Bunny Cake

My favourite Canadian, Frederique, came over and we are going to put Cake Boss out of business.  Totally kidding!  She has been wanting for a while to come over and bake and she finally made it over. Animal cake was definitely what we wanted. Bunny was the winner, our cake is pretty legit.   Vanilla Cake, Chocolate frosting and fondant for decorations. We are pretty excited about our accomplishment. It only took us about 4 hours. start to finish but we baked other treats in between.  We also made Gluten free cookies and cookie dough truffles that are delicious! Our feet hurt, eyes tired, and sweet tooth satisfied! It was a really good day. Really good to get away from some recent health problems. I love my friends, and baking!
Cookie Dough Truffles:
2 1/4 cups flour
1 stick of butter(melted)
3/4 cup brown sugar(packed)
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup milk(possibly more)

mix everything in a stand mixer and create the same consistency as if there were egg.  Add as much milk as you may need without making it drippy, so not too much. You want to be able to ball up the dough and dunk in chocolate. You can mix whatever you want in the dough. I split the batter into 3 bowls and used chocolate chips, M&Ms, and white chocolate chips. They were dipped in a white chocolate or semi sweet chocolate candy coating.

Fondant bow

I was bored and had extra fondant from my last cake so I just made a bow for the heck of it!

Practice makes perfect

I’m not really the kind of person to give up. I might say it but it won’t happen. I’m somewhat of a perfectionist and in baking(and life) it’s good and bad. So when you make a not so good cake you just gotta move on with ya life!
My little cousin’s birthday is this week and when my aunt asked if I would make her a cake I was super excited!  There was no theme so I took what I knew about her and ran with it! Pink and flowers galore! 
This by far is my best cake yet and I’m super excited about the improvement I’ve made.  
On the bottom I did a yellow 2 layer square cake and coloured it pink(of course). Then did a round 2 layer chocolate cake and shaped it to fit on top of the bottom well. I did a marshmellow fondant. I know I said I was going to take a break from it but I just couldn’t stay away, I had to try another recipe. I LOVED IT!! It worked super well, just how I imagined it would. love love love.  I did all the other decorations in homemade frosting.
It turned out so much better than I thought it might and I know I’m headed in the right direction. Learning more and more and getting more experience. I hope they enjoy it! 

God Bless the USA

Monday was Memorial Day, probably my favourite ‘small holiday’. (small meaning not in the Christmas and New Years catagory) Our amazing and sacrificial troops deserving so much and I am so grateful for them.
My whole family was home and I had most of the day off so I cooked dinner and made dessert. I made a mexican pasta dish that was a hit. It was my first big time meal and I was super happy with the results. http://www.eatbetteramerica.com/recipes/under-300-calorie-dinner/healthified-mexican-ground-beef-and-noodles.aspx – this is the recipe. I made a few changes. I used basil instead of oregano, used more ground beef, recplaced cheeder with mozzarella, and I didn’t make the topping with sour cream.
I baked a gluten free(something me sister is trying just to try) yellow cake with a homemade buttercream frosting. I used food colouring, which didn’t work like I had hoped but I think I didn’t use enough, and I tried to make it as patriotic looking as possible. This cake showed me that I can make happen what I want to happen but I still have lots of learning and practicing to do.

buttercream frosting:
6tblsp butter
4 1/2 c sifted pwdr sugar.
1/4 c milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Fondant no more

So once again I tried to use fondant and it went about the same as last time. It made me really frustrated so right now I’m only using frosting.
I baked a simple cake just to use to work with fondant. The cake was delicious with the fondant but I want to do more decorating with it. Currently I’m working on frosting flowers and decorations with different tips. I’m having fun with that and learning more with the actual baking process. Hopefully my cakes will get prettier but only time will tell.