Mango Flower Cake

Well we  have just finished with the last unofficial weekend of summer, yet I still felt the need to decorate a cake with fruit.  The fruit du jour? Mango!

 I made some black gumpaste flowers.

The Ingredients:

(serves 12)

1 3/4c All purpose flour

1 to 1 1/4c Powdered sugar
1 1/2tsp Baking powder
3 Eggs room temp
1/3 c Butter room temp
1/2c oil
1c Fresh mango puree
1 tsp Vanilla essence

I cut up a mango and placed it into my grinder.

Then I pureed the mango

Place all dry ingredients in a bowl and keep aside. In a separate bowl beat oil,butter and sugar till creamy. Add eggs one at a time and beat after each addition. Add the vanilla essence. Now mix the flour mixture slowly in to batches. Fold in the flour mixture by adding the mango puree in between.

Mix well till all the flour is incorporated well.

 Batter is poured into pans for baking.

Preheat the oven at 325 degree C for 15 mins. Grease a cake tin pour the batter to the tin. Bake the cake at 325 degree C approximately 45 min or insert a toothpick andmake sure it comes out clean. When the cake is done allow it to cool on wire rack.

After the cake is baked I made a butter cream icing.  I smoothed the icing on one layer, chopped another mango into small chunks and added it the layer.

Added another layer and icing the rest of the cake.

I did this also for the smaller tier that was to be placed on top.

Added fondant

And Voila!

Delish!

Carrot Cake For Mom

It was my mother-in-law's birthday, so of course I wanted to contribute a cake for this wonderful occasion.  I have married into a family that appreciates a more traditional dessert.  I decided on a carrot cake.  While this cake was for Mom, I knew my husband loved this flavour.

I was a bit short for time, so I decided on a cake that was (ahem) partially from scratch.

I found a cake recipe on allrecipes.com that incorporated a carrot cake mix with added ingredients.

Ingredients
1 (18.5 ounce) package carrot cake mix
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 finely grated carrot (optional.... I added it in)
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts (optional)
1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple with juice

Directions


1.Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (150 degrees C). Grease and flour two 8 inch round pans.

2.In large bowl, blend cake mix, oil, water, undrain pineapple, eggs, and nuts. Beat for 2 minutes with an electric mixer at medium speed. Spread batter into prepared pans.

* I used 3 boxes and baked three 10" pans.

You can view my cream cheese frosting recipe here.

And then it was time for assembly...

 One layer with come frosting on top

 Lets add on the other layers

Cream cheese frosting is on

 I decorated with orange coloured butter cream icing

And voila!

This cake was a hit, and it was nice and moist.

DELISH!

Birthday Black Cake

A friend of mine requested a traditional Jamaican Black Cake for her husband's 35th birthday.  I had baked this previously, but decided to try a different recipe this time around.  With this cake I used fruit that was soaked for two months, I added bread crumbs to the recipe and an extra tablespoon of browning.

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound unsalted butter
• 1/2 pound light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 4 eggs
• 3 tablespoons of browning
• 6 ounces bread crumbs
• 6 ounces flour
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup rum
• 1 pint Port
• 4 cups mixed marinated fruit, recipe follows, squeezed and finely chopped

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the vanilla, lime juice, and lime zest. Add the eggs 1 at a time, and incorporate well. Combine bread crumbs, flour, all the spices, baking powder, and salt. Combine rum and port. Add flour mixture alternately with rum/port mixture into the batter. Fold in the chopped marinated fruit.
Prepare 1 (8-inch) cake pan. Fill the pan 3/4 of the way and bake until a skewer comes out of the center of the cake clean, about 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Mixed Marinated Fruit:

• 1 pound golden raisins
• 4 ounces mixed peel
• 4 ounces cherries
• 1/2 pound prunes (pitted), cut in quarters or eighths, depending on size
• Jamaican white rum
• Passover wine

Grind raisins, prunes, mixed peel, and cherries and put in a glass jar and cover with mixture of equal parts Jamaican white rum and passover wine. Cover with a tight fitting lid, label, and date the jar. Put in a cool, dry cupboard. From time to time, check the fruits to see if more liquor is needed, as the fruits will plump and soak up the liquid.
Keep the fruit covered in liquor. It is best to allow the fruit to marinate for at least 1 month for best flavor.

