All in the Name of Research

So, I was looking at things in the baking section of the supermarket the other day, and what do you suppose i saw...

Anyway, out I curiosity I bought them...well, the packet. And I just made some...straight after my dud chocolate ones. I wanted to see the difference. You know what, there is not a huge difference to the ones I made with the packet mix and my own. In fact, these ones are a bit too sweet. Some of them still cracked too...hmmm..

Mine (the baked from scratch ones) are the dark ones and the Donna Hay ones are paler. Obviously, this photo was taken before filling...I just wanted you to see. I think I'll keep baking from scratch...what do you think.

All Aboard the Mac Train

I have been meaning to write this post for so long now...finally I have got myself into gear to actually do it!!

I've started to dabble in the art of macaron baking! I love these, and I hate them all at the same time. The are so temperamental to make it's not funny. It all seems so easy, they don't look that hard to make, but yeah...looks can be deceiving!

My first attempt I consider a success.

Chocolate macarons. They had a nice crust on the outside and were nice and soft on the inside. They developed the all important macaron feet on baking and did not crack. Most importantly, they were yum!

Attempt number two was ok. I upped the anti on these and decided to make a pistachio macaron. I made a batch of pistachio meal and went from there.

These didn't rise as much as the chocolate ones. I put that down to the different nut meal used, given that everything else I did was the same as before.

Attempt number three had mixed results. This time I tried making coconut macarons. Some of the batch were good, and the rest cracked and were flat.

The macarons shown here are the successes out of attempt 3.

Attempt 4. Why not try chocolate again, they worked before. Blah...not photo worthy at all. Even though they had small feet, they cracked and didn't rise all that much...nonetheless, I will not let the Mac beat me!!!

Stomp, Stomp Stomp

My kids love dinosaurs...my son in particular. What is it about boys and dinosaurs...hmm? I wanted to practice some decorating. I bought a cheap cake mix and added a few extra's to it so it'd taste good (was a butter cake mix with lemon essence, poppy seeds and melted white chocolate added).
I made a lemon, white chocolate ganache and proceeded to decorate.

Dinosaurs!!!

Lessons learned:
1. White chocolate ganache doesn't really set when it's warm and humid! OK, so I've read about that one numerous times, but now I have 1st hand experience.
2. I need to work on losing the ganache mound on top of the cake.
3. I have noticed more improvements in my covering and my edges are heaps better too!

Anyway, "the dinosaurs were dancing in a prehistoric swap. They shook their heads, swished their tails and did the dino stomp. Dance dino, dance dino, stomp, stomp, stomp...."

Spring Garden

Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending a day with Anita, from LaLa Cakes. When I arrived she had everything all set out ready to work. Cake, fondant already coloured, ganache prepared, tools layed out and a apron ready to use as well.

She demonstrated each step and then I followed. She showed me how she levels and tortes her cakes, so I followed...she has a very level hand and does it all by eye unlike me who has a small cake leveler. We then "syruped" our cakes and ganched. Layers and then on the outside. Main lesson learned here is that I have not been spending enough time on my cakes to get them just right and I have not been using the right tools...
We played around with flowers for the decorations...she taught me how to make ribbon roses.
Lunch break and then back to it. Covering the cakes with fondant and then smoothing to get really sharp edges. Again, I have not been using the right tools for this...but now I know the secret...

Finally, the best bit. We decorated the cakes!!!

Thank you Anita for such a great day!!

Baby Riley

A good friend on mine had her 3rd child the other day. A little boy named Riley. I made her some cookies and practiced icing them. Sadly, I forgot to take a photo of them before I gave them to my friend, so had to make do with my phone whilst at the hospital. My phone does not take the greatest of photos.

Anyway, back to the cookies. I made some chocolate and some vanilla sugar cookies in circles and car shapes. I iced in white and baby blue royal icing.

Apple Season

It's apple season...well here in Victoria/Melbourne it is. Just the other day I picked some apples from one of my apple trees. There is not much better than fruit picked from your own trees.

Well, a mud cake might be slightly better, depending on your mood. This one is a bit of a mish mash on the inside. A white choc mud/choc marble cake make up the top and bottom layers and sandwiched in between is a layer of devils food cake. It was filled and covered in ganache and then covered and decorated with fondant.

After a dodgy job of covering the cake (the fondant dried out a bit too much and started to crack and tear) I had to think of a way to hide the awful bits. Considering my recent apple harvest, I decided on an apple orchid.

I Love Cupcakes

I really love cupcakes. I love the ready made serve of cake, I love the opportunity they give me to practice a bit of decorating, I love trying new cake recipes with them and I love how they look. And most importantly, they are YUM (unless something goes wrong)!!

