...and boy are my feet tired
Forgive me f-list for I have sinned it's been 25 cakes (give or take) since my last cake post...
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions...
Well, the road to my posting is paved with buttercream and chocolate ganache.
So where were we?
Oh yes, I had just about had enough of cutting out Gingerbread men and making Christmas cookies when I ended up back in the kitchen and making cakes...
Rewind six to eight weeks...
Groom's cakes are funny things. A typical southern tradition, they often show up at a rehearsal dinner and try to show a bit of the groom's personality. The mother of the groom wanted a chocolate cake, with chocolate icing and decorated to reflect something of the groom's personality. It wasn't that easy, so I tried to dig a bit. It was discovered that the groom collected two things - pigs and presidential memorabilia. So we opted for pigs and presidential profiles. The pigs were relatively easy, the presidential profiles were a bit more difficult. First, it was hard to find silhouettes of the presidents. Second, really only Lincoln and Washington are recognizable. I also had Jefferson, but am afraid that it wasn't really easy to discern him from an odd shaped blob.
Brush with Celebrity time...
Okay, so when I was in NY I got a call about a cake. I think that I even chatted about this with bbjfe (jane's alter ego) when we met for lunch at the Four Seasons in NY, but I digress. So I'm on the phone with this man who has this broad NC accent I think I hear him saying that he needs a cake for a birthday for a father and daughter. The name sounded something like Ray Parker, but actually was R**** P*****. So it turns out that this cake was for the 21st birthday party of the niece of D**** P*****. He wanted me to make a Dreamsicle cake. Yes, Dreamsicle. I said sure. I was up for a challenge, I didn't have any other weddings coming up, I hadn't yet descended into Christmas cookie hell. Why not? Well, after doing a bit of surfing on the net, the consensus was that Dreamsicle cake was the stuff that church suppers were made of.
In a nutshell - this is not the recipe I used - a dreamsicle cake consists of one box of Orange Cake mix (by what I read, Dunkin Heinz cake mix was the most popular), orange jello, cool whip and instant pudding.
You make the cake in a 13" x 9" pan. When it come out of the oven you let it cool a little, then mix the jello with one cup of boiling water. Poke holes in the cake with a chopstick (or something of equal proportion) and pour the hot jello mix over the top of the cake. Cool the cake by refrigerating it (so the jello sets up, ostensibly). While the jello is doing it's magic to make the cake so it will wiggle, or at least bounce, mix the instant pudding with the cool whip, orange extract and vanilla extract. Yes, it sounds awful, but dang if it doesn't taste like a Dreamsicle. Pull the cake out of the fridge and frost with the cool whip mixture. Oh boy! (and yes, that was sarcastic).
For my foray into the world of cool whip and instant jello products Dreamsicle cakes, I made an orange version of my golden butter cake. I made the dreaded (but undeniably tasty) cool whip and instant pudding mixture and used it for filling then iced the cake in a standard buttercream that had been flavored with orange and vanilla extracts.
The cake had to be delivered to Roanoke Rapids - a two hour drive from the kitchen. Delivery charges were about half the cost of the cake.
Happy 21st Birthday H**** L**!
In between that cake and christmas, there were several Büche de Noëls as well as a bunch of cookies and smaller cakes.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I love to work with older brides. They are direct and know what they want. This couple was in their late 50s / early 60s. It was a second marraige for both and they wanted something less formal. They decided to go with mini cupcakes. So I ended up make 28 dozen mini cupcakes on Christmas day, driving home from my parents and icing them the next day at the kitchen. Then they all got delivered the following day to the event. There were sweet potato cupcakes with cream cheese icing, chocolate with peanut butter buttercream, white almond vanilla with chocolate ganache buttercream and chocolate and white cupcakes with standard white buttercream.
