2 cakes in 3 days

In August, I was commissioned to make a chicken-shaped cake. It was my first commissioned cake and I was pretty excited about it. It turns out that the cake was due the day before my friends' cake. So I had 3 days to make 2 cakes.

That week, there was a heat wave with monsoonal moisture coming through San Diego and I feared that it might jeopardize the cakes. Fondant covered cakes plus heat and humidity usually means disaster. So I cleared a lot of room in the fridge to protect my work. Plus, I did mostly everything at night so that it's cooler.

Chicken Cake

The chicken cake was chocolate with a chocolate mousse filling. I started out by making a few round pans of chocolate cake, cooling it, filling and stacking it, and then finally carving it. I carved out the body and had other plans for the head and tail. (Here you get a little peek of our new lovely kitchen countertop!) I found my old lazy susan and was able to smoothly turn the cake while carving. I saved the leftovers for the chicken's eggs. I crumb coated the top then it went straight to the fridge.

I made some marshmallow rice cereal treats and shaped them as the head and tail. Once it cooled, I covered it in fondant and covered the chicken body in fondant. The head and tail were then attached with a bunch of skewers.

I used a leaf shaped cutter to cut out the feathers and I hand-cut the eye and comb of the chicken. Those were then attached to the "bald chicken" with royal icing. Since it was still warm and humid (yes, at night with the AC on) I noticed that the head and tail were starting to sag. So I reinforced it with more skewers and quickly stuck it in the fridge. Luckily it stayed that way.

I made the eggs using the "cake balls" technique and covering them with fondant.

Here's the end result:
Notice how shiny it is? That's the heat and humidity working!

Bauer 2008 Cake

My friends (husband/wife) had a joint birthday on the day after the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. They made their birthday Olympic themed with unique games such as a cannon ball competition, slow-mo relay, doggie paddle, races and a few more. So I volunteered to make them a cake to reflect their Olympic theme.

The cake was a white cake with a key lime filling frosted with a rich whipped cream. I don't know that the whipped cream was a good idea due to the weather. But I took my chances. I made a few shortcuts with this cake since I was a bit burned out from the chicken cake (pregnancy sure gives you carpal tunnel when you're working on cakes). My Olympic rings didn't turn out so smoothly because I didn't use a piping tip (I just used a cut plastic bag). And my hands were so tired from rolling fondant for 2 days. By the time I was done piping the cake, I noticed that my fondant circles were migrating down the cake. So I had to put in some reinforcement (toothpicks) below each fondant. I quickly drove over to my friends' place and immediately placed it in the fridge. In the end, my friends were pretty happy with the cake.

Here's the top:

The right side - see the cannonball icon?

The left/front - the doggie paddle and slow-mo icons.

The cake tasted great - all the guests loved it. Plus it was quite tall!! I didn't realize how tall it was until I put it in the box. I think I should have used a 12 inch box and base instead of a 10 inch. Next time I'll remember to not do whipped cream cakes in the Summer.

Frozen Transfers - Why didn't I think of doing this before?!

Yes, I'm on a blogging spree today. I just downloaded a bunch of photos off of our camera and I need to do something with them before I forget about them.

I'm part of a local online message board and one lady named Leslie asked if we knew of anyone who would make Clifford cakes in a small time frame. Apparently, Clifford items and cakes are hard to come by. Due to character rights, bakeries are prohibited to reproduce them. So as a favor I volunteered to help her out with her daughter's cake. I would purchase a plain cake and add the decor.

In the past, I've freehanded a Blue's Clues cake for my friend's daughter's birthday. It was a pull-apart cupcake cake that was quite easy and fun to do. I did a star-tip decoration which I was quite familiar with. She was thrilled when she saw the cake.

So when I volunteered my services, I thought that I would do the same with Clifford. Leslie sent me a few photos of other cakes and I did some research as well. From what I've seen there weren't any star-tip decorated Clifford cakes and I wanted to try something new. I remembered seeing a technique for frozen transfers and I thought this would be a perfect time to try it out. Luckily, Leslie granted me permission to "experiment away."

Frozen transfers need buttery buttercream icing to be more effective. A lot of buttercream icings use an equal amount of shortening to butter and apparently, this just won't cut it for this technique - I guess it doesn't freeze as hard as you need it to.

Here's the recipe I used:

Buttercream Icing
3 sticks of butter at room temperature
1 cup shortening
2 tsp vanilla
2 lbs confectioner's sugar, sifted

Using a paddle attachment, beat butter and shortening until well combined. Add vanilla and beat well. Turn the mixer down to low and gradually add the confectioner's sugar until well combined. Beat on medium-high until smooth.

Black icing
You know how when you eat black icing, it gets all over your teeth and looks just horrible? Well I found out about a smart technique that reduces the mess-factor. To make a true black icing on buttercream requires A LOT of black icing gel paste. But this one is much easier and saves your black gel paste.

Fudge Icing + A little black gel Paste =

STEP 1:
Print out a reverse image of what you want to make and tape it onto a flat surface that will fit in the freezer. I used cookie sheets.

Tape a piece of wax paper on top of the image. I used parchment but should have used wax paper because some of the moisture seeped through the parchment and slightly wrinkled the image.

STEP 2:
Pipe the outline of the image. Start with the intricate areas first.

STEP 3:
Fill in the areas in the reverse order. For example, Clifford's eyes, tongue and the dots on the hat will be on the "top." Blue will lay over the hat and red will lay over on the rest of Clifford.

Pick up the wax paper and view the photo from underneath to reduce the icing gaps. If there are gaps smooth them over with a small offset spatula.

STEP 4:
Cover with white buttercream (or whatever color your cake is). Why do this? Because all the layers can be seen from the side when placed on the cake. So I outlined Clifford as well as the letters with white buttercream and spread an even layer over the whole image to even everything out.
STEP 5:
Freeze for 90 minutes

STEP 6:
Position image on cake and lightly press into cake. Slowly peel off the wax paper and voila - You have a pretty darn cool image on your cake!



Thom asked if they would be able to cut through the image and the answer is YES! The buttercream softens to it's normal consistency and acts just as if you decorated the cake by freehand!

I like this technique and I think I will be doing this quite often or whenever I get a chance to do it. Note to self: next time, use wax paper.

I could get used to decorating plain store-bought cakes. It's less mess in the kitchen and less time baking!