Congrats Jack & Jiejin!

My friends Jiejin and Jack got married this summer in China. Since it was literally on the other side of the globe, a lot of their friends from Gainesville couldn't go to the wedding. They decided to have a little party here this week with a traditional American wedding cake and a champagne toast. This was my first wedding cake!


The cake was 2 tiers and each teir was made up of 3 layers - chocolate, marble, and yellow cake with raspberry cream filling. The tiers were covered in white fondant and decorated with various shades of ivory. There were about 27 roses on top of the cake...and I can make about 6 roses in an hour so that was time consuming! I put a little sparkle dust on the pearls and bubbles around the cake and then wrote their names around the base of the cake board. Here's a few close-ups:





















I had a few "caketastrophies" with this weekend. First, my 10-inch chocolate layer decided to just crumble into pieces when I tried to ice so I had to completely re-bake it. Then, when I stacked all the layers, they were too heavy and pushed the raspberry filling right out! I guess I shouldn't be experimenting with the icing recipe while making an important cake! I had to scrape all the icing back off and remake it. When I iced the cakes a second time, it was a little better, but you can still see some bulges on the sides of the cake. I was really upset about it, but I always tell my students that part of becoming a "profesional" cake decorator is learning to cover your mistakes so I knew I had to keep working on it. I should have taken a before and after picture - the cake was so ugly it was making me sick to my stomach! I guess I did an OK job of covering up the problems, but you can still see them a little. In general, the cake was acceptable when viewed from 3 feet away and only from the front. haha!

Michael's Gingerbread House Demo

Today was very rainy and I was fortunate enough to be obligated to work at Michael's so I could watch the rain from inside rather than from under my poncho at a Gator game. It was a tough job, but someone had to do it! I had 2 hours to sit at the entrance of Michael's and decorate a gingerbread house. Yes, I got paid to play with a gingerbread house! Can it get any better???

Well, I must be an extremely slow gingerbread house decorator because when I looked at my watch an hour and a half into it, I thought "Whoa, I better get moving so I can finish this in the next 30 minutes!" I did manage to finish the house, but I had a LOT of candy leftover. I guess I was a bit too conservative... But look, you can see my little snow people! Fun!

Getting Ready for Christmas!

This weekend, I'm making a Christmas Gingerbread House at Michael's to be used as a store display for the rest of the holiday season. If you live in Gainesville and want to see the display, they usually put it on top of the end of an aisle near the cake decorating stuff. As soon as you enter Michael's, look to your left and up. It should be up there. :) I made these sugar snow people to put in the yard of the house I make. Aside from the gator and flamingo I made at the ICES conventions this summer, these are the first characters I've modeled from fondant and gum paste. I'll post pictures of the gingerbread house this weekend when it's completed.

Tulips!

I just love tulips! They are my all-time favorite flower. I think I especially their simplicity & clean lines and their large waxy leaves. Adam bought me some tulips this weekend and I just love looking at them! I'm designing a wedding cake around tulips for a competition in February - I hope I don't destroy the tulip's beauty when I attempt to make it out of sugar!

Triple Threat Throwdown - Round 1

Lourdes, one of my labmates, recently challenged me to a bake-off. Of course, I was up for the challenge - any excuse to bake! We put various categories into a "hat" and Jiejin, the official Throwdown Director, drew the category at random. Round 1 = A Delicious Simply Decorated Cake. To make it more interesting, I recruited a third competitor, Elise. And so it became the Triple Threat Throwdown!

Coincidentally, all 3 of us made a variation of a chocolate cake! Here's Lourdes' cake - Chocolate Decadence with Luscious Mocha Frosting (Cake 1).

Elise's cake was called Chocoholic's Dream Cake (Cake 3). I have to give a shout out to Elise who competed in the throwdown with a 5-month old baby at home AND the baby got sick the night of the throwdown! Talk about multitasking!


