Emergency Cake Surgery

(Finished cake)



So a few weeks back my former English teacher had a birthday and he is so awesome I decided to make him a cake. Its a very simple cake with stenciled words I cut out myself and chocolate frosting. Just so all of you know, making your own stencils is a pain in the butt. First you have to find what you want to stencil, then adjust the size on the computer, print it off, and finally cut it out. If it is small its not so bad, but apparently cutting out "Happy Birthday" in fancy font is no easy feat.

(Stenciled words made out of sugar sprinkles.)

(Homemade stencils.)

The first attempt at the cake did not go so well. I had tried to make it a chocolate cake with delicious whipped ganache filling and a chocolate buttercream icing, however I accidentally over mixed the ganache (at least I think that's what I did) and it didn't quite turn out correctly. I tried to salvage it and make it work and, even though it tasted just fine, it refused to stay between the layers. I quickly iced the cake trying to trap it in but still the ganache found a way out by pushing the icing off. I quickly stuck it in the fridge to try to firm it up, however my attempt were futile and I was left with this:

(Whipped ganache pushing icing off the cake)

 

After realizing my original plan would not work i tried to use what I was left with by pulling the layers of cake apart and scraping off the ganache. It was important to get all the ganache off so that the cake wouldn't absorb it and become too moist. I then re-iced the cake and stenciled on the words. The chocolate buttercream frosting (recipe page) was a huge hit. I received multiple compliments on it and some people said that was their favorite part. After everyone got through with the cake I was left with only leftover icing to take home (pictured below). However my friend Shelby later got a hold of the cake carrier and when she was done it did not look like there had been a cake on it at all.

(The cake after the party was over)

Five-Minute Chocolate Cake

So for all you girls out there, I know that you , like me, often get chocolate cravings. Mine are constant and I'm always wanting a nice big hunk of chocolate cake with some fudge on top. Mmmmm. That is the best. So when a friend of mine gave me a recipe for a chocolate cake in a cup that only takes five minutes to make I had a field day. It is so delicious and if you make it right it is so moist.

(A picture of my cake in a cup and some yummy syrup for on top.

Yes, this is my own picture.)

Now the recipe says that it is optional to add the syrup on top. I tried it first with out and while it was good, it was definitely missing something. So I got into our fridge and dug around and viola! Smucker's Chocolate Sundae Syrup. I drizzled some over top and Oh! it was the icing on the cake (pun intended even if it was cheesy). Also, I recommend making it with normal sized chocolate chips not the mini ones. I made it with the minis the first time and it turned out rather dry but when i used normal sized ones it was quite moist. Make sure the mug you are using is microwave safe and it won't blow up in any one's faces or have gold paint start a fire or anything like that. I do not take any responsibility for any kitchen accidents, not that they are likely. One last thing. The amount of cake the recipe produces can be quite a lot so don't eat it when you are too full. Enjoy!

My Inspiration

So i know it's been a while since i posted, but I've gotten caught up with a bunch of work to do and haven't had much time to bake. However I thought I'd give you a little insight into my inspiration for baking. I am not much into anime or manga as some people are but there is one show that I absolutely love. It is a show called Yumeiro Patissiere. It is a wonderful show about a young girl going off to culinary school without any prior training and being put with the best kids in the school.  She must learn to make friends and hone in her talent. Through this show comes my love for baking. One thing she is always saying is that you have to put happiness into the food. And I've noticed that this is true. Your food will most definitely taste better if you put the joy of baking into it instead of doing it grudgingly. Here is the theme song and a link to watch the show. Just try it, even if you don't like anime. Don't forget to add happiness, love, and joy to your food!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJfGNnqKEZk
So there is the link for the song and below is the link for the show. And one more thing. If you scroll down to the bottom of the home page you can see a picture from the show. Just thought I'd say that. Enjoy!
http://www.crunchyroll.com/yumeiro-patissiere

Happy Thanksgiving & Merry Christmas

So sorry about the long wait! You know the holidays. Rush, rush, rush. So i supposed I'd better start out with the items i bakes for Thanksgiving. To begin, i only made two items. Rugelach cookies and lemon meringue pie. Rugelach is a type of cookie originating somewhere in the Middle East. I have had people from Iraq tell me they are Iraqi cookies and people from Israel say they are Israeli and books tell me they are Jewish, but it is always somewhere in the Middle East so that is all i can tell you about their background. The recipe I use may not be quiet as authentic as you might find in the Middle East, but some personal friends of mine from Iraq say the recipe is very authenic.

