Cherry Blossom Cake

I got a request for a cake for March 3, Hinamatsuri in Japan. It's the day to celebrate girls and also the arrival of spring. 

Typical Hinamatsuri cake has prince & princess. Colors are red/pink, white and green. 3-layer rice cakes in pink white & green in diamond shape are also typical sweets for the occasion. Taking inspiration from that, I decided to decorate the cake sidesall with those 3 colors.

First off, I made thin layers of pink, white and green cakes using a teeny drop of food colors. Hmmm. They came out so bright >.<  While it would have been a cute colors for Hello Kittys, I was going for more of traditional & natural colors that's more fitting for the occasion.

Green tea green, yes! That's exactly the color I was thinking of. I made the next batch with green tea and raspberry preserve. Raspberry preserve doesn't transfer its color as well so I added a teeny drop of red. This time, the sheet came out the colors I wanted. It tasted better too.

For the body of the cake, we agreed on strawberry mousse. Its color matches the theme and it's not too sweet. Tanginess of the strawberry cuts the sweetness. I lined the strips of 3 colored cakes all around, filled it with layers of genoise and mousse. As for toppers, I kept it simple rather than cutsy couple. I made cherry blossom cookies in two tones of pink. Enjoy!

Purple & Pink Castle

This would be the 3rd birthday cake that I make for this girl :). How time flies! Her mom requested a purple & pink cake. After a few exchanges, we decided on a castle.  It'll be a 1/2 sheet and there'll be a lot of space to be decorated!

For this cake, I had my mind set on a rustic brick sidewall. Fondant is a pretty decorative medium. However, I didn't want to go that route because the cake is large and I thought it could potentially look blah. So I piped out the brick pattern on a sheet pan. covered that with purple dough and made thin sponge for the sidewall. It actually came out pretty and purple :).

Next is making the towers. I cut out little circles and stacked them to make the tower. Roofs were sugar cones. Having delivery in mind, I had a skewer sticks fixed in the cones to make the roofs easily mountable later.

Here I used fondant to add vivid and solid colors to the towers. 

Putting it all together, the castle was structurally solid, yay! Dotted the top with more pink and purple flowers. Just need writing in the middle and it's ready to be delivered!

Maple Bacon Apple Pie

Jan 23 is Vinh's birthday. I had a plan for that. But also, I found out that the very day is the National Pie Day. He was meant to be Mr. Kake Fairy, he he :D.

In contrary to public perception, he doesn't get things baked for him. I'm usually caught up with the orders and experiments. I fail to set aside time to bake for home. This was a good opportunity for me to sit my butt and plan out a birthday/Pie Day surprise for him :).

What would be a good pie to make? Winter fruit pie, pandowdy...bacon! Can I pull this off? He loves bacon and I've been seeing more and more bacon being used in sweets. Surprisingly, there aren't much floating around in the cyber world. "Bacon pie" gave me quiche or pie lattice top made of bacon. Hmmm, not too enticing. Bacon crumble? Like Maple Bacon Donut from Dynamo? On an apple pie? Sounds like a plan.

To be honest, I'm not sure if I've ever cooked bacon. It's always there in the fridge but I don't usually make eye contact. Not that I don't like it. I just don't crave for it. When it comes to cooking bacon, I'm a complete novice. I was lucky, I had just come across an article on bad bacon and how not to make mistakes. I put the procedures in my head without practice. Bake them in the oven, brush some maple syrup at the end and I should be in business. Another challenge was to somehow steal bacon without him noticing the missing slivers. What's worse...I saw 5 pieces remaining and I needed 8!! I had to pull a brand new package from the freezer, defrost, and put them in the bag the way he does. 5 pieces will grow into a full package for him. Let's just hope and pray that he'll think he did it.

Ta-da! Here is the bacon I cooked! Look legit? 

I cooled them and blended into the crumble mixture. And here is the end product. I liked that the apples were still pretty crispy. As for bacon, the presence was definitely there. You could taste it without losing its applie pie status. Not bad :). With that, have a happy national pie day and happy birthday Vinh!

"M" Cake

HNY! I hope everyone had a great holiday season and wishing the best for 2014!! This special time of the year is made even more special (yes, it is possible) with three friends having birthdays back-to-back-to-back. Aaand, their names all starts with "M"! Naturally, this created a great opportunity for many of us to get together. Party time :D.

It was a no brainer to me to infest the cake with the letter "M". I couldn't think of a better way than to inbed it onto the sidewall. I piped out little M's everywhere on a sheet pan, being mindful that the letter will be flipped. I don't see big time bakeries ever doing this because it's time-consuming and can't be mass produced. This sheet of cake is dedicated to this cake and this cake only! It took ~30min to pipe out the M's. 

I hit that in the freezer to make it firm. Then poured white cake batter everywhere. I was going for the LV-logo-look...did it come close? ;)

Inside was popular chocolate cream layers. I wanted to keep that LV feel on the surface. So rather than putting in-your-face monogram, I opted for cocoa stencil. It'll be subtle enough but screaming "M"!!

The get-together was great as always. So many people were there, including those I don't get to see much of elsewhere. Everyone seemed to have liked the cake and, most important, the birthday crew liked it too. Success (^^)b.