It's an Honor Just to be Nominated

In early December, I received an email from The Bride and Bloom magazine regarding my gold-guilded wedding cake -- I couldn't believe it, they wanted to feature it in their spring issue!!!!!!

I was stunned, I was excited, and I was oh so giddy!!! I remember reading the email on my blackberry and jumping for joy. This isn't the first time one of my cakes have appeared in a magazine but it would have been the first time that one appeared on it's own merit. This past December, my masquerade bust cake appeared in the local SacTown magazine but it was included more as part of their coverage of the charity event. While still exciting, it's just not the same as being asked to be featured in a national wedding magazine, a magazine that I had actually read and used to plan my own wedding.

Masquerade bust cake in SacTown Magazine

As January came around, I anxiously waited for my complimentary copy of The Bride and Bloom to arrive in the mail and when it didn't arrive, I went out and bought a copy. I scanned every page of the magazine but sadly, I could not find my cake anywhere. I went back and re-read the email communications to see if maybe I was mistaken about the issue or timing but no, I wasn't. Sadness, disappointment, and more sadness. :-( Below is the page where I think my gold-gilded wedding cake would have been featured:

.....and here's a closeup of the cake (made by The Cake Girls) that was actually featured.

I dreaded telling my friends and family about the news and even more so, I dreaded telling the bride who commissioned the wedding cake itself..........that is, until I watched the Golden Globes last weekend. I was sitting through all the acceptance speeches and was reflecting on the nominees that didn't win and how they must have felt when they heard someone else's name being called. Then somewhere in my head, I remembered the almost cliche phrase, "It's an honor just to be nominated." and that's when it clicked. You know, it really is an honor to be nominated, er, I mean, to be considered for the feature in the magazine.

I think most artists would agree that the most gratifying part about creating art is having people appreciate and acknowledge its' "worth" for lack of a better word. For whatever reason, my cake didn't make it into the magazine - maybe it was the shadows on the cake, or that the gold wasn't bold enough for the spread, or maybe they just simply liked the other one better. Who knows? Whatever the reason, the fact that it caught the eye of a wedding magazine editor is acknowledgement enough for me. It ain't too shabby either to be considered alongside The Cake Girls, who are veterans in this business and whose work I've long admired.

PS. The last two paragraphs are all lies, I'm still completely bitter and resentful.

PPS. Ok, I'm back to being honored again. :-)

Cake-Tasting Guinea Pigs

Being a baker, my friends and family pretty much expect me to bring cake to any gathering they invite me to. And by now, they've also caught onto the fact that they've become my cake-tasting guinea pigs as I usually start every cake cutting with "Ok, this is a new recipe so tell me if you like it or not." The majority of the time, the cakes are made with one recipe through and through (like the ones below), but other times (when I want to compare different recipes for the same type of cake), I'll show up with a Frankenstein cake that uses a different recipe for each layer. Needless to say, the guinea pigs,....er, I mean my friends and family are all very supportive. They even humor me as I ask them specific questions about the taste, texture, color of the cake.......and then do the same with the filling and frosting, lol.

With all the dinner parties and get-togethers over the holidays, I was practically in taste-testing heaven. And after extensive tasting and tweaking of recipes, below are some of the clear winners:

Devil's Food Cake: I had a pretty kick-a$$ devil's food cake recipe already but I wanted to find one that had a denser texture so I tried one that my sister-in-law recommended. The original recipe was already fantastic but after a tiny tweak in ingredient proportions, it was fantastic-er. Moist, sinfully decadent, with loads of chocolate flavor, this devil's food cake will literally make you sell your soul to the man downstairs. Here, it is iced with a raspberry ganache and raspberry chocolate mousse filling......soooooooooo good.

Vanilla Buttermilk Cake: Wedding cakes are traditionally made with a white cake but I've never been a big fan. In my opinion, they're often too sweet, and when they're not too sweet, they're just blah (lacking in taste). I tend to steer towards bold flavors; however, I do understand the desire to serve a flavor-neutral cake at weddings, a cake that will appeal to all taste buds. I do believe that I have found that cake. This vanilla buttermilk cake is moist (a must in my book for all cakes), not too sweet, and has a lovely buttery melt-in-your mouth feel. It's almost like heaven, seriously. And it marries up (pun intended) so well with ALL flavors of fillings and frostings.

