New Moon

New Moon , originally uploaded by bakers-cakes.

Baker's Cakes has now been around long enough to have returning Birthday Cake customers! Last year we got an order from a customer who's fiance loves "Twilight," and created a Twilight Cake for her. This year, now a husband, he continued with this fabulous tradition and ordered a New Moon Cake for her! The cake is Red Velvet, perfectly fitting for the story, and covered with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting and Rolled Fondant. The flower is hand painted as is the text on the book cover.

Cake Tasting!

I love baking and preparing a pretty spread to share with clients as they plan their special occasions! 

For this tasting I made Strawberry Buttermilk Cake, Sour Cream Almond Cake, and Baker's Cakes Signature Chocolate Cake. The cakes were paired with Fresh Strawberry Buttercream, Almond Buttercream, and White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting. This little cake was covered in fondant and decorated with marzipan to compliment the Sour Cream Almond Cake and Almond Buttercream:

We never got to do a cake tasting for our wedding and although our cake was tasty, I still feel like we missed something special!

UNC Swimming and Diving Cake 2010

Today buttercream is my nemesis. (And rain).

Go Heels! Beat Duke!

Peanut Butter Blossom Cupcakes

Today I whipped up a batch of these beautiful scrumptious peanut butter blossom topped chocolate cupcakes. I created them a while back for my dear friend Susan.

Today she wrote:

Incredibly grateful to be in the sunshine with my family in such as beautiful place. We spent the afternoon making sand castles and I swam in the ocean.. dodged a big boat and had a head on collision with a snorkler but other than that no casualites :)

Well, my friend... Today I was incredibly horrified to find that 5 inches of snow have caused two snow days and that my lovely children will be out of school for an indefinite amount of time. I spent the morning dragging my obstinate three year old through Target because she refuses to wear boots, shoes, shirts, pants, underwear, and walk. This afternoon I dodged a massive headache with a well timed beer and as far as casualties go, I haven't murdered anyone in my family yet, so all in all, it was a good day.

Needless to say, I am sad that Susan is in the Cayman Islands and not here to share in some of the cupcakes she inspired!!! (And for the record, honest to goodness, I am not bitter! We had our week in the sun. It sure is nice. And I miss it!!!!)

Pink, Black, and White Cake

Pink, Black, and White Cake, originally uploaded by bakers-cakes.

I loved the parameters of this week's Bridal Shower Cake: pink with black polka dots and flowers around the bottom! I designed the top layer to be slightly smaller than the bottom layer of the cake to place emphasis on the verticality of the cake. I also added an additional layer of cake to each of the top and bottoms layers to play with the proportions of the cake. Right now I am totally obsessed with tall cakes (it also means there's lots and lots of cake for my clients to eat)! The cake ended up being "girly" as the client requested, but also elegant and bold.

Vanilla

Vanilla Cupcakes II, originally uploaded by bakers-cakes.

One of my tasks this week was to create several vanilla cake samples for a customer to test. At first I thought that testing vanilla would be well... vanilla. But it turns out that I learned a lot from baking three different vanilla cakes and making three different vanilla frostings.

This is my go-to vanilla cake recipe, Buttermilk Vanilla. It is a butter cake that gets it's complex flavor from the buttermilk. In my opinion this cake is perfectly moist, not overly dense, and has wonderful texture and crumb for both layer cakes and cupcakes. This is also my favorite Vanilla Buttercream Frosting. My customer's love it. It is sweet and creamy and works well as a crumb coat and as my go-to frosting:

Next it was time to think a little outside the box. I made an interesting White Cake that gets it's light fluffy texture from whipped egg whites. This cake reminded me a little of a spongy angel cake. I paired this cake with a Fluffy White Frosting. This frosting is very marshmallowy and doesn't have any butter in it:

Last, I made a Yellow Cake that is slightly denser than the Buttermilk Cake. Interestingly, as the White Cake used whipped egg whites, the Yellow Cake used egg yolks. The cake itself is also nicely flavored and textured and just as moist as the other two cakes. I paired the Yellow Cake with a Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting. Traditionally this is a less sweet more buttery frosting. I took a small liberty and sweetened up the frosting so it would not be quite so overwhelmingly buttery:

All vanilla. All different. And as it turns out, not as... vanilla as I thought they were going to be.

A Wicked Awesome, Ode to New England Cake!

This cake just screams, "Pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd ." (Translation: Park the car in Harvard Yard).  It says we drink "tonic" not "soda." It begs you to drink from the "bubblah" not the "water fountain." In short this cake celebrates many many wicked awesome things! 

In New England you live and breathe by the ups and downs of the Sox and the Pats. Thankfully, there is a Dunkin Donuts on every corner! In New England you can enjoy a tasty Friendly's Fribble (an extra thick milk shake).

In New England if you have not enjoyed a Fluffernutter Sandwich, well, honestly, your youth has been misspent! As I explained to my southern born and bred friends this morning, the Fluffernutter is where it's at! It MUST be made on white bread, filled with a small shmear of peanut butter and a massive heaping of gooey sticky sweet marshmallow fluff!

This cake was ordered by a customer who is really and truly a proper southern woman for her husband's birthday! She wanted to celebrate his roots and incorporate a few New England favorites: the Red Sox, The Patriots, the Fluffernutter Sandwich, and Friendly's. I was stumped at first and then it hit me! They had to be all decked out in their sports gear sitting on a sandwich, it's just too cute!!! And of course, a proper southern lady never goes out without her pearls!!! And yes, those are lobsters on her skirt!

The cake itself? I almost forgot! This is the best part! Two layers of Buttermilk Vanilla Cake sandwiched with, wait for it... Peanut Butter Frosting and a layer of Fluff!!! The cake is covered with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting and Topped with Rolled Fondant! The figures are sculpted out of sugar paste.