Baking My First Cake

My journey with baking started about a couple of years ago, when some of my free time was spent watching cooking and baking shows on the Food Network Channel.. I have to thank them for inspiring a great deal out of me. There are so many great shows out there like Cake Boss, Lynn Crawford's Pitchin' In, French Food at Home, Ace of Cakes, Bobby Flay's Throw Down, and many more..

Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream Icing

But enough about my favourite tv shows. My boyfriend's mother also happens to be a baker of really good goodies which motivated me even further. So I baked myself away and started out with cupcakes because I found them to be less intimidating than baking a whole cake at that time.

I made this last year and this was my very first fondant cake. It was a birthday cake for a young and growing Princess! She's actually one of my godsons' sisters; the second oldest of 4 kids. As this was my first ever fondant cake, I under estimated the time it would take for me to make it! So I called out a friend and thankfully she came in to rescue me! Phew! Thanks Agnes!

The princess, wanted a tiara on her cake and so I went online and searched for videos on Youtube that could help me out. I found this amazing tutorial on how to make gumpaste tiaras. Hers however, look really amazing and mine was.. well, not nearly as good as hers but it'll do.


I am so glad that the birthday girl liked it though!


Anyway, for the next few days I will be backtracking and posting some of my previous works. But I'll be posting some of the new things that I am also working on in between. So stay tuned!


With lots of love,
May

Surprise!

On January 27th,  My boyfriend and I drove from Vancouver to Seattle for my lola's surprise 80th birthday party.   I was sooo excited about the the whole thing!  I love birthday parties, don't you?  All the food, the desserts... yum!  And surprising my Lola? Wow!  That was something I was a little concerned about at the beginning, she was alright though, she even had an amazing time! :)

These were later wrapped in treat bags tied with a white ribbon.

"Nanay" means "mother" in Tagalog/Filipino.  That's what our friends and family call her, except for me.. I got used to calling her "Lola" meaning "grandma" because that's just what I grew up calling her as.  Sometimes I call her Nanay though :)

Anyway, I received a call from my Aunt from Seattle 2 weeks in advanced but by the time I got an approval for time off from work, I only had a week left with me to work on some of the things that I needed to bring:  the tags for the party favours, the fondant cupcake toppers, and the cakes that I needed for the cakepops.
 
I made 64 cakepops that we used as party favours, and 80 Red Velvet Cupcakes as part of the dessert menu.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I know they're not that red because I didn't want to use 1 bottle of food colouring for each batch!   If you know a more natural way of colouring Red Velvet Cupcakes, please leave a message, I would love to know how!  

Anyway,  I had to make these cupcakes... with my Aunt's hand mixer.  *Sigh*.  Just when I thought I had everything.. I brought my Kitchen Aid BUT I forgot the whisk attachment!!!   =( Doh! I was quite disappointed at that, but now I just laugh about it. 

Thank goodness, my Aunt had a hand mixer on hand.  It would have been a great disaster if she didn't have one (because she doesn't bake).

As for the cake that I used for the cakepops, I decided on t his Cake Recipe that I found here, except I added Pure Vanilla Extract to the Lemon Cake. I think it adds to the flavour.  I baked two 8" cakes for the cakepops and they were more than enough.  I think we had 8-10 extras.

The tags were cut using a pair of plain old scissors..

I have made tags numerous times, but I don't own any craft puncher.. Except for the 1/8 whole puncher that I've got.  I should start investing in some.   It would make my life (and those who are always there to help me with these things) a whole lot easier..  I was going to buy some at Michaels but they had no 40% off coupon at that time. Regular price was from $25-$30. Boo. I am NOT paying that much.  I want them for cheap... because that's how I roll. haha.

To make the whole story short, we arrived in Seattle on Friday night at 10:30pm and started baking at... 11:00pm.  We left Vancouver at 7:30 because of work.  I stayed up all night until 10:30am to finish everything up. Yes, I pretty much didn't stop until I got the job done. I did not want to disappoint anyone after all.  Most of my back up went to bed between 3:30-4:30am.  My hon, stayed up until 6.  Aren't they the sweetest little bunch? :)

So, I would like to take this time to THANK my ever dearest friends and family for helping me out!  From cutting out the tags, to making the fondant toppers, to helping me weigh the ingredients, wrapping the styrofoam cakepop stand, and everything else in between.  Thank you!

Here's a snap shot of my grandma :)

HAPPY 80TH BIRTHDAY LOLA!