If I was doing this challenge as a paying gig, I would have been fired a long time ago. But I assure you my loyal readers, I’m still here and I have been compiling my Pins. I’m simply too lazy, tired, *add excuse here*, to write them up on the blog. So here is a bunch in a nutshell. They will be short but sweet.
Pin 196 is a Communion Cake I did for a friend. She found the design on Pinterest. I pinned it and I tried my best to replicate it using fondant all over and gum paste for the flower and cross decorations. To see the original Pin and cake photo click here.
Pin 195 is the White cake recipe I used for this Communion Cake. This recipe comes from Cook’s Illustrated, where a lot of my dessert recipes originate. They’ve just perfected their stuff and are very reliable.
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups cake flour
- 1 cup milk at room temperature
- 6 large egg whites at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons almond extract
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon table salt
- 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened but still cool
Directions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 8-inch cake pans.
- Make sure milk and eggs are room temperature.
- Pour milk (I used skim) , egg whites, and extracts into medium bowl and mix with fork until blended.
- Mix cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in bowl of electric mixer at slow speed. Add butter, cut into cubes and continue beating on low for about 1-2 minutes.
- Add all but 1/2 cup of milk mixture to flour mixture and beat at medium speed for 1 1/2 minutes. Add remaining 1/2 cup of milk mixture and beat for about 1 minute.
- Pour batter evenly between two prepared cake pans.
- Bake until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 27 to 30 minutes.
- Allow cake to cool to room temperature.
- Frost cakes with favorite frosting.
Pin 194 is the cookies and cream filling I used inside the cake. Holy crap was that filling good. It was cream cheese based so I used a the cream cheese icing recipe from my Red Velvet cake post as the frosting. I have some cookies and cream filling left so I plan to make some whoopie pies and fill them with it. You can find the recipe here: http://rosebakes.com/cakejournal-com-oreo-cookies-cream-filling-recipe/
Since this entry is all about cakes, here are two designs I recreated for my friends bridal shower cakes. Pin 193 is made by first frosting a cake in buttercream, as clean as you can then using a circle tip and starting from the top of the cake, drawing a line from the middle, across the top and down the side to the bottom.
Pin 192 & 191, the Rose covered cake can be made easily by following this video tutorial. I created the ombre effect by starting with white buttercream and adding teal and a little blue gel color for the next row of roses, then adding more color and adding the last row of roses. It’s a very simple technique that produces an impressive design. Here is the original pin that shows the ombre effect.
190 to go……….
