I can't believe that it is 2012 already. Time is flying by and since I no longer have internet at home, I have been away from my blog to update you on my weekly caking adventures since last year! Sorry!
2011 was a terrific year for me on many levels! My children are growing quickly, turning into very funny and complex individuals with amazing senses of humour and intelligence! We are truly blessed. My fulltime gig as a high school teacher often brings me joy (and frustration but that's part of it) and allows me to "share" my gift of teaching (or gab pending on the day!) with our youth!
In the land of cake, 2011 saw me completing 78 cakes! WOW! I can't believe I averaged more than 1 per week considering I did very few cakes in July and August. But I was blessed to have orders from friends, family, friends of friends, and total strangers as well! THANK YOU!!
I am excited to continue to hone my caking skills by taking some courses in 2012. I am also really going to make a better effort to keep my family FIRST and cakes SECOND so I will not do 5 cakes/week this year. If you have an upcoming special event or occasion and would like a custom-cake, please message me sooner than later so I don't have to break this resolution. I hate saying NO to cake orders, especially when they are cakes that I really want to do...but something has to give!
Thank you again for your support and love of all things cake!
I hope your 2012 is sweet in every way possible!
Wednesday 11 January 2012
Sunday 4 December 2011
Internet blues and caking woo hoos!
I can't believe my last blog post was late Sept. Thank you Bell...for charging me monthly Internet fees and yet never giving me Internet signal! Arrgh!
I'm on my iPad which thankfully has Wifi and 3G...I pay Rogers for my monthly 3G service and they haven't let me down yet. At any rate, I've had a lot going on since September in the world of cakes, kids, teaching and training! But since this is my caking blog, I'll just talk sweet stuff if that's ok!
I need to figure out how to post pics of my latest cakes without Internet. I almost always use my camera to take cake shots, so my pics are stuck on my computer now...not accessible here on my iPad. Well, except for my weekend project which I'll post here in a bit. I was FINALLY a student and loved my day of learning all things beautiful in the cake land of Icing Inspirations in Kitchener. Thank you to Chrissie Boon (latest Cake Walk champion and owner of said shop) for hosting the course and to Susan Trianos (another Cake Walk champion!) for her Tufted Billow cake course! I was surrounded by caking geniuses and I loved it!
I had a super partner too! Amber Wills is an up and coming caked in K/W who will one day have the coolest, most unique cake and more shop you've ever seen! I can't wait! This girl is skilled...at everything!
Along with my fullest course, I had 3 cakes this week: 1 sculpted bunny rabbit (which truly deserves its own blog story...maybe later) and 2 very custom cakes requiring genius figure work (which people seem to think I have when they order from me...but which I don't!). A VP on top of the cake throwing a student in the trash (inside joke and completely NOT my idea but it went over well nonetheless) and a special baptism cross cake complete with a chocolate Jesus sitting on a boulder with the baby in his lap. Yikes! It was quite the week! A true test of time management, patience and caking skills. I'm happy to say that I survived, I'm not getting divorced, my kids are relatively clean & fed and to my knowledge, all clients were happy with their cakes.
Pics coming at some point. Very happy to say I have a cake-free week ahead...but I'm hosting a Christmas party so when I'd typically be baking and making buttercream and fondant, I'll be gutting, cleaning, Christmasifying, and perhaps even painting to prep for the party. Oh yeah, and I want to make meatball-stuffed arancini! Whew! Here we go again!
I'm on my iPad which thankfully has Wifi and 3G...I pay Rogers for my monthly 3G service and they haven't let me down yet. At any rate, I've had a lot going on since September in the world of cakes, kids, teaching and training! But since this is my caking blog, I'll just talk sweet stuff if that's ok!
I need to figure out how to post pics of my latest cakes without Internet. I almost always use my camera to take cake shots, so my pics are stuck on my computer now...not accessible here on my iPad. Well, except for my weekend project which I'll post here in a bit. I was FINALLY a student and loved my day of learning all things beautiful in the cake land of Icing Inspirations in Kitchener. Thank you to Chrissie Boon (latest Cake Walk champion and owner of said shop) for hosting the course and to Susan Trianos (another Cake Walk champion!) for her Tufted Billow cake course! I was surrounded by caking geniuses and I loved it!
