Bridal Shower Cake

I was so excited when I finally had an opportunity to do this cake.  Amanda had asked me about making a small bridal shower cake – but she didn’t have any specific design ideas in mind.  I had this design floating around in my head for quite some time and it was a perfect occasion to make it.  Since Amanda left the creative juices up to me, I was so psyched to make this idea a reality.

This cake is inspired by many ruffle wedding dresses, and focuses on one of the most eye catching details on wedding dresses – the buttons on the back.  The peonies add that simple extra touch of color and elegance to make this cake not only ultra feminine but also a bit romantic.

The peonies were a first for me, and I struggled with them a bit.  All of the tutorials I could find required petal cutters, colored luster dust and wires.  None of which I had, and since I wasn’t going to make a profit on this cake, none of which I could justify purchasing.  So I had to wing it and use what I had to make the flower petals – and I am actually quite pleased with how they turned out.

Additionally, although the photos don’t really reflect it, all of the pearls and some of the ruffles “shimmered”.  

This cake was 4 six inch cakes stacked.  Every third “ruffle” intentionally looked a bit imperfect.

Now if only I had all the time and money in the world, I would practice making cakes inspired by fashion every-day ;)

Thanks for letting me take the reigns on this cake Amanda – I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did making it :)

On another note, took my Certification test this past week... not sure of the results yet, but wish me luck!

Cheers,

Tam a Lam

www.cakeaholiccakery.com

Fashionable Cake

I’ve been slacking here with this blogging thing… just been so crazy busy as usual finding it really hard to keep on top of everything, especially since sleep has suffered in attempt to get it all done.  This entry actually isn’t about any cake, cakes or cake products that I have made myself, but rather is simply a tribute to some cake designs that I adore…

From Left to Right white cake: sweetandsaucyshop.com (they also have super cute cake stands), 

middle cake: superfinebakery.com,

right most cake by my Canadian Cake Hero thecaketress.ca

I do want to have it stated that I love making cakes for other people and learning new techniques with each design request that comes my way.  That being said, if I had all the money and time in the world and could just design whatever type of cake my little heart desired – this is definitely the style that I would follow.  Some would call it “Shabby Chic”.  Others would describe these cakes as “Vintage Inspired Couture”… call it what you may, I call these stylish cakes gorgeous!  These cakes mimic dress designs, fabric flowers, ruffles and lace that are just so perfectly “imperfect” – swoooooooooooon…

This is part of the reason why I am looking forward to my next cake order so much.  A simple, small, romantic, girly cake with flowers, ruffles and buttons…  cake art inspired by fashion – love it! 

That’s all for now.  Still looking for a commercial kitchen space to rent out in  the Minneapolis area that won’t cost me an arm and a leg – so keep me posted if you have any leads.  

Thanks for reading, 

Tam a Lam  

Cakeaholiccakery.com

Baby Shower, Beer, Baby Shower

They go together right?!?

Beckie had contacted me through a referral looking for baby shower cupcakes.  Sounds easy enough, except that this was my first cupcake order… I read up on cupcake frosting techniques (woo-oo, woo-oo… hear that?  It’s the nerd alert siren), sent her some design ideas and asked her for a bit of direction.

She went the safe route and decided everyone would like chocolate flavored cakes.  It was a perfect opportunity for me to test out a new recipe… holy moly, I kid you not, this recipe turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to chocolate cake – YUUUUMMM.  I will never use another recipe for chocolate cake… soooooooo good.  This comes from the heart of a self-proclaimed chocoholic.  If this is the safe route, I will hardly ever venture off of it.

Then, were the decorations to make my cupcakes unique.  She wanted the designs to include soft blue, soft green, taupe and brown.  Beckie leaned towards designs that included booties, bibs, onesies and circles.  Being such a small order (only 14 cupcakes) I didn’t want to over-kill the design, so I made 2 different types of booties (so stinkin cute), 2 different types of similar “Baby” and “Boy” plaques and a few cupcakes with round coordinating “pearls”.  They were a hit!

