Anna's Birthday Cake

Anna, my younger sister, turned 11 this year, with her pursuit of wanting to become a make-up artist when she grows up. In the spirit of that I was asked to make her a make-up themed cake! I used my airbrush kit to try to give it an ombre look but I don't think it is that noticeable. Overall I think this cake turned out pretty well!

Scones and Lemon Bars

This week I was asked to make 10 dozen desserts for a Wedding Dress Rehearsal, 5 dozen Cherry Vanilla Scones and 5 dozen Lemon Bars. I was very proud of myself when I was all done and they all turned out great!

Birthday Cake - Bubble Guppies

Fourth of July weekend I was asked to crate this Bubble Guppies themed cake and the Minion Cake pops shown below.  Inside the cake is cut out to look like the American flag. For not even knowing what Bubble Guppies were at first, I think this cake turned out great!

Minion Cake Pops

These were also made for the cake shown above. These Minion Cake pops turned out way better than I had expected, but the process took longer than I thought. Due to the weather, I think the humidity had something to do with my chocolate not melting... But besides that I think these turned out really cool!

Graduation Cake

I also was privileged to create a graduation cake for my roommate's sister's party! She is going to UC in the fall so all she wanted was a red and black cake with half chocolate half white.

Bow Graduation Cupcakes

I had the privilege to make the cupcakes for one of my friend's graduation party! I was asked to create 2 dozen cupcakes, half green and white half blue and white, and green and blue velvet cupcake flavor, to create the colors where she went to high school and where she is going for college.

Bachelorette Party Cupcakes

This week I was asked to create cupcakes for a bachelorette party, what better way to celebrate than Strawberry Daiquiri Cupcakes with bras and panties! 

Birthday Party - Safari Cake

 Last week I worked on two parties, the first one was Alice in Wonderland cupcakes and this was the second one, a safari cake for a family friend's birthday. He had an entire birthday party that was safari themed and I was honored to make this cake for him!

This cake idea came from http://sensationalcakes-online.blogspot.sg/

Bridal Shower - Alice in Wonderland Cupcakes

 This past week I had two parties that I was providing the baked goods for, the first one, was an Alice in Wonderland themed Bridal Shower. I was asked to make 24 cupcakes with six different variations and four of each, half chocolate half vanilla.  And 24 mini cupcakes half and half with an argyle look to them. These turned out beautifully! I was very pleased with myself, I was especially proud of the clocks they turned out amazing!

80th Birthday Cake

 

Last week I had the privileged to make a birthday cake for one of my best friend's grandmother. I was in contact with my friend's step mom who explained to me exactly what she wanted, and this was the result. The top tier is yellow cake and the bottom tier is chocolate, all covered in white fondant with a red bow on top. We both were very proud how it turned out! Have to give props to Mike, who made all those little pearls!

Sugar Sculpture

Last Wednesday, we tried out sugar sculpting again after practicing with it the previous week. Basically you boil 3 parts isomalt sugar and 1 part water, and place in the molds of your choice and you go from there. I am very proud of how mine turned out, would love to display it without attracting ants.

Final Exam - Two Tier

This past Monday I had my final exam cake due for my Advance Wedding Cake class. The cake could have turned out a lot better hadn't my cake slid off my cake stand and mess up the top tier, its a bit off centered and making the piping messed up to. Also I wish the icing was shades darker but I was running out of time and I had already spent enough time mixing it to get to the shade it is at. The flowers I was most proud of, we spent the previous week doing nothing but flowers and I think they turned out great. Over all I was very proud, I received an A and my teacher loved my flowers as well!

Bridal Shower - Almond Petit Fours

Last weekend I had the privilege to provide the desserts at my friend's bridal shower. The maid of honor requested almond petit fours with apricot filling with colors matching the rest of the theme. These turned out beautifully and were very tasteful too!

Tempered Chocolate Candies

Last Week in my baking class we made these little chocolate candies and using the tempered technique. While making these we were able to fill them with fudge, peanut butter and caramel. Once I got the hang of it these were really easy to make and very tasty!

First Final Exam Cake

This week we prepared one of our two final exam cakes for the spring semester. This cake was entirely our own ideas, except, it needed to be covered in fondant, and have the minimum of 3 techniques that we learned this semester, so I did drapery, pearls and flowers. Very simple but yet elegant.

Yellow Stencil Cake

Last week we practiced with fondant over a square cake, learned how to work with stencils. I liked this technique very simple very beautiful.

