My First Ice Cream Cake Experience

I was asked to do an ice cream cake for a friend today and I thought it would be interesting to try it. Here is the final product with an Optimus Prime (from Transformers) decoration.

So let the story begin...

I had wanted to make an ice cream cake. I looked up directions online and it seemed easy enough... line a cake pan with cling wrap.

Spread ice cream onto cake pan, cover with more cling wrap and then re-freeze.

After a layer (or two) of cake that has baked and cooled. Stack the cake and then flip the ice cream layer on top of the cake. Sounds simple, right... Well that part was, but spreading frosting on an ice cream cake is a totally different story.

We had originally wanted to frost the cake with a chocolate ganache glaze. We poured the ganache over the cake and the ice cream started to melt immediately. I ran to the freezer and started taking things out to make room for the cake (my mind was racing, I just needed to get the ice cream back into the freezer). Sadly, we just wasted all the ganache, so I asked Tyler if he could run to the store and buy store bought frosting (I know, I don't do the store bought thing normally). Tyler came back from the store and I frosted the cake in the freezer :)

In the end, the cake worked out (I was a little worried about it melting on the drive over to the party, but luckily it didn't).

Good luck with your ice cream cake experience!

Who wants to be a taste tester?

I just finished my month long internship last week and it's weird to be home all day again (praying that I get a full time job soon). The one good thing about being home... I get to try new recipes.

Eventually, I would like to have my own dessert studio and deciding what cake flavors and frostings you would like to offer is one of the most important first steps. I already have three flavors that I offer, red velvet, vanilla buttermilk and chocolate. I want to offer more, so I've decided to try a new recipe a week. I definitely want to pull influences from my Asian and Hawaiian roots, I think I will try a Matcha green tea recipe next! I also want to try to tweak my recipes to be more health conscience (my vanilla buttermilk recipe is actually low in calories as far as bake goods are concerned) and I would like to try some vegan and allergy sensitive recipes as well.

This past week, I tried Martha Stewart's brown sugar cake recipe topped with a browned butter glaze.


It was pretty good! The recipe is very interesting, it has similar ingredients to chocolate chip cookie dough minus the chocolate chips of course. It smells like cookie dough and it almost tastes like it too... I LOVE chocolate chip cookie dough! I would rather eat the cookie dough than the actual cookie. I am going to tweak Martha's recipe here and there, but I definitely have one fan that I know of :)

This is Isabella and she is just waiting for the box of cupcakes to fall...

If anyone would like to be a taste tester, let me know and I'll let you know when I have the next batch baked.

Happy Baking!
~Danielle

Hibiscus Cake

My little sister turned 21 last week and all she wanted from me was a cake with a hibiscus on it. So, I thought I would use her cake as an opportunity to practice my hand-painting techniques. Her cake was a 6" 4 layered cake (2 vanilla buttermilk, 2 red velvet) covered in white fondant.

I haven't learned how to do gumpaste flowers yet, so I couldn't make the hibiscus three-dimensional. Hopefully, I'll be able to take a class soon!

But, my best friend did give me a fondant/gumpaste tool set for my birthday that I wanted to use. I decided to make the petals come off the cake a little to give it a bit of dimension.


Then I hand-painted each hibiscus. Here is the finished look with red velvet cupcakes to match :)


Happy Birthday Jen!

New Decisions

After some thought, I came to the conclusion to start a new blog. Something a little more professional than Flour Flinger/Messy Baker (even though I loved those titles, it reminds me so much of my mom and I). With the help of my finance, Tyler and I decided on the name Cake & Co. It's simple and straight to point and that is what I like. It also let's people know that I do more than just cake, I do cupcakes too and now that I see the awesomeness of mini desserts, I will be doing that as well!

I have been helping out at Sweet and Saucy Shop for 3 weeks now. And it was just what I needed... with my history of jumping from one job to another (I am just interested in so many things...), I was a little nervous about the idea of changing careers once again. I had many sleepless nights thinking, "what if I didn't like it" or "can I really design cakes and not run into a creative block?" One question I didn't ask myself was "can you stand on your feet for 8+ hours." Turns out, not only can I stand on my feet for 8+ hours, I can also walk away from the shop every day with a smile on my face. How can you not smile, baked goods really makes everyone around you happy!

So, it is my desire to have a career in this industry eventually. But for now I must continue to look for a full time job and do dessert artistry on the side. Here goes nothing :)

Side info. - Cake & Co.'s initials are also CC which also happens to be our abbreviated version of "cupcake," the nickname that Tyler gave me. His nickname is Stud Muffin :)

Internship

Now for some exciting news!!! I started my month long internship with Sweet and Saucy today!!! I get the chance to learn so much stuff and this opportunity is really a blessing.

Today was fantastic and I am so excited for Melody (the owner and pastry chef). The cake studio is going to be awesome! Check out the website www.sweetandsaucyshop.com

Stay tuned... but for now, here's a pic of me in my Sweet and Saucy t-shirt!

I baked my own birthday cupcakes!

I know, I know... my friends said I shouldn't bake my own birthday cupcakes, but hey, I'll take any opportunity to decorate! I want people to look at my cupcakes and go "yea, that's Danielle." I love black and white... everything I own (journals, jewelry cases, filing folders and clothes) are black and white. So, I wanted my cupcakes to be black and white... and then I came across these really cute yellow polka dotted cupcake liners at the baking supply store... sigh. In the end, the cupcakes turned out to be yellow, white and black. :)

Enjoy! (I apologize for the bad picture quality)

I colored the fondant pale yellow and embossed the fondant with a Parisian wallpaper stamp

I colored the cream cheese frosting with yellow food coloring and used a very large piping tip to create the dollop look. I then used a gum paste flower cutter to cut out these cute flowers! Then I sprinkled yellow colored sugar and added some candy pearls.

This one is a little hard to see... I tried to get a good shot, but I couldn't. I created a happy birthday pattern by pressing a "happy birthday" stamp and a present stamp into the fondant. Then I added those cute little flowers again.

Finally, I cut out a little circle of black fondant and laid it in the middle of the cupcake. I used a piping bag and a decorative tip to create the peddles of the flower. I sprinkled some yellow colored sugar around the black circle of fondant.

Here are the four cupcakes side by side

Will you be my bridesmaid?

I'm engaged!!! Although most of my bridesmaids already knew they were going to be bridesmaids... I wanted to do something special for them. So, what better, than to bake! I baked sugar cookies and decorated them according to our color theme. Our wedding will be black, white and gray with green as the accent color. The bridesmaids will be wearing black dresses and they will hopefully be holding a boutique made up of green flowers (think green cymbidium orchids or jade roses).



I found this really cute quote and printed it out on paper and attached a paper gardenia (I love these flowers, but they wilt quickly).


Let me know what you think. And stay tuned for some exciting news... until then happy baking!