I had a super partner too! Amber Wills is an up and coming caked in K/W who will one day have the coolest, most unique cake and more shop you've ever seen! I can't wait! This girl is skilled...at everything!
Along with my fullest course, I had 3 cakes this week: 1 sculpted bunny rabbit (which truly deserves its own blog story...maybe later) and 2 very custom cakes requiring genius figure work (which people seem to think I have when they order from me...but which I don't!). A VP on top of the cake throwing a student in the trash (inside joke and completely NOT my idea but it went over well nonetheless) and a special baptism cross cake complete with a chocolate Jesus sitting on a boulder with the baby in his lap. Yikes! It was quite the week! A true test of time management, patience and caking skills. I'm happy to say that I survived, I'm not getting divorced, my kids are relatively clean & fed and to my knowledge, all clients were happy with their cakes.
Pics coming at some point. Very happy to say I have a cake-free week ahead...but I'm hosting a Christmas party so when I'd typically be baking and making buttercream and fondant, I'll be gutting, cleaning, Christmasifying, and perhaps even painting to prep for the party. Oh yeah, and I want to make meatball-stuffed arancini! Whew! Here we go again!
Sunday 25 September 2011
My 2nd Mater cake and I've learned that there is much to learn!!
It was a 4-cake week and from that I've learned that I JUST CAN'T DO THAT! I'm pretty sure my husband is ready to move out and my kids are going to have rotten teeth. Enough!
That being said and as awful as the pressure was this week, I think I put out some pretty decent work! My Mater cake was quite an experience...and here I was thinking "oh heck, that's easy. I've already done a Mater. I can do it in x minutes and time to spare!". NOT EXACTLY!! I've learned that the really impressive cakes out there in the world of google must be done by teams of people. Or at the very least, perhaps a mostly self-taught cake/mom like myself but with mad carpentry skills (or a husband with said skills!). I was able to improve upon my construction a wee bit from the last Mater I did...but still ended up with a droopy rearend and needed to prop up the wimpy little cake board that Mater sat on with chocolate bars covered in fondant. I was happy with my idea to use a big mass of RKT as the main support under the cake board though. Next time I know I will put Mater on a sturdier board and select something even stronger and more stable to support this board. Now if I had a handy husband, he could make me something like this structure I speak of...but alas, that's a whole other issue and not for a blog about caking!
Another little tidbit I walk away from this week with...transporting cakes is tricky and the inevitable will happen! Like Alice in Wonderland WILL lose her legs on her way to East end Hamilton! Next time - leave all fragile parts OFF of the cake while travelling and construct on-site! And always bring emergency tools!!
This week sounds a bit slower and I like that. I have a Hello Kitty cake for Saturday and potentially a 30th birthday cake for Saturday night though all details are TBD. So if you're reading this blog little sister, I'd appreicate knowing sooner than later!!
Thanks for your support! Anyone want to share any other caking secrets about fragile deliveries and creating support structures without a handy husband?
:D
That being said and as awful as the pressure was this week, I think I put out some pretty decent work! My Mater cake was quite an experience...and here I was thinking "oh heck, that's easy. I've already done a Mater. I can do it in x minutes and time to spare!". NOT EXACTLY!! I've learned that the really impressive cakes out there in the world of google must be done by teams of people. Or at the very least, perhaps a mostly self-taught cake/mom like myself but with mad carpentry skills (or a husband with said skills!). I was able to improve upon my construction a wee bit from the last Mater I did...but still ended up with a droopy rearend and needed to prop up the wimpy little cake board that Mater sat on with chocolate bars covered in fondant. I was happy with my idea to use a big mass of RKT as the main support under the cake board though. Next time I know I will put Mater on a sturdier board and select something even stronger and more stable to support this board. Now if I had a handy husband, he could make me something like this structure I speak of...but alas, that's a whole other issue and not for a blog about caking!
