Less is more....

September passed by almost in a blur and boy do I have a lot of blogging to catch up on. First off, I must write about Amy and Kendall's wedding cake back in August. Amy loved the simple beauty of the April Reed style of cakes and showed me one in particular that she wanted to use as inspiration. Since she wasn't a fan of fondant, however, she asked if the smooth look of fondant can be achieved without actually using fondant. And always looking to please, of course I said yes.

I pride myself on precision sharp edges on my buttercream cakes so it was almost painful having to dull the edges to get the more contoured "fondant" look, but I wasn't feeling so bad after I saw how it softened the look of the cake. Below is a close-up. I absolutely love that Amy and Kendall chose to go with the natural look (and not to mention taste) of real vanilla bean buttercream. So divine. :)April Reed's designs exemplify the phrase "less is more" so the only thing needed to accent this 4-tier wedding cake were a few gumpaste peonies. The table set-up. Too bad the floating candles weren't lit, I bet that would casted a lovely glow.The cake table was lined up almost perfectly with a covered cable line on the wall and at just the right angle, we were able to capture this heavenly shot. Love, love, love it!! See, even in photography, less is more. :)

Lien Sanchez

Crazy Cake Company

http://www.crazycakecompany.com/

Cupcakes a go-go!!

A couple of Fridays ago, I found myself making 4+ dozen cupcakes for two Sat events. I was short on time but still wanted to make some goodies for the parties, so I turned to my trusty friend, the cupcake - quick, easy, and oh so delicious :).

The first event was a dinner party celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving (who knew it was the second Monday of October?) hosted by my husband's friend and the second was my niece's birthday; she was turning 11 and was celebrating with a slumber party with her gal pals. Get this, I wasn't even attending either of these!! Why, you ask? Well, since my best friend's little girl just happens to one of my niece's gal pals and was occupied by said slumber party, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to rally up a few of our own gal pals to enjoy a nice girls' night out :-D. Cupcakes a go-go it is!!!

I make a kick-a$$ devil's food cake (with a strong kick of chocolate) so of course I had to make devil's food cupcakes but my niece (the little weirdo*) is not a big fan of chocolate so I made some vanilla cupcakes for her.

Pic of the devil's food batter all neatly portioned in their cups.

TIP: To make uniformly sized cupcakes, use an ice-cream scoop with a spring release to scoop your batter into your baking cups. This also eliminates those unsightly drips on the side of the baking cups.
Frosted with ganache. Mmmmmm......ganache.......
(I'll do a separate post in November about ganache - so easy yet so versatile)
Vanilla cupcakes with my favorite vanilla cupcake buttercream (recipe below).

The flowers on top are super-easy and were made with a 5 petal blossom veiner <--- the best $15 you'll pay for a veiner, I swear!...also used to decorate this cake. Just take some fondant (or gumpaste), roll it out thin, cut out some shapes using a 5-petal cutter, press the cutout between the two sides of the silicon veiner with a tiny bit of cornstarch (so it doesn't stick) and voila! - fancy flowers without all the fancy work!!!
RECIPE: Vanilla Cupcake Buttercream (Frosts 2 dozen cupcakes)

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

6-8 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup milk

2 tspn vanilla extract

1) Cream unsalted butter

2) Mix in half of the powdered sugar, then the milk and vanilla

3) Mix on medium for 3-5 minutes

4) Then add the remaining powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time until you reach the consistency you like.

*my neice isn't really a little weirdo, I'm sure this anti-chocolate thang is just a phase ;-P

Lien
www.crazycakecompany.com