Cake Decorating: Blackberry Cake

Last week, while leisurely decorating some miniature cakes, it occurred to me that they were ugly. I keep decorating cakes in the style I was taught in school—buttercream roses, piped borders, swags, etc...—only to repeatedly find myself displeased with the results.

Lately

Christmas is coming, so I've also been busy knitting and making cards etc..., and work is pretty nuts right now too. I have been baking at home, because James and I have had company for the last two weekends, but by the time I feel any ambition to take a picture, it's gone.

I've been feeling conflicted about the amount of cane-sugar baking I do, when my real interests are in baking with local sugars, but here are a couple little sugary things I've made lately. The cookies are just a basic sugar cookie recipe with royal icing. I made them for fun, because I'd like to improve my piping and decorating skills. The cake is a chocolate genoise, with orange flavoured buttercream, that I made for a friend of James'. The colour combination for the cake's icing was a definite mistake, but I do think taste is most important, and the feedback was great. I hate looking at all the imperfections of my decorating, but I try to remind myself that I have to start somewhere.

Cake Decorating: Mocha Buttercream & Butterscotch Filling

This cake is a chocolate genoise, with mocha buttercream and butterscotch fudge icing for the filling—all recipes came from my school baking file. The inspiration for the piping came from here.

This is part II of Michelle's birthday. I made it to supplement the first cake, in case it wasn't enough for everyone (I delivered it to work), and also to say "goodbye Home Hardware"—I worked my last shift there on Tuesday...because I've started a full-time job in a pastry kitchen! That's my excuse for limited posting—it's been two weeks since my last day off, as I was working both jobs for a while.

Cake Decorating: Piping & Cream Cheese Icing

I made a spice cake with cream cheese icing and blueberry jam for my best friend's birthday. I used this cake recipe, which I converted to weight, a cream cheese icing recipe from my school recipe file, a heavy sugar syrup and this blueberry jam. My piping was inspired by this cake.

All this cake decorating has left me desperate for a revolving cake stand. Right now I'm using an inverted cake pan...

Happy Birthday Michelle!

Cake Decorating: Birthday Cake (Buttercream Roses & Piped Chocolate)

I was asked to make a cake for some fellow employees' birthdays. I may have over-done the decorations...the cake turned out a bit feminine—Mother's Day-ish, even—but, they got what they paid for. If you notice a bit of roughness around Birthday, it's because, on my first attempt, I wrote Happy Bithday. Don't judge, I have an excuse—someone called right when my chocolate had come to working temperature, and instead of accepting my inability to multitask, I decided to go ahead with the spelling, while on the phone. Fortunately, chocolate becomes stiff when cool, so I just removed the letters with a paring knife and tried again.

Happy Birthday Dan & Hannah!

Black Forest Cake

I made a Black Forest Cake for my friend's mom's birthday. I used the recipes from my course's recipe file and got the idea for the chocolate trees from here. Next time, I'll remember to turn the trees around before sticking them on there.

Happy Birthday Darlene!