I'm seeing Stripes!!!!!!

MY FIRST ZEBRA STRIPED CAKE!!!! WOO HOO!!!! My Sister-in-law Jenai graduated HS and for her party, she wanted a pink Zebra cake. One tiiiny little thing...I'd NEVER done Zebra stripes, sooo there was just the tinsiest bit of learning to do - LOL. Soooo a few days before I started the cake - I YouTubed Zebra Striped Cake and up popped a WONDERFUL and short video tutorial! EXTREMELY helpful!!! THANK GOD for the Internet. 

The two tiers are different flavors - bottom - Red Velvet..top - Black Forest (Chocolate with a cherry ceneter) The icing for the Black Forest was among THE best I've EVER done!!!! It was an Italian Buttercream made with Chocolate Curacao liquer, milk chocolate and a bit of espresso - DEE-FRIGGIN-LI-CIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG - I don't usually get geeked over my desserts because I am admitted perfectionist, but DAAAYUM!!! The combination was just incredible!!!!

Of course, no new venture is free of problems - LOL.  The ones I experienced with this cake were ensuring the bottom of the tiers were done right, avoiding collapse and a stubborn cake that wouldn't come out of the pan!!!!

Challenge No. 1 - The Red Velvet cake said 'NO - I'm NOT coming out of this pan! I DON'T WANNA get ate up'? Sooooo after careful use of a rubber spatula - out it came.....in TWO pieces....EACH PAN!!! I'm noooooot quite sure what happened! Maybe I didn't spray the pan enough - not quite done...blah blah blah. The BEAUTY however is that, I don bin down this road before, so my panic was averted :-). As an aside - you NEVER know what goes on behind the bakery curtain. There are 10 million calamities - ALWAYS. But Bakers are Doctors essentially and by the time we're done fixin stuff - ya'd never know there was ever a problem :-). Thank God for the lessons, So...I fixed it  and NO one is the wiser - well - till NOW of course - LOL.

Challenge No. 2 - I had TWO shades of pink fondant and NOT one. Crisis averted how? Thanks to God I have a crayola palette of food coloring :-). I simply put the two shades together...added some fuchsia and VOILA....HOT PINK!

Challenge 3 -  Making stripes! I think they turned out o....kaaaay. but I should've cut them thinner. The process for adding the stripes on the cake is quite simple actually....you roll out the base color, place the stripes on top and roll once again to make the stripes look like it's one piece. Rolling them thinner would've allowed the stripes to be a bit more distinctive.  I'm still proud of it as a first time run, but now I know what to do next time.

Challenge No. 4 - My Arch Nemesis to this point!: Fondant!!!! Fondant is NOT the easiest of mediums and can be downright disastrous. I again, didn't measure correctly and there were some areas of concern on the bottom of the cakes.  They weren't able to be fixed by stretching the fondant because it was already pretty thin. So - Thank God for decorative trim :-)

Challenge No. 5 - Weight, Construction and Delivery Time - OY! The bottom was Red Velvet and top Black Forest; Different weights. The filling for Red Velvet is just cream cheese icing and Black Forest has Cherries and Icing. Stacking them isn't the issue per se, but weight CAN be if the bottom tier is not properly doweled. Doweling a cake means that you insert wooden sticks (called dowels) in the cake, usually clock wise at the 12, 3, 6 and 9 positions.  Depending on what's going on top, will determine: how many you actually need, how far apart they should be placed and the thickness of the dowels. The last step in doweling a cake is that once you've got all the tiers stacked, you take one long dowel (the exact length of the cake), sharpen the end and stake the sucker straight down the center like you're staking Dracula...hard and fast - LOL! This helps ensure the tiers don't fall off :-)

Here's where I could've made a better choice.  I should've cut the dowels about 1/8 in. taller and maybe a bit thicker dowel would've helped. The OTHER thing I could've done, using the same dowels, is wait till the next day to stack them, after they'd been refrigerated overnight. What happened was that even though we drove with the AC on pretty high and immediately put it in the fridge when we arrived at our destination (an 1 1/2 hour drive....with the sun beaming on the car), it still sank just a bit.  Nobody but me really noticed, but I noticed and that means...it's a problem.

So what went REALLY well were the flavors!!!! I have a new secret weapon for my cakes to make them even richer than before :-). The Red Velvet was probably the best I've made and the Black Forest  - WOOOOOWSERS is all I can say!!!!!! Deep....Rich...Chocolate with a hint of cinnamon. Maraschino Cherries cooked down with Barados Sugar in the Raw and Kirsch Liqueur, and the icing.....hold on to your hat!  Milk Chocolate Italian Butter Cream made with Chocolate Curasao Liqueur and Espresso!  I could've slapped my OWN Mamma!!!!

