The Fender Stratocaster - - of Cake

Once again, I find myself at the end of a huge project with very few words...so I'll share with you the pictures of one of the best cakes I've created to date.

Here's the guitar-lover's rock-star cake.  The Fender Stratocaster, a la Bake Lore, 100% hand crafted from the tone knobs to the pickups and tuners:

That's my model - my old strat from college, and a great instrument!

My Dad, the best guitar player I know, and I know quite a few.
I was pretty much in cake heaven when he was so happy with the final product.

So that's it!  The whole thing is made out of gumpaste, cereal treat, fondant - and of course, cake and butter cream.  There are only small bits of cardboard and floral wire holding things in place, but otherwise, you could eat the whole thing! 

Happy Birthday to one very lucky little boy!

Time for a Cake Tasting!

In the wee hours of Saturday morning - - which for people like me, is any time before 9, thanks very much - - I packed my car up with a delivery of fresh bread and cake pops and one mouth-watering platter of cake.

I'm kind of like an old timey doctor.  I make house calls.  And today, the cake tasting came to the bride-to-be.  Wanna see what she sampled?

Eight flavor combinations!

Here's a handy-dandy guide to the gorggeous flavor up there:

Lemon Cake Vanilla Butter Cream	Almond Cake Chocolate Butter Cream	Chocolate Cake Vanilla Butter Cream	Buttery Yellow Cake Raspberry Butter Cream
Lemon Cake Raspberry Butter Cream	Almond Cake Almond Butter Cream	Chocolate Cake Peanut Butter Cream	Buttery Yellow Cake Strawberry Butter Cream

Fingers crossed that I get a call soon with an order for another big, beautiful bridal cake! 

Zambia, A Country in Cake

Well, for those who read my post a week or so ago, you know I've been working on a HUGE cake for a church group sending a family on a year of mission work in Africa.  Specifically, this stalwart team is heading to Zambia.

To celebrate, they commissioned me to make it out of cake.  And let me tell you - what fun, and what WORK!  The baking alone was a momentus undertaking, then the icing the filling the carving the crumbcoating and the decorating and delivering...I earned every penny!

Here it is in all it's glory!  "Cake for 100, Alex..."
"Made out of yellow and chocolate cake, his African country can feed a huge crowd". 
"What is...

ZAMBIA!"

My Patterns

West Zambia...in buttery yellow cake

East Zambia...in chocolate cake...with the colors of the flag almost complete

The finished product!

My apologies...I'm sure you see the smudge...

It wasn't until I was home reviewing my poor photography skills that I learned there had been a small smudge of green butter cream on the camera lense.  I'm hoping someone will take pity on me and send me another, icing-free picture, but until then...these will do!  Enjoy!

The #1 Engine for the #3 Birthday

Well, I finished it!  Here it is, in all it's glory...

Now...time to go to sleep and prepare myself for a birthday party!

Cake Pops are COOL. So says Starbucks. So say we all!

I've been baking a lot this week.  *GASP*  Got me a cake order for a Saturday morning delivery, and I ended up with a bowl full of scraps, as usual, and nothing to do with them except toss them or eat them.

Eating them is not an option.  I have only recently rediscovered that I have a waist, and I'd like to keep it that way.

Tossing them is just wasteful...as opposed to waistful, which may not be a word, but, as I have already said, is not an option.

So, I had to get creative.  What do you do with a bowl full of fresh, tasty cake scraps?

Cake Lore Cake Pops!
A little white cake, a little vanilla butter cream,
some poured fondant and a gum paste flower

You make CAKE POPS!  This is my first try with cake pops...turned out pretty darn cute, and tasty too, if I say so my self.  (Okay, okay...so I ate one.  There may or may not have been four right before this picture was taken.  Gee whiz.)

I used my usual ingredients, Cake Lore butter cream and tried my hand at poured fondant.  A delectable edible...and hopefully a sellable edible too!

Butter, Butter, Butter: BETTER!

Well, what HAVE you been doing while I've been away the past week or two?  I know...I know...crying yourself to sleep because there hasn't been a Cake Lore post. 

Well, cry no more! 

I'm covered in a fresh coat of butter cream icing and I'm feeling the excitement of this month's wedding cake extravaganza!  We're talking four tiers of towering tastiness - lemon, raspberry, almond - I bet you wish you knew where this cake was going so you could crash it and have a slice:).

As I was laboring over my first of many batches of butter cream today, I was reminded, yet again, why it is the Queen Mother of all icings.  Fondant is gorgeous if done correctly, but it's not everyone's favorite texture or taste. 

Then there's the ever-present "butter cream substitute" which is just a bunch of crisco and powdered sugar beaten in to a fluffy mess - a mess which, in my opinion, never ever gets as smooth as real butter cream and tastes nothing like the real thing. 

Real Butter Cream...and my cake bible, Sweet Celebrations by Sylvia Weinstock

I think I've reached a turning point.  As much as I appreciate and love my friends at Wilton, I have to take an official stand on this one.  Crisco icing is gross.  Buttery butter cream is AMAZING.  It's like dressing a cake in a silk ball gown.  Smooth, satisfying, delicious butter cream...I just can't go back to that other stuff. 

I'm trying to carve out a niche for myself.  Here it is:  REAL icing. 

The bride who ordered this month's wedding cake was at my brother in law's wedding last September.  That was the famous lily cake you see displayed so proudly in the banner of this blog.  She said she'd never seen wedding guests go back for seconds of a cake and it was some of the best she'd ever had.

And that almost made ME cry.  What a lovely thing to say!  I confess being so tired I hadn't noticed people going back.  Cake is an exhausting business. 

So that's what I'm striving for...something different than the white stuff that passes for icing in most bakeries.  I want people to know my cakes by the flavor - and the flavor is BUTTER.