Next up?  A last minute order for a pint of Guinness to feed 20.  I love this beer and I was so psyched to make a large one [cake], though as stated in my previous post, a bit apprehensive about the tall skinny design.  In a word – supports.  This cake has a large dowel going down the center, and several smaller dowels throughout, not to mention cake boards inside to help with the support system and height of the cake.  I decided to try wrapping this cake in fondant, as I really could not come up with a different strategy for covering it.  With help from my husband, I was surprised at how easy this actually was, especially after reading so many people suggest against this approach.

I then hand painted the whole thing, added the logo in fondant (the harp is actually shiny gold) and covered the top with the beer head.  The base board is also covered in fondant scored to look like wood then hand painted to get the wood grain effect.  Finally, I wasn’t sure where to put “happy birthday” on this cake and thought a napkin would be a clever/playful addition.  I added a “ring” on the napkin to mimic the look of a wet beverage on a bar napkin and jotted “Happy Birthday” on it.  I am so pleased with the outcome of this cake. 

I later found out this cake was for a judge in the largest county of our state… to me that is kind of a big deal… (I think I hear that siren again)

And I kept on going with an order I had been dreaming/drooling about for a few months – CHEESECAKE, CAKE POPS.  Imagine, cheesecake bites dipped in a chocolate shell and displayed on a cute stick.  Soooooooooo goood that I am currently wiping the drool off of my face as I reminisce about these.  These too were for a baby shower.  I had a lot of fun playing with the display of these (including jelly beans, glass flutes and white platters), as well as taste testing a few – quality control ;)  I was a bit worried that the blue was too bright (they seemed to get only darker with time, and I didn’t have time to re-do them as the cheesecake has to be frozen when you dip the balls) – but I think they ended up matching the invite perfectly…

Thanks so much for thinking of me for your special events Beckie, Rebecca and Libby – I had a lot of fun with each of your orders!

In other news, I’ve been getting contacted quite a bit from different businesses etc and I am working on finding a larger commercial kitchen to work out of, so if you have any connections to one in the Minneapolis area, please let me know.  I have also been working on getting some promotional materials together – such as business cards, stickers, brochures etc… you all have been keeping me so busy I haven’t had time to get this stuff together yet – shocking!  I know.  Finally, I am currently in the process of getting my official Certification in "Kitchen Management" - becoming all official and what not :)

Anyway, I am booking up fast and having so much fun with this “hobby” that I had no idea would take off the way it has.

Until next time,

Tam a Lam
Cakeaholiccakery.com

Happy 21st Birthday William!

I received a request for a 21st Birthday Cake.  Playing on almost any American 21 year old’s eagerness to legally drink, his family thought a frothy beer mug cake would be just perfect.  William had spent a summer in Muchen and so the mug was designed around a popular beer in that area. 

I wasn’t quite sure how I would cover such a tall skinny cake with fondant, so instead, I cut out tall strips to cover the rounded pleats on a traditional beer mug.  I pulled a mug from my husband’s stash and used it as a model, for the size, the handle and the general look of a beer mug.

To make the actual “beer” I simply hand painted the fondant with a couple of different edible colors.  To make the foam/froth I baked up some merigne cookies and then topped the cake and sides with candy coating, making sure it created a small pool around the bottom of the cake as any beer drinker knows, when ordering a tall beer from a bar it often flows onto the table to make a bit of a mess.

The logo was a bit of a challenge, as I don’t have an edible printer so I had to make the small logo with the small gold crown and red jewels by hand.  But I am very pleased with the way it turned out.

Finally, I had the beer mug sitting on a “wood surface” to mimic a table.  The wood surface was fondant that I scored and again, hand painted to give it the look of real wood grain.

Happy Birthday William, I hope you enjoyed your beer cake and the beer that I am sure you enjoyed in celebration!  Cheers!

Tam a Lam
Cakeaholiccakery.com

Something Smells Fishy...

My father in law is just a big kid.  He has been a band director for over 30 years and is so good with his students – and it is obvious why.  Being that his birthday cake was a gift from me, I had free reign over the design aspect.  My husband and I brain stormed, and we new the cake had to capture his love for summer or boating or fishing.  I found a similar cake online and thought I would give it a shot.  She called her cake “fillet fish” – and I didn’t think I could possibly get my cake to look half as good as the original artist’s cake.

