Train cake

I thought I would have more than 17 hours of rest before I started caking again!
Oh well... Another day, another order, another CAKE!

This cake would be another one of my firsts! Wait... Almost every cake I do is a first to me before I have NEVER repeated any before!

My customer wanted a VERY chocolate-y cake! Rich chocolate cake with chocolate frosting as a filling! Yum yum for all those who like chocolate! (Like mee! I was in chocolate heaven today! Thanks to the batter that insists on sticking to my mixing bowl and the scraps that I got from leveling the cake!) And a 2D train design on the top of the cake for a little boy.

Fairly simple for me... Until I thought about 'editing' it to make it more interesting!

The chocolate cake would be torted, filled and leveled, crumb coated and iced with light blue butter cream.

Somehow it just came to me that instead of a nice neat square butter cream cake I wanted one with lots of texture. Swirls, spikes etc...
Then it reminded me of Vincent Van Gogh's art work! So I went ahead to do some research on how he did them and I transferred his 'type' of art into my train cake!

The sky and hills would be Van Gogh-ish and the train, sun and smoke from the train would be made out of Royal icing.

I made the sky and hills with this method of painting.
I used 3 different colors of buttercream (Example light blue, medium-ish blue and just plain food coloring), plopped them onto the top of the cake and used a small metal spatula to swirl the together! It look SO van Gogh-y! Hoorah!



I made the sun look swirly-ish too.
I took plain yellow Royal icing and a piping bag.
Took a toothpick/cocktail stick and drew some vertical lines (Not too many! 4 would be perfect!) inside the piping bag.
Plopped the yellow Royal icing inside it and just piped it out into a spiral!
Easy peasy!
I am pretty sure you could do it directly onto the cake with butter cream...
But it will look a little messy if the colors got mixed together, so I did it separately!

I will post the picture of the cake right HERE tomorrow when the cake is done!
Please wait!
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Ok! Thanks for waiting a couple of hours for my Royal icing flooded train to dry!
Here is my finished train cake!



~K

Birthday parties!

Gosh! I am SUPER tired out!

Everything started at 5 p.m or so yesterday...

My cousin's from Ipoh were here (Staying at our house!) in KL to celebrate their 2nd and 4th birthday!

You could say that I was pretty bored that afternoon because I completed the 2nd tier of my wedding cake and couldent start on the 3rd tier yet because I didnt have any fondant to cover it with!

I decided to make 1 mini cake each for my cousin's birthday party that will be held in Sakura restaurant the next evening (Today.).

Since they liked dogs I decided to make them a doggy birthday cake!

I was REALLY new at making dogs because I have never NEVER EVER made a single fondant/gumpaste dog before!

I thought to my self...
Hmm... It wouldent be TOO bad... I mean I can making teddies, elephants, rabbits... Why not dogs?!

So as usual I drew my cake plan out mentally...
(I only draw my cake plan out physically if it is complicated one!)

So this one was just going to be...
A nice simple doggy cake!
Nothing more nothing less...

Somethign that I could complete in a days time!

Mental plan:

Nigel: Blue cake, blue dog, blue kennal...

Katrina: Pink cake, pink dog, pink kennal...

Simple enough!

Lets start workin'!

Everything was going according to plan my timing and speed until...
I started with the legs!

UGH!

The first doggy I made was the pink doggy for Katrina and I wanted it laying down on the ground and playing with a ball...

I needed to crack my head finding out how to make the doggy look as if it was holding the ball with it's paws not as though it is in walking position but holding the ball...

I do a mentally big HUGE dinosuar RAWWWWRRRRR!





Ok found a silution to that and now for the hind legs...

That I not only needed to crack my head but ALSO my brains!!

Now I not only have to do the leg which is rather simple now...
I have to make that hind leg like a drumstick mixed with a paw...

This is one COMPLICATING dog!

After lots of cutting, bending and shaping the fondant I finally got it!

Whew!

I rolled out some brown gumpaste (It is the strongest 'paste' that I can use in my house becasue pastilage actually MELTS in my house! Can you believe that?! But well I am not sure what brand you use but the one I got from my Squire's kitchen diploma course does!!) to make the sides of the dog kennal.




Some blue for Nigel's roof and pink for Katrina's...

I made 2 pink and 2 blue dog food and water bowls after that...

The dog food was little round brown bolls inside the doggy bowl and the water was glucose!

After our dinner I started my baking...

The next morning= Carving the cake+crumb coating+Fondant-ing!

Before going to Sakura for the dinner birthday party we had to go for another birthday party at Melia hotel...

It was a cowboy themed party!

Yee-haw!!

It was one of my Dad's Rotary friend's son's 1st (I know there are LOTS of 's LOL!) birthday...

If I tell you more about this party youwill get too bored so it is not worth mentioning...

I liked the part where me got free cow boy hats, guns and bandanas!

Dressing up me and my brothers was fun!

Ok Sakura time!

It was a rather typical family gathering...

Nothing THAT interesting but meeting up with family was fun :)

I need to get on with today's post!

~K

Eu Han's underwater ship wreck birthday cake 2

Stayed up till 1 am carving the cake, crumb coating it and adding timber on! It was VERY tiring but worth it once I saw the end result!
(NO worries I will post a picture of it later! Could'ent take one yesterday night because of the lighting.. My camera doesnt take good pictures at night..)

So... Today will be fun adding all my little sea creatures on and off board and my treasure chest that has over flowing loot!

Will start on the cake after dinner and hope to take pictures at every step :)

~K