Experimenting

Recently I had a few spare eggs and cream cheese icing so thought I would make a sponge cake and have some fun piping. The sponge turned out nice and tall for a change and I was able to put together a nice two layer cake.

For the person I had in mind for the cake, I knew they are a fan of Rosella Jam so I used this to fill the cake. Then proceeded to play with my piping skills. I haven't had much practice with the bag and nozzle so this was only a bit of fun. But the end result still looked ok.

I then used the Rosella jam on top for a bit of colour.

The end result was nice, but I still need a bit of practice on my sponge making as it wasn't as fluffy as I would have liked. If any one has any tips, I'd love to hear them.

Easter Order

Over Easter I was asked to make something a bit different. I was asked if I did biscuits and slices. I love to cook any thing so I said I would give them a go. I was asked to produce a few batches of cookies and a couple of slices. I could choose what I thought would be good. The only condition was that only one slice could have coconut in it.

So I set off in search of some recipes and tried to find some that would slice up and store well. Because I wanted to jazz up the end product I wanted to put every thing in nice jars. As most people know the majority of slices are soft or sticky or contact coconut. So I settle on Choc Muesli Slice (the one with coconut), Toscanner Slice, Caramel and Peanut Creams and Apricot Bubble Biscuits.

I find that biscuits and slices are easy to do but the hard part is getting the cooking just right. Too long and they go too crunchy and too little cooking and they are too soft. I like a good median with them not too hard and not too soft.
Next time I will cook the Apricot Bubble Biscuits on a lower heat as they browned a little too much to my liking. I will also cook the toffee for the Toscanner Slice a little longer to give it that little more crunch. I think the Toscanner slice would also benefit from a little lemon rind in the middle layer.

The recipes for all of these can be found at www.taste.com.au I love this website it utilises so many great magazines and you can have your saved cookbooks and recipes. Most recipes also have feedback from users that are most helpful.

Babtism Cupcakes

I was recently contacted by a lovely lady who was after some cupcakes for your little girl’s baptism. For a change the order was for vanilla cupcakes, which a great chance to play around with a few new recipes I wanted to try.

Once again the best recipe came from the ‘Devine Cupcakes’ by Tamara Jane. The cupcakes turned out light and flavoursome. This recipe also had the cupcake rise to perfect height when the cups were ¾ filled.

This time I experimented with white chocolate ganache to top the cupcakes as I thought this would have a better flavour with a little vanilla. I used vanilla paste as I didn’t want excess liquid to spoil the ganache. I used Whittaker’s White chocolate, which was lovely; however I must have done some thing wrong this time around as the ganache just seemed to separate, I need to work on this I think.

The order was for yellow and pink with flowers and butterflies. Luckily this time around I had my butterfly cutters on hand and was able to use them. I premade the butterflies a few days before the cupcakes to ensure they had plenty of time to harden and set. However again I had some trouble with them setting. The weather was still a bit humid and hot plus I only had cake art fondant in stock so I think the inferior product and the weather made my little butterflies a little flimsy.

But I think with all things considered they turned out lovely. I am getting faster at putting them together. The secret is having everything ready for assembly then it’s just a matter of bang bang and you’re done. Hope you like the pics

Cake course No.3

Well a recent visit to Brisbane saw me attend another one of Jackie's cake courses at Contemporary Cakes.

The course ran for two days and was all about Flowers. Jackie is very thorough and we went through all the tips and tricks to creating wired roses, lillies, Arum Lillies, flower buds, frangipenies and leaves. We also went through how to make your own flower paste and tips on colouring and dusting.

This course was hard work but exciting all the same. A lot of concentration and time goes into making lovely flowers and I can so understand why they cost so much to buy ready made.

My flowers turned out nicely, buy I could definitely do with more practice. Especially when it comes to frilling the edges of the lillies. This is what I found the most trickiest.

