Winter Topsy Turvy Birthday Cake

I was asked to make one of my closest friend's son's first birthday cake!  She wasn't picky, just wanted a topsy turvy cake with a wintery theme.  So, I got to work watching videos and reading tutorials on how to make a topsy turvy cake.

As it was around the holidays and I had lots of other baking to do, I baked the cakes 2 weeks in advance and placed them in the freezer.  This not only helps me be less stressed closer to delivery, but also makes for a moist cake that is easy to carve with less crumbs.  I also made the LMF (fondant) about a week in advance and tinted it the colours needed.

The bottom tier started out with 3 layers of 9" round confetti cake (I doubled this recipe).  After a week, I thought that the 3 layers were not tall enough and made another 2 - 9" rounds from cake mix.  The middle tier was made out of 4 layers of 6" round chocolate cake (the only change I made to the recipe was adding some instant coffee to the boiling water, to enhance the chocolate flavour).  The top tier was rice krispie treats cut into a cube. 


I filled and stacked both cakes with Italian meringue buttercream (IMBC).  With the confetti cake, I alternated the scratch cake with the mix cake.  This was important to do as the cakes had very different consistencies and colours, so not alternating would make it look very odd.

Then came the carving...this part was kind of stressful for me, as I was worried about the angles and accidentally cutting off too much, but the cake was very forgiving.  I cut on an angle from the top corner down and then took the trianglular piece of cake off, inverted it and stuck it back on with icing to steepen the top angle.  I also tappered the sides of the cake slightly to exaggerate the topsy turvy look.  For the bottom tier, I made a flat area in the middle to fit the middle tier snugly.  I put bubble tea straws vertically in this area to support the weight of the middle tier.  (sorry I didn't take the picture after the straws were inserted)  

I then crumb coated the bottom tier with more IMBC and covered the middle tier with chocolate ganache.  I realized at this point that both of these tiers were much too tall and removed 2 layers from the confetti cake and 1 layer from the chocolate.  I started thinking what was the point of baking the extra 2 mix cakes, but realized I wouldn't have had the same height with just the 3 layers of scratch cake, so it wasn't a complete waste of time :)




It was probably past midnight, into the day of delivery and it was time for fondant :)  There are some flaws in the fondant, but most of that was all covered with decorations.  :) 




 A few days before delivery, I made the royal icing snow flakes.  I drew snow flakes out on paper, covered it with wax paper and piped over it with a small icing tip.  These dried for a few days to made sure they were hard.  I made lots of extra snow flakes because they are super fragile and break easily when trying to attach to the cake with royal icing.



The top tier was done 2 days before delivery, I covered it in red fondant and white fondant ribbon.  For the bow on the top, I made the small loops separately and let them dry over night before sticking it all together with royal icing.  The 'tissue paper' for inside the box was rolled fondant, left to dry on an uneven surface.  This tier was stuck to the middle tier with more royal icing.   







The cake drum was covered in a thin layer of fondant (I did this last minute, but if I was to do it again, I'd do it in advance so the fondant wouldn't be so soft when putting the cake on).  I cut out various sizes of red fondant circles and attached them to the middle tier with water.  The snowman was made out of a 50:50 mix of fondant and gumpaste.  I used tappits to make all of the letters.

After many many hours in the kitchen, the cake was ready for the box :)
   





They had a really nice set up and I think the cake fit nicely in it :)  Happy First Birthday Zac!

My Sister's 30th Birthday Cake

A week after my boyfriend's birthday, it was my sister's birthday :) She turned the big 3 - 0! So obviously I decided to make her a cake in the shape of a '30' for her birthday BBQ. She wasn't too fussy about the flavour of the cake, so my mom suggested a pound cake as a lot of our family likes that. I mixed up her classic recipe by separating the eggs and whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks before mixing it into the batter. This made the cake less dense but kept the rich buttery flavour.

To make the '30', I doubled the recipe and filled 3 - 6" round tins and a loaf pan. I used two of the 6" rounds for the '3' and the other 6" round plus a bit of the loaf pan for the '0'.  I torted the cakes and used a circle cutter to cut out the centers.  This pick was taken before I removed some of the burnt parts on the '3'. :s  I did it in the toaster over, but with a tall cake, that gets pretty close to the element. 



A day before decorating the cake, I made a batch of Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC) and put it in the fridge.  When I was about to decorate, I realized I'd forgotten to let the icing defrost to room temperature :(  I thought I could just whip it to room temperature and ended up with a weird separated mix with a pool of liquid at the bottom of my mixing bowl.  Luckily, I kept whipping it for a few more minutes and it all came back together, but not exactly to the original consistency of the fresh batch.

I covered the cake with yellow tinted IMBC and started rolling out the fondant.  Decorating with fondant circles didn't actually take too long, attempting to get smooth IMBC, that was the difficult part, but I just strategically placed the fondant circles over the messier parts and I think it turned out pretty well.

