Thanksgiving and flowers

Ok-this one didn't quite work out to be the cake I imagined before I started it. But there's a story with this one, as there is with all my cakes. Where to begin? This is a Lemon cake, with straight buttercream frosting. Unfortunately I hadn't learned my lesson yet about the stiffer frosting (See story on pink/pink cake) So I work wtih a girl Tammy (T2 for short) T2 does graphic design on the side much like I do cakes on the side. Well, I wanted business cards for my cake side business, so she agreed to make my business cards if I made her a cake. Deal! I can do that. What's that Tammy? You want this cake for Thanksgiving nite??? OMG, so busy, I don't know if I can do that. Well, I did it. I brought in the cake just in time for thanksgiving. &&& she loved it!

But, the decoration wasn't what I had in mind. See, I actually had 2 cakes to deliver for Thanksgiving eve. One was actually a paying job. Both of them including this one, I intended on doing a tracing of a turkey and making it all festive like and purrdy. Well, I didn't figure out the frosting stiffness thing until after these cakes were done. So the tracing didn't work, because the frosting was still too wet. I even let both cakes sit overnite and all day while I was at work. When you do a tracing, you use a piece of parchment paper, and trace the picture on the paper. Then with piping gel, you trace the picture on the paper, and place it down on the top of the cake. when you peel up the paper, the piping gel is left on the cake in the design you traced. BUT, when the frosting is still too wet, the frosting will come up with the paper. It's soooo frustrating when that happens! But what I don't understand, is when I started decorating cakes, I did quite a few cakes with this tracing technique. (see my autumn leaves cake) Well, when the turkey idea didn't work, I turned to plan B-which is just pretty fall colored flowers. That worked good enough. But it's not what I wanted to do. She did end up doing my business cards, but they aren't completely finished yet. Maybe she needs another cake to motivate her along?

This is the other Lemon cake I had to do for Thanksgiving. It was ordered by my very good friend & practically my brother, Mike. This was supposed to be a Turkey and all festive like as well, but the frosting did no allow me to do that. Oh well, it's kinda pretty I suppose, huh? He loved it, which is all that matters. I delivered this to Mike in Brockton, while he was playin poker at the big t-gvg eve game. Fun times. Bringing a cake into a house filled with approx 25 hungry men! woohoo! Bring-it-on!

a>

LOVE MY ROSES! This Pinkness cake was an order for my favorite customer, Eddie. It was for his mom's bday, but she's got many kids and grandkids. So, this was "Happy Birthday from All 13 of us!" This was a very frustrating cake to do. Although it turned out very lovely, I had one hell of a time decorating it. I must have tried to do the writing at least 4, 5 or 6 times! The cake itself is half chocolate, half yellow. What is supposed to happen so I can write on it, is the frosted portion is supposed to crust over a little bit, so it's not so soft. That makes it easier to "carve" the words into it. Well, for some strange reason, that was not happening. Now I've been making the same recipe of frosting since I started doing cakes, which was August, about 3 months. Why, NOW this is not hardening for me, is completely beyond me!? So I asked my instructor, she really had no answers except to cut back theamount of water, and increase the merengue powder. So I talked to my dad. He's like Alton Brown, he is a scientist thru and thru, and truely understands the chemistry of cooking as well as loves to cook himself! So when dad said "cut back on the fat you use" whether that's butter, or shortening, cut the amount down to cut out the moisture in the frosting. Low and behold,...that's what I did, and it worked! THANX DAD! So from now on, instead of using a whole container of crisco, i use 3/4 of a container. So when I finally got this frosting to hold the lettering, I got it done. OH I forgot to mention my favorite part! The bright pink flowers are Royal Icing flowers! They are like candy butttons. When you make them, you put them on a piece of parchment, and let them dry for a day or 2. Then you can peel them off and store them forever! use them when you need them. These were scattered thru-out this decor and made this pink on pink cake a littel brighter. Once I made it thru the craziness with the writing and lettering, I really enjoyed doing this one. It was, of course, a hit with Eddie and his family.





