Saturday, August 20, 2011

Gender Reveal Cake

There is a new trend among pregnant people. The utlra sound technician writes down the gender of the baby and seals it inside an envelope. The couple takes the envelope to the bakery and the bakery will make a cake and dye the inside of the cake blue or pink--depending on the sex of the baby. The cake is then covered, so you can't see the color.


The couple will host a party and everyone will find out the sex when the cake is cut into. A couple contacted me and asked me to make a gender reveal cake for them. It was pretty cool to be the only one to know what the couple was having!


And since the party has already occured I can tell everyone. . .IT'S A GIRL!!!



July 31

I went a bit nuts on July 31. I have 6 cakes due that day. Never again. I will NEVER agree to make that many cakes on one occasion!!



The first cake was for a wonderful little girl named Audrey. She was the flower girl in my wedding and turned six at the end of July. Her cake was a simple sheet cake, cut out to spell "six." The dot of the "i" was her own personal cupcake.


I also made a burnt coconut cake for my friend Peggy, who's mother was celebrating her 80th birthday. This cake is one I've made a few times before (and blogged about). It's a favorite of a lot of people.
Finally, my mother-in-law co hosted a bridal shower for a friend's future daughter-in-law (follow that?) I made them a french vanilla filled bridal shower cake, but then they also had a sampling. I forgot to take pictures of all the cakes in the sampling, but there was a strawberry shortcake, whipped chocolate cake and a small burnt coconut.



I made a bridal shower cake, but that was during those few weeks when the heat and humidity was over 100 degrees. This makes cake decorating very difficult. As I was decorating the cake, things started to get soft and the top layer sunk into the bottom layer. So the NIGHT before I was running around making a new cake and planning out how to make it all work out. I went with a totally different design and ended up with this:


The flowers didn't have a lot of time to dry, but all in all, the cake turned out alright. The chocolate fondant is probably the best tasting fondant there is. Since fondant is mainly marshmallows and sugars, most people do not like the taste of it. You can buy oils and flavorings, but it's a pretty difficult process. The chocolate tastes much better with a lot less effort!

Root Beer Float

I've been INCREDIBLY delayed on posting about my recent cakes. I've made quite a few cakes lately and I have pictures of most of them. Back in July I made a cake for my niece, mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law to celebrate their birthdays. They all have birthdays with in a week and a half span in July.

The cake itself was pretty ugly. I tried to combine a bunch of colors and designs and it looked like a Crayon box had been eaten and thrown up, so there weren't be a picture.

BUT, I experimented and made a Root Beer Float cake. It was awesome. The cake itself tasted like root beer, but when you mixed it with the butter cream icing, it tasted just like a float. Lots of rave reviews and in all reality, pretty easy to make!

Friday, July 8, 2011

Space Shuttle Retirement Party

Get ready for photo MANIA!

Today the Gheens Science Hall and Rauch Planetarium held a Shuttle Launch/ Retirement Party. Not only did I lead the kids' activities, but I made the cake. It was my biggest adventure to date. The cake fed close to 300 people! Since it took about a week to make a year off my life due to stress, I took as many pictures as I possibly could. Here is the final product:

At the Planetarium, I am known as Commander Kaet. This is me in my astronaut suit. Fetching, isn't it?!?

The layers were chocolate, white and butter cream vanilla. The astronauts and flag were made from fondant covered sugar cookies. The stars and shuttle were made from a fondant/ gum paste mixture.




I tried to take pictures from all different angles. The fondant fixtures don't taste that good. . .in my opinion. They are mainly marshmallows and sugar. Most adults I know can't stand the taste, but since it's got sugar as the main ingredient kids LOVE them. I saw several kids eating the stars like candy. Kind of grossed me out. . .




This is the "After" shot. I think that means they liked it!!




Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Burnt Coconut Cake

There's a few cakes I know I make well. One of them is a whipped chocolate cake. The other is a burnt coconut cake. Made with coconut and some rum, I've gotten a lot of compliments on it and already have orders for it as far out as October!
I think these are the same pictures, but I know I took two different ones and they keep coming out the same. Cakes I can do. Apparently, digital photography. . .not so much!

