Our Beloved Early Childhood Educator is leaving :(

I've made a couple of cakes in the last couple of days for our loved teacher Tania.  She has taught my two oldest boys and waited just as impatiently as I did for #3 to turn up, she has been a part of my life for the last 3 and 3/4 years.  Dont worry I bake so she's not going far for long :) 

Anyhow the first cake I made was a shallow 10" square cake that has been plainly iced in white and is awaiting the children's drawing with edible markers tomorrow.  I have made and painted some stars with her name spelt out

The stars have been wired so we can stick them in the cake.  The cake is a plain yellow cake split into three and 3 different colours and then marbled.  Filled and crumb coated in SMBC.

I have also made a 2 layer 9" cake for her to take home.  This is a new chocolate cake recipe for me and it called for almond essence and despite my reservations I added it anyhow.  I think if I make this particular recipe again I wont add it and will just double the Vanilla extract.  It has been filled with SMBC but coated in ganache then covered in fondant.  It also had my first ever attempt at people modelling.  I had two different faces going the other more elaborate but didn't look like the components of the face belonged together so didn't use that one and went with the more simple one.  Not really all that pleased with it but one can only improve...  The flowers were made using a cutter and then me being the cheap arse I am formed them in a egg carton because I'm too tight to pay for a former.  Lol, nevermind.  I really should buy one though!

The last photo is of my ganaching of the cake.  While it is far from perfect I can tell you that my crumb coating has come a very very long way!  So I'm proud of it even though it is still far from perfect.  A lot of my trouble with stuff like this is that rather than taking as much time as it takes is that I am racing the baby clock - when will he wake up, because I know that once he's up I'm not doing it.

Ombre ruffles

I have just finished a cake for my Brother in law's birthday.  I like to do one for his birthday as it falls right where my life becomes MY life again   :)  I know I haven't posted in quite a while, I have been busy rearing calves everyday since then last week of July.  Calving takes over my life for a period before easing up and not being quite as busy.  We now also have 4 lambs and a pet calf.  I'm hoping my naughty dog wont eat any this year.

Anyhow, on to the cake. It is a chocolate cake (the cake recipe is from Annabel Langbein) with whipped ganache filling and mistakenly also on the outside. Oooops. For some idiotic reason (i'm blaming both calves and baby brain) I didn't think about how soft whipped ganache would be.  Laying the fondant was awful.  It has come out alright in the end though I feel.

Because of the disgusting laying of fondant I thought I would try out the ombre ruffle trend that is probably just about over knowing me.  It was relatively easy, altthough like any new thing it takes time.  The cake took me pretty much all day but this is, of course, in between feeding animals and children and husband and of course just general dealing with a baby who is cranky with teeth.  I'm pleased with the variance between the shades as i prefer ones that are gradual compared to the quite stark shade changes.  I thought I would handpaint his initial onto the cake which was nearly as untidy as I thought it would end up being.  There is also a fantasy flower which was hand cut and modelled (although I did use my veining tool for veining the petals, oh and scissors for the centre detailing) I'm not that enthusiastic about the flower.  It could be better but it could also be worse.  I did very much enjoy putting glitter on the stamens though.  It's all about the little things.

While typing this out I have been trying to get the photos to upload to photobucket.  And having a terrible time.  As we are rural (and in nz) our internet is rather awful.  I have had 6 attempts at uploading three photos and I have been averaging a upload speed of, wait for it,


5 whole KB per second.  That's right 5 kilobytes.


I think I will just hook my phone up to the computer and do it that way.

Oh and yes I did realise part way through my ruffles that the colour is so very vintage cabbage patch dolls.  Does it seem that way to any of you as well.  Never mind.

Oh and I soaked the cake itself in a boysenberry syrup and whipped some very well drained boysenberries through the ganache, although I might soak cakes in the syrup again I dont think I will add the berries to the ganache as I didn't think that enough berry flavour came through.

Now to go fetch my phone cord....

Done, I am using my phone because DSLR is having a battery issue :(

See you next time!