Good Things Come in Little Packages

I'm always decorating large(r) cakes, so mini cupcakes, cake pops and macarons are a welcome treat! I was given the invite to a baby shower, and asked to make a set of matching goodies. I was so very excited to see Tiffany blue paired with gray chevron. There was a ton of fun stuff to draw from these invites!

For the cupcakes, I made little fondant toppers, copying the onesies and the chevron. Macarons are cute enough as they are, but oh so much cuter with the added touch of some hand-painted chevron and polkadots! Finally, for the cake pops, since there was already so much going on with the rest of treats, I kept them relatively simple, with some adorable mini neckties. 

A True Princess

Today, it's a very special little girl's birthday! My beautiful niece is turning five, which in itself is so difficult to believe. That also means it's been that many birthdays that I've been making the best cakes I possibly could for her. Every year, it's all about making her something bigger and better than last year. And each year, it becomes increasingly difficult. I thought I'd take this opportunity to take a trip down memory lane and show you the evolution of my niece's cakes. 

Her first birthday was my first ever attempt at working with fondant, so I didn't try anything too crazy. I was just getting to know this new sugar play-doh that I ended up rolling out way too thin, over a very unevenly masked cake. Around it, three little bears celebrating her birthday with a cookie cake!

When her second birthday had come around, I had experimented a bit with modelling with fondant, but still no better at covering cakes. I was, however, ready for a challenge, and made my first animated cake. This cake was pretty intense - it played music, Dora and Boots danced along, and there were birds flying around the tree on top.

I finally had some serious experience by her third birthday. That year, she wanted a Cinderella themed cake. We delivered a three-tier rotating cake, with each side telling a different part of the story. The topper? A white chocolate slipper!

Finally, last year, we decided to go big! She wanted a Rapunzel themed cake and we made her Rapunzel's tower - almost as tall as the birthday girl! 

That year, she also got a second cake for her daycare party - a simple little mermaid cake.

This year's theme is Snow White. The party isn't for another couple of weeks, which is great because I have great plans, and haven't started at all! She did have her daycare party last week, and for that, surprise surprise, another princess cake. 

Go Bananas!

This is the perfect cake for me to blog about today. I just came back from an amazing week in the sun, and I'm fighting some terrible winter blues! This was a cake I made right before leaving on my trip for an adorable little birthday girl who loves monkeys and bananas. Put 'em together, and you've got this super cute combination! 

Lately, I've been asked to make the inside of the cake as fun as the outside. Whether it's rainbow or obmre, it's super fun to cut into a cake to find a surprise. This time, I was asked to make something I had never done before - checkerboard! I had no idea how it was going to turn out until right up to the cutting, so that made me super nervous. In the end, it looked better than I hoped! 

It's a Bird! It's a Plane!

... No! It's Superman! 

It was a family friend's birthday this weekend, and my parents asked me to make him a cake. He's nicknamed superman among his friends, so they thought it'd make a fitting theme for the party and the cake. I stuck with simple blue and red tiers, some kryptonite, topped with a brown superman.

I've never masked a cake in ganache before, but after seeing just how much smoother cakes are when using ganache instead of buttercream, I gave it a go! I'm sold! No air bubbles, super straight lines, and oh-so-decadent to boot!

Yummy Minnie

I don't usually make cakes that aren't covered in fondant. Fondant is smooth, clean, and creates the perfect blank canvas. So when a repeat customer asked me to make a buttercream cake for her daughter's first birthday, I reluctantly agreed, explaining to her that I'd still use a bit of fondant to recreate the decor and topper she asked for. I probably could have made it entirely out of buttercream, but the OCD in me would have hated the imperfections! I worked extra hard on making the buttercream as flawless as possible, and topped it off with a 2D gumpaste figurine of Minnie's head.

I have to admit, the buttercream makes this cake look extra yummy! Doesn't it just want to make you stick your finger in it for a little taste!? :P

Periwinkle Takes the Cake!

This weekend was Montreal's first annual cake show. To see what I was up to on Saturday, check out my last blog post. On Sunday, they announced the winners for the cake expo entries. It was insanely nerve wracking, but it turned out much better than I expected. Aside from the cupcake challenge (where I won Finest Looking Cupcake!), I entered 3 other categories in the expo. Overall, I ended up taking home prizes for 3 out of my 4 entries! Amazing results! 

