Friday, August 31, 2007

whole lotta cakin' goin on- #2

A second, more traditional shower cake from last weekend. The lady said "Simple and elegant, cornflower blue. Do whatever."

Oh good!

I was thinking of using rolled buttercream fondant overall to practice for a wedding cake I have in January - but the petit fours order did me in. I stuck with white buttercream.

I tried a different technique in frosting: "crumb coating." You slap a layer of thin icing over the entire cake without caring about crumbs, to seal in moisture AND those annoying crumbs. Allow it to crust over, then re-ice. Voila! No crumbs in your outer layer of frosting! I don't usually have problems with crumbs in the frosting (technique, darlings, technique--THIN icing, and never let your offset spatula touch the cake, ONLY the icing) - but I wanted to give this a go. It's really good, but it means you're going over the cake twice. If you have crumb issues, though, this is the way to go. Here's what the crumb coat looks like (it looks like the dickens!):



Added a few roses and buds, a few fondant pearls dipped in pearl/luster dust, a few squiggles - voila!








I know the pics are dark- but the ones with flash washed out the cake. Must learn how to take better cake pictures! I think the kitchen is a less-than-ideal photo location, however.

ANYWAY. I earned every bit of that 1.6# from the leftover cake scraps, I did.

6 comments:

Tammy said...

Oh, so very pretty!

Anonymous said...

YOU are super talented. they're gorgeous! SERIOUSLY. I am megga impressed, as my baking skills register about 1.2 on the richter scale. :(

You probably embroider cushions too.

Zintradi said...

hmmmm. perhaps A can wall off the other part of the garage and turn it into....

Mrs. O's Fancy Cakes

Annecourager said...

LOL at Karen! You are too kind. This is just the basic stuff you'd learn at a Michael's or Joanne's cake decorating class.

Embroider cushions, NOOOO! When it comes to using needles or doing any kind of sewing, I seriously stink at it. I can do buttons - barely. If there's serious mending/sewing to be done, I have to take it to Mrs. Dee, a lady in our church, or Mrs. Carol, another lady in our church.

Richard...when my friend Jennifer still lived on this side of the mountains, we thought about doing this to her garage. But alas, now she lives in Chewelah, an hour north of Spokane. bah.

Christy said...

I am in awe. Much like Karen. I seriously doubt I could do that, even with a few Michael's classes under my belt.

The petit fours looked amazing as well. I could almost taste them

Anonymous said...

Fandabbadozy cake!