Quincenera Cake

Spell Check on the title anyone?  My computer only does English and the translator I use spells it 3 ways.  Now I know it's one way for a girl, one way for a guy but what's the last for??

ANYWAYS...

I agreed to make a cake for my co-worker's daughter's party way back in the fall, when we were fully staffed and it seemed like such a great idea.

The picture of the cake I got has a bow on top of the center cake and she wanted the others left plain.  Plain white fondant, purple fondant bow around the center of satellite cakes and a big bow on the center of the stacked cakes, purple bead borders.  Needs to feed about 200 people, half white and half chocolate.  

Fast foward to the last week in January....Oh no I said I wanted flowers on the tops of all the cakes.  Now I know this is not what I agreed to but after talking to the mother (who is not the cake orderer) I decided to go along with it.  It took another 3 days to get the Birthday girl in to talk about what she wanted.  At the same time she agreed to let me do the bows out of ribbon since she wants them very, very dark purple and that much food color makes fondant taste gross and makes it harder to work with.  Oh yeah and BTW the numbers are up to 300+.

Now keep in mind I've lost 1/3 of my crew, we are in the middle of season and now I am making flowers too.

23 hours spent on gumpaste flowers and leaves, that is after I cheated and ordered lilies.

I didn't detail the process for the carnations

small centers, I left a few this size but made more petals and added to the remaining ones.

Um, yeah these are supposed to be on wires.  Crappola..see what happens when i work tired.

ROSES are next, I like making these but they are not quick by any stretch of the imagination.

first you make a little cone for the center then you cut out every leave (5 for a small, 12 for a large) thin the edge with the ball tool, cup the centers then glue them together, letting them dry between each layer of petals.  I took a shortcut on the 3 petal layer since I have the cutter for it.  

Close up of the first one I finished

The last layer of petals dry upside down to keep the shaping right.

Roses in various stages of finish.

End of day two.  Day three was finishing the roses, then day four onto leaves and finishing the lilies that I ordered.

I have a veining tool that speeds this up.  Only took 2 hours for 43 leaves.

Finished lily.  They came from the supplier plain white. 

Putting stems on the flowers I forgot to start on the wires.

I started the arrangement for the center cake on a ball to make it faster to assemble.

I got Super Baker Friend to help me with assembly since 2 sets of hands speed things up

Almost there...I actually liked it better without the border but since it wasn't my cake

The finished piece.  According to several people "everybody loved it".

The history on my computer has forgotten my blog

I think the title sorta says it all.  It's been a long frustrating winter and season is just starting.  I am going to try to get some stuff up here soon in hopes that it will help my mental creative block.  Stay posted.

Trip to Reno

While in Reno it is entirely possible I ate the equivilant of my own body weight in food (or at the very least tried to).

Breakfast/lunch at Josephs Vienna Bakery

 Pain au Chocolate

Nutella Crepes

Dinner at the Nappa Bistro inside the Atlantis Casino - Filet with Roasted Vegetables

Strawberry Shortcake

The leaves were changing on all the trees, not something I get to experiece every day.

 Dinner at Scusa in South Lake Tahoe, I had an amazing fresh tomota angel hair pasta then

Cannoli and Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding (I ate it before I remembered the camera)

Lunch at BJ's Brewhouse.   They make the most amazing "hand crafted" root beer at this resteraunt, luckily there are 2 in Tucson so I don't have to make airline reservations to enjoy it.

 Italian Sausage, Basil and Tomato Flat bread.  This is supposed to be an appetizer but I think next time I'm going to make it my meal.

Bread, Bread, Bread

It's time for menu changes yet again and this time it's not sweets that top the priority list.  We (and I use that term loosely) are working on lunch right now, that is to say Sam is working on lunch and I am making random things for them to play with.  Last week I made a killer southwest coleslaw.  This week it's bread.  First let me say the F&B Director picked a day when we had 216 guests for dinner to throw this at me..."I found a bread recipe I want you to try today".  So for our first contender....

