Made my own Birthday Cake!

Today I finished my birthday cake. It took a little over a week to finish it. Of course I waited till the last three days to bake and put it all together. The longest part were the leaves and the flowers. My leaves were my favorite part of the cake. Yes, parts of it were not what I wanted it to be or perfect. But I'm still learning and practicing. Which is why I made my own cake.
The inside of my cake is the triple layer devil's food cake from the Cake Bible and a spice caramel crunch butter cream. It was absolutely delicious. I was sceptical about combining the chocolate cake and the spices in the butter cream. But many confectioners or chefs pair chocolate and different spices. It worked out great.
Also today I start to practice the classic knife cut, tourne. The biggest mistake was that I did what I thought I remembered being taught. Wrong! I learned that I should look up what I'm doing before I do it. I was practicing the cut the wrong way, and I ended up cutting my left thumb. Boy was that fun. NOT! This is not my first cut, but it is the worst so far. Knives are the one thing that scares me the most, and the fact that you perform this cut in your hand and not on a cutting board. The other thing I dislike is how the teacher has us cutting the onion. We hold it in our hand and carve the root and top end out. We already had one girl cut the area between the thumb and the index finger. Ouch! Well life goes on.

Argyle Birthday Cake

I was asked to submit a potential cake design for use in the stores. The goal was to make a birthday (or any-occasion) cake for any gender. They already have several cake designs that can be changed in color. I chose to do an argyle design after seeing a sweater vest in a store. I thought the design was different and could be done in any color combination. I didn't do a full pattern all around the cake and left negative space. I utilized bright colors to draw attention, as a birthday is a joyful celebration. After doing this cake I realized that I needed to listen to my dad and practice pipping often. The lack of quality was evident in my yellow piping on the cake. And no, I'm not to proud of it. I wish that I could do the cake over again. To make it look better. But you know what, I learned from making the cake. I made the Gerber daisies that are on the cake. Most likely, you would not find the flowers on the cake in the catalogue or on the display in the store as they are cost prohibitive for most people. The cake could have been executed better, but I'll get better with each cake.

Aunt's Birthday

I made my aunt a birthday cake, and boy was she excited this past week about it. She told everybody that her niece (me) is making her birthday cake. She was like a little kid excited about going somewhere. It came out good, only I would liked the cake to have been a little moister. It is a white cake, with a strawberry and raspberry gelee, and a whipped chocolate ganache. It was good! Next time I think I should pour the gelee on top of half the cake then put the other on top so that the cake doesn't slide around.

Work was good, I made and cut some marshmallows, and unmolded chocolates and boxed them. I love our marshmallows they are so light and fluffy. They are melt in your mouth good!

Baking Practice

I baked a birthday cake for some practice. The request for the little girl's cake was for a pink cake with maraschino cherries and snow white on top. The cake filling had chopped up cherries. I wasn't real happy with the results. The pink color was not to my liking. The snow white design was hard to pipe due to the detail and being small, mainly the face. I probably spent way too much time working on it, but I'll build up speed with practice. This was the first time I used an 11" cake pan. Each time I make cakes, I learn a little more. It's frustrating when I have an idea in my mind but then I end up being less than satisfied with the results. But I still enjoyed the challenge. It's great to have a real purpose for making the cakes, so I'm very thankful for the people that allow me to make cakes for them. I love the feed back I get as it helps me improve.

Extra curricular baking

Friday night I baked a couple of cakes and today I decorated them. These cakes are for the first birthday party today for the granddaughter of a lady that works with my mom. I made yellow sheet cakes, filled and decorated with chocolate ganache. I decorated the top with designs I made with butter cream. Because of the number of people attending the party I decided one cake would would not be adequate. I could have made a smaller additional cake but decided to go ahead and just make the same size again, but I didn't bother doing the figures on top. I'll have another order from the same lady to make another birthday cake for July 2nd. It will be different cake, icing, shape, and decoration design. I'm having fun getting the opportunities to make more cakes.

Baking a Birthday Cake

I baked a cake for the neighbor's daughter who is having a birthday party today. I baked two 9" layers of white cake. On top of the first layer, I coated it with a milk chocolate ganache, then put a layer of fresh raspberries, then another layer of ganache and the top layer of cake.

I covered the cake with the milk chocolate ganache. I made the yellow and pink butter cream roses last night. This is the first cake that I've ever made butter cream roses for and I'm pretty happy with the outcome. The yellow roses were the last that I made and they looked better than the pink ones. The more I made the better the roses came out. I made some green icing and made piped some green leaves. The cake, icing and filling were all picked by the birthday girl and she was very happy with the cake when I delivered it. Happy Birthday Skyler!

Monique and Skyler

10:07pm - Update: My family and I also got to taste the cake. It was very good. The neighbors were very happy with the taste as well. This puts a smile on my face.

Extracurricular Baking

Tonight I baked a birthday cake for a lady who works for my mother. She'll take it to work tomorrow for the lady's birthday. I made a two layer cake. One layer yellow cake and the other layer french vanilla cake. I made a milk chocolate ganache for the icing. I decorated the top with some little green leaves and premium M&M's for little rose buds.
I started making a bitter sweet chocolate ganache, but it was just too bitter for my taste. So I started over using a milk chocolate. I can't wait to learn more about cakes in school.