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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Cheesecake... No Longer a Mystery... Well, Not Exactly

Now that Christmas is over I can breathe again for the moment.  I had fun and did a few things over the last month.

From my last post you all know I got to make my first wedding cake.  This was a great experience and truthfully I hope to get another opportunity.  So, anyone out there in the local area.... (hint, hint).

This Christmas I was planning on making homemade gift baskets for some of my and my husband's co-workers, but there was a slight change of plans.  His office decided to do and old fashion cookie swap, which he joyfully volunteered my services.  How nice of him.  Now this was beyond his control, they did change the date of the swap and I had only a day to bake 3 dozen cookies.  No big deal, I had most of what I needed to make my Monster Cookies.  Then for me, work very busy and I didn't have the time to make too many things.  So, I went with Monster Cookies for all my gift baskets.  They were a huge hit with my daughter's teachers.  A big enough hit that one of her teachers order a chocolate cheesecake for Christmas.

This was my adventure..... making a cheesecake.  I had never made one before.  The closest I came to making a cheesecake was making a pie.  I never owned a spring form pan until now.  As much as I love using new toys, I was a little afraid of this one.  The one thing I was not sure about getting the bottom of the pan off.  I was actually stumped on this one.  I tried to find an episode of Good Eats on Food Network that I had seen, but was unable to find it.  So, I dove in and made the first cake.

Not too bad.

It eventually came off after fighting with a knife.

Lucky for me the crust thick and no one noticed the thinner spots. Overall the cake was great.

Round 2.... thought I would try some preventive measures.

No such luck.

Cake broke in half.

Well, I can at least say this much... I conquered the making of the cheesecake, but not the removal of one.

I need to back to the kitchen I guess.  I am not complaining.

So, until next time...... Happy Baking!









Saturday, December 17, 2011

The Wedding Cake

I can finally say I made my first wedding cake.  Here it is.....


I know it isn't too elaborate or anything, but I like to think it is pretty good.

I made this cake for a co-worker.  She just got married on December 10th.  She decided to have a very small intimate wedding.  She had no plans of having a cake at the reception.  I, of course, could not let that happen.  Every woman needs a cake at he wedding.  So, I decided to make her her cake anyway.

With getting married a few weeks before Christmas, she was having a Christmas/Winter themed wedding.  With that in mind, I started thinking of winter type things to decorate with.  I really wanted to make snowflakes, but was unable to find a snowflake cutter or anything that looked like one on such short noticed.  So, I thought stars was the next best things.  This was my inspiration.  It was from Wilton.com ......


I know, it isn't exactly the same, but that I wasn't trying for that.  I just wanted an idea.  The inspiration cake is done completely in fondant, where I iced the cake in buttercream and only the stars are made from fondant. I covered the stars in a blue and silver pearl dust. (This was actually very fun to do).  It was also my first time working with fondant.  After getting over my initial fear of it, I really like working with it and can really see the potential of using it.  I hope to get the chance to use it again.

I had real fun making this cake and it was great seeing J's face when she saw it.  She was happy and I was glad to bring a little extra happiness to her on her special day.

I know I have bee talking about doing a few different with my blog and haven't done anything.  But, I finally have what I want to do, so look for some new fun things after the New Year.  

Until next time....... Happy Baking!