The Perfect Blend of Perfect Balance

As I continue along on my career journey, I find that I've struck a moment of perfect balance. Although I don't currently have a full- or part-time job just yet, I've been quite busy with freelance work in both graphic and cake design. Considering that my graphic design career had been a bit of a rocky road filled with downsizing and dead-ends that left me burned out and jaded, it's nice to finally be at peace with my career. I'm very happy balancing both the freelance graphic design and cake decorating, plus having some (temporary) time to take care of all the little things I felt I never had the time or energy to do.

I'm now looking for a full-time job in graphic design with the intention of doing cakes as a freelance gig for family, friends and word-of-mouth cake requests. You may be wondering why I've seemingly gone full circle back to graphic design after going to culinary school. Well, I don't consider it a circle because it feels more like moving forward. I needed time away from office life to recover from that rocky career journey and I needed to challenge myself so that I could grow. At the beginning of this career shake-up, I'd felt stagnant, bored, frustrated and even a tad cynical. In other words, nothing like my old self who had been cheerful, optimistic and overachieving. A change was absolutely necessary.

I had always thought cake decorating would be a fun and a great creative outlet, so that's what I decided to pursue and I'm glad that I did. I'm not known for spending time in the kitchen, so going to culinary school allowed me to take a risk and truly challenge myself. I learned a lot and I gained confidence by discovering that I was capable of not only cake design, but of starting over and re-inspiring myself. So now I not only have a back-up career, but I also got my fire, joy and enthusiasm back. Now I can share that passion by making cakes that bring joy to others and maybe somewhere down the line I could teach people to develop cake decorating skills as well. For now though, I think I'd like to give my graphic design career another shot while still doing freelance cake decorating on the side. Don't worry, I still intend to keep my readers up-to-date on my my cake endeavors.

I'm enjoying this moment of peace and tranquility, and I know that once I find my next graphic design job that I'll be ready to take on the world with a smile and renewed enthusiasm. I might even bring my new co-workers a cake on my first day. The perfect blend of perfect balance.

Arrrrr You Ready For Ye Pirate Cake?

The Pirates of the Caribbean skull logo cake for my dad is now complete. I'm pretty happy with the end result except I made the skull a little too big and ran out of room for the flaming torches to go on top. That's okay though, I just used the flame-colored icing to pipe the borders around the cake to give it the feel of a flame effect. I love the color combination on this cake and the whole thing kind of has an unintended biker tattoo vibe to it. Pretty cool. I wanted to buy some chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil to put around the sides, but I'm not sure I'll have time to do that before I give the cake to my dad this afternoon. Either way, I know this Father's Day cake will make my dad one happy pirate!

Luke, I Am Your Froster

I've been trying out cake recipes and working on my piping skills lately. Many of my practice cakes will be going to my husband's techy coworkers, many of which have interests in things like sci-fi, gaming and other geek-friendly endeavors. Considering this fact, I decided to decorate my cake with a theme that would please such an audience, hence, the Star Wars Stormtrooper.

I found the design on a t-shirt and thought it would translate to cake perfectly. I baked a white cake with confetti sprinkles and covered it with vanilla buttercream. I had set aside some of the buttercream to dye black for piping the details and borders. I then lightly sketched the Stormtrooper face onto the cake using a toothpick to create a guideline before I start piping. Unlike pencil sketching, you kind of only get one shot when piping directly on a cake. I'm fairly happy with the end result, but I know the facial proportions aren't quite right and the mouth is slightly uneven. It is MUCH easier to replicate images with pencil than with frosting, but I'll get better at it. That's why I'm doing practice cakes after all!

Next up...a father's day cake for this weekend that will probably be the Pirates of the Caribbean skull logo. I found this cake online (see photo) that pulled it off beautifully, so I'm going to use that as my model and inspiration. I'm going to make the same chocolate/buttercream/ganache cake that I made recently for the practice groom's cake/cupcakes. My dad likes chocolate (well, really anything sweet) and I think he'll really like the design since he loves the pirate movies. The decorating technique is similar to the Stormtrooper's with some slight differences, so it shouldn't be too difficult to do. I hope it comes out like the cake picture, but I know my dad will love it no matter what it looks like. That's why he's a great dad...Happy Father's Day!

Build Me Up, Buttercup!

Now that I have that song stuck in your head, I'm pleased to introduce you to my new Kitchenaid Artisan Standing Mixer (in the sunny shade of buttercup yellow)! This will make it so much easier to whip up billions of batches of batter and buttercream for baking. How do you like that alliteration? I've been using a hand mixer, but it just doesn't have the torque to handle thicker mixes so I end up having to manually mix thicker batters. Not fun. I think this will make life a whole lot easier.

I'm planning to try out a recipe for margarita cake and a confetti cake in the next few weeks. Now I'm really excited to make them because I'll get to team up with Buttercup (yes, that's what I'm naming her because the name just makes me smile). I'll be trying to make at least one cake or cupcake batch a week to practice decorating and to narrow down my favorite recipes. Sugar-coated research and experimentation, if you will.

If you think I'm actually eating all of these tasty creations, you are mistaken. I sample a little bit to make sure everything tastes okay, but mostly I pass them on to friends while I go hit the treadmill.  Ironically, I'm not much of a cake person so I'm not that tempted by the things I've been baking. Cookies, on the other hand, are my weakness so you won't see me baking too many of those. I try to keep out of trouble so I can keep fitting in my jeans — a challenging feat while exploring the world of cake decorating, but I will prevail!