I think I learn something new everytime I do a cake and I LOVE it!! Each time (prayerfully), there's something better and that's always a great thing!

I wish my chocolates were better, but alas, it's a learning process as well. :-)

What's MOST important is that the graduate, Miss Jenai loved it!! In the end, that's alll that matters to me :-)

Getting back up to speed!

So I've been on baking hiatus of sorts since Kendal was born and it....has......been TOUGH getting back into the swing of things!! By the time I get home with her, we play, eat dinner and then it's time for little girl to go night, night. I MYSELF, am all tuckered out by that time! Needless to say, getting back in the kitchen has been quite the challenge.

When I was pregnant, I just KNEW I'd quickly get back up to speed after delivery; I had this master schedule in mind and everything would be beautiful!  HA! I didn't take into accout the energy I'd expend taking care of my princess! Getting up and trying to get TWO ppl dressed in the time I did ONE!  NOOOT!  Getting  her to bed successfully (that means no fussing in the first 15 mins after putting her in her crib), cleaning up after her, and then trying be productive with MY goals has been a bit like climbing Mt. Everest!

Needless to say, Sweetly Savory has been on the shelf for a while.  But, I'm ready to pull it off, blow the dust away, put on my Chef coat, crack my knuckles, turn on the oven and get back to being creative!! This, for me will be NO simple task and I give a rousing standing ovation to Mothers who hold down careers, take care of families and STILL successfully pursue other time consuming passions! These women are my SHEROES!!!

I have prayed and hoped that God would help me move forward one cupcake and truffle at a time. It is time and Christmas Season proved that my hypothesis is correct! I baked oooooooohhhhh over 1000 cupcakes since Mid-December, DOZENS of chocolates and a few cakes - LOL. It is time!

I'm also ready to stretch my writing muscles and start blogging and writing more often. I would LOVE to write a column for a magazine newspaper. Maybe I could do some travel food writing; I could start with Barbados or Italy :-)

This being a new Mommy is TOUGH, but experiencing the world through her is THE most awesome thing ever!!!! Watching her particularly with food is worthy of a book in and of itself! She's a girly girl eater! LOL; She doesn't just pick it up and say...'oh...this must be food'. NO - she MUST hold it herself, inspect it and THEN taste it.  If it ain't up to snuff...OUT it comes...like a polite 'pardon me, but blech!  this is not to my liking'! If it's something she likes, weeellll then, we get an eyebrow raise, maybe a smile and DEFINITELY a whine and reach for more. With the added look of...'Heeeeey....I want Moooooore. Come Oooon, no faaair!

As a baker, one of the things I TRULY look forward to with her is, of course, cooking and baking. I TRULY hope she has a big sense of kitchen curiosity! I have visions of her cracking her first egg and beating batter; getting her hands covered in flour and creating her first bread. Seeing the look of satisfaction on her face as she presents her first cookie or cupcake! Like most parents, I want her to be and do whatever she wants. Alas, there is that place in my heart for the kitchen - LOL.

I am TRULY praying for a banner year with Sweetly Savory.  I'd love to go more in depth with chocolates. I dunno, maybe I'll become a World-Class Chocolatier! :-). 

There aren't many classes offered country wide, but I've found two; One in Chicago and the other here in MD.  I will do some more investigating, but I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE  to go and really roll my sleeves up and become great at chocolates.  I REALLY would also love to have a guitar (an instrument used to perfectly cut chocolates and candy - not the one you play - lol), but their rather expensive...so maybe there's a fairy chocolate person somewhere :-) (batting eyes...coyly smiling).

This getting back to me thing is quite honestly one of  the toughest things I have EVER had to do and I have a TON of work ahead of me.  I wish (like all of us - LOL), that I could be the recipient of a financial windfall, take a month to get stuff back in line and then start fresh with a clear head, renewed spirit and hands ready to work!

So what WOULD that look like? Well - I'd put allll my passions together into one BEAUTIFUL career!  The chef, interpreter, traveler AND writer would be stirred together with some Barbados sugar, Madagascar Vanilla and Cinnamon Bark; Poured in a souffle pan; Baked to perfection and served En Masse for the world to enjoy! THAT would be me!

I am reminded by my favorite quote: "God can dream a bigger dream for you...far beyond anything You can imagine' - Oprah.

OK - God, there's mine....what's yours?