And my cake was Strawberry & Chocolate Delight (Cake 2):


Each person received a plate that looked like this:
Each person also received a ballot where they rated each cake up to 5 points in each of the following categories: Presentation, Texture, Taste, and Overall Balance. In all, there was a possible 20 points from each person and, since 13 people voted, a total possible value of 260 points.

And the results:
Third place = My cake with 213 points
Second place = Elise's cake with 222 points
First place = Lourdes' cake with 235.5 points

Congratulations Lourdes! Soon we'll be drawing for the category for Round 2. A new group of judges (ones that aren't so partial to Lourdes...all 13 voters knew Lourdes while only 4 knew Melanie and 1 knew Elise) will be invited and it will be held at either Melanie's or Elise's houses! Also, a special thanks goes out to Thomas and Jiejin! Jiejin did an awesome job preparing the ballots, creating the award certificate, counting the votes, and directing the throwdown! And Thomas was a terrific assistant director! In fact, here's a picture to show how seriously Thomas and Jiejin took their votes!


And last, but not least, here's a shot of the 3 competitors - Elise, Lourdes, and me.

Great Season Fusion!

This is my last season playing soccer. I know, you're thinking..."You've been playing since 5th grade, are you sure you can quit???" We all know I've tried to quit at least 2 other times in my life, and I always come back to it. But, this time is different. Life is much busier now and I have other things demanding my attention - especially cake-related things. Between labwork, teaching cake decorating classes, and decorating my own cakes, I just don't have time to make it to practices anymore. In any event, I made a cake this weekend to celebrate a great season with my teammates. We played the first game of the tournament on Sunday and lost, unfortunately, but I don't think that completely knocks us out of the tourney. I think the cake helped cheer everyone up - at least a little bit!

This cake is a yellow cake flavored with some orange zest so it has a hint of orange flavor. The buttercream was also flavored with Grand Marnier and orange juice concentrate. In between cake layers, I put a thick layer of bittersweet chocolate ganache. Next time I make this cake, I probably won't put the ganach in the center...I don't really enjoy a hard chocolate center. I like cakes with a soft, mousse-like center.

Adam had to guard the cake with his life during the game. It started raining midway through the first half so he had to run the cake to the car and then go back to get it when the game ended. He's my special assistant! Not only is he good at washing dishes and running to Publix for forgotten ingredients, but is also good at transporting cakes!

Dog Days Race

This weekend we took Nani to a 1-mile race that you run with your dog. There were all kinds of dogs there - from a dog that looked just like the one from Beverly Hills Chihuahua to large, powerful ones. Coming into the race, we knew they were going to give away prizes like "Most Likely to Pull Owner," "Dog-Owner Look-Alike," etc. Of course, we were hoping for a prize, but we really just wanted to have some fun with Nani and attempt to socialize our little scaredy cat!

She did really good in the race! We let the majority of the pack go ahead of us before we even started running. Nani is especially nervous when things are behind her. Once we started running, it worked out well because there was a little boy running right in front of us. Nani loves to chase kids so she was having a great time! We ended up passing the little boy and the pack spread out enough that no one was directly behind us anymore. By that point, Nani was really running in stride and she was doing awesome! Every once in a while, we'd pass a dog on a poopy pit-stop and we'd crack up laughing. We have no idea what place we came in, but we were proud of her for running the whole mile!

After the race, they started giving away the prizes. Our little Nani won the highly coveted prize of "Cutest Dog"! Here are a few pictures we took of her back at home after the race.

Time Spent

One of the most common questions I get "How long does it take you to make something like this??" Well, I work in the lab until about 4pm every day so I can only work on these cakes in the evenings. I usually bake the cakes on Wednesday evening. Then, I can start the decorating on Thursday evening. If the cake is due on Friday, I have to get it all done on Thursday. If it's due on Saturday, I have a little extra time.

For example, the pool cake was due Saturday morning. All the stuff you see on top of the cake (chairs, dog, girl, beach ball) were made a week in advance because they need time to dry and become sturdy and hard. That cake was decorated in all buttercream so it was much faster than one with fondant.

