White Shoe Box Cake

My cousin's mom has a deep love for shoes, she actually collects them. Last week  her family celebrated her 50 th birthday and this was my cousin's gift for her. The cake was white cake filled with fresh strawberry buttercream. I had a wonderful time making the cake, but I didn't have a great time making the shoe. I was trying to replicate a shoe that my cousin had send me, I have to say that the shoe turns out almost a copy cat of the original. It was a lot of work. I have made shoes before, but this type was my first, and last one maybe? until I take a class where I can learn how to make one the right and easy way.

I hope you are all having a great week so far.  Any plans for the long weekend?

Class Create a Fondant Baby /DOS in New York

This past Saturday I had the most wonderful day taking classes in the city. I belong to the New York City Cake Decorators Meet up group and every year we have an event called "Day Of Sharing" (DOS). We spend the day taking classes, networking and chatting about what we love to do, cakes! I loved just being with such enthusiastic and  nice people who all share the same passion as me. This year a took a class where we learned how to make a baby sleeping. The class was wonderful. The instructor, Ximena,provided hands on - almost one-on-one - assistance with everyone, which was awesome.

This is the baby boy I made.

For the head board we used a template, which you can buy at Ximena's website. I didn't buy any because I decided to make a paper template with it instead of buying it.  They had a lot of vendors and

 I wanted to spend a little money buying other "toys".

We also used a head mold for the baby's head, and yes I did got the one. I figure I will use it more often.

This is us working "hard".

My friend Mariela and our teacher with out final babies. We still needed it to attach the head boards but they were still soft, so that's something I will be doing this week at home.  

Here are some pictures of finished baby items that Ximena had on display. She sells the cutters for all of these. Too many choices...so little money to spend. Well I hope you enjoy the pictures.

 Have a great week everyone!

Scuba Diving and Sharks Cake

One of my resent clients requested a cake for his wife's birthday. He was very specific about what he wanted on the cake: sharks chasing his wife in a wet suit ( she is terrified of sharks when she goes scuba diving). I had seeing a cake a few weeks ago with a scuba diving theme 

and since I have been feeling so inspired

 by Ann Heap lately, I decide to take the inspiration from their cake to make my own.  

The cake is chocolate cake with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. All the decorations are made with fondant. I made the sharks and shells using a very inexpensive mold, they were so easy to make. Let me know if any of you want to learn how to make them.
Have a great day everyone!

A class with Ann Heap from Pink Cake Box

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of attending one of Ann Heap's cake decorating classes. As many of you know, Ann is the owner of Pink Cake Box, TLC Cake Crew Member , a frequent competitor on Food Network's cake Challenges and winner of TLC Ultimate Cake Off. Ann and her assistant Beverly were  amazing teachers, they answered all my questions, most of them unrelated to the cake class we were taking! If any of you at some point have the opportunity to take a class with her, do so, it would be a great experience for you.  The class was on sculpting a hand bag and was organized by the New York City Cake Decorators Meet Up. Here are some pictures of Ann working on her cake and teaching us some techniques.

After Ann covered the cake in fondant, she used a Diamond Impression Mat to Create the pattern on the "purse".

The class lasted 2 1/2 hours and I most of us weren't able to finish our cakes, but before going home I wanted to make sure to air brush my cake. Of course , I couldn't go home without asking Ann for a picture.

And this is my finished purse cake. I hope you enjoyed the photos.

 

And totally unrelated to this post, I wanted to show you what has been happening lately at my house with all my kitchen towels.

Have a wonderful week everyone.

Bridal Shower Cookie Favors

When I made the  Picnic Basket cake, I also made these cookie favors for my client. I love the color scheme they choose for the tags, dark orange and brown ribbon.

UPDATE: I still haven't recovered my pictures yet, hopefully tomorrow.

I also cook...

Yes, can you believe I cook? Not as good as a really good friend of mine, but at least I try.

Well, it turns out that last week I took my flash card with lots of pictures in it, including Camilla's birthday party pictures to the wrong place. I actually moved the pictures from the flash card to "this particular computer", I edit them and, according to my records I moved them back to my flash card.