The last cake of 2006 was a really simple and elegant cake. The theme for the cake was inspired by the snowflake cake topper that had been selected. The mother of the bride had made favor boxes and tied them with navy blue ribbon, so the ribbon was incorporated with the design as well. Royal icing snowflakes sprinkled with white luster sugar were used on the plainly iced cake. The cake consisted of chocolate cakes with chocolate ganache and lemon cake with lemon curd. All cakes were iced in cream cheese icing. Gardenias were used to accent the cake:
Detail of royal icing snowflakes:
One of the unexpected and nice things about doing wedding cakes are the people who I meet. The couple that got married in early December called me up and asked me to make birthday cakes for them. When I asked them what they would like, they said exactly what they had had for their wedding. So Carrot Cake and Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Ganache:
January is a slow month for weddings, so wouldn't it just figure that the two wedding I had this month were both on the same day?
The first wedding was at the local arts council building which is challenging space at the best of times. It is divided up into a couple of lobby areas outside of the two theatres in the building, as well as gallery space. It's clean and white and modern. Unfortunately, the shades weren't working so the sun was beating in on the cake. Of course, this was the week we were having our 70+ heat wave. The AC did a little to cool things down.
The bride selected golden butter with standard buttercream for her bottom tier, chocolate with chocolate ganache for her middle tier, and mocha espresso for her top tier. In addition, for her anniversary cake she had me make a separate Sweet Potato Praline cake.
The cake was decorated with a lily of the valley motif and was adorned with icing roses with kiss centers.
Here's the detail and a close up of the Boyd's Bear cake topper!
The second wedding was around the corner from the arts council at the Marriott. This was a great room and a great design for the wedding reception. Normally, I'm not all that taken with strong colors (I hate using black and red icing on a cake). But with the roses and rose petal the cake table really looked nice.
The cake was Red Velvet, White Almond Vanilla with Raspberry Jam, and Mocha Espresso all iced in Italian Buttercream. A simple dot pattern was used and was really very nice. A monogram was used to top the cake.
While the room was very nicely designed. The chairs had white linen covers with bright red tie-backs, and the tables had black stripped satin overlays. To add a bit of whimsey added to the event, instead of the usual floral centerpieces, the bride had gotten these vases that looked like oversized champagne glasses for each table and filled them with glass stones and water and in each vase was a Beta fish. Totally cool and different (ducking head from all those PETA folks! -- I am sure each fish was treated humanely and went to a good home after the event was over.)
The events/catering manager at the Marriott asked me to participate in an event that they were holding for their prospective wedding reception clients. It was something else. The downtown Marriott really has created a high water mark for area chain hotels. They pulled out all the stops and let me tell you, it was something else. The food was marvelous, presentation was gorgeous. As one of my colleagues said - this isn't hotel food. I had a small display and served up cake to those who would have it. My cake dummy was looking a bit askew. I made a sweet potato praline, a white cake with fresh sliced strawberries and strawberry cream cheese, and a chocolate cake with apricot and truffle.
The coffee house where I rent kitchen space recently lost their chef. So they had this tea scheduled for the brownies and I told them I'd help out. I prepared chocolate dipped strawberries (not pictured) as well as, Citrus Shortbread, Petit Fours, and Chocolate mini-cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream. The picture isn't all that great, but that's the problem with florescent lighting.
After the day in the kitchen, I headed over to Lindt to dip pound cake and blood oranges for my friend who manages the Lindt store. He was interested in using their new Madagascar Chocolate for dipping. OMG! blood oranges and chocolate. Oh sooooo good.
Which brings me to this past Sunday.
The Carolina Inn Bridal Fair really is an amazing Bridal Show. And today's event was outstanding. I felt very privileged to have my table in the Old Well ballroom.
Though the show was only three hours in length, the foot traffic was fairly heavy -- I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that the room I was in was shared with The Carolina Inn's catering staff. They had an incredible spread of everything under the sun from their menus. It should be illegal that the food smelled so good. My favorite were the Shrimp and Risotto balls -- last time I had them I was in Pompeii. These were just as good - if not better!
