Sunday, February 14, 2010

Another Cake Tasting Day...

Ahhh....the day before Valentine's Day...the perfect day for another one of my free cake tastings. Again, it was successful, and well worth the time and energy that I put into it... even though I have been under the weather for a few days, so it made things a little more difficult for me. Since it was just before Valentine's Day, I added a couple of other yummy treats to the table for tasting...a small strawberry topiary tree, and decorated Valentine cookies...both of which are available in my catered items. 


New Cake Decorating Techniques and Materials

Over the 32 years that I have been decorating cakes, some techniques and materials used in decorating have changed or improved, as well as styles. For example, I have been designing cakes for Eagle Court of Honors for many years. I used to use piping gel, tinted with just a tiny bit of black paste color to get a gray color (which didn't taste very good) to fill in the metal portion of the Eagle badge. I did this because there was no metallic silver available to put on cakes that was edible. The same was true with gold metallic color. The nearest thing you could put on a cake was an ugly golden yellow color. Now, both silver and gold edible metallic colors are available, in both dusting powders and airbrush colors, which gives you the actual color you need and desire. I have used the silver dusting powder to paint on my Air Force emblems. Just recently, I purchased silver airbrush color which makes the work a lot faster and simpler. The results are wonderful. I also purchased a pearl airbrush color, which you can spray over an entire surface (fondant for example) to give a lovely shiny pearl appearance. I am excited to try it. 



Friday, February 5, 2010

Happy Valentine's Day!

I needed a cute cake pattern for my latest cake that I designed for the February birthday folks at Wynwood. So I googled cupid coloring book pages, and found this cute little cupid...complete with boxer shorts with little hearts and heart-shaped glasses. My friend, Michelle, that orders the cakes, tells me that the whimsical cakes I do for them are always a big hit. I love looking for cake patterns on the internet...so much easier than it used to be in years gone by. The flavor of this cake was French vanilla with cherry mousse.