Whole Wheat Quinoa Bread

The F & B Director has been trying to get Quinoa on the menu for a while.  Now that we are serving it at dinner he is pushing to get included in other areas.  This bread was FUNKY to put it nicely.  It turned out dense with a nice even crumb but it stayed very moist after baking. Alone it is slightly gummy and I could taste the toasted sesame seeds a bit too much but mostly it just tasted like soggy whole wheat.  I double toasted it and made it into a veggie sandwich and it was less offensive.  Overall not to my taste, but not technically a fail.

Project # 2                                                   Pan Telera

He was pretty proud of this as I didn't know what it was prior to last Tuesday.  One of my nicknames at work is Rebecca-pedia, but this I had not previously crossed paths with.  It is a Mexican style sandwich roll which they make tortas on.  Lean and made from all white flour it is soft with an even crumb, a very thin crust and a mild flavor.  The people at work who had heard of it all recognized it so I guess this one I got right.

Project #3 was an Olive Herb French bread.  I am not a fan of oil cured olives, I think they stink, taste bad and are slightly slimey.  I was grossed out making the dough but the finished product surprised me.  It was mildly salty and the olive flavor blended nicely with the bread.

Project #4 which is on the docket for Monday is Roasted Garlic Herb French Bread.  Same basic dough as the olive bread but a twist on flavors.

My funny for the week...
When I left work (more like staggered home to pass out) on Wednesday there was a 50# bag of bread flour and a 50# bag of AP flour on the shelf in dry storage.  When I went in on Thursday there was an empty bread bin in the bakeshop and only the bag of AP flour in dry storage.  The AM baker swears she didn't fill any bins.  I made my batch of olive bread from a recipe I am familiar with and ended up adding quite a bit of extra flour to it.  I made a second batch of Telera and it needed a lot more water than Tuesday's batch.  By this point I'm suspicious but I wasn't sure until I took the telera out of the oven.  The dough went in the oven at about an inch tall and roughly the size of my entire hand, it came out 2 1/2 inches tall and only the size of my palm.   DING, DING, DING we have a winner.  AM baker lied to me :)  She dumped the bread flour in the AP bin, the proof is in the pudding, or in this case, the bread.

Baby Shower Cake

I got a text from a friend a while back asking me if she could pass my name and number on to someone looking for a cake.  Of course I said yes!! 

A baby shower cake for a girl and the mom loves frogs.  The first comment on facebook was "how you".  This is the baby shower cake I want if I'm every lucky enough to have a shower :), but it was chosen entirely by the person I made the cake for.

The frog is fondant over rice crispy treats, I spent about 30 minutes getting the figure down, let it cool and tried to cover it.  The arms kept coming out looking like boobs so I took them off an covered them separately.  The "water" fondant is just blue and green food color that is only partially kneaded into the fondant so it comes out swirly.  The water lily flowers are gumpaste and actually made from a daisy cutter. I got orders for 2 more cakes when I delivered this one.  *SQUEEE* 

Thumbellina

aka scary doll cake

 This is based on the Hans Christen Anderson fairy tale that was made into a movie in the 90's.  Total rookie mistake, I colored her mouth while she was still wet and it made it look bloody, hence the alternate name.  Super Baker Friend made the mouse and the mole, the rest I did. 

Pot of Gold Cake

I was asked to make a birthday cake that had a leperchaun, pot of gold  a rainbow and a grave stone.  Odd combo but here it is....minus the grave stone.  The grave stone is gumpaste and I didn't want it soaking up moisture from the fondant and melting so Super Baker Friend was adding it later.

We worked on fondant and gumpaste pieces for a good 3 hours last night.  Had a blast, it's so relaxing to just play, until you try making a 2" doll that was not so relaxing.  It's on a cake for tomorrow with animals and a flower.