Have I mentioned how much of a geek I am? Well, just in case I haven't, now you know. I just love it when two of my passions cross over each other, especially when the results are this great!
Check out the post on Gizmodo for the whole story, but this is a wedding cake for, you guessed it, a Star Wars wedding. It's hard to tell how much of it is edible, exactly, but some of the details are amazing. The chef who made this cake used camera lens with a blue bulb behind it for R2's sensor for added realism. Have you ever seen a geek-y cake this awesome? I'd love to hear about it!
Last Saturday night, somefolksin Philly got together to throw a Battlestar Galactica party. When it came to the dessert, they knew that they didn't need to look any further than local baker Zoë Lukas (she's the one who created those those really cool Robert Indiana cookies that I posted about a few months ago).
She didn't let them down, creating a work of art out of chocolate devil's food cake. It is filled with raspberry jam and ganache, iced with chocolate buttercream and ganache, decorated with chocolate ships and explosions, silver dragees and silver and gold space dust. Lukas is in the process of opening her own bakery in Philadelphia and I think I speak for the entire when I say, we can't wait.
Every mom loves flowers-- except the ones who are allergic. So what's better than getting flowers for mom on Mother's Day? Making her a cake with flowers on it, of course!
I began with two 6-inch round cakes, leveled and stacked with a layer of buttercream between. I then iced the entire thing with white buttercream and let sit for a couple of minutes before smoothing. To get a 'fondant finish' (smooth like fondant but tasty like icing), I used my wooden fondant roller and a Viva paper towel and gently rolled over the surface of the cake.
I found a Wilton tulip and daisy muffin pan and thought it was perfect for baking flowers for the top of a cake. Each flower was leveled so it would sit evenly on top and alternate in a circle. The daisies were iced using tip #220. When I got it, I really thought this tip was going to make a neat drop flower but mostly it just makes pretty fat swirls. I made the centers with small pale yellow fondant circles. For the tulips, I used tip #3 so you could see a basic outline of the petals shape then did a small star tip to fill them in.
It still looked a little plain so I decided to use the flower fondant cutouts and make alternating colors of daisies and tulips for that as well. As an extra touch, I took dark purple fondant and cut out a butterfly shape. I shaped them over a bent piece of cardboard covered in aluminum foil and let them dry overnight. I made four just in case I broke one which was good because I ended up breaking two.
Once I added a little green grass around the edge to finish it off, it was all done. As a mom myself, I think I would much prefer to get these flowers than the kind that come in a vase.
In celebration of Cinco de Mayo, I thought it would be fitting to make a piñata cake. Mostly I just wanted to see if I could. I hadn't yet made a cake that required major structural support and thought this would be a nice way to ease into it.
My little burro had to have something to hold up his midsection or he would collapse under his own weight. I started by cutting a dowel into even sections for his legs. I then cut a basic body shape out of two pieces of cardboard. One to attach the feet to and one to place the body on which would be put together later. I thought it would be easier to work with this way without worrying that the legs would crumple while I was carving the body and head.
I notched out some small holes for the legs and then glued them in for stability. I cut the body out of a 8" round cake using the base piece as a guide. Next, I cut a cake baked in a loaf pan in half and began carving the shape of the head and nose. For the ears, I decided it would be easier to carve it out of one piece with a sloping base that served as the forehead instead of trying to attach (and stabilize) two separate ears. This worked out really well and once there was a thin layer of icing between the sections, it was surprisingly steady without any extra support.
Yep - 50,000. In honor of the holiday, University of Maryland bakery staff took two months to make the confections, which are being stored in various freezers all over the College Park campus.
UMD officials expect about 80,000 people to attend the event today, which is free to the public.
The numbers are unbelievable: the ingredients were $14,000, which were paid for in part by corporate sponsors, and the total calorie count for all 50,000 cakes is a staggering 12.6 million. Take that, Weight Watchers.
Oh - and the photo? Courtesy of rockin' Slashfood Flickr user Cupcakequeen.
My husband and I were watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire the other day and there was a question that stuck with me. What type of hat is named for it's distinctive shape? The answer turned out to be a pork pie hat. I had never heard of such a thing and couldn't figure out what made it "distinctive" enough to be named after pork or even pie. Once I looked it up online (what did we do before Google? Lived in oblivion, I suppose), I recognized it right away. I now understand the correlation between the hat and shape of a particular meat pie but I still couldn't get the silly name out of my head. So, naturally, I decided to make a cake.
I started by taking a 6 inch round, cutting it in half and standing each on its side with the bottoms together to make the body. I used my smallest mixing bowl for the head, some mini-cupcakes for a nose and feet and a pyrex ramiken for the pie. The entire thing needed a little carving here and there. The edges of his back were rounded out some, the head cut off a bit to make the neck shorter and the bottoms of the feet flattened so they would snug up next to him better. I inserted a toothpick to help hold his nose in place and went to work making him pink. It takes longer than you think to cover a pig in hot pink buttercream icing using a star tip. If I did it again, I'd probably just ice it and flatten it out to make it easier but I do like the texture contrast between the pig and the smooth fondant of the accessories.
Anyone who knows my family, knows that this house is a Mac house, so I thought it only fitting that my first post make it clear where my allegiance lies. This cake was made for my brother-in-law's birthday and with this group of apple addicts, I am sure I'll be getting requests to do more.