Today's cakes made sure that there was something for everyone. Aside from the perennial favorite and my signature cake Sweet Potato Praline cake -- there were seven other cakes on hand:
One of the area florists did a fantastic job with topper arrangement with trailing vines.
In addition they also furnished flowers to decorate the cakes. My favorite in particular -- and not something that you would think of for a wedding -- were these wonderful bright purple thistles. I used it on the coconut cake with blackberry jam filling. Not a combination of flavors that I would put together, but WOW! It really is good. Also, the white lilies were lovely as well on the Golden Butter Cake.
The chocolate cakes had the roses and were done chocolate on italian buttercream and vice versa.
The chocolate fudge truffle raspberry - chocolate cake with truffle, fresh raspberries and chocolate whipped cream mousse got demolished. Of course, when folks started tasting the chocolate buttercream truffle, it quickly went as well.
And for those on special diets, we had some treats on hand so they were included:
In addition to our table space, we were also given a table in the Cake Gallery to show off our dummy cakes. I had a Blue Silk Hydrangea cake. The florist made a wonderful toss bouquet for the table.
You'll note that the cake is much more even on the table than at the Marriott. I ended up redoing the cake and making it level. It's rather funny, to take the icing off the cake dummy (styrofoam cut to shape), all you have to do is run it through the dishwasher.
Several of my good friends were on hand to help out, including Tony from Lindt Chocolate who was kind enough to spend his day off selling my wares.
We gave away a really nice gift basket that included Coffee, Tea, an assortment of Lindt Chocolate (of course, we wouldn't dare use any other) and a copy of the book Southern Weddings.
I really like getting out to these types of events. The kitchen can be a rather solitary place. Going to these shows helps me to keep in touch with other folks in this business, as well as meet new clients. It's good to get out of the norm every so often -- even if it is a bit taxing on the toes.
Okay, now would be a good time for a foot massage.
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions...
Well, the road to my posting is paved with buttercream and chocolate ganache.
So where were we?
Oh yes, I had just about had enough of cutting out Gingerbread men and making Christmas cookies when I ended up back in the kitchen and making cakes...
Rewind six to eight weeks...
Groom's cakes are funny things. A typical southern tradition, they often show up at a rehearsal dinner and try to show a bit of the groom's personality. The mother of the groom wanted a chocolate cake, with chocolate icing and decorated to reflect something of the groom's personality. It wasn't that easy, so I tried to dig a bit. It was discovered that the groom collected two things - pigs and presidential memorabilia. So we opted for pigs and presidential profiles. The pigs were relatively easy, the presidential profiles were a bit more difficult. First, it was hard to find silhouettes of the presidents. Second, really only Lincoln and Washington are recognizable. I also had Jefferson, but am afraid that it wasn't really easy to discern him from an odd shaped blob.
Brush with Celebrity time...
Okay, so when I was in NY I got a call about a cake. I think that I even chatted about this with bbjfe (jane's alter ego) when we met for lunch at the Four Seasons in NY, but I digress. So I'm on the phone with this man who has this broad NC accent I think I hear him saying that he needs a cake for a birthday for a father and daughter. The name sounded something like Ray Parker, but actually was R**** P*****. So it turns out that this cake was for the 21st birthday party of the niece of D**** P*****. He wanted me to make a Dreamsicle cake. Yes, Dreamsicle. I said sure. I was up for a challenge, I didn't have any other weddings coming up, I hadn't yet descended into Christmas cookie hell. Why not? Well, after doing a bit of surfing on the net, the consensus was that Dreamsicle cake was the stuff that church suppers were made of.
In a nutshell - this is not the recipe I used - a dreamsicle cake consists of one box of Orange Cake mix (by what I read, Dunkin Heinz cake mix was the most popular), orange jello, cool whip and instant pudding.
