Ribbons and More Ribbons

My sister-in-law, who blogs at Enduring Tri Girl, turned me on to a great idea.  She sent me a link to a cake that had been made not with cake, but...wait for it...with cereal treats.

That's right, an entire cake made solely out of cereal treats.  It blew my baking mind.

I immediately thought: cake dummies!  I've been wanting to invest in some cake dummies for some time now, but really, I make all kinds of models out of this stuff.  Why can't I made a cake model?

So I did!  I whipped up some sticky gooeyness and shaped it to my needs.  Then I got out some leftover royal icing I had on hand and practiced a technique that creates a folded ribbon effect. 


How fun is that?  I had a great time working with the icing and though there were a few imperfect places, I feel much more confident after all the piping practice...after all, practice piping makes perfect piping...right???

I still have a ton of dummies left - and  can't wait to try more ideas I've been sitting on. 

New Things...New Storage!

If you visit Bake Lore often, you know that I'm a sucker for a pretty serving dish.  I have a growing collection of cake pedestals, tea trays and pretty platters. 

I was thrilled this year when I opened a beautiful tea service from Pampered Chef, a gift from my Aunt Teresa (who is by the way an amazing gift-giver and all around very thoughtful and loving kind of aunt). 

Sadly I'm running out of shelf space for all these gorgeous items. 

I had to do some rearranging and repurposing, but I found a solution: how to store my new three-tiered pedestal while also serving a much needed purpose in my kitchen. 

So I give you, the most elegant potato, onion, garlic storage ever!

Of course it will easily wash up and do what it's really intended to do...provide a frame for something delicious and decorated...and also dainty, because big treats would just not fit!
I love this stand even more now that it is uber functional.  Again, anything that is extremely useful is going to be one of my favorite things.  Eggs...black pants...ok, black anything...white vinegar...but I digress!

I love my new toy, and I hope you are enjoying your gifts and thinking up ways they will make your life just a teensy bit better. 

Thanks, Aunt Teresa!

Best of 2011

It's the end of another year!  How did this happen again?? 

I am feeling reminiscent and looking over my year of projects, I wanted to share with you all again some of my absolute favorites.

First, the Incredibly Time-Consuming Shaped Cake Category...Winner is...The Guitar Cake!!!

Rock n Roll baby!

Up Next we have the Impossibly Cute Saturdays, that is Cake Pops, Category:  The Christmas Ornaments!

Soooo cute.  I love 'em!

Yes, I had to go with the Christmas ornaments.  I love them.  I want some of my own:).

And finally, my top choice for 2011, my chef d'oeuvre, my magnum opus, my awesomest of awesome cakes:  The Epic Wedding Cake Category and Best in Show...a little something I call the Colossus of Gant...best wedding ever got the best wedding cake ever (if I do say so myself...).



The Colossus of Gant!

2011 was a sweet year, pardon the pun, and here's hoping 2012 will be better still.  I want to see a full wedding calendar and a many, many new and returning customers. 

God bless you all and thank you for making time for Bake Lore.  Here's hoping I'll be sharing pictures of your very own Bake Lore creation soon! 

Happy New Year!!!

All the Fun, None of the Fuss

I have great memories of making Christmas cookies every year with my mom and my brother.  There was always a baking day in the week leading up to Christmas, and I looked forward to it.

This year, though, I am a wee bit overextended, and I find myself wishing for just an hour of Christmas cookie fun instead of a whole day.  Enter the homemade lofthouse cookie.  Oh...Oh my.

My sister-in-law, another baking Lore (who has her own great blog at www.enduringtrigirl.blogspot.com and you should go check it out), found this recipe at a site called Annie's Eats.

I tried them.  I loved them.  I'll make them again and again. 

They're just what you'd expect - super soft sugar cookie with perfectly sweet icing.  I really encourage you to try them yourself. 

Not only did I get a recipe for Christmas cookies, these are an incredibly flexible cookie that can be formatted to any occasion just by changing your food coloring and sprinkles.  That's a huge win in my book! 

Now, you'll excuse me while my family and I go stuff as many of these into our faces as we can.  Merry Christmas!!!

Deck the Halls and All that Jazz

What?  MORE super cute Saturdays from Bake Lore?  Well...if you insist...

What goes better with Christmas tree Saturdays than Christmas ball Saturdays??

What other ideas do you have for Christmas inspired Saturdays?  Snowmen?  Little Reindeer?  The possibilites are endless!



Hey There, Tiny Christmas Trees!

Saturdays at Bake Lore are getting cuter and cuter and cuter.

Look at these adorable little Christmas trees!

Kinda makes you want to sing songs and dance around like a little kid, doesn't it?  I'm in love with these little Saturdays.  They were fun to make, and they taste even better than they look.

These were made with the ever popular buttery yellow cake, vanilla butter cream and covered in white Chocoley dipping chocolate.  I discovered that no candy coating, even the good, expensive kind, likes red gel colors.  Something about it makes the chemistry just go crazy and instead of a gorgeous, smooth dipping candy, you end up with wierd, oily crumbles.  Ew.  So, the red decorations were just a bit of royal icing...as were the stars.