I started with two layers of French vanilla cake, with a layer of buttercream between them. Then, I went to work on achieving as close to bondi blue as possible which involved buttercream icing, a lot of blue plus a hint of green gel coloring and plenty of stirring. It's not perfect but it's incredibly close to the iMac in our den-- although my husband tells me that's not actually bondi blue either. Oh well, maybe next time.
In order to get a nice, smooth surface on the cake, I iced it and allowed it to sit for a few minutes just until it started to crust. Then I used a Viva paper towel (these seem to work the best since they are smooth) placed on the cake and gently rolled it out smooth with a fondant roller. If the paper towel pulls up with icing, just allow it to crust for another few minutes and try again.
Next it was time for the apple logo, which I wanted to be exactly right. I knew it wasn't possible for me to do it freehand so I pulled the logo off the internet, resized the PDF to the size of the cake and printed it out as a template. Once the white fondant was rolled out, I cut out the apple with an X-acto knife. Then I laid it on the cake, smoothed it out and made sure to get the leaf at just the right angle.
The birthday boy really enjoyed it but I'm not sure if eating this apple every day would keep the doctor away.
Well, tomorrow is Easter already. I know that the grocery stores are full to overflowing with candy and baked goods for the holiday. That's nice, but wouldn't it be fun to make your own Easter cake, especially if you have young children around?
Victoria over at Candy Addict remembered making this cake in a Home Economics class and thought it would be nice to share. It was very nice of her to share: thanks Victoria! She goes through the process step by step, with lots of pictures, and even provides a shopping list.
If you have kids running around, or you just have a fondness for really cute cakes, this might be a fun project for the holiday weekend. If not, hopefully you'll get a smile out of it.
Eight layers of moist yellow cake, each slathered with a rich chocolate frosting, is what makes up the Smith Island Cake. It's decadent, it's unforgiving...and it could soon be Maryland's own.
Maryland is prepared to designate four-generation-old confection as its state cake, joining only two other states who have cakes to their names: Massachusetts' Boston Creme Pie, and South Dakota's kuchen (a German cake with a custard filling).
NPR has a fun story about the cake and its history, which originated on Smith Island, about 12 miles off Maryland's coast, across the Chesapeake Bay.
But recognizing certain symbols, songs and foods as your state's own isn't as unique as it once was. Wikipedia lists some state's claims to fame, some of which are downright ridiculous (Iowa's "state sweet" is the Jelly Baby?!) but fun to learn. In fact, I think all of our readers should amend the U.S. state foods Wiki page - let's see how crazy we can get before someone flags our entries!
Look up cute in the dictionary, and you'll inevitably find a photo of of these adorable little veggies, made from Williams-Sonoma's new cast-aluminum petit four pan.
The ones in the photo are professionally done, so of course the fondant looks perfect (so perfect, in fact, that they look almost like marzipan...), but I'm sure they'd be great for kids to decorate, too.
The pan retails for $34, and can hold twenty veggies - radishes, pea pods, cabbages, and carrots - at a time. Not sure how WS made its "dirt," but you could definitely just crumble a bunch of chocolate cookies and toss 'em in a pan.
We're coming down to the end of citrus season, but there are still enough oranges, lemons and limes out there to inspire the celebration of these flavorful and aromatic fruits. This cake is a great example of what you can do with a few lemons and oranges. The recipe is adapted from one by Ina Garten and the image is brought to us by Flickr user and blogger Amanda.
Did this just happen? Did Gretchen Noelle over at Canela & Comino seriously just post a recipe on Slashfood's Flickr account that combines two of the world's best known food groups, cake and pie? (Er - and fruit, too).
You'd better believe she did. This pake (cie?) melds the sweet, juicy fruit filling of a pie with a crust that mixes the slight crumbly nature of a pie crust and the soft, buttery notes of cake.
Upon closer inspection, the recipe was taken from Baking From My Home to Yours, and is officially titled the "Russian Grandmothers Apple Pie-Cake."
Gretchen suggests substituting cranberries for raisins if you're not a huge raisin fan. Some walnuts or pecans might be a nice addition, too. I might also add a dash of nutmeg to the filling, just because it tends to bring out the best flavors in dishes like this. Otherwise...muah *kisses fingertips*.
Have you ever stashed a Coke in the freezer, hoping to chill it quickly, then forgotten all about it, only to have it explode all over your frozen peas?
Every mom loves flowers-- except the ones who are allergic. So what's better than getting flowers for mom on 
In celebration of Cinco de Mayo, I thought it would be fitting to make a piñata cake. Mostly I just wanted to see if I could. I hadn't yet made a cake that required major structural support and thought this would be a nice way to ease into it. 
My husband and I were watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire the other day and there was a question that stuck with me. What type of hat is named for it's distinctive shape? The answer turned out to be a 
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Anyone who knows my family, knows that this house is a Mac house, so I thought it only fitting that my first post make it clear where my allegiance lies. This cake was made for my brother-in-law's birthday and with this group of apple addicts, I am sure I'll be getting requests to do more. 
Well, tomorrow is Easter already. I know that the grocery stores are full to overflowing with candy and baked goods for the holiday. That's nice, but wouldn't it be fun to make your own Easter cake, especially if you have young children around?
A fraking amazing Battlestar Galactica cake
Iced Tea 101
Pierogies + cheese + onions + kraut = Parmageddon!
