Volcano Cake

August 2010

My little brother was graduating from college.  His degree is in Geology and my father asked me to make a cake for the graduation party.  He actually gave me a few bucks, too!  I decided that a volcano would be appropriate.  I wanted it to be erupting, too, because obviously that is totally necessary when making a cake shaped like a volcano.  I figured that the whole baking soda and vinegar thing would probably make the cake itself taste kinda funny, so I quickly nixed that thought.  Dry ice was the next best thing, and when you have leftovers it is fun to play with- a bucket of soapy water and dry ice amused me for at least 20 minutes, though I may just be easily amused.  Minimum I could buy was ten pounds, too, so I had plenty left over.  I think I may have enjoyed it more than the children that were at the party.  This photo is pre-dry ice, you can kinda see the glass that I used to hold the dry ice set in the top.

This was my first experience carving a shape out of cake (which is why I kept it simple!).  I baked 6 cakes all together to make this structure.  Two 10" rounds, two 8" rounds, and two 6" rounds.  The cake was alternating red velvet and chocolate with a cream cheese frosting.  The base it is sitting on is actually the tray part of one of those crappy little fold up tray tables covered in foil.

I can't claim credit for thinking up this clever phrase, but I think it is quite cute.

 Volcano in action!!  I was so glad that it worked out!  My little brother loved it.  The water is made of poured sugar dyed with gel food coloring.  I pretty much always use the gel type food coloring.  It won't change the consistency of whatever you are working with like liquid food coloring can.  The foil is crumpled beneath it to make the water look like it has ripples.  I am not really a fan of how the waves came out, but I do like the foam around the hot lava.  I thought I was pretty clever for that one.

 Then we had a party for my Grandma Ruthie's 89th birthday. 

She said she just wanted a simple cake so I made her one with purple roses.  My Grandma Ruthie is a simple kind of lady.  Vanilla cake with vanilla frosting.  It was a very nice party.   

The Easter Cake

Easter- April 2010

This cake was actually made mid-course, so the order is not really chronological, but oh well.  I had taught myself (from YouTube videos) to make roses before the classes even started.  I think that was a big part of what got me interested in learning more.   

I really enjoy making the fondant flowers.  On this cake, I nearly perfected my technique for roses and carnations.  Six to eight hours would go by, and I wouldn't even think that it had been three.  I eventually had to make myself stop doing it for a couple of days because I realized that the crick in my neck was becoming a muscle spasm.  This cake is a red velvet two tier with cream cheese frosting (I really love cream cheese frosting, in case you hadn't figured that out by now).  

The red border is fondant and the roses and carnations are a fondant/gum paste mixture.  The edges of the flower petals were painted with gum glue (a mix of water and a tiny piece of gum paste dissolved) and then dipped into edible shimmery petal dust.  

The leaves are also a fondant/gum paste mixture.  They are made with a sweet-ass silicone mold.  I have a leaf shaped cutter that is about the same size as the mold.  The mold itself consists of two separate pieces that are textured like the veins of a leaf, that you put the leaf shaped piece of fondant in between and squish.  You then lay them to dry in the shape that you want them.  I used an egg carton to help them maintain their curvy shape.  Once dried, you cannot alter the shape.

  They really come out beautifully.  Eventually I will take pictures of some of my tools in action.

I am often the host of family holiday gatherings, so this cake was just to put the cherry on top of the meal.  I made a ham with a homemade honey mustard glaze and pineapples, scalloped potatoes (Grandma Gina's recipe), a cauliflower bake, and green beans with garlic and onions.  I am really a fan of cooking for everyone. 

The meal came out just right, and it is always wonderful to be with my family; I am lucky enough to have a really good one.  It was awesome.  

And the cake was a big hit, too!

The First Couple Of Post-Class Cakes

Late Summer 2010 (July-August)

The next couple of cakes that I did were for family and friends who were discovering that my newfound talent could get them relatively cheap (or free) cakes that weren't half-bad.  I was happy to take advantage of their cake needs so I could continue to practice.  That was one of my fears starting this hobby out- that after the classes were over that I would never decorate a cake again, or at least that I would barely ever do it.  You see, the the cake class itself was quite inexpensive- $22.50 a month (supposedly half off from the "original price," but I think it is always "half off"), but the supplies necessary to properly complete the curriculum were not so cheap.  All in all throughout the four classes, I probably spent over $300 getting all the supplies (and plenty more since then!).  I think I did that all, though, because I knew deep down that this would not be another one of my fleeting hobbies.  I think it has been well worth it.  I may not have made the money back, mind you, but I have enjoyed (nearly) every hour I have spent doing the decorating, and that has been quite a few.  

This cake was made for a friend of my sister's, Caroline.  It is all buttercream.  My wording skills left something to be desired at this point, but I think I have improved significantly since this cake.  Looking back, I should have planned the layout of the words better before I started piping.  

The flowers are roses (pink, yellow, and blue), primroses (orange, blue), crysanthemums (yellow, pink, and orange), and pansies (yellow and blue)

Those are some of the pansies on the side, and a little pink carnation over top of them.   

Then I had a request from a friend for a carrot cake.  It had a cream cheese frosting.  It turned out quite delicious.  

And pretty cute, too!

At this point in life, I was working at a friend's pizza shop.  The lucky folks working there were the main recipients of my extra cake, considering that if I had eaten even half of the cake that I made for that class, I probably would have about doubled in size.  But problem was, there were two vegans working there who could not enjoy the tasty treats I brought in on a somewhat regular basis.  So I decided to have a go at making vegan cake.  I didn't go crazy with decoration, these were just to see if I could make them delicious.  I am a firm believer that it should taste as good as it looks (and if possible, vice versa, though the former seems more important.  If it tastes like complete crap, what's the point?).  The cupcakes pictured below turned out quite well, and to all you naysayers out there, I bet they could have tricked you, too.  Especially the chocolate cake/cookies n' cream frosting ones.  Mmmmmmmmmmmm.  They were moist and creamy.  I'm gonna have to make that recipe again, even if there are no vegans around.  On a complete side note, did you know that Oreos are vegan?  I didn't.  I bought some fancy oreos that proclaimed non-dairy and vegan all over the packaging and cost, like, two bucks more per package, but apparently could have just gone for the regular ol' stuff.   How bout that?   Anyways...

