Happy 18th Birthday Bruddah!

It's been months and months since I've made a cake! I had wanted to make one to celebrate my graduating from college (yikes!) and one for my brother graduating from high school (yippee!), but time ran away from me. I have been busy with my new job as a residential case worker, but enjoying myself and learning a lot and the field of social services. I mentioned to a few people that I would like to decorate cakes or cupcakes with the girls and am happy to report that I will be doing that in a few weeks :).

Sooooo... I always like to do things differently. I wanted to do something kinda crazy for my brother's 18th birthday, so first, I decided I wanted each layer to be a different color and have different flavoured fillings. I often start baking a cake with no idea how to decorate the outside... which sometimes works to my advantage. I worked with what I had, and came up with a cake that was perfect for an 18 year old GIRL, not an 18 year old jock! Oh well :) I greeted him as the birthday princess when I handed him the cake hehe! ;)

So, I used a Betty Croker white cake mix and added some of my neon food dye to make the different layers. I put black-raspberry jam as one filling and lemon curd as the other, but frosted the entire cake with Betty Croker vanilla frosting. I didn't have time to make everything from scratch this time guys! I DID however, make my own fondant by using marshmallows. It was incredibly messy to make at first...I was glad no one was home to watch me... BUT, tasted better than store-bought fondant, was MUCH cheaper to make, and was much easier to work with! YAY! I still had a little trouble covering the cake, but hey, practice makes perfect. I covered my mistakes with roses and daisies anyways :)



Happy Birthday Ian!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

It's been quite a while since I've updated this blog! My apologies :). This fall my camera went on the fritz, so the few occasions I decorated delicious treats (in-between projects and finals), I sadly was not able get an adequate representation of. The picture quality on my phone isn't all that good, but then again, I wasn't super pleased with the cakes I decorated in the past couple months-- so, I guess it all evens out! But, I got a snazzy new camera, which I'm still learning how to use..

I love Valentine's Day. Don't get me wrong, the commercialism of the holiday is absolutely ridiculous- much like Christmas. It's just another excuse to make people buy things they don't really want or need! However, even though commercialized, the idea that there is a holiday dedicated to love and friendship makes me happy :). It's always nice to get a reminder from a significant other, family, or friend how much you mean to them. Romantically speaking, Valentine's Day has never been a great day for me, but I love spending it with family and friends. What better to say I love you, then with cake?!

My 'sweet-heart' cake was super yummy. I altered the banana-split cupcake recipe from "When Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World," by leaving out the pineapple and almond extract, doubling the amount of banana and adding a dash of cinnamon. I should probably mention that I doubled the recipe though, so I'm not sure how that would calculate with the banana... Anyways, I frosted the cake and layers with vegan buttercream frosting and covered the cake with various colored fondants. The border at the bottom is actually a silk ribbon like the one I used on my roommates' anniversary cake last Spring. *sigh* I miss decorating! Hopefully I will be updating soon! :)

Until then, tasty travels!
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