Past Cakes: 2013

From simply frosted birthday cakes to elaborate chocolate designs, I played around and learned some of the basics.

2013:  Simple and clean[er] designs

2013: Trisha's Birthday Cake: Vanilla cake, cookies and cream filling, and butter cream frosting

2013 Trisha's Cake: Cake guts

2013 Autumn: Chocolate cupcakes, raspberry butter cream frosting, and sugar decorations
(NB: I did NOT make the orange bird!)

2013 Father's Day: Strawberry butter cream frosting, lemon cupcakes, and rice paper butterflies (from Sugar Robot)

2013 "I Like Red and Nature" cake for Lynn's Birthday:
Butter cream frosting, noideawhatkindofcake, and white chocolate decorations

2013 "I Like Red and Nature" cake for Lynn's Birthday: Along the side

2013 "I Like Red and Nature" cake for Lynn's Birthday: Along the side again

2013 "I Like Red and Nature" cake for Lynn's Birthday: Along the side still

 2013:  Stop fighting with frosting and getting along with chocolate

2013 Cake for a Tea Party with Mary: chocolate cake, chocolate filling, butter cream frosting.
Decorations are either frosting or chocolate with the exception of two- The birds are sugar and store bought. The rocks are actually chocolate candy and also store bought.

2013 November Unicorn cake: BECAUSE I CAN. Chocolate cake, butter cream frosting, sugar rainbows and sprinkles (store), and chocolate unicorns.

2013 November Unicorn Cake: A frivolous cake to brighten a cloudy cold November.
Look! I'm learning to put stuff around the edges of  my cakes, and to play with the texture of the frosting.

2013 One-off: Learning to blend frosting colours in a controlled manner. Learned colour wheels are a thing. They exist! I had NO IDEA until very recently.

July 2013: Cake for kayaking instructors

July 2013: Cake for kayaking instructors

July 2013: Cake for kayaking instructors: As usual, all decorations are made of chocolate.
Today I learned how to work WITH the lines in my frosting, rather than fight them. It was a good day.

 
 

2013 June: Sugar Skulls for Lexie! ALL decorations and lettering are made with confectioners chocolate, by hand. I use templates (print a mirror image, stick it under a piece of parchment paper) for outlines and fill in/ complete the design myself. Zero fondant or gum paste involved with this cake.

2013 June: Sugar Skulls for Lexie: Still learning how to make a cake look finished. Edges are showing...

2013 June: Sugar Skulls for Lexie: Slow loris with an umbrella-- two of the birthday girl's favorite things.

2013:  Incidentally vegan, serendipitously flourless, and other adventures in food allergy friendly baking

2013 Thanksgiving: Chocolate Mousse Cake, with dark chocolate side decorations. It happens to also be vegan, and it tastes smooth, cream, and rich balanced by the fruity-but-bitter bite of very dark chocolate.
(DELICIOUS and suprisingly easy recipe from CakeCrumb's Blog, with only slight modifications.)

2013 Thanksgiving: Chocolate Mousse Cake, with dark chocolate sides

2013 Thanksgiving: Chocolate Mousse Cake, with dark chocolate sides 

 

 

2013 December: Flourless Chocolate Cake, dark chocolate ganache, chocolate decorations and luster dust

2013 December: Flourless Chocolate Cake, dark chocolate ganache, chocolate decorations and luster dust
When the recipe says "wait until cool to decorate", they mean it. Chocolate stars melted into the still warm ganache.

2013: Remains of a german chocolate cake: Unfortunately walnuts and pecans will kill me (and another coworker, too). When a friend and coworker requested a German Chocolate Cake, I modified the recipe to use toasted coconut and almonds. It came out mouth-wateringly well. So well in fact, this was all the remained after one hour. She did get a taste of the cake before it was demolished, but not much remained for her to take home!