I found many shots of a real small mouth bass, as well as lures meant for bass and went head first.  The fish is a carved cake, covered in fondant and hand painted with edible icing colors/vodka.  The lure is also hand made and brushed with a gel to give it a “plastic” shine.  Finally, the cutting board is also cake, covered in marbled fondant, scored to look like wood and again, hand painted with edible ice colors/vodka.  Everything about this cake is edible except for the hooks – I just didn’t have the time or patience to figure out how to make these look real.

Favorite quote of the day “I’m going to post this on the fishing forum!...” to which I replied “I’m going to post this on the cake forum J”

The next cake order I received initially started with a request for a small birthday cake for 3 people’s birthday that needed to serve only 11 people.  However, the client wanted the cake to be themed on their cabin, reflect the three birthday people, show the relation of the golf course, a putting green,  a road, the cabin and the long lake behind the cabin with a dock… I wasn’t sure that would all fit on a small cake – so we came up with a design that would reflect 2 of the birthday people who enjoyed golfing, the other birthday person who loved to fish as well as incorporate the general “up north” feel.  I had fun with this cake, the water was a lot of fun to incorporate, I made the fishing pole out of an uncooked spaghetti noodle, and the trees were a blast.  Knowing this cake had cookies and cream filling inside – it was hard not to delve in to this cake.. YUM!

Keeping busy as usual, and also recovering from a short lived flu… sorry for the delayed posts lately…  Thanks for staying interested J

Until next time,

Tam a Lam

Cakeaholiccakery.com

What's a Break?

For about 2 months straight, I drove my self crazy keeping insanely busy from the moment I woke up until the moment I fell asleep (some nights I kept busy taking care of baby instead of sleeping).  All of the busyness was related to working in some capacity or another with nearly no time for fun, grooming, cleaning or relaxing.  As you know I was juggling being a pseudo-single mom, working full time, hosting celebrations and the cakeaholic business.  The last weekend in January was the tip of the ice berg.  From the previous 2 posts, you can see that between work, planning Noah’s birthday, my migraine, an unexpected meeting, and a large cake order my heart felt like it was going to pound right out of my chest all weekend, I couldn’t sleep, and I felt like I could vomit and/or faint at any given moment.

The majority of the orders I receive are placed “last minute” with less than a week’s notice.  So when I didn’t have any February orders lined up – I wasn’t surprised, and made the decision to decline any orders for the whole month of February.  Frankly, I needed a break, and at this time, caking is the only activity I am able to cut.  Well… my “cake break” lasted one whole week.  By the second week in February I was scheduling each of my nights, baking, decorating and running to the craft store for supplies.  HA!  There is no way I could last a whole month off, especially with Valentine’s day around the corner… So, I made a bunch of conversation heart cake pops for my coworkers.  

Using advice from the queen bee of cake pops – I purchased edible markers to write the notes on the conversation hearts.  Just to find out that the ink doesn’t like the hard shell coating texture of the pops.  So, I ended up using a toothpick and gel colorings mixed with Vodka (this dissolves keeping it safe for kids to consume and tasteless) to write each message out.  They were a big hit – most of my co-workers brought some home to share with their loved ones.

Bringing in the conversation heart cake pops also resulted in a small Valentine order.  I swore that I was going to decline any orders – but this was such a small cake, and the person who ordered it pretty much gave me full creative freedom to do whatever I wanted on this cake.  He told me the flavor he wanted, and to put a message like “happy valentines day” or “be mine” or “I love you” or whatever fit and a heart on it.  J I love making these kinds of cakes – where the client doesn’t have a specific design in mind.  So I was really excited to make this cake, no stress involved in it at all since it was so small, I had all weekend to do it, and I had could basically do whatever I wanted with this cake – just keeping Valentine’s day in mind.  This is what I came up with:

 I love the way this cake turned out.  It was not inspired by any other cake design I have seen and was truly my own design. 

When I gave him the cake, he thought I bought the bee and couldn’t believe that not only did I make the bee but that the bee was completely edible J I love to hear that kind of feedback!

Anyway, I really do plan on taking the rest of the month off from caking… whether I stick to that plan or not is to be debated.  I hope you all had a wonderful love day!  Thanks for reading.

Cheers,

Tam a Lam

www.Cakeaholiccakery.com

Welcome Baby Walfoort