Pirate Cake

Before

After

It's been a while now since I last posted an entry but i'm back!!

I made this cake here for Miss S's cousin, Alec. I hope they enjoyed the cake last night after dinner.

This is my first cake after my week at PC. I was still waiting for my tools to arrive so I had to make do with whatever tools I had in my kitchen and it turned out better than I had hoped for. I've finally got my tools today - yippeedeedoodah so you can pretty much guess what i'll be up to for the next wee while.

I've put a before and after picture of the chocolate mud cake I had made for Alec's birthday. The ganached cake was a result of 2 hours of hard labour which included extra time to 'fix' the dent I had made by accident. That was the hard part, the fun part was covering the cake!! Then only to forget to sharpen the edges and cover the bottom edges of the cake.

Enjoy!

Project Macaron #3

Finally! Here it is - the purple shade I was after for so long.

The photo does not do it any justice but I did it, I finally managed to work out how much colouring I had to add in and let's just leave it at that.

Today's macarons have a blackberry jam filling. Yes - I know, I cheated a little. I ran out of time but I really wanted to make purple macarons for Nish's morning tea. It was either that or raspberry brownies.

I think I've finally worked out the 'right' consistency so the piped out macarons don't spread on the tray while it is drying.

I did have another go at using the silicone mat Nish had lent me but this time the macarons look deformed! You know what happens to deformed macarons? - they get chomped up by the resident cookie monster (me!)

Project Macaron #2

If it's one thing that I can't seem to get right, it is colouring the macarons! I've tried the method of adding the gel colour to the sugar syrup. Judging by the amount I had used and the shade it was I thought I would at least get a light orange shade but no I was wrong. It came out more light caramel than orange.

Back to the drawing board.

Before I forget to introduce the macaron - it's supposed to be an orange coloured macaron with chocolate passionfruit ganache in the middle. The ganache is a keeper although this won't be something I would be making too often as the passionfruit cost me $14!

I managed to work out the consistency of the batter so my macarons turned out 'perfect' rounds.

My colleague lent me her macaron sheet and so I just had to try it out. Conclusion - Easy to use!

Lets' Celebrate Fiona's Birthday!

This second cake is for Fiona, it was her birthday earlier in the week.

I wanted to make a cake which was light and fluffy so I settled on making a red velvet cake covered with cream cheese icing.

Do you like the quilted look?! I do. I made the quilted look with the help of my new 'diamond design' tool and am so impressed by it.

Rugby Jersey Cake

First off the baking line - Jimmy's belated birthday cake.

Jimmy is an All Blacks fan so the creative department of my brain was given a rest. The toss up was whether to make a jersey or a rugby ball. The jersey won - I was too scared to attempt a rugby ball shaped cake since my cake carving experience is nil.

This is my first 'carved' cake - this was a lot easier than I had thought it would be. Yippeeee! But I was let down by the black icing - it just wasn't going to do I wanted it to do and had lots of cracks/tears.

The cake is a caramel mud cake with white chocolate ganache.

I'm just wondering if I should bake another rugby jersey cake to take into work on Monday