I was very pleased with the turn-out.  

Cake Class Adventure!!

My name is Lori.  I'm from the 'Burgh, born and raised.  That's Pittsburgh, PA, for those of you not from round here n'at.  I bake cakes.  I have since I was a girl.  But I haven't always decorated them.  Relatively recently in life I have discovered a new talent and adoration for doing so!  Much of that came from four courses that I took over a period of four months.  These consisted of one 2 hour class each week for which I was to bring everything but the kitchen sink (including the already baked cakes!) to a little room in the back of a craft store.  

I wanted to create this blog to show my progression in and since those classes.  This post will show the cakes that I made during those classes.  Then as I make more and hopefully get better and better, I will post the cakes and potentially the process of making them....so all's I'm sayin is, more to come!    

Course Number One - March 2010

We started off learning how to work with buttercream.  These are drop flowers.  They are super simple.

Not the best example, but hey, it was my first cake.

We were learning to use the star tip and the round tip that is used for lettering, outlines, etc.  I had a cute cookie cutter in that shape; someone in my class actually suggested the phrase "shot through the heart."  Now every time I see this cake, Bon Jovi begins belting it out in my head.

Next we learned to make roses out of buttercream.  This was one of the parts that I was most looking forward to trying.  It is something that needs to be practiced, for sure, it's not as easy as some people can make it look!  My beautiful niece Cathleen was coming to the 'Burgh for the first time and I had a cake to make for class, so I thought that this would be cute.  

But the cuteness of my niece obviously far outshines the cuteness of the cake.  Oh well, what can you do?

That's me!

Course Number Two - April 2010

On to more complicated endeavors!  I was pleased to be informed that we would be making a relatively wide range of flowers over the next two courses, and out of different mediums as well.  The flowers on the cake below are all made with buttercream, but the following cake (with the petunias) has royal icing flowers.  If you use enough meringue powder, butttercream frosting will actually form a crust that allows you to pick up the flowers and arrange them once they have sat a spell.   The flat images (the butterfly, the big flower on the side, and the words on the cake below) are made with color flow icing.  Once dried, it is crunchy and fragile, but makes awesome looking logos and 2-D images.  

On the top of this cake you can see roses, primroses, crysanthemums, violets, apple blossoms, a daisy, and the words made of color flow icing.  This was my first time working with the color flow, and trial and error taught me much for the next time I work with it.  This came out as well as I could have hoped though!

The butterfly is also made with color flow.  The texture on the side is called basket weave, and is all about spacing.  As long as you get your spacing right, then it is not really as complicated as it looks.  I really had fun doing it.  These three flowers are a yellow mum, a pink primrose, and a blue/purple pansy.  The pansy is my favorite.  

This flower is also color flow, and those are a daisy, a pansy, and a rose hanging right over top of it.  You can see that I had already gotten somewhat better at the roses at this point!

Course Number Three - May 2010

For the next class, we finally got to working with fondant, which I was really excited about.  We also learned a bunch of new flowers that 

were made with royal icing.  Royal icing dries very hard, allowing larger and deeper flowers to maintain their shape.  

It usually ends up being mainly decorative, but children often like to try to eat it.    

These are petunias fanning away from a central rose.  The petunias are made of royal icing.  The rose is made of a mix of fondant and gum paste.  I always equate fondant to edible clay.  It does many of the same things as clay.  The gum paste is really just fondant that dries hard.  I mix the two together so that the rose will dry relatively hard, but won't dry out so quickly that I don't have time to form it.  

The cake itself is covered in fondant and then the green leaf and vine detailing and the purple shell border are buttercream frosting.  

There was also a small fondant/gum paste rose and royal icing petunia on the side.  

Course Number Four - June 2010

And the grand finale, fondant flowers, which is the part I ended up loving the most even though I probably had the most trepidation about it initially.  When using fondant/gum paste to form flowers as opposed to buttercream, you have much more control.  You can shape and form whereas with buttercream, you pretty much have to get it right when it is coming out of your piping bag.  It is also less fragile, though it is still quite easily broken.  Care has to be taken with flowers made of pretty much any sugar medium; one exception I know of is royal icing flowers once they are fully dried.  

 This cake is all decorated with fondant or fondant/gum paste mixtures.  The flowers are roses and carnations and they are highlighted with petal dust on the edges of the petals.  The border is tiny petunias and balls rolled in edible shimmer dust.  

Sorry the pictures are kind crappy, they were taken on my cell phone, I forgot my camera that day.  By the time I got home, the border shown in the first pic had gone all over the place.  That taught me a lesson in how not to secure little fondant balls and petunias as a border!

The leaves are also made of fondant.

This next cake was the final cake of all of the courses.  I was sad that the classes were going to be over, but was very pleased with this cake's turnout.

This cake is covered with buttercream frosting and is decorated with a red fondant border and fondant/gum paste roses.  

This is definitely my favorite cake from the class, and probably my best.  

Well, those are my cakes!!  Hope you have enjoyed getting a photo tour of my little journey even a sliver as much as I enjoyed all the bakin', n' decoratin', n'at.  Soon I'll be posting the other cakes that I have done since that class (as it is August 2011 and the last class was June 2010).  There aren't as many as I wish there were, but I put my all into each one!