this rarely), I made it as a gift for my mother-in-law. It was a super rich chocolate mud cake and the cake was shaped as a pot, the dirt is the same chocolate cake (yummmm, yummmm!!). The pot was filled with my first fondant roses ever, and I really enjoyed learning how to make them (yup, because I learnt otherwise I would've hated the process hahaha).
And the best one, is the last one!!! Yayyyyy! My mom's cake, she is a shoe lover, and I knew she would adore my cake. The cake was half chocolate mud cake and the other half white chocolate mud cake, it was filled with chocolate ganache & rum. I made the shoe a week in advanced to give it time to dry.
And now the part that I like the most:
For more pictures click here
Cheesecake! Yummilicious
I finally managed to make my favorite dessert, I was a bit hesitant after listening how complicated it could be to avoid cracks on the surface... and I DID IT! and without cracks!
The cheesecake is very rich, which is great when you eat a piece but really bad if you wish to eat the whole thing (I wanted, but I didn't hehehe). I found the cherry topping was expensive at the supermarket so I decided to make my own cherry topping using maraschino cherries and its syrup.
I'm happy with this cheesecake and I plan to make it again in the near future, since this was a winner and everyone wanted a piece.
How can you say no to this?... Exactly, you can't!
Season TD cupcakes
Last week I participated in a cupcake throwdown, the theme was about the seasons, and the idea: to represent each one of them on a cupcake.
I didn't win, but it was fair enough, my competitor made some gorgeous cupcakes of some cute babies.
I have to admit this was a difficult challenge, not because of the ideas I had for the cupcakes, but due to the weather, it was a really awful week to work on fondant, my whole house was super humid, I started with the autumn one and I was so proud of it... then it started to melt, for the rest I decided not to dedicate so much time, since it will melt any way.
Anyway here are the pics:
Winter
Summer
Spring
Autumn
My Pony Stable and the Poppy Seeds
Yesterday was a great day, why? well because finally the tempeture went below the 22 degrees and that meant only one thing to me "today is the day to use fondant" - wooohoooo!!!
Recently I bought the book "50 Easy Party Cakes" from Debbie Brown (a veeery talented woman), I decided as a learning experience to make all the cakes I liked from the book, and I started with the Pony Stable.
Making the cake was fun and never frustrating (which is sometimes hard in this business haha), I gave a try to the madeira cake and I didn't like the taste of the cake itself, but the consistency was pretty good to build the stable. In the future will try other recipes for the cake, but this time to give it a twist I used buttercream with peach flavor.
The colors used on the book were pale but I used some vibrant ones :) I also substituted the flower tiles with heart tiles and I'm happy with the result!
After finishing the cake I was still on good mood, so I decided to give a try to the Lemon Poppy Seed cake of Rose Levy from the Cake Bible and made a Lemon Curd using the recipe from this site: http://www.sugaredellipses.com/?p=895
Was a happy weekend :)
Iron Cupcake vote NOW!!
Hi everyone!!
You can start voting for your 3 favorite cupcakes here > http://www.ironcupcakemilwaukee.com/
The vote will be open through Monday, July 6 at 12 noon.
Summer Blackberries
Yay! My first entry for Iron Cupcake Earth.
The theme for this month was Summer Berries, I chose blackberries and to make my cupcake 100% summer I used lemon, orange and coconut too.
I still kinda clueless of when I'm suppose to publish the recipe and all, but since I just finished my cupcakes I rather publish the recipe right now than forget it later :P
Oh but before I post the recipe I want you to see the pictures (so you start feeling the urge to bake some haha):
Oh! and let me tell you I'm competing to win the following prizes:
- A sweet cupcake ID bracelet by INSANEJELLYFISH, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5021935
- A groovy linocut piece from BLOCKHEAD PRESS http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6108705
- a sweet surprise from Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Cupcakery, http://www.acupcakery.com/
- PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5243382, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice - sweet!
Remember to vote starting June 28 to July 6!! :)
And now the recipe :)
Blackberry and Orange Filling
Ingredients
(Note: this recipe is to fill 24 cupcakes)
1 pound of blackberries
2 tb of orange zest
2 cups of sugar
1/2 cup of orange juice
1/2 cup of water
Place the blackberries (slightly mashed) with the water, orange juice and zest in a heavy saucepan, let it boil for 1 minute. Then add the sugar and cook on medium heat until it starts to thicken (aprox 20 min). Remove from heat, let cool and refrigerate if you are not using it right away.
Classic Vanilla Cupcakes
Ingredients
Source: http://www.creativeconfectioneryblog.com/2009/01/classic-vanilla-cupcake.html
Makes 24 cupcakes
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 large eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup canola oil
2 tsp vanilla, or add another flavor
1 cup sour cream
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place papers in 2 (12 cup) cupcake pans.
Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.
In your mixer on medium speed, beat the eggs and sugar until thickened and lightened to a cream color, about 2 minutes. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl as needed during mixing. On low speed, mix in the oil and vanilla until blended. Mix in the sour cream. Mix in the flour mixture until it's incorporated and the batter is smooth.
