Story of My Cake (part 1)

It has been a very a long time since i wrote anything in here. I have to say i have been busy (or lazy. Well, i have to find an excuse for it, doesn't i? )

Actually, i have been a little bit busy with improving my baking skills and making cakes for friends. I took few birthday cakes orders from some friends. I was trying to challenge myself to learn all new things by doing it and i love it. I love every challenge and opportunity to learn and try every single things. In the meantime, i also made a facebook page and instagram for my cakes under the same name which is Selly's Corner. I uploaded all pictures of my cakes that i have made over there. Yeah, i know it is a lazy mode. Only with few clicks, put on a short title, and i can have my pictures uploaded to be seen by anyone who's interested. And i can do it from anywhere, anytime I want. That's one of the reason i did not touch this blog for quite a long time. Beside i always forgot to take a picture of my cooking or write the details right after I cook or make something in my kitchen. Eating it right away is much more tempting than grab a pen and write down all the ingredients that I threw into the pan.

Well, now I'm back to this blog, at least to share some of my cakes that I've made lately of course with some short story behind it. Sorry for not sharing recipe this time. I'm just sharing a story.

Gluten Free Lactose Free Minion Cakes

One day,  one of my daughter's friend was coming to my house to play. When they were playing together, my daughter show her my minion cake that I have made and she was impressed. Long short story, few days after that, her mom called me and asked me if i can make a minion cake for her daughter. But with special condition. It has to be gluten free, dairy free cake. Because of my stupidity, I said yes, drew her a design, and made a research for those kind of cake. I have no experience playing with gluten free dairy free product before. So, if you ask me if i can make it, the answer is yes. Was it delicious? the answer is no. The cake was too dry.  Did i survive till the end? Barely. The whole process made me really want to cry so hard in my kitchen. And i got an important lesson after that. Do MORE research and pre-trial before the trial before the final product. 

Based on the request, the cake has 2 tiers. The minion part is the gluten free-dairy free cake, the bottom one is the normal vanilla cake (i mean full gluten and dairy). He's cute, isn't he? Holding a lolipop with a birthday hat. 

I had no problem with making the bottom tier. Just do like as the usual. Regular vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream. The problem was with the minion. I had no problem carving it, shape it into a minion, and putting the details. The problem was the cake was too dry. The result was different than the trial which was not as dry as this one. I already run out all the ingredients and run out of the time. The simple sugar syrup was not helping either. The other problem was the buttercream. It was the first time I made a buttercream frosting with non dairy product. If I could turn back time, I really really wish I used Crisco (vegetable shortening) instead of those non dairy butter that i bought from nearby organic grocery store. It taste good indeed. but it can not hold it's shape for a long time. The frosting can not hardened even after i put it on fridge overnight. When you have to cover a cake with fondant, it is a nightmare. After some struggling and praying, I covered it with fondant anyway. I had to work faster than usual because I was afraid that the buttercream wont hold it shape much longer. 

I was soooo happy when it finished and looks really good. But even before the day was ended, i saw some water marks on the minion. It seems that the buttercream start become watery and leave a wet mark on some part of the fondant. I was lucky because it was on the back of the minion. When I made the delivery and finally got the news that the birthday girl loved it, I feel like I was in heaven. The mother agreed with me that the gluten-dairy free cake was too dry (my failure) but everybody loves the regular cake. 

Yeah. I have to learn more to make non allergic cake product. I learned a lot from that experience. 

Haloween Mini Cakes

I made this cake on October 2015. 

After months without making any cakes, I think it is time to make another one. Because October was coming soon, I decided to make something Halloweeny.  I did not want to make too many cake because I make it too big, no one would eat it and it would end up on my fridge untouched for weeks. So, for this time I made a small cake. Just to satisfy my desire to bake and decorate something. 

My halloween cakes were quite small. the diameter of each cake was about 8 cm only. I caved the cakes into pumpkin shape and covered them with orange fondant. On the first cake I made a haloween cat fondant figurine and the other one with cute witch. Thanks to youtube and google for providing a lot of basic tutorial to make halloween fondant cake toppers. It was really helpful.  

For the final touch, I painted the pumpkin with orange food coloring to make it brighter. I love the effect of this painting but i hate the taste of the fondant after it. I had to peel it off when i eat the cake. Another lesson learned.  The addition food coloring on the surface made the fondant taste bad. So next time when I make somebody cake with painted fondant, i may not forget to warn them that the fondant is tasted bad.

That was 2 of few cakes that I have made since last year. I will continue my story next time on the next post. To be continue and see you on next episode :)