Fourth of July

The Fourth of July is my favorite holiday. I love the summer, grilling out, watermelon and fireworks. I tried to get Adam to get married on the fourth, but he passed, so I settled with July 10!

Last year, we were a bit preoccupied on the Fourth of July :) so we didn't do much. I don't even think we watched the fireworks! This year, we went down to Owensboro to hang out with the Barron family for the weekend. I was asked to bring along a cake with me. The bottom layer was chocolate and the top layer was basic white.

I was also commissioned to make a cake for a Fourth of July barbecue picnic that was also a "Meet the Baby" event. So the cake below was to celebrate the Fourth, but more importantly, Miss Emma Rylee Hoffman. It was yellow and chocolate.



Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Crazy Diasies

Last night I had my final in my gum paste and fondant class. In order to "graduate," I had to make and decorate a cake.



The cake itself was a new recipe. It was a French Vanilla cake. I honestly think it tastes just like a plain white cake, but a bit softer and has some light flavoring. But as much as I like to bake and decorate, I can't say I'm a huge fan of actually eating cake, so I may not be the best judge!!


Otherwise, the class was pretty exciting. I had been having a bit of trouble covering cakes with fondant and our teacher went over the EXACT way to negate that issue. We also learned some tips and tricks to making different things out of gum paste. . .like animals and various things to embellish your cake. Learning things like that gets me really exciting and I'm anxious to try it out. Luckily, my niece has a birthday coming up (Vera will be 1!) so I'll get a chance to try some of it out!


Shavon took the cake to the College of Education at the University of Louisville, so hopefully I'll hear good things about the cake shortly. John King usually sends me a message on facebook about giving him food poisoning, which I take as a good sign!!


Thursday, June 23, 2011

'Cause you can't eat Tupperware

So I've had what I consider to be a pretty brilliant idea, but I guess that is really up to everyone else to decide. I've been to a lot of various parties at friends' houses: Lia Sophia jewelry, Party Lite candles, Mary Kay make up, that kitchen stuff. . .You name it, I've probably sat thru it.

So here's my brilliant idea: Let's do that with cake. If you can get together a group of people who are interested in tasting some of my cakes, I will bring the cakes to you for everyone to try. Anyone who comes can get a discount on a future cake and you can keep all the left overs (or a discount. . .whatever you would prefer. We can discuss.)

At this point I am simply trying to get my name and card out there so more people know me. I'm not entirely comfortable with just handing my card out to strangers, but if they are friends of friends, I feel much more comfortable.

So if you are interested in this, let me know and we will start working out some details. I can't bring fancy decorated cakes, but I can bring several varieties and pictures of what I can do. Let me know and we will get it together.

kaet.barron@yahoo.com

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

The torch has passed

On Saturday, we had a surprise party for Shavon's 30th birthday. The party was awesome and I made an angel food cake. It was my first attempt at making and Angel Food cake. It was a lot of work, but it was also really good. I don't like cakes all that much (beyond baking and decorating them) but I liked the Angel Food cake. I did not, however, take a picture of it, because my dad iced it. I didn't want people to confuse his "talent" with mine!


On Tuesday, her actual birthday, I attempted a Lemon Drop Cake. This was again, the first time I had attempted to make the cake. But it got the approval of others.






When I was younger and I wanted to help in the kitchen, I was given the task of buttering the pans and cracking the egg. This was true for my mom and aunts as well. Those are pretty much the two tasks no one can screw up, regardless of ability.


Mom invited me over to make the cake and "help." She got to butter the pans and crack the eggs. Mom said the "torch had been passed" and I was officially better at baking cakes than her.


Pretty awesome compliment, if I do say so myself. Not when it comes to actual cooking, I am stuck with the "low ability/ low screw up" factor tasks. And I'm okay with that!

Friday, June 17, 2011

Leap of Faith

Today is my last day at my current job, so if you know anyone who needs or wants a cake, cupcakes, cake pops, etc, please pass along my info. I'm going to have a lot of free time to devote to making cakes. And everything is a reason for cake: birthdays, graduations, babies, engagements, proper yields at stop signs.

