Don't Cry Over Spilled Coffee ... Cake

I made this one for my branch manager's birthday. Her husband works for Energen (AlaGasCo), and she never drinks from anything other than her Energen coffee mug. I thought it would make a nice personal touch.

I defaulted to my French vanilla batter with buttercream icing for this one. If I could do it over, I'd probably do a coffee cake with a hazelnut buttercream icing.

Oops!

So I sort of fell behind uploading the cakes I've been doing. I'm either modest or just plain honest, but I really don't think they've been that jaw-dropping or amazing, but I suppose it's all a matter of opinion.

Since I don't want to bombard with a post full of photos, I'll try to upload one a day until I get caught up. I think there's 4 or 5 cakes to update on, so it won't take too long.

The first up is a dinosaur birthday cake for a friend. Apparently she has this little guy on her office desk or computer desktop at work. I'm not sure which, but it was fun to make nonetheless.

Graduation Cake

Another cake under my belt. I'm not too impressed with the outcome of this cake, but my client really liked it. The true test will come after they taste it tonight. I tried another cake type--box this time; French vanilla--so I'm anxious to see how it turned out. I should know Monday, though, so we'll see!

Another first

I made my first Wilton rose! Ok, so it's more of a cross between a chrysanthemum and a carnation, and it's actually my second one, but still, I made it! They're really not that hard if you just follow the directions. Nonetheless, I was pretty excited.

My mother--who passed all of her cake decorating materials and books down to me--has never been able to make one, so I'm going to show her next time I visit her or the next time she comes this way.

And in case you're wondering, they do taste delicious. I ate the first one because it fell off of the nail and went splat on the counter.

Baby Shower

It looks like all of my posts are starting to deal with cakes. Are you hungry yet?

I made my first cake from scratch this time around. I used a chocolate cake recipe from one of my baking books. As always, I made the buttercream icing from scratch. I made a dummy cake yesterday to test the recipe out, and it turned out really well. The flavor is rich, and the cake is very moist. I suppose bad recipes generally don't make it to published books.

This is also my first baby shower cake. One of my coworkers is pregnant, but she's about to transfer to another branch. So, we're throwing a little baby shower/going away lunch for her at the branch tomorrow since it's going to be her final day.

Bon appetite!

Lemonless Lemon Cake

I made this cake for a coworker's birthday before I left for vacation. She hates lemons, so I thought it would be fun to make her a lemon cake--but without any lemon flavoring. It's a yellow cake with vanilla-flavored buttercream icing. I was going to try my first almond buttercream icing, but my almond extract apparently spilled out in the cabinet and was absorbed into the wood. Sad times, I know. There will be other chances, though.

I wish I had done the "flesh" of the fruit darker than I did; there wasn't much contrast between the fruit and the white rind. Nonetheless, I feel it turned out well enough for an amateur.

Until next time, bon appetite!

Happy 4th (Belated)

So this is rather late, but hey, better late than never, right?

I baked and decorated a cake for my branch for the 4th of July. It turned out fairly well and tasted absolutely phenomenal (if I do say so myself).

I'm posting the development of the cake. Far too often people just put up before and after and leave out the fun--and not so fun--steps inbetween. Guilty as charged, but I wanted to do something different this time around.

Enjoy, and as always, feel free to comment.

The Infamous Kitchen

I designed this kitchen during my Interior Design as a Business course during my junior year in college. It originally measured in as roughly 1600 square feet, which I received much criticism over; it's since been reduced to roughly 600 square feet--still entirely too large for a dining room and kitchen, I'm sure, but I know I enjoy large spaces to entertain guests, and that's exactly who my "client" was.

Regardless, I present to you some rough images from the sketches. I fully intend on adding the finishing touches at some point soon--the dishes, the glasses, the artwork, the table decor, etc. The counterstools still need to be refined and given some definition, and the island still requires some attention--mainly a panel to cover the rear of the appliances. The dining room table is of my own custom design.

Enjoy, and as always, comments and criticism are welcome.

So here's the plan

I think I'll upload a photograph a day. It might be a photo of a place from a shoot or it might be a shot of a painting or scan of a sketch I've done. Either way, I'd like to start sharing with the world. It's time to start cultivating my roots.

That having been said, the photos from this weekend's shoot didn't come out quite as well as I had hoped. There's some sort of line going across the film. Whether it was a developing error or a film error, it's something that I'm going to try to correct. Lord knows I'm gonna have some time on my hands until these widsom teeth wounds heal. Until the photos are polished, I'm going to post their raw forms anyway.

I'm no professional, but I do welcome criticism. Be as harsh as you can/want to. One can only learn and grow if their imperfections are made aware to them.

[crf]

Oh, hi

So apparently I forgot that I had a blog. Oops. :)

I went on a photo shoot with my friend Marcus this past weekend. I'm looking at uploading the photos to something like Flickr but am still doing some "shopping around" about which is the best site for that. I may just upload them here for the time being, even though I only have one follower. ;) :: waves to follower ::

[crf]