Red Velvet Cake: So we've had a bit of heaven and we've also been to the dark side (sorry, my husband's a huge Star Wars fan so I couldn't resist :-). What's in between, you ask? Why, red velvet, of course. Red velvet has long been the misunderstood stepchild of the cake world as most people incorrectly believe that red velvet is simply a really lightly flavored chocolate cake with a buttload of red dye - so, so wrong. When made correctly (because I've found that a lot places don't make it quite right), red velvet has a warm cocoa-malty-like flavor that just feels right, almost like coming home from a long day to a nice bowl of porridge. The flavor is not too strong and not too light; it's just right. (Why do I feel like putting on a little red cape all of a sudden?) And of all the cakes I taste-tested this holiday season, this red velvet cake with cream cheese buttercream (lighter than cream cheese frosting) garnered the most fabulous reviews, partially because most have never tried an honest-to-god red velvet cake and was so pleasantly surprised and partially because it's just one crazilicious cake!

**please pardon the coloring of the buttercream, I was in the Christmas spirit and mixed in a few drops of green just for kicks and giggles.

I'd now like to take this opportunity to thank my family and friends for all their undying cake-tasting support. Without you........well, without you, I'd have to eat a whole lotta cake......and that is sooooo not good for high school reunions.

Gifted Snowmen

A last-minute cookie order sent me back to my beloved sugar cookies this week. This time I was making personalized snowmen cookies. I may be a bit biased but I think personalized cookies make great gifts for any occassion. I mean, who doesn't love a sweet surprise with their name on it.

Below are pictures of some of the snowmen with their different colored scarves

Close-up

Pets are family too, so we couldn't possibly forget about man's best friend (sorry for the horrible photo)
Gift tag cookie from the sender
And because I'm such a dork, I couldn't resist making a few extra cookies to use as placecards for a lunch my husband and I were hosting the following day. I admit that this was totally unnecessary since there were only the six of us but my love for these cookies knows no bounds. I want to share them with everyone, uh.......I should probably get some help, huh?

Lien Sanchez

www.crazycakecompany.com

Christmas Sugar Cookies

Last year, I hosted a cookie decorating party for my friends and family to decorate Christmas-themed sugar cookies for the holidays. It was so much fun, I decided to do another one this year. Like last year, I used Alton Brown's sugar cookie recipe because it is hands down the yummiest sugar cookie EVER - light and buttery with a great crumb texture, it's also perfect for cutout cookies since it keeps it's shape really well. I can go on and on about how literally everybody tells me they looooove these cookies (unless they're all lying to me to be kind) and how fondant is the perfect sweet complement to this cookie but just take my word for it, m'kay?

I had to bake 140 5-inch cookies for the party which roughly translates into 7 double-batches of cookie dough. That's a whole lotta cutting and rolling folks! There never seems to be enough hours in a day so I'm always looking for ways to be more efficient, especially with processes. And as much as I love Alton Brown (he's my culinary hero), there was no way I was making his recipe exactly the way it is printed. Since the dough is too soft to be rolled and cut immediately after mixing, AB recommends that we refrigerate the dough for 2 hours before rolling it out with powdered sugar. I got to thinking, if the end product is a chilled rolled piece of dough, why not find a way to roll it out before you chill it? That way, it'll be ready for cutting immediately afterwards. So I forgo the powdered sugar and roll it out between two pieces of parchment paper (so it doesn't stick to your rolling pin) and shove it in the freezer for about 10 minutes....yup, you heard me....the freezer....10 minutes. I've made these cookies using both methods and I'm happy to report that there is absolutely NO difference in taste =D. And the bonus: not rolling with powdered sugar means that the leftover dough pieces you re-roll have the same consistency as the original batches.

Tip: Cookies with uniform thickness look better and bake more evenly. I've used baking height strips on either sides of the dough to ensure a consistent height but you can use just about anything (two strips of wood, cardboard, notebooks, etc.) to guide your rolling pin as long as they're the same height on both sides.