When I got home that night, I wanted to move the pictures again to my home computer and guess what? the pictures weren't there, after recuperating from my panic attack and  trying to spend the night not thinking about it, the next day I checked the "other computer" in hopes that I was going to find my pics, and no, they were gone. So as today, my last cakes and Cami's pics are gone! I got in contact with a "computer "guy and hopefullly by the end of this week he might be able to recover them.

Mean while, I thought I would share this yummy recipe for Vodka sauce.

Recipes by Giada De Laurentiis

Please, make your own  Tomato Sauce:

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 (32-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
4 to 6 basil leaves
2 dried bay leaves
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, optional


Directions:

In a large casserole pot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic and saute until soft and translucent, about 2 minutes. Add celery and carrot and season with salt and pepper. Saute until all the vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, basil, and bay leaves and reduce the heat to low. Cover the pot and simmer for 1 hour or until thick. Remove bay leaves and taste for seasoning. If sauce tastes too acidic, add unsalted butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, to round out the flavor.
Pour half the tomato sauce into the bowl of a food processor. Process until smooth. Continue with remaining tomato sauce.
If not using all the sauce, allow it to cool completely and then pour 1 to 2 cup portions into plastic freezer bags.

FOR THE VODKA SAUCE

1 quart  of homemade Tomato Sauce or store-bought marinara sauce.

1 cup vodka
1/2 cup heavy cream, at room temperature
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1 pound pasta, any kind you like!

DIRECTIONS:

Simmer the tomato sauce and vodka in a heavy large skillet over low heat until the mixture reduces by 1/4, stirring often, about 20 minutes. Stir the cream into the tomato and vodka sauce. Simmer over low heat until the sauce is heated through. Stir in the Parmesan cheese until melted and well blended.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente, tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Drain the pasta and transfer it to the pan with the sauce, and toss to coat.


Well and since this is not my recipe, it is totally safe to try it!. It is really good.
Have a great week everyone!

Happy Birthday to my Little Camilla!

This is for you Cami:

-Yes, I know, I am driving you crazy telling you every minute that I will love you forever, but it is true

-I am so proud of you, you have  better English pronunciation than me, you go girl!

-You will be a great sister, (one day) even if you do not like to share your toys,or books

 or anything that is "yours"

-Sorry, I keep pushing you to play with dolls and you do not like them, I still have hope.

-I fake you out, I make  you think that the TV doesn't work, that we are out of ice pops,that jelly beans are mini toys and not candy, that we are out of pasta and we only have veggies and chicken for dinner.

I am so bless to have this little girl teaching me something new every day, she brings me joy and happiness.

 I ready do not know who I was before her. Happy Birthday my little pumpkin!

.

My dear friend Raychel from My Creative Way, made her this beautiful pillow case dress. Visit her shop, she has the cutest tutus and  dresses there. 

Cami and Minnie

Our guest of honor was Minnie Mouse herself, it was priceless to see Cami so happy and excited.

For the party...I had ordered the cutest personalized party supplies from Pam, at Party Starters, so I decided to get some candy and have a little buffet for the kids .  

Custom Chocolate Bar Wrappers created by Party Starters

Popcorn box labels created by Party Starters

Custom Water Bottle Labels and "Camilla is 3" created by Party Starters

We practiced for this moment for a long time.

Picnic Basket Cake

Picnic Basket
The cake is chocolate cake with Oreos and Cream Buttercream

Mini sugar bee

I made this ring box with gumpaste.
The ring is also made with gumpaste and I then painted it with silver luster dust.

For the basket ,I used a basket weave embosser.
To accomplish the color I wanted,I mixed brown food gel color with a few drops of vodka on a plate
and painted the whole basket cake.
For the basket "handles" and some details,
I used my clay gun.

The wine bottle and apples are made with rice crispy treats.
I made the grapes with gumpaste and I dusted them with some lavender petal dust mixed with vodka.

My interpretation of a picnic basket. I made this cake for a Bridal Shower, the same week I made the Princess cake, the Hello Kitty cake and all the cookie favors.I also made 30 cookie favors for the same party. I wasn't going to take this order since I was totally over book and I had to go to the city for my Pink Cake Box class, but my client is so sweet that I couldn't say no.

 As you can imagine I didn't sleep the entire week.

A sneak peak ...Camilla's birthday cake.

 We had a really wonderful time, the look on Cami's face when she saw Minnie Mouse ( our guest of honor) was priceless.

The post coming up soon.

Have a great week.