Clever Cake Studio

That’s right - this cake was made for a death-defying, high-flying, seriously kick-ass lady aerialist who performes using long lengths of silk.  If you’ve never seen an aerialist performing, then check out this video from YouTube just to give you an idea.  It’s a cross between dancing and moving sculpture and takes tremendous amount of physical control.  Very cool!

I really enjoyed making this one.  This was commissioned as a surprise by her husband for her birthday, and includes nods to her many interests and accomplishments.  The fondant is marbled white/soft purple.  The top tier is rose cake with strawberry preserves, and the bottom tier is lavender cake with blackberry preserves.

Edit on 5/8/09:  Okay, I got some nice photos from the client, and only now finally got around to uploading them.  That’s going to be a theme for me this week I think.  I changed the top photo because I thought they set it up quite beautifully, and here is a photo of the inside of the top tier rose-strawberry cake, which I did in very vivid colored rainbow swirls.  The bottom tier is also in swirled rainbow, but in more Springtime sort of bright pastels.

My letting and painting skills are slowly improving. But in case you can’t read or tell what all of that is, here you go: “K” for her name; “Ayoo ‘ anoshni!” is I love you in Navaho; “¡Feliz cumpleaños!” is Happy Birthday in Spanish; a medical symbol for her in-progress nursing degree; Bibliophile for her love of reading/writing; a microscope for her degree in microbiology; a rose; a badly done Rock Band drum set; a ball of yarn and knitting needles; two foils for fencing; a “Censored” block; and the line “As you wish” from the Princess Bride movie/book.  Also, I included some sparkling candles as a nod to her (and her husband’s) interest in professional pyrotechnics.

The sculpture I made using sculptey and baked in my oven, so they’d have a keepsake ornament. I used a photo online to guide me, and also had a friend who’s involved in a lot of performance art help make sure I did the ‘rigging’ authentically.  It was a fun little puzzle.

That was done one evening, the baking another, and the layering, construction and decoration was all done on Saturday. We had a bunch of friends over that day to play board/card games, which meant I had an audience for this (as well as the occasional sounding board or helper willing to spend a half hour rolling out little balls of fondant for me).  That’s why there’s a picture of me working on the cake - one of our friends picked up the camera and caught me.   It’s just more proof of how very glamourous this work is.  ;P

Over at Sugar Revolution, we’re having a preview goodie box sale!  You get a variety of tasty treats for a low price and, we hope, you’ll then take a little survey to let us know what you thought.  Then we can tweak the products a bit before our official Grand Opening.

Some of the items that you might get:
- Spicy ‘Hot Chocolate’ cookies
- Carrot Cake balls
- ‘Gold Hearts’ (Goldschlager snickerdoodles)
- Chai and Raspberry tea loaf
- Rosemary and pine nut cookies
- Smores truffles
- Lavender Blackberry cookies
- ‘Garden Variety’ mini cookies (herbs and flowers)
- Green tea and red bean bread
- Cherry gingersnaps
- Variety of chocolates and truffles

We also have Vegan boxes available as well!

This is a favorite at my house. Tender, not too sweet, with a melt-in-your-mouth finish, and the lavender is subtle yet defining.  Good on its own, or with some tea.

I personally love lavender, and enjoy introducing it to people who haven’t experienced it in anything but potpourri!  It’s wonderfully French and foreign, yet feels homey and inspires daydreams of country cottages, British tea and lovely gardens.  Besides this sweet treat, lavender is great in savory dishes, like roast chicken or an herb omelet.

I think Americans have long underutilized this herb.  Try it out!  Make sure to pick up culinary lavender (it can be ordered online or found at many groceries or organic/natural foods stores).  This way you can be sure no unhealthy pesticides or dyes were used on it.  Be brave with it.  You can also try herbs de province, a French herb blend that includes lavender, which is wonderful in just about everything.

EDIT:  After getting the comment below from Heidi and Doug, I decided I’d add another useful thing about these cookies - they’re great to carry around and hand out at conventions. 

I made these rat sugar cookies for RatsPacNW’s annual Spring Show this past weekend.  My roomate breeds really gorgeous, sweet ratties (FurrRattery), and this is the second show we’ve shared a table together at.  Last time I sold some cupcakes and cookies, including some vegan items, though I didn’t get photos, because I’m a dork.  I regularly forget photos, so several nice cakes and other items have missed their chance in the sun (well, my blog anyhow).

These photos were taken by my husband’s cell phone camera.  I made a bunch of these Sugar Rats, not all of which are pictured.  They were very well received and completely sold out, so I will likely be doing them regularly for rat shows and will also sell them on Sugar Revolution when that’s up and going.

I also sold some lavender cookies, and may get some photos of those up later on.

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.