My 1st Wedding Cake

I was so honored when Erin asked me to make her wedding cake.  Erin wanted her wedding cake to be the dessert at her wedding, and therefore the taste was the most important thing to her.  I have to admit, I was so nervous for the months leading up to it.  But when I did that practice birthday cake, it calmed me down.  I thought of the reason we have cake - there is something to celebrate.  I also remembered reading in the "Eat Me" cookbook that when Xanthe Milton makes her wedding cakes, she thought of love and wishing a lifelong of love and happiness to the special couple.  So while I was baking, I did that.  I thought of how happy Rob and Erin make eachother, and that they deserved a life full of love with eachother!  I started making the cakes on the Friday morning at 9:30.  I made 8 batches of Martha Stewart's Wedding cake:  http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/recipe/favorite-yellow-cake  The last pan of cake came out of the oven at 6 p.m. Friday night.

After the cakes were done, I made that wonderful chocolate mousse, which I used in my "NO" cake, as this was going to be the filling in the cakes.  I multiplied the recipe by 4, and hoped it would be enough mousse for the cake.  I wrapped everything up and placed in the fridge, in order for everything to set properly.

I got up at 5:30 Saturday morning and began the beginning stages of the buttercream.  I made 3 batches of the milk and flour and allowed to cool for an hour, before completing the buttercream. 

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Creamy-Vanilla-Frosting-241564

This recipe is a finicky one.  But I had a lot of practice with it over the past few months, so it no longer intimidates me.  If you follow it exactly, it makes the perfect buttercream.  I was now ready to fill and ice the cakes!  Each slab of cake would consist of 4 layers of cake and 3 layers of chocolate mousse.

The top layer of the cake was a 6", followed by an 8" and the base was a 12".  I calculated that we would get 32 pieces from the 8" and 48 pieces from the 12".  I made an extra 8" and 12" in order to get 160 pieces of wedding cake.  The 2 extra slabs were the exact same as the wedding cake itself.  The 4 batches of mousse and 3 batches of buttercream turned out to be the perfect amount!  With the 5 boxes of cakes, my girlfriend (and date for the wedding) Paula and I drove to the wedding.  Paula turned out to be a very helpful assistant, and helped in 'eyeing' everything with me and setting up the wedding cake. 

This experience taught me that I can do it!  I had many wedding guests come up to me and compliment me on the cake, which made me so happy.  The wedding was beautiful and I was so happy to be a part of it!

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, or if you would like to order anything for your next event or occasion!

Love from,
April's SweetShop

Erin and Mel Celebrate their Birthday!

My bestie Cat was throwing a birthday party for 2 of our girlfriends, Erin and Mel.  Since Erin's wedding was going to be the following week, I thought it would be a great opportunity to practice tiering cakes, so I offered to make the birthday cake. 

I used a Martha Stewart recipe to make the chocolate cake.
http://www.marthastewart.com/282238/one-bowl-chocolate-cake

I was so pleased with this recipe!  The cake is a wonderful chocolate cake, that is super moist and fluffy.  I made a 8" square and a 6" square and then sliced them in half to make up the layers of cake.

I then filled and iced the cake with buttercream.

I piped letters with chocolate and once they were cooled, placed on the cake. 

I was so happy that I practice tiering a cake.  There were a few things that I had learned from this experience, which definitely helped in preparing me for the wedding cake I had to make the following weekend!
I also found a chocolate cake recipe that I will be using going forward.  I think it will make a perfect light, fluffy and moist cupcake!

Next up:  My 1st Wedding Cake

Red Velvet Birthday Cake

We celebrated Robert's sister's birthday this weekend.  Red Velvet Cake is her favourite cake, so I decided to make that for her.  I used Martha Stewart's Red Velvet Cupcake recipe, which if you recall I have posted on here before.  It's a great recipe, and I have no need to look for another red velvet recipe.
http://www.marthastewart.com/317517/red-velvet-cupcakes

I sliced the cakes in half in order to have a 4 layered cake!  Each layer had a thin layer of cream cheese frosting.

I start my cake decorating course tonight at George Brown.  I'm excited to practice masking cakes and piping shapes! 

Enjoy your week!

Love from,
April's SweetShop

French Toast Cupcakes

My bestie bought me a cookbook at Christmas titled Eat Me! by Xanthe Milton.  I should tell you first that I look at the book all the time.  Her stories and images are truly unique.  Think Little 'Red Riding Hood bakes', mixed with 'Alice in Wonderland goes to a tea and cupcake party'.  After months of just looking at the book, I decided to make her French Toast Cupcakes. 

The cupcake part is made up of melted butter, flour, sugar, maple syrup and cinnamon.

While these were baking in the oven, I was upstairs playing with my cat.  When I came downstairs to check on them, my house smelled of french toast.  It was absolutely incredible! 

I didn't follow Eat Me's icing exactly.  She calls for brown food colouring, which is why her icing has that brown colour.  Instead, I added cinnamon and maple syrup to the cream cheese frosting.

I have to say that when you bite into this cupcake, it does taste like french toast.  It's a cinnamony cupcake that is light and moist! 

I have also decided that unless requested, I will be icing my cupcakes the old fashioned way.  I find that when the icing is piped, there is simply too much icing when you take a bite.  And although it looks pretty, it is basically a mouth full of icing.  It goes back to my theory of the trend in the bakery world where all that matters is the looks.  However, if it is requested, I have no problems piping the icing on and having a beautiful and high icing swirl.
I cannot wait to try baking more cupcakes from Eat Me! 

Baking With Mom

I went home for a visit this past weekend.  I found some pictures of me as a young girl baking that I wanted to share with you, which I am sure you will get a kick out of.

Growing up I had 2 favourite desserts that my mom would make, which are still my favourites to this day.  One was the Mocha Frozen Cheesecake which I have mentioned earlier.  The second, is my Mother's Chocolate Cake Roll.  This past weekend we made it together!

We used vanilla sugar, which my mom makes on a regular basis.

The cake roll is a jelly roll, which is a light and airy cake, due to the fact that there is no fat in the cake.  The eggs get seperated then beaten and folded in together.  My mother also showed me the proper technique of folding, which is to "cut in the middle, bring it back up on the side".

When the cake comes out of the oven, you have to work quite quickly and fold the cake with a towel, so that the cake is trained to take that shape.

Once the cake has cooled, you can fill the cake with whipped cream, or even ice cream!

Then we iced it with chocolate icing, and decorated it with some cherries and toasted coconut.

Over the years my Mother makes coffee flavoured whipped cream, so that the cake roll is more of a Mocha Cakeroll.  The coffee flavoured whipped cream adds a richness and sophistication to the cake.  But since I was learning to make it with my Mom for the first time, I wanted to have it the way I remembered as a little girl (probably the age I was in the photos at the beginning of this entry).  It was everything I remembered.  I even snuck a piece to take with me when I left and ate in on the train ride back to Toronto. 

I wish my mother and I lived closer so that we could bake together more often.  It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to the next time we bake together!

Love from,
April's SweetShop