It is a small cookie in the shape of a cresant with a chocolate filling most commonly but it can have other fillings as well. To make it you simly mix up the dough, refidgerate it for awhile, roll it out, spinkle the filling, cut into wedges and roll. If you are feeling lazy or are in a hurry, you can skip the wedges, roll, and then cut, making the cookies more of a pinwheel than a cresant. Be careful of adding too much filling or the cookie will be messy. It is absolutely delicious. The dough is sweet and soft, and so creamy (probably a result of the cream cheese) and the filling is chocolately with a hint of cinnomin making the chocolate filling irrisistable.
Also for Thanksgiving I made a Lemon Merinque Pie, which was fairly simple. I used a premade piecrust and a box mix Cook & Serve Lemon Pudding for the filling. The recipe for the pie can be found on the box.

A few weeks later and its Christmas time! Jesus gets a lot of baking on his birthday! I personally made three types of cookies; gingerbread, candy cane cookies, and peanut kisses. Only the candy cane cookie recipe will be published on this website because they are family recipes, but I will give tips. When making any cookie dough where you have to shape it, such as candy canes and gingerbread, make sure it reaches the right consistency. If it is too soft or gooey it will be hard to work with but if you add too much flour it will be dry and crumbly. If you should happen to have dough too gooey and soft, just add some more flour but be careful not to add to much. You can also try wrapping it in plastic and sticking it in the fridge to harden up. If you add too much flour try adding more water, but again be careful not to add to much. If you happen to rip or tear your dough you can wet your fingers and stick the dough back together.

As for the peanut butter kisses, all I can say is make sure the cookie dough is fully or close to fully cooked before adding the kisses to it. If you add the chocolate too early you will have to bake it longer and will burn the chocolate. The lovely thing about chocolate is that in most cases it will hold its shape no matter how long it's cooked but it can still burn and nobody likes burnt chocolate. If you should happen to add the chocolate too early you can always put a piece of foil over top of the cookies. This will trap the heat so as to cook the cookies but not keep it in too long so that the chocolate burns.

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday Jesus, and a Happy New Year!

Summer

Hooray!!! It's the first day of summer today. Yahoo! For my family, however, not only is it the first day of Summer, but it's also my grandpa's birthday. This year I did not make anything, but thankfully I'm still trying to get you all caught up on all my previous baking, so i shall talk about the cake i made last year.

So this is the cake that I made for my grandpa for his birthday. That time instead of doing two cakes in one day like i did the first time i baked, I this time made two cakes in one week because it was the same week as Fathers Day. As you can see, in this cake, I used a chocolate butter cream icing. for some of the decorations, all the blue icing, I simply took the chocolate butter cream and didn't add the cocoa to it. Trust me that was a VERY bad idea. The icing was runny and drippy and dripped all over the place. When i piped it onto the cake it ran all the way down the sides, as you can see at the lower left. Also when i added the blue coloring to the de-cocoa-afied icing, it wouldn't mix in all the way! Even after i mixed it to the best of my ability, you could still see swirls of white, as you can see in the lower middle. However, thankfully, some of the icing came out perfectly fine, as shown in the lower right.

Now for some advise for all of you. For one thing, if you're going to do a cake like this, where you take it out of the pan and decorate it, do a border. Always do a border on cakes like this. Without a border you will see more of the mistakes and creases in the icing where you switch between icing horizontally and vertically. It also shows where you ran into the cake tray if you don't put a border. Another advantage to doing a border is that it breaks up the cake for the eye and it's not quite so hard for people to take in. Of course there are exceptions, but I'll not get into those now, least I confuse you if I haven't already.

More advise? Make it interesting. however it is possible to make it too interesting. Make sure you reach the balance in between. A cool decorating trick for candles, at least I think it's cool, is when your decorating the cake to put on the top of the cake, or where ever you want the candles to go, little dots or flowers or something. This way when you put the candles in the have a nice little border and it doesn't look as much like you are massacring the cake. Well I hope I've helped you out a little bit. Thanks for reading! Check in again sometime soon!

Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day to all dads out there! So this year i did not make a Fathers Day cake, so i decided to talk about the one i made last year. Ironically this is the third cake I've ever made. So I'm still going in order! YA! Anyway... This cake, contrary to what you might think, was actually made for my grandpa, not my dad, who prefers pies. When I made this cake I could not decide on a design. So then I went to the ever handy dandy Internet! I have an entire folder on my computer of baking designs. One day I will put some of them on here. You can see on here that i put small white dots between the red dots. I would suggest putting some space between the dots. As you can see on the left side of the cake, close together dots don't look very good. Compare the left side to the right side. The right side defiantly looks better. Also as you can see in the birds-eye view below, when your icing gets cracked and messed up like mine did, you can dip the icing knife in water and smooth it together. When writing words, or drawing pictures, sketch it out with a tooth pick first. Those are the best pieces of advice right now. HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!!!