The flowers once made will last for ever if kept in a dry cool environment. But I have found mine are already going soft due to the warmth and humid weather and I have already broken one lilly :(

I also have a larger shopping list for the things I want too lol.

Golf Cake

Last weekend I was invited to a friend’s birthday golf day. I thought this would be a great opportunity to put my creative ideas into action to create a golf themed cake.

I came up with the idea of doing the cake light blue (for the sky) with green patches for the 'Green' and some white patches for clouds. I even created a couple of toothpick flag poles. The flag poles where the only thing not edible on the cake. I went with the traditional mud cake as that seems to be a favourite amongst everyone.

This time around I wanted to experiment with a cake mix to see if this would be a more cost effective and tastier option. So at the supermarket 'Greens Traditional Chocolate Cake' was on special for $2.70 Bargain right? That’s what I thought considering if I make the cake from scratch I use about $10 worth of ingredients (small cake). The cake turned out great. It was easier to make, cooked faster and had a good consistency. But at the end I did feel like I had cheated, by using a ready bought mix. But in the end I saved at least 50% in costs and mess in my kitchen. Plus now I have three bags of icing left over that I’m not really sure what to do with.

Tip: I have discovered that the fondant I use (Cake Art), which is a ready made product I buy, is not of a good enough quality for the humid conditions I work in. It is like working with Black Fondant. It has no elasticity and is rather sticky. I will be ordering Bakel fondant from now on as this is what my cake teacher uses and it seems a far better quality. A friend suggested I make my own, so I might also give that a try too.

Lil.

Valentines Day

Even though Valentines Day was a while ago now, I’m only just getting the time to update my blog about the lovely 4 dozen cupcakes I did. Thanks to those who ordered, I heard you enjoyed them a lot.

I did choc mud cupcakes with choc ganache spread on top before decorating with fondant (sugar paste). Using a few simple cutters and a few hours, I was able to put together six different designs. Thanks to ‘Cricket’ for his idea of black and red. I think they turned out nicely.

My only sore spot is I had hoped to have a larger heart cutter to use but it ended up being just a bit too big. Oh well I’m sure I can do that for next year.
Lil.

The Cullen Cake

Wow what a day. I am totally exhausted. With a late night cooking it was a delayed start this morning on the imfamous Cullen cake. Luckily I had prepared the fiddley bits during the week, so it was just a matter of cooking, ganaching, covering in black fondant and topping with cut out crest pieces.

Yes that's right you read correctly 'Black' fondant. I have learnt today that it is... trying to say the least. But after about ten roll out attempts I finnally managed to get it onto the cake.

I spent the rest of the day adding the pieces of the crest and adding the little balls around the bottom edge. I think next time I would go with silver balls or a silver ribbon. That would have broken up the black a bit better.

I learnt quite a few things while doing this cake. Practice does really make perfect. Tip - edible balls will disolve when they come in contact with alcohol.

Cake Orders

Well since last month I have been getting down to business. I have since launched a Face Book business page called Lil's Little Cakes and have ordered my very first business cards. And you guessed it, my business name is Lil's Little Cakes. Which is kinda funny because my first two professional cake orders I have received are for big cakes. A little more on them later. I've also signed up for a business seminar and have booked in for another cake course with contemporary cakes.

I'm glad to finally have things happening.

Thanks to my cousin (thanks Julie) I discovered Vistaprint.com.au it's a great site where you can create business cards, sticker, magnets, invitations and just about any thing with your logo of choice. My lovely friend Grace helped create my business logo (see right of page) and I used this to create my first business cards. I will also later down the track get some stickers for my cake boxes and maybe some fridge magnets to give out to customers. Heck I might even splash out on a coffee mug lol. Hopefully the new cards will arrive in the next few days.

My new Face Book business page is going well. I have 20 people following me so far and as a result have received my first two cake orders as a result. I hope to put pictures of all my work onto it, to hopefully grow my profile.