LOVE

This was just actually just a practice cake. I had just started my 2nd course of cake decorating classes @ Michaels, and wanted to practice my new techniques. The big blob of flower at the top is supposed to be a Mum. C'mon, can't you tell? ya, it needs practice! The others surrounding it are rose buds. They are fun. The funny thing about them is that they really look like blobs of frosting until you put a stem on them! It's amazing. The we did the little rosettes that are around the top perimeter of the cake. I made this one for Brian to have all to his self, so it's a carrot cake, his favorite :)

October 18th, and Halloween!

This was the birthday cake for my hubby Brian. I made this a week after his birthday. I'll tell ya why incase you don't already know. Brian's birthday is October 18th. This also happens to be a very sad day for our family. My younger brother Craig was tragically killed on this very day. For the past 2 years, Brian has not been able to celebrate his birthday on that actual day, and even afterwards, it just has fallen by the wayside. I feel horrible that he has not gotten the celebration he deserves. It's not his fault this happened on his day. I know he says he doesn't mind, and he understands. But I know I'D BE PISSED! So this year, Mike and I tried to plan a quasi-surprise birthday dinner the weekend after his birthday when we returned home from NYC. Once we decided on the day and the place, we ended up telling him about it, so he wouldn't make any plans of his own. I made this cake that day to bring with us to dinner @ Vinny T's in Dedham, ma. There was probably about 8-10 of us for dinner, and when we were done eating, the wait staff brought out the cake! It was a hit obviously :) I did the little footballs on and around the perimeter of the cake, and the "silver/red/blue" for the Patriots colors. Needless to say, tons of fun and great company and awesome food. We really have great friends.

HALLOWEEN!!

I think halloween is quickly becoming one of my favorite holidays. Probably because it's one of the ones I had minimal connections to my brother in the recent adult years. Other than memories of trick-or-treating together when we were little, he didn't usually come home for this holiday. If I have an idea in mind, I will dress up in costume. I also love making baked goods for the holiday-including cake and cupcakes! I found the most fun cup-cake decorations and whipped up quite a few batches on a whim one nite while I was home alone. I had so much fun practicing the "basket weave" technique. They went very quickly when I brought them into work. I think they were a mix of yellow cake and chocolate cake. My co-workers love me when I bring practice cakes into work!

Roses for Moms and Dads

<---My Favorite Cake ever! I'm so proud of this one. My best customer ordered this one for his baby-mama. It's my famous lemon cake. He almost always tells me to do whatever I think looks best. This was a fun cake.










<----This is also a cake ordered from my best customer, Eddie. He works in the whse at Super-Dog. He ordered this cake for Rosie in our office. He felt bad that he orders all these cakes for his family and they stay in the office for the girls to drool over until he gets to take them home, but the girls never get to eat any! So he ordered this one for Rosie, to share with the office girls. It was chocolate cake-the only kind she'll eat!

Below right -purple & yellow roses: I loved doing the roses-they are so much fun and once I finally got them down, it was so easy to do! Don't get me wrong, I had a hell of a time with them in the practicing stages. Then I just sat myself down in front of the TV with a tub of frosting, and my rose tip 104 and a bunch of papertowels and a paper plate, to just make rose after rose after rose, until I got them right!
Below left: Malaka N Rob-This was ordered by one of the Super-Dog Drivers, Pat. This was his first cake order, and he requested an Angel food cake with Chocolate frosting!?! WHAT!? I had never made an angel food cake to decorate as a cake order, and to top it off, had never made CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM frosting! Well, how hard could it be? I could make regular buttercream, just add some cocoa powder, right?! Actually, it was very easy to make. Sooooo Rich and thick!!! With all that he wanted written on that cake, its difficult to put all that wording on a cake with a big hole in the middle! So I filled the tube pan hole with chocolate buttercream frosting...SOOO RICH! I'd need about 6 glasses of milk with just one slice :) Pat loved that cake, so much that he decided to give me $50 for it! He's an awesome customer-I hope to keep him around : D
These 2 cakes (Rosie's roses and the chocolate/angelfood) were due on the same day. When I have a cake due during the week, I only have time to work on them after I get home from work, which doesn't leave me much time to get them finished. So I bake the cakes 2 days prior, and decorate them 1 day prior to the due date. Since I had 2 cakes due, I was doubly busy that nite! My mother in law Marsha came over that nite to have dinner w/me and brian, and my neighbor Amy came over to see how I was doing with my cakes. The 3 of us were up until about 12:30am chatting, eating the pork roast I made that nite as well, and just having fun while I decorated both cakes! I really appreciated their input on the decor and their support when I started to break down. I'm very critical of myself and my decorations so I usually need someone to tell me whether they like what I've done. I sometimes tend to not be too confident of myself and my creations either, at least until they're totally completed and I get to see the finished product. Anyways, we had so much fun that nite! Marsha did not want to see anymore polka-dots!! I also have a real problem with writing and lettering in frosting, I pray when I get a cake order that they won't want me to write anything on it! Unfortunately that's usually not the case. For the Roses for Rosie cake, Marsha took a toothpick and scratched in the letters, so I could just trace over it in the frosting. That seemed to work well, and prevented a full out break down, at midnight!




