Forever Young!

For a gorgeous friend's 50th birthday. Her love of red and unfading beauty inspired this poppy cake.

 

You look brand new
Half a Century looks good on you
You're oozing flair, you're so debonaire
With your 50 years of savoir-faire
© Andrea Carter

Erupt with Joy!

My little monkey turned 5 some months back!
And like most little boys his age, he's a huge fan of dinosaurs and volcanoes.

The most fun part about this cake is the smoke coming out of the volcano made using dry ice and warm water. The volcano is carved out of a 6" cake and rice krispy treats with a plastic cup at the top to hold the dry ice.

It was a lot of fun to watch the smoke waft down. you can have a lots of fun with the remaining dry ice at home. THere are a lot of crazy experiments you can do with it, but remember to ventilate your room. It is CO2 after all.

One!

A #1 cake I made a while back for a little boy's First Birthday.

This was my first time making a shaped cake in all buttercream and I mistakenly assumed it would be a breeze. Boy, was I wrong. Sharp corners are the toughest things to get right on a cake and this one had sooooo many. But it came together in the end.

 

Stripe It Up!

Last post of 2016! A striped birthday cake I made sometime back for a dear friend's daughter.

I LOVE stripes. On anything. And I have been wanting to try a striped cake but couldn't trust myself to pipe so many straight lines. Well, lets be honest, I couldn't pipe even one straight line. Until I discovered buttercream texture combs.

The combs are quite simple to use. Slather on your base color like you would when you frost a buttercream cake, run the comb of your choice around the cake just like you would a bench scraper. Chill the cake between passes and once the grooves are just like you like it, chill it for at least an hour. Now take your contrasting color and slather it on. Make sure all the grooves are well filled with your contrast color. Then scrape off the excess with a bench scraper. That's it! And the result is so extraordinary!

Go give it a try and let me know how it turned out.
And wish you all a Happy New Year!

Wafer Paper Flowers

I have always been a big fan of the paper flower trend and when I saw the trend follow into cakes, I was thrilled. I have been waiting to try my hand at making wafer flowers and what better reason does one need than a dear friend's 50th birthday.

It was a learning experience. I learnt that when it comes to wafer paper, water is your friend. And your Enemy. In the right amounts it is the perfect and very permanent glue, but a little too much and the wafer will dissolve in seconds. So make a few spares. Piping gel is a very good alternative to water, especially if you want some wiggle room to re-seat your petals.

And I learnt a lot about what type of colors work and what don't and most importantly that I need to buy an airbrush! I'm thinking of making a tutorial on how I made these flowers and if you are interested, leave a comment below. If there's a lot of interest I'll try and get it done over my Christmas break. Have a nice day!

PS: Oh and for those of you who haven't found your roots when it comes to fondant, try Liz Marek Fondant (LMF). It makes covering cakes so much easier. With this cake I was running late and decided to use the Wilton fondant and I regretted it. I had to actually peel the whole thing off. I had to make LMF on the spot and the best part, I could use immediately! Give it a try and I promise you won't regret it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !

A very Happy Birthday to our art loving girl! The cake design is a  nod to our shared love for Monet series on Water lilies. I spotted my first one on a page of a Reader’s digest magazine when I was about her age, she found her first stuck to an art board at school. The love was instant, and it will last, we all know that :)
 

A Buttercream Watercolor Cake!

 Another buttercream floral cake that I made for a dear friend's baby shower.

I loved the water color effect on the sides of the cake. It was so fun to do. And there was a little sleeping princess in the buttercream garden.

And some matching cupcakes to go with the cake.

Mountain Bliss!

So, after working for 42 years, my father-in-law is retiring and my family and I decided to throw him a little party to celebrate his long successful career. Mom and Dad enjoy hiking and a couple years ago they did their first major hike to the Annapoorna base camp, in the snow capped Himalayas. I wanted to commemorate that hike with this cake because I know, it was the start of a new passion for Dad, one that will dot his retirement with many a snowy peak. Happy Retirement Dad!

A little bit about the cake. It is not a double barrel, but a triple barrel! There are three 8" cakes stacked one top of the other to form this 11" tall barrel cake. It is covered in a blue ombre buttercream. I have to give my husband props for doing all the buttercream color mixing because my hands were tired after a lil while. After I started the project I realized I had run out of blue food gel! Yikes! I had to mix black, purple and cyan to get the blues you see on the cake, so it took a lot mixing to getthe correct tones. But it resulted in a variegated blue with black streaks that I LOVE !

The painting on the cake is made using palette knives, one of my favorite painting techniques. I used 3 different shades of white buttercream. The trees are off white, the mountains are a medium white and they have a touch of bright white to give the look of fresh snow. Hope you like the cake. Let us know what you think!

Angel Wings Cake

Happy Mother's Day everyone. Here's a cake I made for my nephew on his First Communion. My vision was to show a pair of Angel wings hugging Isaac to let him know he'll always be in God's loving care. But as I was writing this post on Mother's day, I realized that God gave each of us an angel to care for us from the day we were born. And today is as good a day as any to smother your angelic mother with lots of love, hugs and kisses.

Buttercream Floral Wreath

So it was Archana's milestone birthday a little while ago and what better way to celebrate her than with a floral wreath to represent the beautiful, kind and talented person that she is. Unfortunately, in all the excitement we didn't get a chance to take proper pictures. But luckily Deepa was there and was able to get a few decent ones. Thank you Deepa!

This cake was a first of many for me. This is the first time I made traditional Swiss meringue buttercream also known as SMBC. It is the most delicious butter cream I have had, very smooth, the right amount of sweetness and more protein because it is made of egg whites. Here's the link to the recipe I used. 

This is also the first time I made a double barrel cake. A double barrel cake means there are actually 2 tiers of the same size stacked one on top of the other and frosted as a single cake. This double barrel is 8" in diameter with each tier having 3 layers of vanilla cake. The top tier had apple cinnamon filling and the second tier had lemon marmalade. 

Typically, my cakes are 4 layers, but I went with 3 layers to keep the height manageable. I would highly recommend going this route with your first double barrel. Another thing to keep in mind while doing a double barrel, is that you'll need an extra tall bench scraper to smooth your frosting. Your standard 6" scraper will definitely fall short. (Tee hee ;)

Go on and dare to make a double barrel, and let us know how it turned out.