This cake was covered with a delicious royal icing.

Beat 2 egg whites to a froth. Add 1 pound confectioners sugar, 1 tsp lemon juice a little at a time on low speed.  DO NOT LEAVE UNUSED ICING UNATTENDED...IF YOU HAVE TO STOP, MAKE SURE IT IS COVERED WITH DAMP PAPER TOWELS, OR COVERED AND REFRIGERATED. This icing hardens and dries up quickly. A second layer of icing may be applied when the first has dried. Decorate as desired.

Jamaican Black Cake

Thank you to Nadine who requested a Jamaican Black Cake for the holidays.  This is a traditional holiday dessert which is deliciously, dark and rich and unlike any other fruit cake you will run across.

It is a dense cake soaked with rum and port wine and allowed to sit and ferment for several weeks or months.  It is also served at weddings and special occasions.

Here is the recipe that I used for this delicious cake. 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup flour
8 ounces margarine or butter
8 ounces sugar
4 eggs
1 pound raisins*
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 ounces mixed peel*
4 ounces cherries*
1/2 pound prunes (chopped)
1 cup wine/brandy*
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 lime or lemon, finely grated rind only
2 tablespoons browning

Directions:
*I grounded and soaked these ingredients in rum and wine a few weeks in advance.  Kept in a sealed glass jar.

Cream butter, sugar and browning until soft and fluffy. Sieve all dry ingredients together Beat eggs, wine/brandy together. Add egg mixture to creamed butter and sugar. Add fruits. Add flour and fold in. Do no over-beat when mixing. Bake at 350F for 1 1/2 hours. 

This baked an 8 1/2" round. I decorated this cake with royal icing and silver dragees.

Jack and Jill Cake

Thank you to Lori-Ann who placed a request for a Jack and Jill Cake for Shane and Jodi. 

It was to be two tiered with the bottom flavour a two layered cookies and cream.  The top tier would be a two layered vanilla cake with the bottom layer dyed with a blue food colouring and the top tier pink.  Here is my recipe for the cookies and Cream Cake.

Ingredients:
1 (18.25 ounce) package white cake mix
1 1/4 cups water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 egg whites
1 cup chocolate sandwich cookie crumbs

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans.

2.In a large bowl, mix the cake mix, water, oil, and 3 egg whites with an electric mixer on high speed for 2 minutes. Gently stir in crushed cookies. Pour batter into the prepared pans.

3.Bake for 25 to 35 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pans. Remove from pans, and completely cool on racks.

I decorated this cake with buttercream frosting and added fondant accents to bring the theme together.  I made the baby onsie and booties with gumpaste.

Red Velvet (CHRISTMAS) Cupcakes

I received a request for Christmas Cupcakes once again. Tis the Season! I had carte blanche on this 35 plus cupcake order. I thought nothing says Christmas like the Red Velvet Cupake.

Wait a second.... I will add that you cannot go wrong with Red Velvet for any occasion.
I decided on a Pull Apart Cake aka a Pull Away Cake. This is a number of cupcakes placed together to create a theme or an actual cake. I had completed this project in August for 1 year old Drew by completely icing over thirty cupcakes so they ended up looking like a sheet cake.

Today I formed cupcakes as a Christmas Tree. First of all here are the ingredients that you will need to bake your Red Velvet Cupcakes:

Ingredients
1 package white cake mix (18.25 oz size)

2 tablespoons cocoa
5 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
2 (1 oz bottle) red liquid food colouring

While cupcake batter is blending I add red food colouring

Hmmm.....kind of red

Let's fill those cups!

Nicely baked

Arrange cupcakes in form of a ChristmasTree

Decorate all with cream cheese frosting (click for recipe). I had to dye it in various colours.... And Voila!

Cake for McKenzie

Thank you to Renae, who asked if I could decorate a birthday cake for her princess of a daughter, Mckenzie.  This is a two layered white cake, however, for the bottom layer I added pink food colouring to the cake batter.  I wish I could be there to watch Renae and Mckenzie cut the cake.