<-----Happy Birthday DAD!!! I had left over Chocolate frosting, I had to use up quickly. I was unfortunately not churning my creative wheels when it came to my dad's bday cake. All I knew was I had to use this chocolate. So I turned to my hubby, Brian. Of course he had a perfect idea!! He used a toothpick to trace out the design of a real golf course, I had no idea how it was supposed to go! He told me what colors to make the "green" and the rest of the area of the course. The sand traps are brown sugar, and there's even a toothpick flag and a little bitty golf ball too! That was a fun cake to make, because Brian and I did it together. Usually the norm is that he stays out of the kitchen, because I'm liable to end up yelling at him and shooing him out of the kitchen. I'm a little testy when I'm decorating my cakes. So, we get to mom/dad's house for dad's bday celebration. Mom finds a large taper candle that belongs in a candle holder, not a birthday cake! So mom turned out the lights, and lit the candle, and we sang. All of a sudden, as soon as we finished singing, it was time for the birthday boy to blow out the candle. Well guess what?! Mom decided dad wasn't capable to blow it out, and blew it out herself before dad could even get a breath! I guess you had to be there, but believe me, it was Hi-Lar-Ious!!!
Merry Christmas Everyone-I know it's a hard one for me.

The Pumpkin Conundrum

I have been trying to keep these blog posts in sequence of my cake experience. HOWEVER, I believe I need to skip to current events starting around Thanksgiving time, as they are quite entertaining. Lets start with the pumpkin. So before Halloween, I bought a ginormous pumpkin to decorate our front stairs. Also, my mother-in-law Marsha bought 5 small size pumpkins to decorate the "garden" Not the real baby ones, just smaller pumpkins with seeds in them and all. YOu probably could carve them! I have always wanted to roast pumpkin seeds, but never had. How difficult could it be? I started with a smaller pumpkin incase I completely screwed it up. They were addictive!!! very good, very buttery. I decided to make another batch, bigger and better. I chopped into the ginormous pumpkin--ONLY intending to make pumpkin seeds. and BOY were they bigger and better! these were the best I made yet! So when we finished the seeds, I was left with this huge ginormous cut up pumpkin. NOW WHAT?! Well, I've always wanted to roast and puree my own pumpkin for cooking. So I did it. But I didn't realize that there are certain size pumpkins especially for cooking?!?! I cut up the pumpkin into managable sized chunks to roast. From doing my research online, I found that if you put the pumpkin chucks cut side up, and put some oil on the cut side, and then put approx 1/4" water in the bottom of the pan, they will get softer quicker, and cook easier. Well that seemed to work....but due to the ridiculous size of this monster, I had to do many many MANY batches of this roasting session. This took 10xs longer than I wanted to spend on this. But, i started this crazy project, and Gosh Darnit, I was gonna finish it!! Finally-I finished roasting allllll the pumpkin chucks. Now it's time to puree it. Well, I didn't have a food processor. I had gotten away without one for 4 yrs, didn't think i needed one now! Hell-I have TWO blenders! (not to mention they were both probably older than I was) BUT they worked. I would cut off the pumpkin skin while it was still warm, and chop into smaller chunks. then put in blender, and blend. No problem....hahahah BOY WAS I WRONG! I had pumpkin in my hair, on my clothes, on my face. I was a wreck! This damn pumpkin was taking over my kitchen, and my life! This happened over the course of a whole weekend. I realized the blender was not working. I could only put a small quantity of pumpkin in at a time, and then had to continue to put in the spoon to move around the pumpkin, which caused it to splatter on me. I probably smelled like babyfood. I was quite a site! The blender blended inconsistantly, and just did not work. DADDY SAVES THE DAY! Dad had a food processor! ah-ha! Thank GOD for Dad's and kitchen appliances :) Don't get me wrong, I was very happy for the food processor, but due to the enormous quantity of pumpkin still left to puree, it still took FOREVER to finish. But I had all these pumpkin baked goods i wanted to make! I had BIG plans for this pumpkin. I ended up having about 12-15 cups of pumpkin puree. what the hell did I think I was going to make with this? I gave 3-4 cups to my dad, he could have fun with that. Ironically enough, no one else wanted any of my pumpkin puree? I don't understand that! I did end up making a couple chewy, rock-like pumpkin breads, and many pumpkin cookies that were very good and very moist. Ultimately, about 8-9 cups of pumpkin ended up getting trashed. I got pumpkin burn-out very quickly. Oh well. Now I can say I did it though. Canned pumpkin ain't that bad?! :)