And now, I did not quit my job to bake cakes all day long. Although that sounds heavenly. . . .

Shavon's Strawberry Shortcake

My wonderful friend Shavon is having a birthday soon and when I asked her what type of cake she wanted, I could have sworn she said "Strawberry Shortcake." So I went out and bought a whole bunch of strawberries.


And that is when I realized she had said Angel Food cake. Well my mother told me Shavon had requested Angel Food cake. There is a part of me that still believes her original choice was Strawberry Shortcake.

But so I was faced with the dilemma of what do I do with 3 packages of fresh strawberries. As luck would have it, a woman at my work was having a birthday the next day. So I made the cake any way and took it to work. It is NOT a cake that travel wells. Strawberries were falling every which way, but here is what it looked like. It got some pretty good reviews too.



By the way, see that large knife? We found that in the kitchen at JCPS. A little unnerving that a large knife like that is just laying around.

Look at what I can do!

During my Monday night classes, we've been working on flowers. Here are a few examples of what I've been working on.

Roses (and obviously, they can be made to any color you'd like.)


Calla Lillies



Daisies (which are some of my favorite)



Mums



We are learning a few more flowers in the upcoming weeks, including carnations.

Friday, June 10, 2011

New cakes!

Well it is 12:11 am, which means it is more than 2 hours past my bedtime, but I have been working on cakes for about four days straight now and I wanted to post them and celebrate them being done. The first cake is one I made for a woman I work at who has a baby shower to attend this weekend. No one is sure what the sex of the baby is, but the nursery is decorated with zoo animals, so I decided to go with that theme for the cake:


Half of the cake is chocolate and the other half is vanilla. The decorations are made with sheet sugar (which is disgusting, but so much fun to work with!) I just used cookie cutters to make the animals. The elephant's ears are made from hearts. The Lion's mane is made from stars.



Tomorrow when the icing has decorations have had more time to set, I am going to go back and cut some of the edges to make sharper edges (mainly the grass on the bottom.)

The final cake was for the lovely and talented Hillary Brown who graduated from Ballard High School this year. She is going to Lindsey Wilson on a pretty hefty scholarship, so we are all very, very proud of her. I made the "2011" myself. It took a few days to harden enough to put it on the cake, but I think it's cute and worth it. When I took this picture, not all of the gum paste and covering had dried, so you can see a bit of that on the cut outs. I haven't show it to her yet, so hopefully she will be surprised tomorrow.

A little help from my friends

On Friday, June 3 I turned in my two weeks notice at my current position. My last day will be Friday, June 17. I don't have anything lined up, as of yet.


I would love to quit everything and just sit at home and bake all day, but I've got a ways to go before that happens! But, if you know anyone who is interested in a cake, pass along the word. I've got more magnets and business cards, so feel free to take them and hand them out.

Get Ready!

I have two pictures to post soon. I am finishing up two cakes for this weekend. One is a graduation cake for the lovely and talented Hillary Brown and another is for a baby shower a co-worker is throwing.

I am very happy with how they are coming along, so hopefully by the end of tonight, we will have pictures to show off. (We? I wonder who else I was thinking was invovled?!)

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Exciting News

We are about to get a lot more posts on the blog. Yesterday was my birthday and I was signed up for quite a few more classes on technique and speciality cakes. My first one begins Monday.

My business cards have also been completed and shipped, so expect to be harassed to hand themout if you are a friend on mine. . .or with in an arm's length.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

No Cartoon Characters Allowed

It has occurred to me that when I make non-themed or speciality cakes, I rarely take a picture of the completed product. But I bake cakes that aren't covered in large pink bows or buttercream icing all the time. These are just a few of the cakes I've made lately. And I have a whole list of new recipes I want to try. I'll be sure to start taking pictures of all the cakes I bake.



  • A stacked Applesauce Cake with Whipped Cinnamon Icing

  • Spice Cake with Caramel Icing

  • Coconut Cake with a Meringue Icing (Huge hit at Easter)

  • A Chocolate Lover's Dream Cake with Whipped Icing, mixed with mini chocolate chips. (I've made this twice for my co-workers.)

