Sunday, September 20, 2009

strawberry cream filled birthday cake.


This is my first time making gumpaste flowers for a cake. quite fun really. Next I'm moving on to Orchids.

Here are pureed strawberries, for the strawberry cream filling

Icing colors: I would have liked the red to be a bit deeper, and the aqua a bit more aqua, less teal.. But life goes on.

I can't say I'm proud about the shape of this bottom layer. Something's gotta give with my cake pans. Or, my cake leveling abilities.
Here I added some of the gumpaste daisies.

Basically, you roll out the gumpaste, and use the little cut outs to make the shape and then shape it with thin foam pieces and wooden shaping tools. I could do this all day. It's a blast.
I really like the color scheme, the ease of the gumpaste daisies. Lopsided-ness aside, It was a nice cake.

Friday, September 11, 2009

the scone has eluded me again


Last night, after days and days of studying the scone in the cafeteria, I tried to replicate it.
The backstory is that the cafeteria at work has a delicious, to-die-for blueberry scone, among a long list of mediocre items. Those cafeteria workers are such wenches, that they won't give me the name of the bakery they purchase them from.

So, not being a scone know it all, I first just tried a basic scone. Too dry. Not nearly as delicious as the elusive cafeteria scone. It hit me that the texture of this scone was not the same as these dry tasteless things I'd had before. It seemed a bit more cakey, a bit more blueberry muffiney, but dense. So, I compared a blueberry muffin recipe to a cake recipe and a scone recipe and came up with this:
cake mix
6 TB of flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
3/4 milk
1 egg
1/2 bag of chopped frozen blueberries (thank you food processor)


Upon further analysis, this was the dumbest idea I've had in a while. But they didn't taste too bad. The consistency still isn't right.
My tasters (Rowena & Steph) have come to the conclusion that the scone I am trying to acheive is more like a biscuit than a muffin, and I do agree.

Blueberry biscuits in the shape of a scone to follow.


Monday, September 7, 2009

Labor Day Special: Cinnamon Chocolate Struesel Coffee Cake

I'm back! It's my first baking post as a married blogger. Hehe.
Being married is cool.

Anyway, I decided to embark on a recipe from a cookbook from my bridal shower.
It was pretty sweet.
Here are the details:

The ingredients
Bowl 1: Brown sugar, cocoa, cinnamon ( i had really good natural lighting for this one)
Bowl 2: Flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt
Bowl 3: Sugar & Butter
Bowl 4: Eggs

Mix Bowl 3 with Bowl 4. ( My good lighting is now gone)Before 65 minutes of baking... 1 for Lung Screening, 1 for Aaron, 1 for Matt K.
After 65 minutes of baking:



YUM

P.S. the recipe is lengthy and time consuming to type, so I won't....
BUT, if someone really wants it, email me and I'll gladly type it out for you.