Cakes N Calzones

I was well underway with my cake making. Averaging approx 1 order every other week, from co-workers only at this point.

My Autumnal cake-from my 12 hr practice day with Lara!

My First Cake made for real people! My Friend Julie's daughter Brittany. My lettering needs some work!

This is my first real paying gig. It was 2 tiered, and really heavy!

I had decided not to take Course 2 of the Wilton Decorating class. I bought a couple books with Wilton decorating ideas, and instructions on how to do other flowers and techniques. No problem-I could teach myself. WRONG! I forgot after so many years out of school, how much of a "hands-on" learner I am. Those directions in the book might as well been written in arabic. It wasn't making a bit o sense to me. So I signed up for course 2. It's a good thing. My mother in law Marsha insisted on paying for my 1st course, and said she would pay for the 2nd one if I wanted to take it. It's only $30, so it's really worth it. I ended up buying all the products and tips/coloring/pastry bags etc-that's where Michael's makes their money. I probably have close to 100 tips already! Anyways, Soooo glad I took that 2nd course. I learned so many more flowers, and new frosting types, and Wow! I had so much fun. Not to mention, I coincidentally ended up in the same class of Kelly-I went to HS w/her over 10 yrs ago! We had a lot of mutual friends, but never really hung out together. We had so much fun in class talking about what everyone else from HS has been up to....who's got kids, who's getting married, yada yada yada.

This one was also the product of a practice day. I actually ran out of blue frosting. This thing is 2/3rds frosting 1/3rd cake.

So at work I started talking with some friends about starting a business. My friend Rosie had run her own calzone business, catering for company luncheons etc. She would love to get back into that, and suggested in passing that we should start this business "Cakes N Calzones" Are you Kidding?!! that sounds sooo cool! But, let me get my cake basics up and running first.

The beginning of "The Color of Cake"

So I started this blog to write about and advertise my cake decorating "business". Over the summer, I decided to take a cake decorating class thru Michaels Craft store. It started out as just something fun, and to meet new people. I really enjoyed the 1st course. It was 4 weeks long, 4-2 hr classes. I learned the "Wilton Method" of cake decorating. Learned to do basic flowers, trims, roses!, fun stuff.

Once I started bringing my practice cakes to work, I all of a sudden started getting cake orders from co-workers! Without my knowing it, I inadvertantly started a cake business. I have one particular co-worker (client) that has ordered 5 cakes already! He's my best customer. I get new customers weekly. I'm slowly expanding my cake flavor choices. I started with regular box cake mixes- chocolate, yellow, lemon and even spice cake and half chocolate/half yellow cakes, graduating to Red Velvet, and even Carrot cake! Now all from scratch. I also make all my own frosting. I specialize in Buttercream, but also do Royal Icing, and Cream Cheese frosting too. So sticky sweet! Eventually I'll add fondant to my frosting/covering list.