Now to my current cake order. The cake was ordered for a lady's birthday which has a 'Twilight' theme. The Cullen family from the movie has a lovely family crest, which is to be the feature of the cake. The cake will be black and silver so will look spectacular. I will definitely posting pictures once i'm finished. The cake is for about 60 people so will be a large oval to complement the shape of the crest.

I might also have an engagement cake to do soon too.

But also in the meantime I have a couple of orders of Valentines Day cupcakes which i'm going to decorate in pastal colours with flowers and hearts. The lucky ladies will hopefully be very happy with their little chocolate love cupcakes.

My next cake course is coming up at the end of next month. It will be a two day course working on life size sugar flowers, like roses and lillies etc. I can't wait. Jackie is a great teacher at contemporary cakes plus i also get a couple of days off work, so that's a bonus.

Well i've got ganache to make so I will post some new pictures soon.

Lil.

Cake Class

Well I’m excited to say I recently attended a one day cake course at Contemporary Cakes. Jackie the owner and creator runs many courses from beginner to master level. Check out her website for more details www.contemporarycakes.com.au

The Bow tie Cake course I did is all about the decorating. Jackie supplies a 7 inch round 3 inch high mud cake to use, which is cooks herself. We are taught how to level and cut our cake to size, ready for ganaching. Then the chocolate is next. By using ganache you are able to get a pefect set finish as a foundation for your sugarpaste. Without ganache the end result would be lumpy and uneven.

Once the ganache is applied and leveled it is let set for about 15 min. The Ganache should go hard to the touch. Then using a hot knife or your hands, we made the surface perfectly smooth.
From here we applied a sticky glace then set the cake aside to roll out our sugarpaste (fondant). As the cake is 3 inch high and 7 inches across we needed to roll our 21 inches of sugarpaste. For every inch of cake you will need approximately 100gm’s of sugarpaste. So for a 7 inch of cake use 700g of Sugarpaste, we used a little more just to be safe.

It is important to kneed your sugarpaste untill workable. If there are any hard bits in it, make sure you remove these as it will make your rolled out sugarpast lumpy. Kneed sugarpaste until it becomes smooth and maluable. But not too much as it will begin to turn stringy and sticky. If your room temp and humidity is right, you shouldn’t need any cornflour or icing sugar to dust your bench. It is best to use a metal benchtop or a corian bench top. Marble is also good as it holds a cooler temperature. However this may work against you when you are doing decorations as it will make your paste set quicker.

Once the desired sugarpaste is rolled out we quickly apply it to the cake. Working quickly is essential as the longer it takes the drier your sugarpaste gets, which means cracks will appear. Once smoothed around the edges we used a pizza cutter to remove the excess. From her we now decorated our base with sugarpaste also. This gives a very clean and uniformed look to the design. It would look funny to have a purble and brown cake sitting on a gold board etc.

Now we moved onto the bow. For this we add some hardner to the sugarpaste to make sure it sets hard enough to hold its shape. But this means you need to work quickly as it will dry out. If you don’t work fast enough you will get crazy cracks all through your work when shaping your bow.
Then it’s up to you how you decorate the rest. Choosing two good base colours that match well will make the cake look so much better. I used purple and would have used more brown on the dots however there is only so many hours in a day. The day course started at 10am and finished at 6.30pm. Without all the explaining that Jackie does this cake would have taken me about 5 hours to decorate. It helps to have a nice cooled cake to start with too.

If I were to make this cake professionally I would probably charge $75 to $100 for it atleast. The cake is very rich in flavour and would easily feed 16 people with small pieces or 8 people with very large pieces. It’s not the ingredients that are costly but the time that goes into a cake. Jackie does use the very best chocolate which retails for about $20 a kg so the costs do add up.

I can’t emphasise enough how great a teacher Jackie is. She gives enough time for each student to perfect what they are doing and complete every stage of the process. This class was very hands on and best of all we got to take out finished master pieces home and with any left over sugarpaste. I think I’m going to make some lovely purple and yellow daisies with my left overs.