I have made quite a few baked goods during this hiatus of mine, and here are some of my faves. Hope you like them too.
I made this duckie cake for my good friend, Aurore. It was her first baby shower. She didn't know if she was having a boy or a girl, but she knew she wanted ducks. As soon as she saw this in the Wilton yearbook, she couldn't be persuaded to look at anything else. :P I've never made a pillar cake or used the Wilton globes, but it was a fun experience.
The cake was a vanilla sponge cake filled with my homemade strawberry jam and a white chocolate ganche frosting. Everyone at the shower couldn't believe we were going to serve the cake. It's a cake! It's suppose to be eaten. (LOL) But we did save the top tier for the father-to-be since he was sad boys weren't invited to the party.
This was a farm animal cake I made for my cousin's friend's baby's first birthday. (That's a lot of 's...) It was to be Baby Kaitlin's first taste of cake. Oh, the pressure was on. My goal: to turn the innocent and sweet Kaitlin into a cake-aholic. (hahaha)
Her mother chose a vanilla sponge cake with fresh strawberries and a fresh mango Swiss meringue buttercream. I was worried the combo would be weird, but it tasted lovely and fresh and very summer-y. Kaitlin's mom left me a message afterwards, saying that Kaitlin loved the animals (her faves were duckies and piggies) and both kids and adults pretty much went gaga for the cake. Yeah for me! Baby cake-aholics are born! :P
Finally, I made this 9 layer (it would have been 10 except I ran out of filling) Boston Cream Pie cake for my sister's birthday. We had both separately seen this creation on Chefs vs. City the Boston episode. Boston Cream Pie was invented at the Parker House Hotel, and they serve it as a 10 layer ginormous cake. When I saw it, I wanted to make one. When my sister saw it, she said she wanted to eat one. (LOL- we are so related)... So that was set, she was getting a GIANT Boston Cream Pie for her birthday.
I used vanilla sponge cake, pastry cream for filling, chocolate ganache as frosting, and toasted, hand chopped almonds. My husband asked me why I didn't use the food processor which would have been faster and cleaner, well, I was too lazy to take out my FP and then having to clean it afterwards, so I spent 30 minutes hand chopping almonds. It made sense at that time... :P
The cake/ pie was delicious! I loved it and would have it as often as my wasitline would allow it. It's so good. Maybe you will bake one too.
Happy eating, everyone!!