Alright, enough about rolling dough, let's see the final results. Since a lot of these were made to be gifted, we made stockings and ornaments that were customizable with names. There were 5 children under 12 at the party and they were each given a few cookies to decorate. Here are some of their creations - not bad, right?

Some cookies my girlfriends decorated, very impressive :D.

And some cookies decorated by me :-)

I didn't post them all here so you can check out the rest here.

Decorating is one thing but cookies aren't giftable until they are packaged with a bow.Looking at these photos make my mouth water - they are seriously that yummy.

Lien Sanchez

http://www.crazycakecompany.com/

Marshmallow Popcorn Balls

The previous weekend, I made 100 of these colorful marshmallow popcorn balls to give away to friends and coworkers. Similar to rice krispy treats, they are easy to make and just as yummy. Since these were for Christmas, I made mine red and green but I can just as easily see these popcorn balls in tiffany blue or lavendar as wedding favors.

You can find the original recipe here on allrecipes.com but I found it a little too sweet and gooey so I've altered it a bit.

Ingredients:
12 cups of popped popcorn

1/3 cup of butter + extra to grease your hands

10 oz marshmallows (large or small)

4 tablespoons of flavored gelatin

cooking oil (for popping corn)

* Makes 15 - 3 inch popcorn balls

Step 1: Place 3 1/2 tbspn oil in a pot with 1/2 cup of popcorn kernals (just enough to coat the kernals) and wait for the pot to heat up. When the corn starts popping, shake the pot so that the heavier kernals settle to the bottom - this will get the unpopped kernals closer to the heat and prevent the already popped ones from burning. Also, remember to occassionally open the lid to let some of the steam escape - nobody likes soggy popcorn.

Step 2: Place 12 cups of your popped corn in a large mixing bowl and set aside

Step 3: Melt the marshmallows with the butter. The original recipe used a saucepan for this step but I hate washing pots so I melted mine in the microwave instead. Just place the marshmallow and butter in a microwave safe bowl and heat on high for 1 minute. Remove and stir 'til all the marshmallows are melted.

Step 4: Stir the flavored gelatin into the marshmallow mixture. To get the red and green color, I used cherry and lime. Below is a picture of the slime, I mean lime mixture. The gelatin won't dissolve completely so don't freak if you can't get rid of all the gelatin granules.

Step 5: Pour your marshmallow mixture over your popped corn and stir to combine. A butter knife works nicely for this. Conversely, you can pour the popped corn into your marshmallow mixture instead but this will require more work to get an even coating on your popcorn.
Step 6: Grease your hands with some butter and shape your popcorn balls. I placed a chunk of butter between my bowl and my finished tray of popcorn balls and just made a quick swipe before shaping each one.
Step 7: Place popcorn balls in bags and wrap with a bow (saran wrap will also work :-)

These really are super easy and so much fun to make. I dare say it took more time to package and tie the bows than it did to actually make the popcorn balls, lol. There's still 9 days before Christmas, I just might make another batch :-P

A Cute Phallus?

A friend recently contacted me about a bachelorette cake for her FSIL (future sister-in-law for those of you who are wedding lingo challenged). She’d kill me if I mentioned her real name so let’s just call my friend "Sophia" (which happens to be the most popular girl's name for 2007). I had two main things to consider when designing this cake: 1) Sophia wanted something naughty but not too explicit and 2) she was picking up the cake en route to the party in San Francisco which means I had to stick to designs that could be easily transported by a petite woman in 3" party heels. In other words, no tall/narrow/heavy cakes that might possibly tip over. And seeing that Sophia is rather shy, I suggested some mildly risqué designs: you know, women’s lingerie, a Victoria Secret’s box with a functional lid, adult toy replicas, etc. And in jest, I ended my list of suggestions with, “or we can make the traditional penis cake.” Boy was I ever shocked when she said she wanted a penis cake! I guess I shouldn't have been though, after all, they say it's the shy quiet ones we all need to watch out for, lol ;-) ..........However, she did ask if I can make a cute one.