Another little tidbit I walk away from this week with...transporting cakes is tricky and the inevitable will happen! Like Alice in Wonderland WILL lose her legs on her way to East end Hamilton! Next time - leave all fragile parts OFF of the cake while travelling and construct on-site! And always bring emergency tools!!
This week sounds a bit slower and I like that. I have a Hello Kitty cake for Saturday and potentially a 30th birthday cake for Saturday night though all details are TBD. So if you're reading this blog little sister, I'd appreicate knowing sooner than later!!
Thanks for your support! Anyone want to share any other caking secrets about fragile deliveries and creating support structures without a handy husband?
:D
Friday 23 September 2011
Busy days of September!
Is anyone else struggling with the concept that it's officially fall? That September is almost over? That pretty soon we'll be talking about those 2 dreaded words...Christmas shopping? Yikes!!
My life has suddenly spun into fast forward and I have no remote to control it. Up early and thick into chaos as I try to get myself, my 3 children and my husband out the door for school with full tummies and clean faces! Ok, I don't really care about my husband's face!! That he can at least do right?
The life of high school teacher is never dull especially when you combine that with being a mom of 3 and one who takes on more cake orders than she can handle! I just can't say NO...but I'm learning. I actually said it today. So there!
This weekend is a nutty one and I've already completed a cake for Thursday which was a "donation" to a school fundraiser. It's the Bulldog cake (once I actually get pics loaded, you'll be able to see it) and I'm happy to say that my hours of school-night fussing were worth the fact that the School Council sold lots of tickets to raise money for a family in need AND that the winners of the cake were the Special Needs students of my school! WINNING!!
Tomorrow morning I'll be delivering 2 cakes to the same location - school! Our head secretary ordered a custom cake for her dad's 85th birthday (loves golf and lawn bowling) and a former student ordered an Alice in Wonderland theme cake for his girlfriend's 20th birthday! I'm pretty happy with my designs and have about 1.2 cakes left to do out of 2! It's going to be a late night!
Then on Sunday I had to break my "1 cake/week" rule (already had at this point) because Ty's mom emailed me and requested a special Mater cake for her boy's 2nd birthday. I made Ty's 1st birthday cake so how on Earth could I refuse? So needless to say, my Saturday will be cake-filled from morning til night with delivery and creating Mater! Whew!
How are you spending your weekend? Any other cakers out there who have a hard time saying NO? Please advise!!!
My life has suddenly spun into fast forward and I have no remote to control it. Up early and thick into chaos as I try to get myself, my 3 children and my husband out the door for school with full tummies and clean faces! Ok, I don't really care about my husband's face!! That he can at least do right?
The life of high school teacher is never dull especially when you combine that with being a mom of 3 and one who takes on more cake orders than she can handle! I just can't say NO...but I'm learning. I actually said it today. So there!
This weekend is a nutty one and I've already completed a cake for Thursday which was a "donation" to a school fundraiser. It's the Bulldog cake (once I actually get pics loaded, you'll be able to see it) and I'm happy to say that my hours of school-night fussing were worth the fact that the School Council sold lots of tickets to raise money for a family in need AND that the winners of the cake were the Special Needs students of my school! WINNING!!
Tomorrow morning I'll be delivering 2 cakes to the same location - school! Our head secretary ordered a custom cake for her dad's 85th birthday (loves golf and lawn bowling) and a former student ordered an Alice in Wonderland theme cake for his girlfriend's 20th birthday! I'm pretty happy with my designs and have about 1.2 cakes left to do out of 2! It's going to be a late night!
Then on Sunday I had to break my "1 cake/week" rule (already had at this point) because Ty's mom emailed me and requested a special Mater cake for her boy's 2nd birthday. I made Ty's 1st birthday cake so how on Earth could I refuse? So needless to say, my Saturday will be cake-filled from morning til night with delivery and creating Mater! Whew!
How are you spending your weekend? Any other cakers out there who have a hard time saying NO? Please advise!!!
Thursday 1 September 2011
Cake Flavours, Buttercreams & Fillings
Sometimes I get cake clients who are very specific about what they want and exactly how they want it. I like these but truthfully feel more pressure to meet each & every pre-conceived expectation this client has.