Udate: Here are some photos from McKenzie's cake event.

Here is a the recipe I used for this easy white cake.  Found on Allrecipes.com this is a can't go wrong cake.

Ingredients:

1 cup white sugar

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup milk

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x9 inch pan or line a muffin pan with paper liners.

2.In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.

3.Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven. For cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

Spyro The Dragon

Thank you to my friend Kelly who thought of my cakes as her daughter Madyson's birthday neared.  Kelly requested a cake with Spyro the dragon.  Yikes!   I had never done a dragon before, but as usually as was up to the challenge.  Hmmmmm..... but how was I going to get the image of Spyro on Mady's cake?  I'll get back to that in a bit.

So Kelly wanted a marble cake to serve over 20 people.  We decided on a 10" two layered, that would end up being almost 5" high.

So here are the ingredients I used for my Marble Cake recipe:
- 2 cups sifted cake flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup butter or margarine
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup milk
- 3 egg whites 1 1/2 0Z. (1 1/2 sq.) unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
- 2 tablespoons hot water
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
(found on ifood.tv)

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together.

Cream the butter with extract; gradually add sugar, creaming until fluffy.
Beating only until smooth after each addition, alternately add dry ingredients in fourths and milk in thirds to the creamed mixture.
Beat egg whites until stiff, not dry, peaks are formed.

Fold beaten egg whites gently into batter until thoroughly blended.
Turn one half of the batter into a prepared 8x8x2-inch baking pan.
Lightly, but quickly, stir a mixture of the remaining ingredients into batter in bowl.

Spoon chocolate batter into pan. Gently lift white batter through chocolate until marbled effect is produced.
Spread batter evenly to edges of pan.

Bake at 350°F 40 to 45 minutes, or until cake tests done.

And now let's bring on Spyro the Dragon!

I went online and found a black and white drawing of Spyro.  I taped it to the base of a 9" square pan, and then taped parchment paper on top. 

On top of the parchment paper, I traced Spyro with a mixture of black buttercream icing and piping gel.  I used a #2 tip.  This gave me a nice thin line, but I still applied the lines a little thick.

I then applied the colours needed to make Spyro come alive.  I filled in colours in layers using a round tip. Make sure to use medium consistency frosting.  Using a knife dipped in hot water (and re-dipping as needed) I gently smooth frosting from the back to push down into crevices.  

I Filled in around pictures with my green background colour.  I chose the same colour I was using for the cake. 

I filled in the rest of the top and smoothed the icing out. I measured mine to a slightly smaller size than the diameter of the cake to place it on top of my already decorated cake.  I covered this with wax paper and lightly smoothed it with my handshands.  I then placed it in the freezer for overnight.

I removed the wax paper from the back of FBCT and placed it on top of the cake that had been completely frosted.  I peeled the wax paper from the front of FBCT, added boarders and wording.

And here we are!

Family and Friends

I always hold my family and friends in high regards. However this was a week when I cherished them too the max!

This week I discovered that my Tiffany my niece (an avid blogger herself) posted pictures on her blog Sasha Pulker....With Mum & Dad. Here this proud mom posts the adventures of her daughter Sasha as she grows up.

I was excited to learn that Tiffany blogged about Sasha's 3rd birthday. Sasha is turning out to be quite the little lady, and I was honoured that she entrusted me to make her a Little Mermaid Cake in Red Velvet. Thank you Tiffany for showing my cake creation in action.

Today I was invited to a Friendship Brunch involving the important women in my life. MY GIRLZ!

My friends Angella and Janice set it up outside on the patio. Catered West Indian Food and I was asked to provide the cupcakes. Angella requested Red Velvet.

Thank you Ann, for sharing my talents with the group.

A wonderful week indeed!

Want to make your own Red Velvet Cupcakes? Here is a quick and easy reipe for you to follow:

1 Box of golden cake mix
1 Tbsp Cocoa
1 Tbsp Milo
3 Large eggs
1 1/4 Cup water
1 oz red food colouring
1/3 Cup of vegetable oil

Follow mixing instructions on box