Louis Vuitton Choconilla Cake

A Louis Vuitton inspired bag cake I made for my sister who celebrated her birthday with us for the first time in US.  It was also her first time to the states and our reunion after 7 long years.  I had to make her cake extra special of course.

Cake was layers of alternating chocolate and vanilla cakes, thus my son named it Choconilla Cake. :)  With chocolate ganache in between layers and crumb coated with vanilla buttercream then covered and decorated with marshmallow fondant. 

It took me several hours to make the cake but I didn't mind the long hours as I had fun making it. I didn't even notice one night while I was making it that it was already 3 am, and I had to wake up by 6 am for work.  It was all worth it. :)

Cake..... Pops and Balls!

Here's another way of making your favorite cake and forming it to a yummy treat.  Cake pops or cake balls!  I usually do this if I made a cake that had some trimmings left or if I needed some give aways for my kids' teachers for some kind of occasion. 

Let me tell you now these little treats are quite a big task to do.  If you are looking for a quick treat this is not what you would want to do.  Starting with baking your cake, crumbling it, making your frosting, putting the crumbled cake and frosting together, to chilling it and forming to a ball.... it doesn't end there.  You will need to then chill it again, melt some chocolate, dip the cake balls in the chocolate for the final covering.  Now depending on what design you would like to do, you need to figure if you need to put it while the chocolate coating is still wet, partially dry or completely dry.  Then for the final touch, how do you arrange those cute little treats for presentation?!?  Whew, now tell me that's quick to do. :)

But if you want to make an impression.... I surely do recommend you make these!  It never fail to give me compliments from everybody who received it. :D

Trimmings from one of the cakes I did. My kids finished these all!

These I gave to my kids' teachers and also to some of my friends last holiday season.

Cake pops as present to my friend at work for her last birthday.

More cake pops and cake balls for my kids school for last Valentine's Day.

Extraordinary Cakes... :)

This one was for a friend who just bought his house.  Our house warming gift.

For an ex-coworker... still a friend.  A going away cake and wished her goodluck on a new job.

Happy Valentine's Day!  Mini cakes for my eldest son's teachers.

Buchi!

Hubby tried making buchi (sesame balls) today, I must say it's pretty good for a first try. I am so proud of him for trying. :)

Chanel Bag?

This cake I had lots of fun doing.... but seeing my friend react when she saw it was priceless.  This was for her 40th birthday celebration where we prepared a Red Carpet Glam theme.  The cake bag was inspired by the actual gift of her husband to her.  She said that it was a carbon copy of the bag.

Cake was black forest cake which she requested covered with chocolate fondant.  Jimmy Choo shoes are made out of gumpaste... honestly, I didn't really like the look of the shoes but since I poured so much time doing it I might as well put it there. The people who saw the shoes thought that it was real... used old shoes. Haha!  The other accessories there are real ones, it's an additional gift from us to our friend.

Belated Happy Birthday Again, Lisa!

Special Cake Requests

February 2011.  I was asked by my coworker to make a couple of cakes specialized for her daughter's second birthday and another cake for her friend to celebrate a year of sobriety. 

I had fun doing these cakes, as I always do in all, but of course every one posed a struggle at one point. For Elmo, I had a hard time with the royal icing I used for Elmo's fur.  I used meringue powder for the royal icing and red food color,  I find the taste yucky. :))  Elmo's head, arms and legs are out of rice crispy treats.

The gold coin cake was a white almond sour cream cake with vanilla buttercream.  It was my first try making that cake and was so nervous that they will not like it.  Then I had some trouble making it gold.  First I tried to paint the gold highlighter dust.  I almost used vodka to mix with the dust, good thing I remember that it was for a recovering alcoholic. haha! But eventually what worked out for me was just rubbing the dust dry on the cake using my clean fingers. :)

All in all, both cakes were a hit and my friend was pleased.... so I was happy!

January 2011 Cakes

2011... Five cakes to start the new year... Five birthday cakes for friends. 

This is my attempt at a beyblade cake for Rae. This was the second cake because the first that I did just crumbled apart the morning after I did it. Luckily I had spare cakes that I was able to pull this one quickly.  I am not too happy how this turned out because I wanted to add more details to it and make it more real.  

Anyway, this is a flame libra beyblade and the face I did hand painted with icing gel colors.

Cake was chocolate cake with buttercream icing. 

A Hello Kitty cake for Jolina. She and her mom are avid fans of Kitty (so am I). So I didn't even had second thoughts on this cake.  I just have to do it!

Cake was strawberry cake with vanilla buttercream icing.

