SORRY!

    So Devin's birthday was last Saturday, so of course I needed to do the cake.  The theme for his party was board games, so he wanted me to make a Sorry cake.  I beginning to realize I don't have enough time in the day to do all these cakes.  I think I have spent more time baking cakes the past two weeks than actually playing video games.  What was supposed to be my hobby on the side has suddenly become my main hobby.  Not that I mind, I just need to pace myself better when making the cakes.  I started this one Friday night, and finished about 30 minutes before his party started.  I frosted this one in IMBC because I really <3 the taste of it.  Unfortunately, IMBC needs to crust in the fridge, but I have spent so much time with standard BC, I left it out.  That means the cake wasn't as smooth as I would like and it made placing the pieces very difficult.

  I made my own Marshmallow Fondant for the pieces because I wasn't sure how much I needed.   I hadn't planned on eating it, so I thought about buying the the pre-packaged kind but I didn't think it would be enough.  I didn't realize how far just a little bit of fondant went.  The fondant making went much better time than the stuff I made for my New Years cake.   Korynn even mentioned that she like the way it tasted when she ate the small pieces.  The kids really wanted to help, so I let them make the pieces.

You'll see Kiersten's contribution on the top row.  She made the top row of pieces.

Stats:

• 10" x 14' square cake.
• Duncan Hines Marble Fudge Cake prepped as per Cake Mix Dr. "Better than ? cake"
• Iced with IMBC
• Filled with Costco Mousse
• Pieces and details done with MMF

   I decided to try to use the Cake Dr's "Better than ? Cake" even though this wasn't a typical Yellow cake and I wasn't terribly impressed with the cake.  I don't know why, but it just didn't taste as well as normal. 

Happy New Years!

 

   Korynn told me I needed to do fondant for our New Years cake, so this was my first attempt at doing fondant.  It just so happened my co-worker over at cakeoricandothat put up a tutorial on her Marshmallow Fondant (MMF).  The cake turned out really cute and all in all I was pleased with it. Having never worked with the homemade marshmallow fondant, however, it was really a pain to get the texture just right.  That being said, none of us actually liked the fondant coating.  We've decided to ditch the idea of covering our cakes in fondant.  I'll use it for accents or figures, but not for covering.

Stats:

• 9" Cake Round
• Duncan Hines Fudge Marble Cake Mix prepped as per box
• Filled with Chocolate Mousse
• Iced with Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC)
• Covered in white MMF
• Decorated with colored MMF

  

     I got new Bake Even strips for Christmas, and this cake baked up like a charm.  It ended up really nice and flat on top.  So much so, that I hardly needed to use my new leveler.

   This was my second attempt at IMBC and let me tell you, this recipe was to die for.  Unlike the last one I tried, this one did not have a buttery taste at all and was really nice and smooth.  It's a little stiff to frost with so I still had some issues while frosting it, but I'm working on that.

    My photographer was too busy playing with her Grandma while I was making the MMF, so I didn't get any pictures of the process.

     Not bad for my first covered cake, I thought :)

   I made Black, Red, Blue and Green fondant for the decorations, and had a heck of a time getting the consistency right on these.  Not to mention that the amounts were to small for my mixer to mix correctly.  At least I got to use my new fondant rolling pin :)

   I got decorating lessons for Christmas and I start next week.  It should be a lot of fun :)

Utes-Bears Poinsettia Bowl 2009

  This was done for the 2009 Poinsettia Bowl.  The Utes vs the Bears.  I had much higher expectations for this cake when I started, but my inexperience and lack of time really did me in.  The top of this cake definitely screamed for fondant as opposed to icing, but I was quickly running out of time and had zero experience with fondant so I just frosted it.  Alyssa pointed out she didn't like the 5 petal poinsettia, but I spent almost as hour looking for a template for a 5 point one because that is actually on the Bowl games logo.

  I had planned to sculpt a 3d poinsettia to put on the top, but as I tried to crumb-coat the smaller cake for the top, it literally fell apart.  It became such a mess of frosting, I just decided not to include it on the top. Definitely need more research into sculpting cakes before trying again.

Stats:

• 9" Cake Round
• 7 " Cake round for top - Scrapped.
• Duncan Hines Swiss Chocolate Cake Mix prepped per box.
• Iced with Butter Cream Frosting
• Filled with Costco Mousse Filling

  I decided that I wanted to actually put something between my layers other than frosting for this cake.  I found this recipe that is supposedly Costco's mousse filling and I love their filling so I decided to give it a try.  It tasted wonderful, but I whipped it up a little to long so it was stiffer than I would have liked.  The butter cream was your standard boring butter cream flavor.  I liked the texture of the Meringue butter cream I did last time and I think I will try more of the boiled frostings from here on out.  I really like the added flavor of adding a real filling in the middle of the cake, so I will probably be doing that from now on.

This was the first cake I did that actually baked nice and tall.

  I don't have any real Bake Even strips so I made my own out of tin foil and paper towels as explained here. I'm not sure if that's why it baked so tall, but until I get some real ones, I'll keep baking them this way.  Since it was a 9"x3" pan, I ended up using more than once cake mix as well.

This was a learning experience for me.  I'm beginning to realize how much of making a cake is hurry up and wait time.  Bake the cake, wait for it to cool.  Crumb-coat the cake, wait for it to harden.  Ice the cake, wait for it to set.  I had all these grand ideas in my head for this cake, but I'm still not a point where I can easily translate all my fancy ideas onto the cake yet.   I really wanted to do little Cal and U logos around the outside and a few other frills.


FTW:

• Earned "Cake Filling" Badge.
• Vanilla Mousse filling tasted awesome.
• Cake baked nice and high for once.

FTL:

• Cake Sculpting fail.
• The cake with the filling in it didn't stack as well as I expected
• Taste of the butter cream was meh.

 Till Next Time, enjoy your desserts first!