Then I have people who just love what I do and know that I will satisfy them no matter what happens - even when it comes to choosing the flavour of cake & buttercream they want. :) YAY!
At any rate, I thought I would post a quick note on the types of cakes that I have had experience in making (and in some ways perfecting) along with the buttercream flavours I have done and any fillings. Hopefully this will help you think up some reason (big or small) for a custom cake from me!!
CAKE FLAVOURS:
Vanilla, French Vanilla, Chocolate, Lemon, Coconut Pound
Vanilla Cream Cheese Pound
Coconut Cream Cheese Pound
Chocolate Chip Pound
Decadent Chocolate
Carrot Cake
Red Velvet
BUTTERCREAM ICING FLAVOURS:
Traditional vanilla or chocolate buttercream (BC)
Vanilla bean BC
French Vanilla BC
Cream Cheese BC (can flavour orange or lemon for a twist)
Rich chocolate BC
Peanut Butter BC
Assorted flavours - cherry, raspberry, lemon, apple, coffee, bavarian, orange, lemon, bubblegum, tuttifruitti, red licorice, anise, root beer, champagne
FILLING IDEAS: (not all cakes can handle a filling due to structure)
Fresh fruit - strawberries, raspberry, blueberry coulis, etc
Lemon curd
Bavarian cream
Cannoli cream
Cookies n cream
Broken chocolate bars (like Reese PB Cups, Skor, Crispy Crunch or your FAVE)
Let me know if you think of anything else that's not on my list! I'm happy to have more ammunition to make people smile!!
Then I have people who just love what I do and know that I will satisfy them no matter what happens - even when it comes to choosing the flavour of cake & buttercream they want. :) YAY!
At any rate, I thought I would post a quick note on the types of cakes that I have had experience in making (and in some ways perfecting) along with the buttercream flavours I have done and any fillings. Hopefully this will help you think up some reason (big or small) for a custom cake from me!!
CAKE FLAVOURS:
Vanilla, French Vanilla, Chocolate, Lemon, Coconut Pound
Vanilla Cream Cheese Pound
Coconut Cream Cheese Pound
Chocolate Chip Pound
Decadent Chocolate
Carrot Cake
Red Velvet
BUTTERCREAM ICING FLAVOURS:
Traditional vanilla or chocolate buttercream (BC)
Vanilla bean BC
French Vanilla BC
Cream Cheese BC (can flavour orange or lemon for a twist)
Rich chocolate BC
Peanut Butter BC
Assorted flavours - cherry, raspberry, lemon, apple, coffee, bavarian, orange, lemon, bubblegum, tuttifruitti, red licorice, anise, root beer, champagne
FILLING IDEAS: (not all cakes can handle a filling due to structure)
Fresh fruit - strawberries, raspberry, blueberry coulis, etc
Lemon curd
Bavarian cream
Cannoli cream
Cookies n cream
Broken chocolate bars (like Reese PB Cups, Skor, Crispy Crunch or your FAVE)
Let me know if you think of anything else that's not on my list! I'm happy to have more ammunition to make people smile!!
Friday 26 August 2011
My first cheesecake order and a custom 30th cake for Matt!
So it's been a slow summer on the cake-making front and I LOVED IT!! I had a super & sunny July with the kids and watched my husband almost single-handedly build us a beautiful & huge deck!! Great work honey!
Now with much of the summer behind us and "school" fast approaching, I am getting some cake orders...among other things! I had the funniest phonecall from a friend of my mother-in-law's. She is a beautiful lady named Phyllis from Jamaica and she wanted to order a cheesecake for her son's birthday. ?? Ok, I can bake a cheesecake as good as the next guy, but I was curious. Did she want it custom-decorated since that's sort of what I do. Her response (with a very thick Jamaican accent) "Oh no darlin!! Decorations would just take away from it don't you think?" So cute! So I am about to get started on a plain cheesecake. "Maybe throw some strawberries on it" she said. OK! Strawberries it is!