A cute penis (cake)? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Turns out not necessarily so. I've only seen a few before (I'm referring to cute penis cakes - get your mind out the gutter, sheesh!) but they do exist and Debbie from Debbie Does Cakes makes the cutest ones I've ever seen (This one's my favorite). As a professional courtesy, I emailed Debbie to make sure she was ok with me using her cake design as inspiration for mine. And being the darling that she is, she was totally cool with it :-).

Sophia's FSIL is a nature buff so after sorting through various design ideas, it struck me: What's more natural than Adam & Eve in "nature" in the "buff" (get it - "nature buff"? - hehe, I warned you that my jokes were cheesy). Now, if you would allow me a little poetic freedom, I'd like to explain how the below cake design fully captures the "original sin" - a very appropriate theme for a bachelorette party, no? Adam is represented in the overall phallic shape of the cake while Eve comes through in the face and dress. The apple is the literal representation of the forbidden fruit and the snake.....uh, the snake...........the snake was represented by the worms in the many tequila shots that were taken later that evening :-D. No, not buying it? The snake bit was too much, huh? Darn, I knew it! Alright, alright, I just thought it was a cute design, okay?

Top view: Side view:
Closeup of the face and apple:
Closeup of the.....um.....leaves.
I had a ton of fun making this cake. It was my first phallic cake and I have to admit that I did feel a tiny bit naughty when I was smoothing the fondant over the carved shape *blush*. Good thing my husband wasn’t around, heehee.

The cake itself was a delicious hazelnut chocolate cake with hazelnut buttercream but Sophia, FSIL, and the rest of the bachelorette party never got a chance to taste it. Why not, you ask? Apparently, during the alchohol-laden festivities, FSIL caressed the cake a bit too roughly and smushed it!!! I was literally ROTFL when I heard this. So much for my tip-over design precautions, lol. Sounds like the bachelorette had an awesome time though, and that's all that really matters........even if she doesn't remember any of it.

Gold Gilded Gateaux

When I first spoke to Josephine back in March, she mentioned her love for the simple yet impactful designs of April Reed. And as an April Reed fan myself, I was super excited to sit down with Josephine and her fiance Jimmy to design their wedding cake. They wanted something classic and elegant with three-tiers that incorporated their colors: ivory and antique gold. Below is the sketch of the design we decided on.

Ideally, we would have wanted to display the cake on a cake pedestal similar to the one in the sketch, however Chinese tradition (and the bride's mother) stipulated that the cake be either three or six tiers total to be considered lucky. The height of the pedestal would have counted as an additional tier so to achieve a larger presence, we later decided to increase the middle tier from 8" to 10" tall.

Speaking of the middle tier, I have to admit that I was a bit apprehensive about achieving a smooth fondant finish on it. Any cake decorator that works with fondant will tell you that tall narrow cakes are notoriously tricky to cover - the larger the ratio of height to width, the higher the risk of the fondant bunching and tearing in the process. I had a back-up plan to cover the middle tier in two separate pieces of fondant in case things went horribly wrong but luckily, I was able to achieve a fairly smooth covering on the first try. :-)


The 10" middle tier before fondant
and after

Now for the assembly starting with the bottom tier.
With tier 2 added. The post-it note was to mark where the front of the cake should be.All 3 tiers - a total of 21" tall
The bow's loop and the gardenia were left off and added on at the site to prevent damage

Josephine and Jimmy's wedding cake full assembled. The uplighting on the wall adds a nice dramatic touch, dontcha think?

Some artsy-fartsy shots....

Close-ups of the gardenia:

Just speaking to Josephine, I knew that her wedding would be beautiful with lots of personal touches but I was truly impressed by how amazing everything looked. First of all, both the wedding ceremony and reception was held at Casa Real at the Ruby Hill Winery (a brand-spankin' new winery in Pleasanton) and I gotta tell you this place is gorgeous inside and out!! Below is a pic of the ceremony site.

The reception was in the ballroom adjacent to the ceremony. Each table alternately featured tall and low flower centerpieces.
The low centerpieces with gold framed table numbers.

Dinner menu with gold tissue poms

Last but not least, the escort cards on a bed of wine corks.

I'm sure there were plenty of gorgeous elements that were set up after I had left but I was glad to have seen some of the decor and to know that their wedding cake fit in just perfectly :-)

Lien Sanchez

http://www.crazycakecompany.com/