As Halloween was on its way, and I was way too consumed with my caking to do our usual candy giving madness, I needed to get my zombie fix elsewhere. So, for the sculpted cake category, I decided to enter a zombie cake. I had so much fun making a zombie head for an order a while ago, so that was  obviously what I had to make again! I was super excited... until I reread the rules and realized my cake had to stand at least 24" tall and be made entirely of cake. Yikes! As scared as I was, I changed my zombie head to a zombie body, and went ahead with it. Being so huge, no part of making this cake was easy. Not the carving. Not the masking. And definitely not covering him in giant pieces of fondant. What a nightmare! 

He turned out great in the end, but when we brought him in to the expo, and looked for our number on the tables, my heart sank. Right next to our spot was this beautiful, multicoloured owl sculpture that totally drowned out my zombie. Chef Zombie looked dull and unimpressive next to THAT! So, when they didn't call out my name for 3rd place, or 2nd place, I really didn't expect it when I got called for FIRST! I was stunned! AMAZING! Chef Zombie look home the GOLD in the advanced sculpted category! 

My last winning entry was my Valentino inspired shoe. It's something I've made a couple of times before, and I keep getting emails, and comments about it. Its something I was very confident making, and knew I had to enter into the sugar shoe category. So I did, and of course, it came home a winner too! 

So there you have it! My winning entries! I also entered a wedding cake, but with all the amazing talent in that division, my cake didn't win :( But that's a-okay... I'm already planning my cake for next year ;) I'll share pictures soon! 

The Baking Of

A couple of weeks ago, I had two wedding cake orders for the exact same day. Being unable to decline the opportunity to make some amazing cakes, and being slightly insane, I took on a 150 guest wedding, along with a 200 guest wedding. With just a regular home kitchen, I had to organize myself down to the tiniest detail to be able to pull this off. Regardless, the weeks leading up to that weekend were as chaotic as possible. What fun would it be if it wasn't!?

Let's start at the beginning. Three weeks to deadline, I drew out my sketches, and made myself a schedule, with a detailed to do list for each day. And I plastered it all over my walls. Yes, I was thorough.

The first of the two weddings was fairly simple, an intricate lace on alternating tiers. The lace was detail work I wouldn't have to worry about until the end. The second wedding had a whole lot of elements to incorporate into the design. The central cake was to be hand piped with a delicate design based on their wedding invites. The other two cakes were based around the baroque bar they were bringing in for the reception. 

Here's the sketch for that wedding.

I was also asked to include white peonies, which I made a few weeks in advance as well.

And then, two weeks to deadline, I started making all the frostings. Four different kinds. Working with just one mixer was not going to work. So, my wonderful sis-in-law lent me hers as well. 

LOTS of butter and egg whites ready for buttercreaming :)

Mama mixer and baby mixer working hard!

Ten whole batches later, I was finally ready for the last week. It involved a whole lot of baking, a great deal of messes, and lots of drama. Knowing this week was going to be crazy intense, my now fiancé (!) decided to propose to me at the beginning of the week. That, along with his amazing support was probably the only thing that got me through the insanity. After a bit of celebrating, back to baking!

Red velvet and chocolate cakes freshly baked

Makeshift shelves from the veggie drawers

Luckily, I have a really wonderful friend with a fondant sheeter. SO much easier to cover cakes in fondant when I don't have to struggle to roll out the fondant! So all my masked cakes were loaded up in the car (not an easy feat) and driven to the west island, where I covered all these cakes in a fraction of the time it would have taken me at home. And then? Well, she left for a dentist appointment, I started loading up the fondant covered cakes into the trunk, threw the keys into the trunk, closed the trunk, and went to open the back doors to load up the rest of the cakes. Uhm... wait... yup! I was locked out of my car, with a dark cloud threatening to soak my cakes. Thank goodness for my dad, who drove all the way out to the west island, right before it came down like a tropical downpour! I was soaked to the bone, but my cakes were safe and sound.

Back home, I fixed up the little bobos and stacked my precious tiers. This is what a blank canvas looks like to me:

Stay tuned for pictures of the cakes once decorated! :)