My other order for this weekend is a pretty special one! Matt turns 30 and his family is having a huge pig-roast/BBQ/Pool Party to celebrate! Lucky for me, they live 2 doors down so it will be a fun party & easy to find my way back home after some celebration! Matt's mom said that he loves golf, Harley motorcycles, California and Katy Perry. Hmmm...my creative juices flowed for me and I sketched out a design to encorporate all of Matt's LOVES. Hope it turns out. I'll take some pics once it's finished!
Not much more going on in cakeland for me...just a whole lot of things to do to get myself and the kids ready for school in 11 days!!
Thank you so much for your continued interest & support in my cake passion. I'm really going to attempt to stick to 1 or 2 cake orders/week this year...goodness knows I have lots of room to be a better mom/housekeeper/teacher if I had more time on my hands! So please message me sooner than later if you're thinking of a custom cake for an upcoming gathering!!
Cheers,
C
Now with much of the summer behind us and "school" fast approaching, I am getting some cake orders...among other things! I had the funniest phonecall from a friend of my mother-in-law's. She is a beautiful lady named Phyllis from Jamaica and she wanted to order a cheesecake for her son's birthday. ?? Ok, I can bake a cheesecake as good as the next guy, but I was curious. Did she want it custom-decorated since that's sort of what I do. Her response (with a very thick Jamaican accent) "Oh no darlin!! Decorations would just take away from it don't you think?" So cute! So I am about to get started on a plain cheesecake. "Maybe throw some strawberries on it" she said. OK! Strawberries it is!
My other order for this weekend is a pretty special one! Matt turns 30 and his family is having a huge pig-roast/BBQ/Pool Party to celebrate! Lucky for me, they live 2 doors down so it will be a fun party & easy to find my way back home after some celebration! Matt's mom said that he loves golf, Harley motorcycles, California and Katy Perry. Hmmm...my creative juices flowed for me and I sketched out a design to encorporate all of Matt's LOVES. Hope it turns out. I'll take some pics once it's finished!
Not much more going on in cakeland for me...just a whole lot of things to do to get myself and the kids ready for school in 11 days!!
Thank you so much for your continued interest & support in my cake passion. I'm really going to attempt to stick to 1 or 2 cake orders/week this year...goodness knows I have lots of room to be a better mom/housekeeper/teacher if I had more time on my hands! So please message me sooner than later if you're thinking of a custom cake for an upcoming gathering!!
Cheers,
C
Friday 5 August 2011
Cake firsts and the importance of getting the message straight!
Well I've had a couple caking "firsts" this week - one was my cake-designing BLAHS when trying to come up with the custom 50th for a Bruce Springsteen/Jackson Browne fan!! I was not only stumped on the design, but because it was my first cake in 3 long weeks, I wasn't even into it. At all!! But in the end, with a little kick in the butt from my friends, I was able to produce a stack of albums, the top being (of course) the very popular "Born in the USA" cover! It was tedious but fun! Then I was able to hit "the zone" when it came time to hand-painting all of the album names on all 4 sides of the record stack!! Made a gumpaste Harley logo and Bruce's very renoun yellow electric guitar and the cake was finished!! Apparently it was a huge hit at the party! Everyone took pictures and the bday boy just stood back and stared at it for 2 minutes straight. Awww...that's exactly why I LOVE doing what I do!! Thank you so very much Mo!!
My other cake "first" was a Hello Kitty cake for a 6 yr old girl's birthday! The client (my girlfriend Fiona - thank you!!) suggested HK or perhaps Tinkerbelle but I jumped at doing the Hello Kitty as I have seen many and had never made one. It was super fun and thankfully I was very much into the caking spirit of things! I sat and made colourful fondant flowers for ever!! Pictures coming!! Thank you so much to http://www.cakecental.com/ for the great cake ideas!! And thank you again Fiona!! If anyone wants to train for an Ironman triathlon, she's a pro triathlete AND a trainer in TO. Message me for her contact info!