Oh My Ganache...I'm doing a Groom's Cake!

My friend (and my old coworker from the Leader newspaper) Lauri will be tying the knot this fall and she's asked me to make the groom's cake. I'm flattered and more than a little excited! I decided to make her a mini-version of the cake for her and her fiance to sample to ensure that is exactly what they want. I used the leftover batter to make cupcake versions for my other ex-coworkers to enjoy.

The groom's cake will be a not-too-sweet (as requested) chocolate cake filled with vanilla buttercream and coated in ganache. On top of the cake will be a fondant circle with a hand-painted tiger to represent the Year of the Tiger, which is her fiance's astrological sign according to the Chinese zodiac. For the cupcakes, I just painted a variety of fun and wacky images just for kicks.

The final result tasted a bit like hostess cupcake (the one with the swirlies on top) but less sweet a tad more sophisticated. Delicious! Most importantly, it was a hit with both the future bride and groom. The ganache was smooth and chocolatey, but not too sweet. I'm personally not a fan of buttercream, but the recipe I used was fantastic and I actually enjoyed it. It had a light, almost whipped texture and it wasn't overly buttery. I hate when it feels like I'm just eating a stick of butter — blech!

I really liked this flavor combination —I'm definitely holding on to this recipe for future use.

Wilton Class Complete!

As of yesterday, I completed the first course of the Wilton Cake Decorating class and got my certificate! Since my last post, I've made two other cakes for the class. One was supposed to be a creepy little clown, but we were given freedom to do something else using techniques we learned in class. I opted to do make a bunny using a demonstrated technique for making faces out of buttercream. I also practiced piping shell borders and hearts on that cake as well. You'll have to excuse the crazy colors that I used. I kept reusing the colors that I made for the rainbow cake (or altering them slightly) because I didn't want to keep buying more buttercream ingredients for just a practice cake.

Our final class taught us how to make buttercream roses. They are a little tricky to work with, but its worth it for the end result. We also learned how to pipe leaves, vines and bows too. I love how the leaves turned out because the piping tip we use automatically creates the center vein of the leaf stem. Pretty cool! The roses got a little smooshed when I picked them up though because they didn't have time to harden before the end of class, but they're mostly intact.

I don't think I'm going to sign up for the other two Wilton courses now that I've completed the first one. I'm glad I took this class because it introduced me to the basic Wilton piping techniques and allowed me to practice with some instructor guidance. However, now that I understand the basics I think I can figure out how to pipe the items for their other classes by purchasing the Wilton "Decorating Cakes" book (only $12.99 and I also had a 40% off coupon). This book is kind of a compilation of most of their techniques for piping a large variety of flowers and borders, as well as how to make fondant/gumpaste decorative pieces too. Between the book, the first Wilton course information and my culinary school knowledge, it should be, well, a piece of cake.

Where There's a Wilton, There's a Way

As I continue on my job hunt, I decided to sign up for the beginner Wilton cake decorating course at Hobby Lobby in order to develop my cake decorating skills even further. Our first homework assignment was to bake any kind of cake and ice it (they showed us how) using the Wilton butercream recipe in our handbook. We also had to put some of that buttercream in five small containers, bring it to medium consistency and use colored gel paste to create five different colors for our class assignment.

In class, we learned about piping techniques and how to decorate our cake with a rainbow pattern by using a transfer technique to move the image from a pattern in our book and onto the cake. We then used a piping bag with a star tip to fill in the colors with the Wilton's buttercream that we brought from home. It takes a little time to change out your piping bag and it does get a bit messy, but it's pretty easy. Unfortunately, we didn't start piping until the last 20 minutes of class, so I kind of had to rush it and didn't have time to use all of my colors. That's okay though, I intend to create my own more elaborate design to practice these techniques on a future cake in my own time. Rainbows are nice and all, but they make me feel like I should be plastering unicorns and sparkles all over my cake.

Our next Wilton class (the third of four classes) will cover making buttercream roses and other flowers, so I'm pretty excited about that. We'll also learn how to make creepy little clowns (see photo), something I'm less than thrilled about. Our instructor said that a lot of people don't like making the clowns, but it's part of the standard curriculum. She did say that instead of putting the clown on the iced cake that we have to bring in, we can make a practice clown on the table and then scrape it off. I'm opting for that one because their buttercream bodies are a bit disturbing to me. Besides, I don't want to eat a clown — I heard that they taste funny (sorry, couldn't resist making that joke).

I've also been experimenting with cake flavors in my spare time. I recently made a batch of lemon-rosemary cupcakes with lemon zest/cream cheese icing. I really like this recipe because it isn't too sweet and like the unexpected hint of rosemary. The cake is more dense than fluffy (less like cake, more like cornbread consistency), but I think it worked great in cupcake form. It might be a bit too dense for some in cake form. I found the recipe in a magazine, but a friend of mine found it online if you would like to make a batch (http://szera.blogspot.com/2010/03/lemon-rosemary-cupcakes.html). I added an extra tablespoon of lemon juice and a little extra rosemary to the cake. I also added extra lemon zest to both the cake and the icing since I had some leftover and, in my opinion, you can't add too much lemony goodness.