To have such a sweet tooth and to love sharing the cake wealth, my "slices of life" posts are pretty lean in comparison. Life just gets so busy.
"When autumn comes, it doesn't ask. It just walks in where it left you last," as John Mayer sings. (I know a few eyes just rolled on that one.) And Fall more or less did just that in Georgia this past weekend. The brisk air rolled into town and has settled into the Boro for a bit. I actually wore a light sweater today and was not roasting by 12:00. It is quite welcome (by me) after the 100+ degree temps all summer long.
Every November I think: I don't want this year to be as hectic as the previous holiday, yet it always ends up being an overload of activity and overall rush-rush-rush. No doubt that this year will be the same, but at least it means I will get a few days off from work while seeing "old" friends and family. And I am looking forward to trying out a pretty awesome 3-D Santa cake pan that Elizabeth gave me.
There are some good things coming up on the cake horizon that I will hopefully be able to update on soon...still working on specifics and logistics.
And I couldn't not provide this update since Libby and I successfully completed our first wedding cake: a 3 layer poundcake with buttercream icing, dyed a serene ocean-y shade of periwinkle. White chocolate sand dollars and shells flanked the cake. Real shells my mom and I collected around Amelia Island, Florida this summer were set around the bottom of the cake. The cake was served at a beachside wedding on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, October 30, 2010.
Congratulations to John and Sarah Barber!
My cousin Wendy marked her birthday August 31st. She loves dachshunds and has one at home that she adores. This lead me to make a birthday cake for her featuring a little black dachshund in honor of her little black dachshund Prissy.
I baked three layers of a new cake recipe I recently found in a cookbook, cannoli cake. It was a little something different, yet tasty with a good flavor. The recipe called for cutting each layer in 1/2 horizontally and adding a ricotta cheese and Marsala wine filling. The cake was then stacked and iced in white butter cream icing -- as smoothly as possible. She is not a fan of fondant, so I wanted to use it as minimally as possible.
The third and top layer, I cut out to make a cushion. The "cushion" was iced in buttercream and covered with hot pink dyed fondant. A fondant tufted "button" was added to the center, and I used an ice pick to etch the faux stitching.
I dyed black fondant to create the dog and saved a little white fondant for her eyes and mouth and also to make the black and white leopard print snuggie to wrap around the doggie and coordinate with the animal print base of the cake. I rolled out the remainder of the black fondant and used a basic kitchen knife to cut out leopard-inspired stripes and applied these to the cake base. This was not too difficult to do...I simply took the knife and cut free form stripes with a little curve to get the animal print feel.
In creating my dachshund, I searched and searched online for cakes with dachshund themes, as I did not want to make just any dog. I only found one; a tan and white version that the artist had taken pretty clear close-up shots of and posted on a message board 6 years ago. This proved helpful for getting me started. Keep in mind: this is the first time I have attempted any sort of animal, and I don't really recall being particularly skilled at molding clay animals in art class in elementary school either! I thought it turned out well for a first attempt.
Another cake first was the bow. I have never attempted to create fondant bows (aside from the Relay for Life remembrance ribbons for the cupcake fundraiser and that was totally different). I dyed a deep purple fondant (I wanted to use a lime green but the store was out of that shade of green at the time) and rolled it out. I measured a couple strips to wrap around the base of the cushion. The bow took a number of attempts to create. I don't own any fondant books and have no training on it, so it is trial and error based on my sketches and examples I have researched online.
I do need to invest in a couple of good fondant applications books, if anyone has any suggestions.
( By the way, The "W" was purchased at my local Hobby Lobby and was the only non-edible cake deco piece on the cake.)
Wild about Dachshunds!
Kate & Emily also made off with a present also.
My Aunt Linda gave them each a couple hundred
silly bandz and kindergartner Emily and I had a counting
lesson. She did a pretty good job with her numbers too!