  • Sponge Cake with Chocolate Icing

  • Root Beer Cake

  • Chocolate Dump Cake with Fudge Cream Cheese Frosting

  • Carrot Cake

  • Sour Cream Pound Cake

  • Chocolate and Caramel Cake (No Icing or Frosting needed.)

  • Basic Vanilla Cake

  • Mini Apple Pies (they are similar to pizza rolls, but made from apple pie instead.)

  • Regular Apple Pies (my favorite)

  • Oreo Cheesecake

I love to try new recipes, so if there is something you want made and you don't see it on the list, don't worry. I can do it: cakes, pies, cupcakes, whatever you want.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

A Favorite of Mine

In a previous post, I showed a picture of a cake I made for a baby shower. This cake was made with the same design pattern, but I kept everything in one color scheme. It is one of my favorite cakes of all time.

Custom Cakes

I guess every cake is really a custom cake, but these two posed some of the biggest challenges for me. I'm really happy about the elephant cake. I think if I had to make the cruise ship again, I would have used fondant and rice krispie treats for the steamers.

This cake was for my grandmother's 90th birthday. She has always loved elephants and we surprised her with a backstage tour of the Zoo for her birthday.





This cake was for my friend Sarah Moore's 40th birthday. Lucky Sarah got a cruise from her husband for her birthday. This cake was HUGE so it could serve everyone at the party. I quadrupled all the cake ingredients in order to have enough batter. But it was worth it. I hope. Sarah would have to be the real judge there.



There's more to life than cake?

Cakes are definitely my favorite thing to bake/make, but I've done other projects as well, including cupcakes, breads, pretzels (those were AWFUL), and Peep bouquets.


My mom was having surgery and didn't want flowers, but she loves Peeps, so this is what was waiting for her at home.





Until I figure out a new method of securing the Peeps, this is not edible. Or you could eat it, but you'd probably have trouble digesting the hot glue and hair spray (to keep the sugar on the Peeps.) It is also very hard to make this when Peeps aren't in season.

Sometimes you just want simple. . .

I made this cake for my father-in-law's birthday in February of 2011. It was another vanilla cake, but a different recipe. The icing was a whipped buttercream. This best thing about this cake is that when you cut into it, there was a heart shaped ring in the middle of the cake, filled with more frosting. It would be perfect for Valentine's Day! And you can choose the frosting filling.






Somewhere there has to be a picture of the inside.

Baby Shower Cakes

Here are two examples of cakes I made for baby showers. Although, obviously the second cake could be used for just about any occasion. Both are vanilla cakes. (It's a favorite. I make a killer vanilla cake.)


This was for Kristy Smoots. Or I guess it was really for Nathaniel. . . .although he has yet to enjoy any of my cakes. Next year, buddy. Next year.


This was one of my very first cakes. In fact, I think it was the first cake I made for someone else that was going to be displayed and seen by a lot of people who didn't know me and weren't obligated to be nice.




My brother-in-law took all of the scraps from that cake and made his own, which was mainly icing. He took it to his school the next day and as luck would have it, it was the secretary's birthday. I'm sure that was a cake she would never forget.


Kid Cakes

Here are three cakes that I have made for children's birthday parties.

This is a cake for a 4 year old, based off of the book Pinkalicious.



And this was a cake for my wonderful nephew Jadon on his 3rd birthday. He's already been giving me orders for his next birthday.



And here was the cake I made for my other wonderful nephew Reece for his first birthday. Reece doesn't have as many requests as Jadon. If it's something he can eat, he's happy.





I think this is one of my favorite cakes. It was one of the first ones I ever made on my own (actually, before I end took a class.) I think it is simple and sweet and I love the giant cupcake look. But that's just me and I'm totally bias.

Where It All Began

This cake was my final project in my cake decorating class in 2010. I know that the color combinations and sheer abundance of decorations is a bit (a lot) much. But we had to use a certain amount of colors and demonstrate technique, so that is what I did.



Although my cake decorating skills have improved since then (I hope) I think the majority of people really enjoy the actual cake part of my cakes. This was a simple vanilla cake.




Here are some close up shots of the roses. . .which are my dad's favorite.