You make the cake in a 13" x 9" pan. When it come out of the oven you let it cool a little, then mix the jello with one cup of boiling water. Poke holes in the cake with a chopstick (or something of equal proportion) and pour the hot jello mix over the top of the cake. Cool the cake by refrigerating it (so the jello sets up, ostensibly). While the jello is doing it's magic to make the cake so it will wiggle, or at least bounce, mix the instant pudding with the cool whip, orange extract and vanilla extract. Yes, it sounds awful, but dang if it doesn't taste like a Dreamsicle. Pull the cake out of the fridge and frost with the cool whip mixture. Oh boy! (and yes, that was sarcastic).
For my foray into the world of cool whip and instant jello products Dreamsicle cakes, I made an orange version of my golden butter cake. I made the dreaded (but undeniably tasty) cool whip and instant pudding mixture and used it for filling then iced the cake in a standard buttercream that had been flavored with orange and vanilla extracts.
The cake had to be delivered to Roanoke Rapids - a two hour drive from the kitchen. Delivery charges were about half the cost of the cake.
Happy 21st Birthday H**** L**!
In between that cake and christmas, there were several Büche de Noëls as well as a bunch of cookies and smaller cakes.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I love to work with older brides. They are direct and know what they want. This couple was in their late 50s / early 60s. It was a second marraige for both and they wanted something less formal. They decided to go with mini cupcakes. So I ended up make 28 dozen mini cupcakes on Christmas day, driving home from my parents and icing them the next day at the kitchen. Then they all got delivered the following day to the event. There were sweet potato cupcakes with cream cheese icing, chocolate with peanut butter buttercream, white almond vanilla with chocolate ganache buttercream and chocolate and white cupcakes with standard white buttercream.
The last cake of 2006 was a really simple and elegant cake. The theme for the cake was inspired by the snowflake cake topper that had been selected. The mother of the bride had made favor boxes and tied them with navy blue ribbon, so the ribbon was incorporated with the design as well. Royal icing snowflakes sprinkled with white luster sugar were used on the plainly iced cake. The cake consisted of chocolate cakes with chocolate ganache and lemon cake with lemon curd. All cakes were iced in cream cheese icing. Gardenias were used to accent the cake:
Detail of royal icing snowflakes:
One of the unexpected and nice things about doing wedding cakes are the people who I meet. The couple that got married in early December called me up and asked me to make birthday cakes for them. When I asked them what they would like, they said exactly what they had had for their wedding. So Carrot Cake and Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Ganache:
January is a slow month for weddings, so wouldn't it just figure that the two wedding I had this month were both on the same day?
The first wedding was at the local arts council building which is challenging space at the best of times. It is divided up into a couple of lobby areas outside of the two theatres in the building, as well as gallery space. It's clean and white and modern. Unfortunately, the shades weren't working so the sun was beating in on the cake. Of course, this was the week we were having our 70+ heat wave. The AC did a little to cool things down.
The bride selected golden butter with standard buttercream for her bottom tier, chocolate with chocolate ganache for her middle tier, and mocha espresso for her top tier. In addition, for her anniversary cake she had me make a separate Sweet Potato Praline cake.
The cake was decorated with a lily of the valley motif and was adorned with icing roses with kiss centers.
Here's the detail and a close up of the Boyd's Bear cake topper!
The second wedding was around the corner from the arts council at the Marriott. This was a great room and a great design for the wedding reception. Normally, I'm not all that taken with strong colors (I hate using black and red icing on a cake). But with the roses and rose petal the cake table really looked nice.
The cake was Red Velvet, White Almond Vanilla with Raspberry Jam, and Mocha Espresso all iced in Italian Buttercream. A simple dot pattern was used and was really very nice. A monogram was used to top the cake.
While the room was very nicely designed. The chairs had white linen covers with bright red tie-backs, and the tables had black stripped satin overlays. To add a bit of whimsey added to the event, instead of the usual floral centerpieces, the bride had gotten these vases that looked like oversized champagne glasses for each table and filled them with glass stones and water and in each vase was a Beta fish. Totally cool and different (ducking head from all those PETA folks! -- I am sure each fish was treated humanely and went to a good home after the event was over.)