Pour into prepared cups, put one teaspoon of the filling on top of each cupcake and bake 23 minute. Remove from oven and let sit in pan for 10 minutes.
Frosting
Ingredients
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup unsalted butter
3 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp coconut extract
1 tbs orange zest
3 tbs dry shredded coconut
Sift the confectioners' sugar into a medium bowl. Whisk in the condensed milk, butter, and lemon juice to make a smooth icing. Add the coconut extract. In a small container mix the orange zest and the coconut. Cover the cupcakes with the frosting and sprinkle it with the orange and coconut.
Enjoy!! :)
Beers with some mushrooms
Hi everyone... yes I know, has been a while since my last post, I was somewhat trapped with my day job issues and trying to figure out some stuff. But hey! I forgot baking is my outlet; I started baking and as soon as I started I wanted to finish, yeah, you may be wondering why... well because the rainy season in my country is hideous, it was so sad to see my fondant getting all shiny and wet due to the humidity.
Even with the horrid weather I managed to make a couple of cakes, I won't say I'm proud of them because I wanted them to be dry and shineless, but I know it could've been worse, so I'm happy that the fondant didn't melt as much as it could.
The first cake is a table with some cute beer candles that my boyfriend bought for his best friend's cake. I have to say I love the look of the floor :)
and the spilled beers...
The second is a cake I made for a friend that LOVES Alice in Wonderland, I wanted to add a cartoonish feel to it so I made it inspired on Mario Bros xD, this one is a super rich chocolate mud cake.
and a couple of close ups:
Bows, Stripes, Pinguins... lips?
What all those words have in common? They are part of the cakes I did this week... yes you are right, I was a bit busy hahaha (taking into consideration I have a day job :P)
Well let's start, the first one is a Raisin Butter Cake with a green and yellow bow, I totally loved how those colors looked together. My mom was in love with the first bow I made, so she wanted a similar cake, but with more "grown-up colors". I covered the cake with White Chocolate Ganache, before proceeding to cover it with fondant.
The second cake is a super rich Chocolate Mud cake, mmmm so yummy, I got to taste this one because I made it for a get together that I had with my high school best friends (oh time goes by sooo fast!), the flower was made with plastic chocolate (also known as chocolate paste). The stripes: rolled fondant over marshmallow fondant.
The third cake is the one I'm proud of, I was told that I needed a pan to make the igloo and I didn't have one at the time, so I made a chocolate mud cake in a regular pan and then carve it to make my igloo, and I totally loved it :)
The base of the cake is a White Velvet Butter cake, first time I did one of those, and I was really pleased with the texture and the flavor, so was my client! My "snow" are semi-melted marshmallows. It was a two layer cake filled with caramel.
The last one was a failed attempt to decorate a cake, here's the story, I made the cake, covered it on fondant and put some plastic over it until ready to decorate it... I didn't realize the poor cake was under the afternoon sunlight's... yeah go figure, when I tried to remove the plastic it was all sticky and my fondant was a mess.
I wasn't really on the mood to change the fondant, so I left the cake and started fooling around with some colored fondant, I made some lips and my sister told to create a green tongue to make the mouth look creepy... and I did it haha. Later I decided that the two creepy things belonged together, so I put the mouth over the poor ugly cake hahahaha.
Ragamuffin and Classic Vanilla Cupcakes
Again working with Classic Vanilla cupcakes, so yummy I can't stop using them :)
This time I did Mr Ragamuffin, he is from Lenore - The Cute Little Dead Girl, he is a cutie when he is not trying to bite someones neck, since he used to be a vampire, but now he is only a toy.
Ragamuffin is trying to stay on top of three cupcakes.
This was made for my friend Scotty, who was hoping for a Tucan but I decided to make something more attractive and way more eatable, since the Tucans are black and for some reason the black fondant doesn't taste very well (at least mine).
Cheshire Cat (Alice in Wonderland)
Today I made some Classic Vanilla Cupcakes, yummmmyyyy, they are delicious!! I covered some of them with marshmallow fondant and then tried to create like a cupcake puzzle with Cheshire Cat.
This was just my first attempt of Cheshire, I promise there will be more, and the result will be better... hopefully next time he will let us see his whole body xD
Chocolate Mud Cupcakes with Sour Cream Ganache
As I said days ago, I still had a lot of mud cake batter, I decided to make use of it. Made more cupcakes, covered them with sour cream ganache (which tastes like heaven) and then made some fondant decoration.
Enjoy the pics :)
Of Easter and Bunnies
I wanted to make an Easter bunny but in the process I remembered a character that makes me laugh so hard... that I couldn't continue with the idea of an Easter bunny and I did a Raving Rabbit!
How cool? hahaha, I know... my version is fatter but since it is the first time I do one, I won't complain, but I promise that in the future they will be more like the original one!
Chocolate Mud Cake with Peanut Butter
Found a recipe of Chocolate Mud Cake, and I had never done one before, so I decided to give it a try, but instead of making a whole cake I chose to do several cupcakes.
I read the recipe, it served 8, so I doubled the recipe to make like 18 cupcakes... I ended having more than 30 and I still have batter in the freezer (will do a cake when I have time).