The fondant was all coloured with Wilton's gel colours.  I did that a few days before decorating, because when I work colours into the fondant, I find it makes it quite wet and sticky, so resting for a few days makes it easier to roll out.    

My inspiration for this cake was:  Kendal - by The Pastry Studio.  I liked the style and colours, but changed them slightly and mixed it up with the shape.

Rosette Cupcake Tower

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me to make her birthday cake :) I was excited as this was my first actual cake order!  She requested a chocolate cake with vanilla icing and red velvet cupcakes.  She asked that the cake be green and the cupcakes to be blue, yellow and green, other than that she's really easy going and gave me a lot of freedom with it.  Here's how it turned out.

The cake was 3 layers of Extreme Chocolate Cake with Italian meringue buttercream icing.  The 24 cupcakes were Red Velvet with cream cheese icing. 

The cakes and cupcakes were all decorated with rosettes.  If your remember, I like the rose cake and have made it before in Week 4 of Baking Arts.  I tried to improve on it by making the colours have a gradient, with a darker green on the bottom, but it ended up looking like the middle colour was the same as the bottom colour :( I still think it looks pretty though.

I had some problems with the cream cheese icing for the cupcakes holding it shape when it was piped because it was too soft.  If you look at some of the cupcakes, there isn't too much definition on the rose, so I think next time I make this recipe I will use more powdered sugar to stiffen it.

The cake turned out very moist, I find the sour cream really makes it almost a fudgey consistency :)   

Toronto Blue Jays Birthday Cake

I was asked by a friend to make her birthday cake and she requested a Toronto Blue Jays Cake!






So, I attempted my first frozen buttercream transfer.  After watching a lot of youtube videos...here's how it turned out:










I printed out a mirror image of the Blue Jays logo, covered it in wax paper and started to trace it in icing.  The layering or order of colours needs to be done so that the details aren't lost when doing larger sections.










If attempting to do this, it is important to use a buttercream that is at least 50% butter to shortening or it will not freeze solid, making it difficult to remove from the wax paper and transfer to the cake.






The cake was 3 - 9 inch layers of swiss chocolate cake, filled with an italian chocolate buttercream and covered in an italian vanilla buttercream.  The buttercream was made by whipping egg whites to stiff peaks, slow adding sugar that has been cooked to a soft ball stage and then whipping in butter once the temperature has come down.  The timing in making this icing is critical as you don't want to over whip the whites as you are waiting for the sugar to cook.

After the cake was torted, filled and masked.  I covered the sides in some coloured sugar.  Then it was time to take the frozen buttercream transfer out of the freezer and place immediately onto the cake.  It is important not to let the transfer sit out more than a few seconds as it will start to melt and may warp the image as you take it off of the wax paper.

I finished with a simple shell border around the logo and bottom and that was it :)

Week 10: Chocolate Swiss Roll

It was another busy week with the chocolate swiss rolls.  I had a substitute partner this week, who was there from another class, so it was nice to share the workload.


The cake part of this recipe was fairly simple with only 4 ingredients: eggs, sugar, cocoa and flour.  We started by making an egg foam with the eggs and sugar, this was whisked until it really increased in volume.  The flour and cocoa was folded in by hand to ensure the egg foam didn't deflate or over mix.

With an egg foam batter, it is important to work quickly as the batter is continuously deflating until it is in the oven.

The batter was baked on a large sheet pan covered in parchment paper.  Baking a thin cake allows for easy rolling but I also think it leads to the cake baking slightly dry, but this can be fixed with lots and lots of simple syrup.

Next was the chocolate glaze.  We boiled some heavy cream with glucose and added that to dark chocolate.  The glucose was added to make the chocolate glossy.  This was set aside to cool while we made the Italian chocolate buttercream to go inside the roll.

The buttercream was my favourite part!  I'm never going back to the standard American Buttercream made with just butter and icing sugar again.

With Italian buttercream, since the sugar is cooked and slowly added to the whipped egg whites, the icing turns out much smoother.  Adding lots of butter, makes it very silky.

Before spreading the icing, I brushed a heavy amount of brandy flavoured simple syrup over the entire cake to keep it moist.  The buttercream was spread fairly thinly over the cake, but next time, I will spread it even thinner since it makes the rolling much easier.

I sprinkled a few raspberries and toasted hazelnuts inside, then rolled up the cake.  Once I made the rolling as tight as possible, I masked it with more buttercream :)  Last step was to drizzle chocolate glaze on top and decorate with chocolate accents, raspberries and hazelnuts.

Since I made the mistake of piping buttercream onto chocolate glaze that wasn't fully cooled, my buttercream rosettes slipped off of one of the swiss rolls and I had to redecorate.  This is how it turned out...