The events/catering manager at the Marriott asked me to participate in an event that they were holding for their prospective wedding reception clients. It was something else. The downtown Marriott really has created a high water mark for area chain hotels. They pulled out all the stops and let me tell you, it was something else. The food was marvelous, presentation was gorgeous. As one of my colleagues said - this isn't hotel food. I had a small display and served up cake to those who would have it. My cake dummy was looking a bit askew. I made a sweet potato praline, a white cake with fresh sliced strawberries and strawberry cream cheese, and a chocolate cake with apricot and truffle.
The coffee house where I rent kitchen space recently lost their chef. So they had this tea scheduled for the brownies and I told them I'd help out. I prepared chocolate dipped strawberries (not pictured) as well as, Citrus Shortbread, Petit Fours, and Chocolate mini-cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream. The picture isn't all that great, but that's the problem with florescent lighting.
After the day in the kitchen, I headed over to Lindt to dip pound cake and blood oranges for my friend who manages the Lindt store. He was interested in using their new Madagascar Chocolate for dipping. OMG! blood oranges and chocolate. Oh sooooo good.
Which brings me to this past Sunday.
The Carolina Inn Bridal Fair really is an amazing Bridal Show. And today's event was outstanding. I felt very privileged to have my table in the Old Well ballroom.
Though the show was only three hours in length, the foot traffic was fairly heavy -- I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that the room I was in was shared with The Carolina Inn's catering staff. They had an incredible spread of everything under the sun from their menus. It should be illegal that the food smelled so good. My favorite were the Shrimp and Risotto balls -- last time I had them I was in Pompeii. These were just as good - if not better!
Today's cakes made sure that there was something for everyone. Aside from the perennial favorite and my signature cake Sweet Potato Praline cake -- there were seven other cakes on hand:
- Classic White Vanilla Almond with fresh sliced strawberries & strawberry cream cheese filling iced in Italian Buttercream
- Chocolate Fudge Truffle Raspberry
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffle
- Golden Butter with Truffle & Apricot
- Frog Commissary Carrot Cake
- Lemon Buttermilk Cake with Lemon Curd
- Coconut cake with Blackberry filling
One of the area florists did a fantastic job with topper arrangement with trailing vines.
In addition they also furnished flowers to decorate the cakes. My favorite in particular -- and not something that you would think of for a wedding -- were these wonderful bright purple thistles. I used it on the coconut cake with blackberry jam filling. Not a combination of flavors that I would put together, but WOW! It really is good. Also, the white lilies were lovely as well on the Golden Butter Cake.
The chocolate cakes had the roses and were done chocolate on italian buttercream and vice versa.
The chocolate fudge truffle raspberry - chocolate cake with truffle, fresh raspberries and chocolate whipped cream mousse got demolished. Of course, when folks started tasting the chocolate buttercream truffle, it quickly went as well.
And for those on special diets, we had some treats on hand so they were included:
- Mocha Fudge Cake with Buzz Beans -- gluten free
- Diabetic Friendly Splenda® Cheesecake
- Vegan Carrot Cake
In addition to our table space, we were also given a table in the Cake Gallery to show off our dummy cakes. I had a Blue Silk Hydrangea cake. The florist made a wonderful toss bouquet for the table.
You'll note that the cake is much more even on the table than at the Marriott. I ended up redoing the cake and making it level. It's rather funny, to take the icing off the cake dummy (styrofoam cut to shape), all you have to do is run it through the dishwasher.
Several of my good friends were on hand to help out, including Tony from Lindt Chocolate who was kind enough to spend his day off selling my wares.
We gave away a really nice gift basket that included Coffee, Tea, an assortment of Lindt Chocolate (of course, we wouldn't dare use any other) and a copy of the book Southern Weddings.
I really like getting out to these types of events. The kitchen can be a rather solitary place. Going to these shows helps me to keep in touch with other folks in this business, as well as meet new clients. It's good to get out of the norm every so often -- even if it is a bit taxing on the toes.
Okay, now would be a good time for a foot massage.