Now, onto the importance of 'getting the message straight'...my girlfriend (and fellow YJ distributor/brand parnter) Kelly gave me the head's up that her future MIL was going to contact me for her family baby shower for newly arrived Charlie!! So I only spoke to her MIL re cake flavours and design. She said "Kelly said to do something summery". I was a bit confused since it was a baby shower cake afterall but thought, oh well, summery & baby! I can do this! Last night, while putting the final touches on my version of summery/baby shower, I called Kelly to see if she wanted "Charles or Charlie" on the cake and mentioned the "summery" thing. She says 'oh yeah, I told her something summery flavoured"...uh oh! So NOT the theme? But rather the flavour? Oops!! Anyways, final cake is a brandnew baby Charlie (complete with his signature cloth diaper) lying on a blanket (custom colour & design as his nursery bedding) on the beach with sunscreen, bottle of milk, "ghettoblaster", cooler, beach ball, sand pail & shovel, and rubber ducky floaty ring! There is sand and beautiful blue ocean with jellyfish, starfish, catfish, sea cucumbers, and underwater plants. I hope she likes it! It was quite fun!
And now I'm sitting on a 30-hour train ride from TO Ontario to Truro, Nova Scotia with my 3 kids!! I intended on bringing a custom cake with me for my Aunt's 60th birthday and had also hoped I could bring enough supplies to make another custom cake for a big family gathering to honour my uncles' and cousin's birthdays (60th, 50th and 40th all in the same year)....but alas, with only myself to "lug" stuff, we had far too many bags to add more to. So no cake or cake decorating tools!! Just plain & simple VACATION time for me!!
Thanks for checking in and I'll be back near the end of the summer with a custom 30th cake for a Katy Perry/golf/Harley/California-lover named Matt!!
Cheers,
CC
My other cake "first" was a Hello Kitty cake for a 6 yr old girl's birthday! The client (my girlfriend Fiona - thank you!!) suggested HK or perhaps Tinkerbelle but I jumped at doing the Hello Kitty as I have seen many and had never made one. It was super fun and thankfully I was very much into the caking spirit of things! I sat and made colourful fondant flowers for ever!! Pictures coming!! Thank you so much to http://www.cakecental.com/ for the great cake ideas!! And thank you again Fiona!! If anyone wants to train for an Ironman triathlon, she's a pro triathlete AND a trainer in TO. Message me for her contact info!
Now, onto the importance of 'getting the message straight'...my girlfriend (and fellow YJ distributor/brand parnter) Kelly gave me the head's up that her future MIL was going to contact me for her family baby shower for newly arrived Charlie!! So I only spoke to her MIL re cake flavours and design. She said "Kelly said to do something summery". I was a bit confused since it was a baby shower cake afterall but thought, oh well, summery & baby! I can do this! Last night, while putting the final touches on my version of summery/baby shower, I called Kelly to see if she wanted "Charles or Charlie" on the cake and mentioned the "summery" thing. She says 'oh yeah, I told her something summery flavoured"...uh oh! So NOT the theme? But rather the flavour? Oops!! Anyways, final cake is a brandnew baby Charlie (complete with his signature cloth diaper) lying on a blanket (custom colour & design as his nursery bedding) on the beach with sunscreen, bottle of milk, "ghettoblaster", cooler, beach ball, sand pail & shovel, and rubber ducky floaty ring! There is sand and beautiful blue ocean with jellyfish, starfish, catfish, sea cucumbers, and underwater plants. I hope she likes it! It was quite fun!
And now I'm sitting on a 30-hour train ride from TO Ontario to Truro, Nova Scotia with my 3 kids!! I intended on bringing a custom cake with me for my Aunt's 60th birthday and had also hoped I could bring enough supplies to make another custom cake for a big family gathering to honour my uncles' and cousin's birthdays (60th, 50th and 40th all in the same year)....but alas, with only myself to "lug" stuff, we had far too many bags to add more to. So no cake or cake decorating tools!! Just plain & simple VACATION time for me!!
Thanks for checking in and I'll be back near the end of the summer with a custom 30th cake for a Katy Perry/golf/Harley/California-lover named Matt!!
Cheers,
CC
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