Austin, TX

I’m making a wedding reception cake for a friend for Saturday. Since she and her husband got married in Hawaii and are having the reception here she decided on a pineapple upside down cake. She thought the pineapple would sort of bring in the Hawaii theme. Pineapple upside down cake isn’t exactly traditional and on the one hand it’s easier than a traditional wedding cake but on the other hand it has some unique problems all it’s own. For one thing, a traditional wedding cake is generally 4 inches tall. That doesn’t necessarily work well for pineapple upside down cake because 4 inches is a lot of cake for the brown sugar topping to permeate. So, of course, I’ve been experimenting. I decided to work with a recipe from Smitten Kitchen.

In the beginning my friend, Pamela, had a difficult time deciding between the pineapple upside down cake and my incredible chai cake but the pineapple won because of the Hawaiian theme. I got to thinking today about my chai spices and thought, “hmm, I bet they’d go well with the brown sugar glaze,” which of course, called for more experimentation.

The first experiment involved trying to use regular brown sugar topping in a traditional wedding cake pan. On the plus side, the heavy batter made for a nice flat cake. On the negative side, as I feared, the topping didn’t make it as deeply into the cake as I’d hoped it would. That didn’t stop the Apple folks that Adam works with from gobbling it up. Those who ate it, quite liked it.

Tonight’s experiment involved using my mini bundt pans. While I was experimenting anyway I decided to mix my chai spices into the brown sugar mixture. Instead of the brown sugar topping from Smitten Kitchen, I went with a simpler version, just melting butter and mixing in the brown sugar and chai spices. The flavor came out delicious. I took some over to my brother’s house for him and his fencing group to try and they all loved it. What didn’t work so well was the bundt pan itself. While the cakes came out just fine, the shape was indiscernible. I think tomorrow I may try making them in regular cupcake tins. My thought was that individual cakes would be a lot easier to serve. and I wouldn’t have to make them as tall so therefore the glaze could permeate the cakes better. Since everyone is not a fan of chai spices, I think I’ll make half with chai and half just normal. I also think that the topping really is better cooked a bit because tonights version was a bit grainy.

I also need to make a birthday cake for the daughter of my co-worker at the library. It’s for her sixteenth birthday but since she’s Latina I don’t think it’s quite as big of a deal as her fifteenth would have been. I still want it to be very pretty, though.

In other news, I ran for the second time this week! Well, most of you wouldn’t call it running but it’s a step. I’m doing intervals and just running for short bursts. I started off running just 15 seconds, walking a minute or two and then running 15 seconds again for a couple of miles. Today I got up to running in 25 and 30 second intervals. You have to start somewhere, right?

Tomorrow I need to hit the ground running to get these two cakes done for Saturday. Carmen picks up her cake on Saturday and Adam and I will deliver the wedding reception cakes in the afternoon and staying for the reception. They were supposed to pick up but changed their mind and asked me to deliver. I’ll try and remember to take pictures for those of you who might be interested in seeing the cakes.

Sunday I will be helping my cake club with assembling Gingerbread houses to sell as a fundraiser for our annual Cake Show. If anyone is interested in having one just give me a holler. I’ll post pictures of those, too.

I fall down go boom now.

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Tonight I attended the first committee meeting for Capital Confectioners big Cake Show. The cake show takes place annually each February and the 2008 show will take place February 23rd and 24th. The title of next year’s Show will be “That Takes the Cake!”.

The meeting was led by Jennifer Bartos of All In One Bakeshop. Jennifer is our main sponsor. If you’re a cake enthusiast who follows the Cake Challenges on the Food Network then you’ve probably seen Jennifer. She’s Bronwen Weber’s sidekick and travels to the various locations to assist Bronwen with her cakes. Jennifer is a wonderful cake artist all on her own and she has the best cake supply store in town. She’s also a very nice lady.

Jennifer was really excited tonight because we finally have a contract for our venue. The 2008 Show will be held at the Texas Star Meeting & Event Center. It’s way south but it’s a very upscale venue most often used for weddings. This will be much nicer than last year’s venue which was out at the rodeo. We’ll also have two big rooms so we’ll be able to have the cakes in one room and the demonstrations in the other. The vendors will go in the lobby area unless we get too many and then we’ll have to figure something else out but that would be a nice problem to have.

We also got the rundown of our celebrity guests/judges. They are:

Next year’s show is going to be fantastic. We have so many great things planned. I hope I get time to enter the competition this year but man am I going to be busy. I’m on the Vendor Committee with Chris Cantrell, another local sugar artist. By the way, if you’re a food vendor and you’d like to either have a booth at the show or donate something to our raffles, please contact me!