This week I made a couple of different cupcakes. The first was a chocolate recipe I hadn't tried before..was ok...but not great. I made some whipped choc-mint ganache and practiced piping swirls on them. This is they:

The next ones I had a go at were devils food cupcakes. These were good. Not too sweet, so really lent themselves to a bit of ganache (milk chocolate) decorated with fondant. This is what I did with them:

Oh so pretty!! I think these would be great for a special celebration cupcake stand, don't you?!

Experiment Gone Wrong

OK, so the other day I posted on my facebook page that I was going to make a Mars bar cake...

I baked a caramel mud cake which was yum, cut it in half then filled and covered with milk chocolate ganache. Mistake number 1 - I used the cheapest compound chocolate I could get from the supermarket. It was disgusting and the ganache was not that great.

Then came decorating time. I had no plan in mind. Mistake number 2 - having no plan at all. I thought about mixing all the fondant I had left to give a marble affect. Didn't work out so well. Then I had the bright idea (well, turns out not so bright) of making it into pouring fondant and covering the cake with that. Mistake number 3 - actually following through with that idea.

After a very ordinary job of covering the cake I did a very ordinary job of decorating it.

Believe It Or Not

I can't believe I made this cake - dark chocolate and orange (jaffa) mud with dark chocolate ganache, home made chocolate fondant, home made red, orange and yellow fondant, and some gum paste flowers I made.

Apart from the chocolate fondant and the colour orange, I had no real plan for this one...I made the design up as I went. I guess you could say it's inspired by all those cherry blossom cakes you see around with my own take on it. Every time I look at this pic, I can't help but think, WOW, I made that. Gotta say, I'm excited!!!

For Kathryn

A few weeks ago I got an invitation to a friends Hen's gathering. An evening with African drumming, food, games and possibly singing. Dress code - The Beatles. Kathryn LOVES The Beatles. The location was her mum's house. When RSVP'ing I asked is if it would be ok if I took a cake with me. Of course it would!!!

So, there was no decision to make when it came to the flavor of the cake - CHOCOLATE. And a theme - The Beatles. Nothing too difficult for a beginner such as myself though. Googling images I found this:

That image would make a pretty good cake. And not too difficult either. Not saying there would be no challenge involved, it's just that it would be achievable....surely....

Step 1 - Bake the cake. I made a largish one, so used what are called bake even strips (homemade ones) to help the cake bake evenly and not burn around the edges. Have to say, this was a great idea. I made the best chocolate mud cake ever!!

Step 2 - Torte and ganache. I trialled a different cream from what I had used previously in ganache. OH MY GOD - devine!!! The cake was cut into 3 layers and filled with the ganache. I then covered the cake following steps found at Sugar Sweet Cakes and Treats.

Step 3 - Some more experimenting. I decide to make my own fondant. Glad I did, it's easy enough and I think it tastes better than using bought stuff.

Step 4 - Cover the cake and decorate. i'm not going to go into much detail here, but I did discover how difficult it is to work with fondant in high humidity. I was making some silhouettes for the side of my cake and they were melting as I went. Argh...end result...ok, but would have been a lot better if I wasn't working with melting icing.

The Bride to be was happy, the other guests were impressed and the cake was one of the most amazing things I have ever tasted. Pure chocolate heaven!!

Improving and Learning

I had the urge to back the other day...white choc mud cake. I had enough mixture for

two tins, a 5" round and an 8" round. The bigger one burnt around the edges a bit (I really must give bake even strips a go), but the smaller one was fine...so I decided to decorate it, incorporating a flower I made last week, and edible lustre as well.

I learn so much each time I decorate a cake. This time, I learnt about the need for even, straight ganache under the fondant (if you are using it underneath). It makes a huge difference to the end product (in terms of neatness, overall appearance). Pity I didn't figure this out before I put the ganached cake in the fridge. I could have fixed it up more than I did.

Despite a few wonky bits, I can see that I have improved on my last attempts at covering a cake in fondant. It is a lot less bumpy and my edges are becoming sharper. Overall, I am happy with this cake. I think it looks pretty good actually.

So Pretty

I have started experimenting with flowers...making them, that is. After a few missed attempts, I thought it might be a good idea to start with something simple. And what better place to put a little flower than a cupcake. YUM!!!
The icing on these is another bit of experimentation. I found a recipe in a cookie book I borrowed from my local library.

It's softened fondant mixed with egg white. End result is something runny that you can spread on. I discovered that you don't need all that much icing on these ones...as you can see, it runs down the sides.

The Dinosaurs Where Dancing

OK, so maybe not really dancing, but I did get a new dinosaur cookie cutter and had to try it out. Yay, another opportunity to try out flooding cookies!!! These ones didn't make it much further than the kitchen bench.

I really love the variety of cookie cutters available. I seem to be developing a bit of a collection now!