Mom's Birthday Carrot Cake Cupcakes

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Last weekend my mother celebrated her birthday, sort of. Unfortunately she is born on leap day. So I made her favorite, Carrot Cake, but into cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting. I made everything from scratch, from my textbook I use for school, but I had to reduce the recipe to only a fourth of the original. I put fresh grated carrots, walnuts and pumpkin spice instead of all spice into these cupcakes and topped it off with cream cheese frosting and placing chopped walnuts on the sides of the icing. I think these cupcakes turned out pretty amazing and they were really tasty.

Ice Box Cookies

Last week we learned how to create a basic sugar cookie from scratch. As soon as the dough comes out of the freezer they start to thaw fast so we had to learn how to work with it quickly. We dyed half the dough so we could create different patterns. Once they were all cooked and cooled they began to get hard but I placed a piece of bread in the packaging and they softened up nicely. I liked this technique but it took us the entire class (6 hours) to complete these cookies. So I may make smaller batches next time I do this recipe.

Drapery

 

This week in my Advanced Wedding Cake class we practiced the drapery technique (top). We covered each layer in a crumb coat then with our choice of colored rolled fondant over the tiers. The top tier was a more structured drape with attached tassels, which I should have hidden the attachment more with the flowers but I wanted the flowers to be more at an angle. The bottom tier is a more freestyle drapery, where I could change the shape and length if I would like. This technique is mostly used on wedding cakes because of its elegant look and how similar it is to a dress preferably a wedding dress. The other side of the cake (bottom) on the top tier we practiced the ruffled technique, which would look good on any tier on a wedding cake, I also think an ombre effect would look really nice with this technique. And the bottom tier we just learned more piping skills, which I need to practice more.

Almond Cake Petit Fours

Wednesday in class we made Almond Petit Fours, kind of like last week only with almond cake and this time no marzipan or dipped in chocolate. This time in between each layers I put apricot jam preserves just to try something new from last week. Almond cake was really hard to work with; it stuck to everything making the circles not as clean as I would like them to be.  While the cakes chilled we melted white chocolate, and added some coloring, I of course chose red and blue because.....Go team U.S.A.! Anyways, after that we cut those into circles and placed them on top of the cakes, and added a chocolate design. Next time I would like to grease my cookie cutters more, to make them cleaner, and make my chocolate and designs more consistent. Other than that I really like these petit fours!

Pound Cake Petit Fours

On February 12th we made Pound Cake Petit Fours. We made the pound cakes a few weeks back and we kept them frozen. As we heated up our strawberry jam perseveres so that it would spread easily, we cut our cake into three layers. Then in between each layer we spread on the jam. Rolled out some marzipan, spread some jam on that and flipped our cake onto it and back over, creating a marzipan layer on top. After that we cut the cake into various shapes, then dipping them and covering them entirety in chocolate, once dried we applied decorations. Thank goodness, all those years of choir have paid off with my beautiful treble clefs that are considered a wonderful chocolate design to my teacher.

Piping Practice- Week 3

--> In this class we practiced more piping techniques the top left picture technique, I was having troubles with but this is my last one, showing that I am getting the hang of it. It looks really pretty around an entire tier of a cake. The top right picture are designs you usually see on wedding cakes, I just need to master my shapes and the movement of them. And the bottom picture is the rose covered tier, which are some of my favorites and look really elegant.

Piping Practice- Week 2

--> This was our second class in my advance wedding cake class; we practiced different piping skills that you would typically see on wedding cakes. As you can see I need work on making each line matching the one before. But I have the dropping method down!

Chocolate Chiffon Cake

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Last week in my Pastry Production and Design Class, my partner and I made four chocolate chiffon cakes. We turned a yellow chiffon cake recipe into chocolate by adding dutched cocca powder and upping the number of egg whites and water in the recipe. When we were done we poured the batters into 8in round cake pans. This week we prepared the chocolate mousse that would be the filling for our cakes. We melted semi-sweet chocolate with corn syrup, whipped the egg whites and sugar together and whipped the heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar. Then eventually folding all together, to create the chocolate mousse. And lastly we made the chocolate ganache, which is really just semi-sweet chocolate and heavy whipping cream. Then torte the cakes filled in the layers with mousse, and poured the ganache over the cake. Waited until dry, to add the decorations we had made with white and dark chocolate. Overall I think this turned out to be a really good cake and I would definitely make this at home for holidays or for whatever!

First Post

Hello All,

My name is Danielle, I would rather not talk about myself, but rather on my plans for this blog. At first, this blog was only to display all my hard work through my life as a baker and show how far I have come. Now, it's a place where I can show people what I can do with my baking and if anyone would like to order from me. This blog has become a way to get my name out there and show what I have to offer.

Thanks