We went through the budget and the committee teams and team responsibilities. It was a good meeting and then we moved on the regular meeting and had a great demonstration by Kim Sanches of Kakes by Kim on fantasy flowers. She taught us several useful techniques.

One of the cool things she showed us was that she stores leftover fondant using her Foodsaver! Since it’s airtight the fondant stays nice and soft and you can also freeze it. That was a very cool tip!

If you’re a cake decorator and would like to join the Capital Confectioners Club, check out our website for information on our meetings.

Check out some of my cakes!

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Is it really only Tuesday? I’ve been so busy lately I expect my head to start spinning like Linda Blair in the Exorcist. All that and I have a cold. I really hate being sick. I’m not one of those people who gets sick and wastes away to nothing. Oh no, I’m one of those people who eats everything in sight.

I’ve been a cake making fool this past two weeks. First off I made an adorable Pikachu cake for my friend Nicole’s son, Zack. I completely forgot to take a picture so I’m waiting to get one back from her. Next I did a cake for a woman who was the catalyst for getting me back into cake decorating. I was a professional cake decorator many years ago. I quit about 15 years ago. I was sick of cake. Sick of the smell of cake. Sick of the taste of cake. Instead I concentrated on my IT career which was a wise choice as it netted me a much higher income and a lot less dishes.

Getting back to the cake, it was a just over a year ago that my friend, Gloria was assigned the task of organizing her bosses baby shower. Gloria was having a tough month. It was fiscal year end and she deals with procurement for a large computer manufacturer here in Austin. Her plate was full and she was tearing her hair out. I offered to help by taking the cake off her hands. She told me her boss was doing the baby room in soft green and bumblebees and I came up with this cake:

They loved the cake, of course. Who wouldn’t? That picture makes it look yellowish but it was a pastel green. I was thrilled when the recipient emailed me last week to ask if I’d do her daughters 1st birthday cake! They named the baby Olivia and she wanted a chocolate cake to match the napkins and plates for the birthday party. This is what I came up with:

I was pretty happy with the way it turned out and she was very happy with it, too. In addition, I made an individual cake for Olivia. Nothing special, just a little butterfly so she could make a mess out of it as all kids should!

On top of those cakes I also did a going away cake for Gloria’s current boss (she sure is going through them!). They ordered my famous Chai cake and Gloria told me that her favourite colour is peach so I spent an inordinate amount of time making gumpaste roses which came out quite lovely.

As if that weren’t enough, I also made 100 mini cupcakes for my friend Nicole’s birthday. She had a joint birthday party with two co-workers. The party was a blast but man am I exhausted!

So that’s my week so far, what have you been up to?

And by the way, if you enjoy cake decorating and sugar artistry, you should consider joining our local cake club! We have a big cake decorating and sugar art competition and show coming up in February and we’ve already started planning. I’m on the vendor committee. Because y’know, I don’t have enough to do. Heh.

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Are you a cake decorating enthusiast? (raises hand) If so, you might want to consider joining the Capital Confectioners Club, a local group dedicated to sharing information, techniques and the joy of cake decorating. The club meets once a month at La Madelaine at their North Lamar location. As an added bonus, Food Network star and cake diva, Bronwen Weber is a member of our cake club, as is her partner in crime, Jennifer Bartos, the owner of All In One Bakeshop and a generous contributor to the Confectioners Club. If you haven’t seen these ladies compete in a cake decorating challenge on the Food Network, you’re missing out!

The Capital Confectioners Club hosts an annual Cake and Sugar Art Competition. Last years competition was pretty cool but this years will be even better with celebrities like Nick Lodge already signed on to participate.

In preparation for the next Sugar Art Show, Capital Confectioners is sponsoring a Day of Sharing (DOS). A Day of Sharing in the cake decorating world is generally a fund raiser in which club members pool their talents and beg local experts in the area to donate their time to teach interesting and advanced techniques. Our DOS is coming up this Sunday, July 15th and will be held at the Paredes Middle School from 9am-4pm. Whether you’re an advanced cake decorator or a complete novice, there will be something to learn. In addition there will be door prizes, raffles, a continental breakfast and lunch. All this and more for the bargain price of $35 if you pre-register or $40 at the door. Register online NOW!

This will be a great opportunity to meet local club members. We have several noteworthy cake decorators in the area, including Yvette Humbert of Amazing Cakes and Dena Bryngleson of Dena’s Sweetly Unique Cakes who will both be giving demonstrations. The incredibly talented Carolyn Wanke will also be here from San Antonio!

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