AmbuLANCE!

What a week it has been!  I was sworn to secrecy on this latest cake until today so as not to spoil the surprise.  But at long last, I have some fresh pictures for you.

This is buttery yellow cake and vanilla butter cream.  The fireman/emt figure is marzipan and the ambulance is cereal treat and gumpaste. 

Here's a little close up...

Marzipan is fun to work with, although significantly stickier than gum paste.  I'll definitely be using that medium again. 

Hope you enjoyed this fun cake - and congratulations to C.J., who has graduated from nursing school and is now the very best fireman/emt/nurse you could ever hope to have rescue you from anything that might be on fire or bleeding:). 

A Taste of Summer

These may not be the most festive or Christmasy confections I've ever churned out during December, but they are awfully cute.  And who wouldn't like to be reminded of a lovely, ripe, juicey watermelon during these gray months?

So I give you, watermelon Saturdays: 

They only look like watermelon.  I shudder to think of the monstrosity that would be watermelon flavored cake.  Ew...these are a much tastier combination of buttery yellow cake with a little splash of pink, a handful of mini chocolate chips and a big fat scoop of Bake Lore butter cream.

And of course, they are dipped - twice - in Chocoley white chocolate.  That stuff is amazing.  I love it.  You turn it any color you choose and it stays that beautiful shiny, silky smooth chocolate Chocoley is famous for.  You get those so-called candy melts at the craft store, and heaven help you if you want them any color but the one they came with.  It's happened to me so many times - thinking it'll somehow be different, and it never is.  A little gel color turns those candy melts into some kind of crumbly nightmare.  It's weird. 

I was actually just on the verge of being forced to go the candy melt route when my Chocoley order finally appeared on my doorstep.  I did a little dance...and a bit later, I took a bite out of one of these cute little pops. 

It's a Miracle

Oh yes...it's a miracle.

You know that stuff they try to sell at the grocery store or the craft store - they call it miracle cake release or some other such nonsense?  Yeah.  It cost's like eight dollars and you get this tiny little squeeze bottle of stuff. 

Rip...OFF!

Guess what?  Thanks to the miracle that is Pinterest - seriously, you need to check Pinterest out if you haven't already - I found a DIY version of this miracle concoction, and guess what?  It really works. 

I tried it out on some blueberry streudel muffins this morning, and it's dreamy. 

blueberry streudel muffins...that did NOT stick to the pan:)

Well, yeah, you still have to wash the pan, but pretty much a clean break!

Here's the simple formula: one part crisco, one part veggie oil and one part all purpose flour.  Combine and beat the heck out of it.  Then you can store it forever in a bottle of your choosing. 

Awesome!  I'm in love...and did I mention it's a perfect substitute for parchment paper and butter?  Oh yeah!  Huge cost saver for the non-cake parts of cake making...that is some Charlie Sheen style winning, friends.  Love it.

How to Frame a Cake

When I was a girl, I had a great love for porceline dolls.  After the acquisition of three or four of those glassy-eyed figures, I came to a common conclusion:  fake dolls are creepy. 

Since then, I've not been one for collecting.  But at this point in my life, I have a great love of beautiful cake pedestals, platters and stands.  I love them, and I love shopping for them.  I find them online, at antique stores and even, *gasp* at Walmart. 

Like framing a painting, a pedestal finishes a beautiful cake. These are a few of my favorites.

I have started offering these treasures as rentals for smaller cakes.  Perhaps as my collection grows and becomes more diverse, I'll offer them for the big, fat wedding cakes too. 

Luckily, cake pedestals don't stare back at you.  They have no eyes that follow you as you move about the room.  They stack well and stay conveneiently out of sight, out of mind until they are needed.  At last, a collection worth keeping.

A Plan Comes Together...

I love it when a plan comes together!

I think that's from a movie...Blues Brothers?  I don't know...my Dad is always saying that, and I used to think he made it up.  I used to think he made all sorts of stuff up until one day I heard a song I thought he wrote being played on the radio.  Yeah.  I was excited for him, until I realized my mistake. 

He makes fun of me for that now.  BUT I DIGRESS!

I love it when a plan comes together!  What do I mean by that?  Well - I advertised at the little old home show a couple weeks back, and lo and behold, minding my own business, what dropped by my back door but...actual business! 

Yes, I got a cake order thanks to my free samples.  Awesome. 

The classic combination of Buttery Yellow Cake and Vanilla Butter Cream made this short-stack birthday cake a delicious shoe show.  See for yourself...

I actually kind of want to wear that shoe.

Nothing says "Birthday" like a new shoe...
even if it's just one shoe...and even if it's made out of icing.

swirly goodness:)

Something compells me to take a picture like this of every cake lately.
Sorry, but you'll just have to suffer through it.