Cake - the last legal drug in the workplace. Well okay. Technically coffee is probably the last legal drug. But people get pretty excited about cake. It's an instant popularity boost!
I don't bake a lot because usually what I'm doing is pretty time consuming. But when the fancy strikes me, I like to go all out. This is one that I've been planning for awhile. It's made with 6-inch cake pans, so slightly smaller in diameter than regular cake pans. I had to search a bit to find them but was able to track some down at Peppers Kitchen in Lawson. I love that they're a little different but it was a bit of a learning curve to figure out how full to fill the pans. And to find a recipe, since most of them are either for 2 8-inch pans or 3 9-inch pans.
I ended up doing two different kinds of cake batter. A vanilla cake - I've finally found a recipe that I like and that is consistently good. The other cake was chocolate but I decided to use chili-infused chocolate instead of regular semi-sweet. Very subtle but it gave it a bit of zing.
I baked the cake layers on Monday and did my crumb coat. (My whole life has changed since I've discovered crumb coat!) Yesterday I decorated after I got home from work. Initially I had planned something different (that would have involved creating scalloped edges with sparkles) but instead decided to go with roses. I love the look of these roses - so lush and Victorian but so easy to do. I amped up the wow factor by doing an ombre icing. I had some lovely cornflower blue colouring gel from Wilton's. The end result was lovely - the colour didn't get deeper so much as it mellowed. I love the cornflower shade - it's so pretty and so old-fashioned.
The only challenge was getting it to work. It was a touch tall for my cake carrier and the top ended up getting crushed a bit. Luckily I had some icing leftover so I brought my piping bag to work and did a touch up when I got there.
My cake was greeted with a lovely fanfare, which of course I live for. (I really do this for the applause. It's probably kind of pathetic.) Of course, this cake wasn't meant to be eaten in large quantities, unless you happen to carry insulin. There was a lot - and I mean A LOT - of icing on that baby. All told, it was probably about 2kg of icing sugar to complete it. (So wrong and yet so right.) Totally decadent...which is why it's probably good I don't do this too often!
I don't bake a lot because usually what I'm doing is pretty time consuming. But when the fancy strikes me, I like to go all out. This is one that I've been planning for awhile. It's made with 6-inch cake pans, so slightly smaller in diameter than regular cake pans. I had to search a bit to find them but was able to track some down at Peppers Kitchen in Lawson. I love that they're a little different but it was a bit of a learning curve to figure out how full to fill the pans. And to find a recipe, since most of them are either for 2 8-inch pans or 3 9-inch pans.
I ended up doing two different kinds of cake batter. A vanilla cake - I've finally found a recipe that I like and that is consistently good. The other cake was chocolate but I decided to use chili-infused chocolate instead of regular semi-sweet. Very subtle but it gave it a bit of zing.
I baked the cake layers on Monday and did my crumb coat. (My whole life has changed since I've discovered crumb coat!) Yesterday I decorated after I got home from work. Initially I had planned something different (that would have involved creating scalloped edges with sparkles) but instead decided to go with roses. I love the look of these roses - so lush and Victorian but so easy to do. I amped up the wow factor by doing an ombre icing. I had some lovely cornflower blue colouring gel from Wilton's. The end result was lovely - the colour didn't get deeper so much as it mellowed. I love the cornflower shade - it's so pretty and so old-fashioned.
The only challenge was getting it to work. It was a touch tall for my cake carrier and the top ended up getting crushed a bit. Luckily I had some icing leftover so I brought my piping bag to work and did a touch up when I got there.
My cake was greeted with a lovely fanfare, which of course I live for. (I really do this for the applause. It's probably kind of pathetic.) Of course, this cake wasn't meant to be eaten in large quantities, unless you happen to carry insulin. There was a lot - and I mean A LOT - of icing on that baby. All told, it was probably about 2kg of icing sugar to complete it. (So wrong and yet so right.) Totally decadent...which is why it's probably good I don't do this too often!