Jeremiah's Birthday!

This is a cake that I did for my uncle Jeremiah. He really loves music so I made him this special cake.



It was a really fun cake to make! The guitar is made out of fondant and the rest is just buttercream icing.

I love making cakes that are really personalized. I think that doing so makes the person receiving the cake feel like they are really getting something special that someone has put a lot of thought into.


I think Jeremiah enjoyed his cake, he deserved something extraordinary because he means so much to our family and is one of my favorite people :)

Memorial Day Celebration!

I know its a little late but I just wanted to share with everyone the cupcakes I made for Memorial Day!

My friends' Blair and Kevin were having a Memorial Day cookout so I decided to bring the dessert. These were red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing! They were delicious and very festive!




To get the swirl of color in the white cream cheese icing, I did what is called bag striping. Its super easy and adds a fun punch of color to any cupcake!

All you do is take a piping bag with the tip already attached, and before you put the icing in, stripe the sides of the bag with gel food coloring using a small paint brush. Make sure that you put the food coloring on pretty thick. Then spoon the icing into your striped bag and massage the stripes of food coloring so that it absorbs into the icing.

I use this technique when I need to decorate cupcakes in a hurry!

I'm taking summer classes at school right now so I haven't had much time to bake but, as soon as school lets out I'll be back in the kitchen!

Thanks for reading!

-Alex

Special Cupcakes for a Special Woman!

My aunt Miriam's birthday was a few weeks ago. She has always been so special to me so I wanted to make her some really pretty cupcakes that she could enjoy!



They were very simple sour cream vanilla cupcakes with a whipped buttercream topping. I cut the flowers out of fondant and used little pearl sprinkles for the centers!

Sometimes the simplest things are the most wonderful!

Mommy's Big Day!

First off I just want to say that....I AM SO PROUD OF THIS CAKE! I love it! This is the kind of cake that I want to do more of in the future!

I did this cake a few weekends ago. My mom was being interviewed for the Courier Journal and they were doing a story on her and cooking. She loves to cook and she is really talented! Everything she makes is absolutely delicious! It amazes how she can just create a recipe and it always tastes amazing! I hope that I can one day be the wonderful chef that she is!

Anyway :) She wanted a cake for the big day to make the kitchen look pretty and I honestly needed the practice! The flowers are just drop flowers that I made using tip 2D. Its a really quick flower to make directly on the cake!


I wish I had taken more time on the border but I ran out of time...oh well. Live and learn!

Well this weekend is going to be jam packed with cakes!

First thing Saturday morning I have an interview with Adrien's Bakery! I am sooooo excited!!! However, I'm extremely nervous at the same time. For the interview we have to flat ice a cake! Wish me luck! And I'll let you know how it goes!

Then after that, I have 2 birthday cakes to make! One for Grandpa which is going to be a four leaf clover because his birthday is St. Patrick's Day. The other one is for my little cousins birthday and he wants a Spongebob cake..we'll see how that turns out haha!

Thanks for stopping by! I'll be back soon with of course...more cakes!

-Alex

So once again I've been slacking on my blog! I apologize!

This first cake is the cake that I made in my decorating class. We learned how to do the basket weave technique and several different flowers made from royal icing. The bird is made from color flow icing!



This next cake is one that I made for Mark, my step-dad, for his birthday! He is a huge UK basketball fan!

I had some trouble with this cake, and wish that it would have turned out better. I had planned on having the UK letters made from color flow icing, but I was DUMB and didn't allow the icing enough time to set up, so when I went to put it on it broke! I was terribly upset and it messed the cake up a little bit. All in all I think it turned out okay!



More cakes are coming soon! So make sure to check back in!

-Alex

I've Been Sooo Busy...

Doing other things less enjoyable then baking and blogging! For instance, school and work :( But you know what they say, work must come before play. But anyway, I'm back and have a few cakes to show you!


This first cake is the one that I made for my final lesson of my cake decorating class. It didn't turn out as well as I would have liked but it's pretty good I must say, for a beginner! It would have looked great aside from the blowout, which is something that occurs when the icing from the center of the cake starts to ooze out and causes some lumpiness around the middle of the cake!


All of the roses in the middle were created using a tip #21 and tip#104.


I wanted this cake to be fun and bright...I think I accomplished that!

This next cake is one that I made for my friend Blair's daughter's 2nd Birthday. Her name is Lucy and she absolutely LOVES Alvin and the Chipmunks! So I made her a, as she calls them "Munks", birthday cake.

I used piping gel and parchment paper to transfer the stencil onto the cake. Then I just used various star tips to fill in the characters bodies.

As always, I wish it would have turned out a little better but that will come with practice, and Lucy was happy so thats all that matters!

Well, that's all for now...but don't worry, I'll be back very soon with atleast 3 more cakes/ cupcakes to show you! I will be very busy this weekend doing what I love...baking!

Alex

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Clowning Around...Haha

This week in cake decorating class we learned how to do figure piping! It was so much fun!

We also learned how to make buttercream roses! And we will be putting them on our final cake for next week! I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Anyway, back to this weeks cake. First I made a 2 layer cake, filled and iced with green icing! Then when I got to class we put on our shell border! I decided to use my tip #2D to make a larger version of a shell border, which actually turned out looking more like a ruffle around the cake! I really liked it! Then our instructor taught us how to do the figure piping using tip #21. For this cake we figure piped clowns and used derby clown head picks for the heads! To get the different colored striping effect on the clown's bodies we did a technique that is called bag striping. This is where you take your gel food coloring and stripe it down the sides of your piping bag, then you place the white icing in the middle. I chose to use blue and red food coloring.

I decided that I would give this cake to my neighbors who have 3 small children and I wrote their names on the cake. They were so excited about it!

I love how bright and fun this cake turned out! And I'm really looking forward to next weeks class!

The Start to A Wonderful Journey

A few months ago I signed up for a beginners cake decorating class, because up until now I have had no training. My first class was last Monday and the instructor basically went over what we would need for the class and how to crumb coat and ice a cake. Just within our first class meeting I felt that I had learned some new tips that would change my life as a cake decorator!

For our second class we were to have a 2 layer filled, crumb coated, and iced. We were to also have prepared 4 different colored icings of medium consistency, and one cup of thick consistency icing. Once we got to class we were to begin decorating once the instructor showed us some of the techniques.

First we used piping gel to transfer the rainbow pattern onto the cake. Then e used tip #16 to make the stars which filled in the stripes of the rainbow, tip #21 to make the clouds. And tip #12 for the shell border. This is my cake!

I can't wait to learn how to make buttercream roses next week!

Hello!

This is my first blog...ever! I have myspace and facebook but I have never really gotten into the whole world of blogging. That is until my aunt Miriam introduced me to it!

I wanted to create a blog so that I could tell about the different experiences and adventures that I have in baking. I hope that by blogging about baking will not only strengthen my passion for baking but others as well. So lets get baking!!