The frosting is of peanut butter, but to be sincere, the cupcake is way better without it, ended up been just too sweet (yes I never say this, but this time it was!... imagine!), in the other hand, the chocolate mud was divine, the flavor, the texture, the color... simply perfect.
Gift Box with Bow
This was my first fondant bow, and since my fondant is homemade I had to add C.M.C to my mix so the bows hold their shape, I still think I could have added more C.M.C... will do next time.
Love the bright colors of the cake and the sparkles, the cake is a White Velvet Butter cake.
Perfect All-American Chocolate Butter Cake
My sister came to me with a huge list of requirements for her 1st anniversary with her boyfriend, I was shocked because she is a Publicity Designer and should have (and I know she has) some designing sense... but that day she was crazy, she was asking me to use ALL the materials I have for cake decoration, she wanted me to incorporate them all in her square cake and yet she wanted the cake to be beautiful... basically impossible.
In her crazy woman list was another requirement, she wanted a chocolate cake, but she wanted to feel she was eating brownie without the heaviness of one, she wanted a light cake with a heavy flavor, and she had it, I made her a Perfect All-American Chocolate Butter Cake
I tried to condescend with her in the decoration department, and I started searching for all what she asked me for, went several times to the store to look for new materials, but didn't find a way to put them all together and make it look good. So I said "ok, she is in love, that may explain why she is so crazy right now" and I made her a cute cake, that represented the year she spent with her boyfriend and she liked it.
Of course, she later complained: "my boyfriend says the cake is too sweet, and he can't eat too much sweet"... she knew this detail about her boyfriend long time ago, so she could have bought him potatoes or something else =P (she is not crazy because she is in love, she is just crazy... I captured that craziness in the eyes of the bears LOL).
Btw in the background of the picture if another cake I did the same day, but that's the only picture I have of it.
My Striped Cake
This month was my mom's in law bday, and I decided to use a technique I saw the other day on Flickr: a cake full of stripes of different colors, but I also wanted to use my flower cutters and my candy jewels, so at the end I went half way with the stripes and intercepted them with flowers and my candy jewels.
I made a careful choosing of the colors, because I wanted it to be grown up but not too serious and wanted it to be attractive also.
The day before assembling my cake I did a dummy one, just to make sure my final cake would look the way I dreamed it. I'm satisfied with the result and mmmmmm the cake was soooo good.
Here is the picture of my dummy cake:
This was a really tall cake, three layers of cake, two of White Whisper Chocolate Cake and one of Buttermilk Country Cake. The cake icing was of Chocolate Buttercream:
The Pearls of My Heart
My brother wanted to give his girlfriend a cute cake, and he trusted me to do whatever I wanted in a small cake... I love when they let me xD
I decided to use the pearl like candy that I recently bought and the a lovely pink for the fondant decorations. The cake was of three layers and filled with "dulce de leche" and strawberry jam.
Pink Starry Cake
This is a Buttermilk Country cake, what I love about this cake is its texture, is so dense but yet so light... is just a perfect blend for my bubblegum marshmallow fondant.
I like the decoration, as the cake is simple, playful and almost elegant, only used 2 colors but played with them and their... let's say saturation.
My client was happy with the cake and so was I.
Kreature Cookies
Has been a while since my last post, but don't you dare to think I was laying in my bed staring at the ceiling =P In fact the last couple of weeks were pretty busy.
Two weeks ago my aunt (not the same one of the clothing store) that lived in USA for a while was coming back to live in our gorgeous country again xD, our family was planning to throw her a welcome party, so I planned to make some of my lovely cookies and then decorate them with my newly invented Kreatures.
I baked tons of mini cookies, used several of my new cutters (yay!!!) and then got ready to use my new marshmallow fondant (which makes me smile each time I work with it).
The cookies are filled with "dulce de leche" and cover with fondant, some of them have on the top one of the 4 types of kreatures(turtle, snail, pig and "mariquita"). My family and friends were in love with the cookies... and I can understand why ;) hahaha.
Oh I know what you are thinking, and the answer is "no! is not Play-Doh! is fondant and can be eaten =P"
I invite you to take a look :)
Vanilla Cupcakes with Rolled Fondant
I've always loved the way rolled fondant looks, yesterday I was planning to pay a visit to my aunt's new cloth store and she told me that my little cousin would be there waiting for me and my sister, was at that moment that I decided to make something cute for her.
I went to the fridge and took out some rolled fondant that I made months ago for my boyfriend's bday cake, the colors were just perfect since they were ideal for my new fondant cutters. Baked some vanilla cupcakes (which I have to admit weren't as good as always, I think it was because I used margarine instead of butter, I know I know, my fault) and then started the process of covering the cupcakes.
Used three cutters: tulip, butterfly and flower; I'm pretty happy with the results, my cupcakes ended looking really cute. When I finally arrived to the store my cousin was no longer there, so I don't know if she liked them or not, I hope she did, anyway, it was a nice way of getting started in the decoration of cupcakes with rolled fondant.
There are a couple of pictures.