Another cake design that I have always wanted to do.  A bathtub cake for Nett.  They were teasing that I should have let some boobies pop out of the tub... if only I knew she was game about it. :)

Cake was marble cake with vanilla buttercream icing. 

This cake was a challenge for me.  Of the five cakes, this one was the biggest.  Chocolate cake for the body and legs of Lego man, then rice crispies for his head and arms.  I had trouble sticking his arms, as you can see it's not even.  But I am pleased when I saw Joey's reaction and knew that he was happy with it. 

Last but not the least.... the boobies cake for Oliver.   Mocha cake with swiss meringue buttercream.  Surprisingly not too hard to do but gives you a hell of a laugh!  So I am waiting for the opportunity to make this cake again.

Tattoo I also hand painted with his name on it.

Out of the five I have to admit that I had fun doing the boobies cake. :D  

Cake Decorating.... passion discovered.

Last year, 2010, I discovered a new hobby that I really enjoyed and looking forward every time. I started baking when I had my second child and with my craving of that mocha cake that I have known growing up. Getting that Goldilocks cake is one of the downside of moving to the US, haha! I just love their mocha cake. So with this craving I started to search in the internet for a recipe that would somehow compare. Luckily I found one and started making it for birthdays (as you can see in my other post of my son's birthday cakes). Learning to bake that mocha cake was then enough for me. I was pretty much contented with just plain buttercream icing decorations... but as you may notice I pretty much suck at it. :) Anyhow, as I would always let my time pass by browsing the net and admiring all the beautiful cakes I saw... I wondered if I can also make such cake. So that sparked yet another interest of mine.... make fondant cakes!

 I started in July 2010 by making a simple round happy birthday cake with polka dots decoration. As I made it I was thinking "man this is not easy". But I managed to finish it and was quite pleased. I used a store bought fondant at that time and honestly didn't like it. I have to find an alternative.... so marshmallow fondant came! It was not only yummy but it was very cheap compared to buying a ready made fondant.

In the end.. finding the right recipe and buying the right tools (a lot of them) I have found my passion!

P.S.  The first picture above is the collage of fondant cakes I made in 2010.

Jake's Birthday Cakes

In a couple of months my youngest will be turning 4 and that means I need to start his party planning started. And most importantly think about his birthday cake. It will be the first time that I will be doing his cake in fondant. As you can see in the pictures his past 3 birthday cakes are all out of swiss meringue buttercream. I haven't discovered fondant then so I am super excited to be doing his upcoming birthday cake. I have asked him what he wanted for his cake. He would say he wants superheroes especially batman and spiderman. But I don't think he has made up his mind yet because if I ask him again what he wants he would tell a different one like Ironman again! Well, I guess I still have a month and a half to really decide what his cake will be. So, we'll see.

This is the cake I made for his first birthday.  I tried hard to make it pretty just by using the buttercream icing.

His second birthday cake. Again mocha cake with same buttercream icing.  Didn't make that much effort here.  I did this for his exact birthday so he can blow candles on that day.

I would say this is the worst cake I have ever made.  This is the cake I served at Jake's second birthday party.  Though the taste is decent but I had a ton of trouble making this.  I overdid the icing so it went runny. Then the food color I used I thought was red but when I put it in the icing it was bright pink! Oh my!

  

This is his third birthday cake. Still mocha cake but I think I've improved on this cake. He wanted an Iron Man cake but at that time I haven't discovered the art of making fondant cakes. So this is what I have came up with.  I am pretty happy with this since he was able to recognize the cake and he was happy about it.

New here..

I have been doing some personal blogs for some time now but for the most part it was meant to be shared to family and friends only. I now feel like I could try to take a stab at an "open" blog and let the whole world (at least that's what I think) see it.

I guess in all things new or started, it is customary to introduce one self and give people some information about me.  So here goes a short "about me" post..

I am a mother of two precious sons.  And a wife for 12 years now. Yeah, for me it's been a long time! ;)  I was born and raised in the Philippines and now living in the United States.  What brought me in the US was work.  Was given an opportunity to seek as what other may call greener pasteur outside my homeland.  And it is truly a blessing as me and my husband learned to stand and raise our family on our own.

Me and my husband are both computer programmers working at one of the top transportation companies in America.  We love our work but of course there will be moments that we hate it. :)  Aside from sitting on a nice little desk 8 hours a day and tending to the family, I also keep myself busy with a newfound hobby about a year ago.  CAKE DECORATING! So this blog would probably be bombarded with cake posts. :D

I think I have said enough about myself..... so, here's to a new blogging journey for me.