More Holiday Cakes!

I made a couple more Thanksgiving cakes for a friend last night - here they are!

Rustic Fall Trees
Chocolate Cake with Cookies-N-Cream filling.  Frosting and 'rustic' decorations are buttercream.
* This cake was inspired by Bakingdom's blog *

Fancy Thanksgiving Cake
Vanilla butter cake with chocolate buttercream frosting and scroll work.  Topper is silk. 

Last night was my very first "off" night when it comes to caking ... many lessons were learned and mistakes corrected! I guess it happens to everyone ;-)  I'm very happy with how these turned out and I hope my friend and her family enjoy them!

Holiday Cakes

This week, I made a couple small cakes for a good friend of mine for her holiday get-together.  She was nice enough to let me design them to help build my portfolio.  Here they are!

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Chocolate Cream Cheese scrollwork.  Topper is silk.

Chocolate Cake with Cookies-n-Cream filling and Buttercream Frosting and decorations.

In other news, Sweet For Sirten now has a Facebook!  You can find the link on the left side of this blog - I would love for you to 'Like' it =)

Happy Baking!

My First Wedding Cake

Today, I finished and delivered my very first wedding cake order! The day was just perfect - I was thrilled with how everything turned out.  The cake was three tiers - the bottom, 12", tier was white velvet cake; the middle, 9", tier was white almond sour cream cake with berries; the top, 6", tier was white velvet.  The whole cake was filled and iced in white chocolate buttercream. All of these recipes can be found in earlier posts. Each tier was three layers of cake and stood about 6" tall.  The scroll work was designed to match the 'double heart' theme of the wedding with lavender accents.  The scrolls and borders were accented with small sugar pearls. 

The cake chilling in the fridge.  This was before the ribbon was finished  ... at about 2am! 

I moved the cake from the fridge to this spot on the counter until my very strong Daddy moved it to the back of the SUV. Thats my Mom (and driver) in the background - sorry about all the stuff around, I wasn't thinking about taking 'pretty' pictures, just documenting ;-)

All ready to go in the SUV! It didn't budge an inch for the whole hour drive - that non slip rug really works! 

Paul went along for the ride - he was such a trooper!

Detail shot I took while riding in the car - I love how pretty the natural light is. 

The cake all set up on the table and ready to be cut! 

Ta-Da! 

Happy Baking!

Microwave Mug Cake

Today, I was in desperate need of something chocolate and cakey, but also feeling really lazy - I did not want to pull everything out and bake a whole cake; I just wanted a bite to satisfy me.  Being as I gave away all the cake I had in the house (I'm trying to lose 5 pounds for a holiday party, HA!), so I started thinking about this episode of Rachel Ray I saw one time where this lady made cake in a coffee cup in the microwave.  I looked around online and found a few sites that had pretty basic sounding recipes, so I combined a few of them for what sounded like a good first try!

I baked in my ACS mug because it is the biggest one I own.  

Mug Cake Recipe:
4 tbsp. All Purpose Flour
4 tbsp. Sugar
2 tbsp. Cocoa
1/4 tsp. Baking Powder
1 Egg
3 tbsp. Milk
3 tbsp. Oil
Splash of Vanilla
*Next time I am adding chocolate chips.

Method:
Mix everything together in the mug and pop it in the microwave for 2.5 minutes.  EASY! However, next time I will mix mine up in a small bowl and then pour it in the mug - its hard to get everything incorporated within the mug, and that can make flower spots and hard spots.

The top

It was surprisingly easy to pop out of the mug with a spoon!  You can see I got a few flour spots. 

I added a couple scoops of vanilla ice cream, and I was all set! Its not the prettiest presentation, but it surely hit the spot and took all of 5 minutes to make =) Somedays, that is just how its got to be.

Happy Baking!