Clever Cake Studio

This was a really adorable cake to do.  I did the baking one night, then did everything else the next night.

I actually couldn’t find my red dye.  At all.  I was running low anyhow, but I knew I still had some, and had seen the bottle when I was baking the cake.  But now… it disappeared!  Elves took it.  Darn elves.  I had a half-full can of spray dye, and with that and some orange and brown, managed to get the color fox-like enough.  I really wanted a more vibrant, almost cartoony fox, but this earthy look works.

The problem with cute animal cakes is that, at some point, you have to cut then open to eat the deliciousness inside.  And this one is carrot cake, really rich and full of carroty goodness.  I tried shredding carrots myself, and two battle wounds later, I gave up and my husband went out and bought me the pre-shredded variety.  :)  Layering this carrot cake is a nice creamy chai buttercream.

I always learn a lot with each cake I do, and this was no exception.  It was by far much more successful in terms of carving - It was a clean carve, stayed together, was very pleasant.  I made mistakes in the fondant itself, by rolling it a bit too thin so it was prone to tear in tricky spots.  I also wish I had left the white area alone, but kept fussing with it and adding texture/color.  Oh well!  Bake and learn.

I am setting up an etsy storefront to sell various baked goods and sweets available for shipment within the continental US.  It’s called Sugar Revolution, and it’s really focusing on the fun weird stuff I love to make and eat.  I’m a foodie and I can get bored with the usual offerings, so I wanted to make a shop dedicated to culinary enthusiasts and culture-junkies like myself

There’s nothing there just yet, as a lot of details are being hammered out and our first group of products is being decided.  I’m quite excited about it!  I’ll let you know when we’re ready for our official grand opening!

I’m going to start posting about other baked goods besides cakes.  This is the first - big fat delicious blueberry lemon scones!

I love scones.  I love tea.  I love the combination of the two, so meant to be, so fated and perfect for one another.

A proper, real scone is not like a muffin.  It’s not like cake, moist and rich.  It shouldn’t be dry, just tender.  A good scone isn’t very sweet, either - it provides a creamy base upon which you can apply clotted cream, butter, or preserves, or just eat plain with your favorite warm beverage.

Seattlest has a nice article about this, including a recipe.  I haven’t tried their recipe, but I like their opinion on the state of scones.  Down with those mini muffin-tops coated in icing at the grocery store, those imposers trying to pawn themselves off as tiny scones!

I am very happy with how these turned out.  Buttery and soft, a bit flaky and crumbly, with the sweet-tart jolts of dried blueberries and a gentle background of lemon.

I wish the photos showed it better, but the top of the scones have a few layers of egg white glaze on them, which gives it a shiny, flaky-pastry appearance.

This is the last of this year’s Valentine’s Day mini-cakes.  It was very enjoyable to make, as I find pouring ganache to be rather fun as I’ve gotten the hang of the consistency and the pouring finesse.

This has pomegranate cake with lemon curd filling, and a dark chocolate ganache.  If you have not tried the combination of pomegranate and lemon, I highly recommend it!  To get the pomegranate flavor, I first tried just a flavor oil, but I didn’t like it very much.  I ended up using a mix of pomegranet juice, grenadine, and lemon juice to get the flavor that tasted right to me.  It ended up being a rather lovely neutral color.

After layering and filling the cake, I did a thin crumb-coat using the lemon curd.  This is to seal the crumbs and also to prevent the chocolate ganache from absorbing into the cake.  Much cleaner and smoother result this way.

There is generally two consistencies of ganache.  A 1:1 ratio of chocolate to heavy cream gives you a smoothly flowing chocolate that is great for fondue and pouring over cake.  When cooled, it forms a soft ’shell’. You can also whip this ganache into a spreadable chocolate frosting.

A 2:1 ratio of chocolate to cream gives you a chocolate that will harden when cooled, so it’s great for dipping strawberries or making candy.

The fondant and the little red beads along the bottom are made of fondant.  I liked the simplicity of this cake, it really felt romantic and sweet.

We’ve added a new page to highlight my Current Special.  I will probably do one per month.

Right now till the end of March, it’s cupcakes and petit fours!

There’s something magical about these little treats.  Even people who say they don’t like cake often love these.  Cupcakes are homey and reminiscent of childhood, retro even.  Petit fours are sophisticated and artistic, yet also whimsical.

I’m hoping to really play around with the artistic possibilities of both of these delights.  I have a few cupcake artists that I admire whose work I’m going to be inspired by.

This was an especially sweet cake to do.  It was a Valentine’s cake for a couple friends of mine.  I had to build a custom box for it so the roses wouldn’t be damaged!  These are the client’s photographs, as I was running late that morning and forgot to take pictures.

The flavors in this cake are unusual and very worth noting.  The client chose a simple mint cake, with Frangelico’s buttercream.  This combination (which would probably be good as a mixed drink!) was both refreshing and rich at the same time.

The roses are made of sugarpaste and dusted with gold luster.  The heart is fondant.

This is the second of the two cakes shipped to New York.  These are the client’s photographs, so this is how they looked upon arrival.

This cake was a present for some friends of the client who were recently engaged.  The table and balls are inside jokes about how they had met.

The balls are sugarpaste, painted in edible gold.  The table was hand-painted, and was unfortunately a bit smudged in the travel.  It’s rich chocolate cake with Frangelico’s buttercream, covered in the fondant I made myself.

This was one of two small cakes shipped to New York.  You are seeing the client’s photographs, so this is how they looked when they arrived.

This one is in celebration of the birth of their first son.  Rich chocolate cake with Frangelico’s buttercream, covered in the fondant I made myself.  The pacifier and rattle are both made out of marzipan and painted with edible gold and some designs in black food dye.  Gumpaste/sugarpaste would dry harder and weather’s travel better, but marzipan is much tastier so the client preferred it.