The poker tournament cake was especially difficult to find time for this week. Adam's parents came into town on Thursday evening because his mom had surgery on her back on Friday morning. Like usual, I made the cakes on Wednesday and iced them with the chocolate buttercream on Thursday. On Friday, I covered the cake in fondant and then added all the hardened, pre-made poker chips, signs, and cards on Saturday. It may seem like I'm taking too long to do each step, but I like to let the cake "rest" between each major change. Sometimes, the weight of the icing or fondant can cause the cake to slide or slump. If I let it rest between each step, it's easier to fix things like that.

If I had more time during the day, these cakes could be made in a couple of days but it's more difficult for me right now since I can only find a few hours here and a few hours there. What's nice is that I can make a lot of stuff ahead of time - cards, chairs, etc - and have them ready to just set on the cake. One day, I'll log how many hours I put into a cake. I'll be willing to bet that I easily work 30-40 hours on any one cake. That's how many cake decorators can charge so much! I imagine that the poker cake could EASILY be sold for $150 at a bakery. One day, maybe I will be able to charge that too!

Speaking of ...if you'd like me to make a cake for you, I prefer at least 2 weeks notice so that I have time to completely think it through. This way, I can think through any problems that may occur and make a lot of stuff ahead of time. If worse comes to worst, I can make a cake with 1 week notice but it's a bit more stressful for me. When someone comes to me with an idea, I like to hear what they have in mind and then work up a couple of sketches over the next 24 hours. Then, I'll run those by the person, get their feedback, and make the final cake plans.

Poker Tournament!

About twice a year, one of Adam's poker-obsessed coworkers organizes a large poker tournament. Part of your entry fee includes dinner (hamburgers, hotdogs, and chips) and I always thought we needed desserts so I usually brought cookies or brownies or something like that. This year, I decided we needed an official poker tournament cake (Elise took care of the other cookies, brownies and goodies)! Here's the cake I brought:

























I paid a lot of attention to the playing cards so here's a close-up on them:


This cake was marbled (chocolate and vanilla swirled) with chocolate buttercream frosting and covered with both marshmallow and chocolate fondant.

Many of you already know that Adam and I have played in this tournament for a few years now. My goal is to always get at least one seat further than Adam. What can I say, I have a very competitive spirit but I set realistic goals - to expect to win every year is just ridiculous! haha! Anyway, usually I do end up beating Adam by a hair - I get eliminated right after him. This year, however, was a different story! I made it to 8th place, like usual...and Adam got 3rd! Way to go! He won $65 which covered our entry fees ($20 each) AND helped recover the cost of the cake!

2nd Order from Ph.D.-serts!

I've just completed my second official cake! This request came from my labmate Mike, who wanted a cake for his sister's birthday party. Apparently his sister really likes her new pool so he wanted a cake that resembled the pool. I was told the following: his sister is "busty" and has brown hair, she has a dog that digs all the time, the pool has a waterfall on one end, and she has 2 reclining beach chairs. Of course, I was told a lot more about the pool, but there's only so much you can fit on a 9x13-inch cake! :) Ok, so here's the finished cake:
In case you can't figure it out, that brown thing in the bottom left corner is the dog digging with his hiney in the air. haha! Here's the view of the cake from the side:


And here are a couple of close-up pictures to give you more details:















This is a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling. It's decorated in buttercream and the flowers, girl, dog, chairs, beach ball, and towel are made of fondant.

Mike, thank you for your support! This cake allowed me to explore a little more of what can be done with buttercream. Not all cakes must be covered in fondant to be beautiful and fun!

Lessons learned from this cake:
1. Decorating with buttercream is much faster than fondant!
2. Next time, use a double layer of cardboard under the cake to better support the weight.
3. Don't try to multitask while carmelizing sugar. This cake was supposed to have a carmelized buttercream filling...but after 2 batches ruined, I had to scrap that idea and go with chocolate filling.

Thanks again, Mike!