Happy Birthday Cora!!

Well as usual I got to make Cora's birthday cake and as usual she wanted a chocolate cake with raspberry filling. Her cake was Chocolate with raspberry moistening syrup, bittersweet chocolate ganache, raspberry preserves and milk chocolate IMBC frosting.


Being that this is Cora a flowery, girly cake just wasn't going to do. Since she's such a baseball fanatic I decided to go with a baseball theme. Especially since the season is almost over and she'll be in mourning (well, at least until she puts the football game on! :) )


Here's her cake: Play Ball!

Hawley-Cox Wedding Cake

I finished the last one for this summer! This one is very similar to the very first cake I did and I still like it! :) Chocolate cake with white chocolate filling and creme de cocoa flavored moistening syrup.

Karissa's Cake

Well, here's the latest. Krystina did the flowers and they were gorgeous! (I just stuck them on the cake.) Buttercream frosting with fondant accents. This thing took forever and I almost decided I was done with making cakes! Of course I couldn't quit because I have another one at the end of the month but the thought did cross my mind! :D

Cake Flavors

This is going to be a running list of cake flavor combinations. I'm going to add to it as I do different combo's and I'll try to keep it somewhere near the top (in case you care!) :)

I will list them out as cake flavor/syrup (this is a flavored moistening syrup)/filling/frosting

If there are other things going on (more than one flavor of frosting for example) I will explain that too. This is for my own info because my brain won't keep all of this stuff for very long. If you want to know what the acronyms mean they will be listed at the bottom.

Cakes are typically four layers of cake with three layers of filling (as with the pictured "Carmel Apple Cake" which is number 4 in the list below.) When an item says "Filling layer 1:xxxxx; layer 2:xxxxx" it means that layer 1 is the used on the first and third layer of filling while layer 2 is the middle filling flavor. Confusing? :D Yeah, and a lot of work but it tastes really good!

1. White cake/raspberry syrup/seedless raspberry preserves/basic buttercream

2. Butter pecan cake/peach syrup/sliced nectarines/carmel buttercream

3. Darn Good Chocolate cake (that's the name of the recipe!)/creme de cocoa syrup/bittersweet chocolate ganache topped with seedless raspberry preserves/milk chocolate IMBC

4. White cake/apple cider syrup/Filling layer 1: butterscotch carmel; layer 2: apples sauteed in butter and brown sugar/vanilla buttercream

5. White cake/rum syrup/white chocolate IMBC with toffee pieces/milk chocolate IMBC

6. White cake/creme de cocoa syrup/chocolate IMBC/basic buttercream

7. Yellow cake/strawberry or vanilla syrup/Filling layer 1: buttercream and sliced strawberries; layer 2: vanilla meringue disks/vanilla or strawberry buttercream

8. Chocolate cake/creme de cocoa or Kahlua syrup/bittersweet chocolate ganache/milk or dark chocolate buttercream

9. White cake/creme de cocoa syrup/chocolate mousse filling/basic buttercream

10. White cake/lemon syrup/blackberry preserves/vanilla buttercream


IMBC: Italian Meringue Buttercream (very rich but not very sweet)
MMF: Marshmallow Fondant

***All syrups are non-alcoholic*** The seemingly alcoholic syrups are actually DaVinci's coffee syrups so you don't need to worry about feeding this stuff to your kids! :)

Hexagon

This one I did when we had friends over for dinner. The top tier was chocolate with chocolate filling. The bottom tier was butter pecan cake, peach moistening syrup, sliced nectarines and caramel buttercream for the filling and frosted with caramel buttercream. It was pretty tasty.

I used the hexagon pans because I got a good deal on a lot of cake stuff on Craigslist. I wanted to play with my new pans so I did! :) I decided I need a whole lot more practice on corners though!

Silver Bridal Shower

I was asked to make this one for a bride and groom whose colors were silver and an opaque irridescant color. I had no clue what to do! I did figure something out (obviously) but if I were to do it again I know how to do different effects now that I didn't know then.

It's one of those, "just wishing for someone to ask for it again" things! lol

Bridal Shower Cake

This one tasted sooooo good! It was vanilla cake with rum flavored moistening syrup, white chocolate Italian Meringue buttercream with toffee pieces folded in for the filling and milk chocolate frosting on the sides.

Willow Tree Wedding

This wedding cake was very time consuming but it turned out beautifully. The bride was pleased so "mission accomplished!"

Chocolate cake, creme de cocoa flavored moistening syrup, bittersweet ganache filling. Milk chocolate Italian Meringue butter cream on the sides and dark chocolate on the tops of each tier. The rope around the edges is a combination of the milk and dark chocolates (piped alternately) and those are chocolate truffles around the base of each tier.

Jon (my awesome husband!) made the cake stand specifically for this cake but maybe someday I'll get to use it for another.