Opening up another session of the FNCC! Everyone is welcome to share their week, photos of their work, ask for help or provide help if they can!

Hope to see lots of photos tonight!

Cat

Hi everyone,

Just one small wedding cake this week. It was for a small City Hall wedding this morning. They had a family reception at a restaurant in Old Town Sac so I delivered the cake there this morning. Here's a photo:

Marble cake with buttercream. 5x5x5 cake that serves 12. 

Hope everyone's week has been good. We are coming to the end of baseball season and I'm team mom of our Juniors team and we are going to the championship series so there's been all sorts of pain in the butt paperwork and last minute stuff to do. Glad it was this week and not next week when I have a much more complex cake to do!

PS> if anyone has a great caramel icing for filling a cake I'd love the recipe!

Looking forward to seeing lots of photos this week!

Cat

Hi Cat, I love five inch square cakes they always look like cute little boxes. The last one I did was a carved jewellery box . They serve more than you think too. 

Nothing for me this week ,  I am quite happy about that , I am finally getting my meds sorted out so I am hoping that my life quality will start to improve in the near future.  

I have a heap of paperwork to do for the cake association tomorrow , with and AGM coming up and registration starting for Our National conference next year. 

I do a caramel ganache that I use to ice with and fill with , I have piped it as well. 

I use about half a can of top and fill ( it is a thick caramel used for a pie filling similar to what you get when you do a condensed milk caramel tart. ) Thin it out with some cream ,a couple of tablespoons  bring it up to heat and then stir in white chocolate .  about four hundred grams.  It will set like a ganache for a coating. You can adjust the cream ratio for a more pipeable softer texture.  If it is a bit thick , just warm the portion you want to pipe with in micro for a five second burst until you get the consistency you want. Oh and I always add a good whack of pink salt when I melt the caramel. 

I thought you might like to see the five inch I did last year. 

Mimi,

Glad they are getting the meds sorted...that's the hardest waiting period!

As for the little cake...my hubby never believes me when I say that a cake serves a certain number of people. I finally mocked out like I was cutting this one to show him and he finally understood. Even if they cut HUGE pieces there would still be 9 slices and there were only 8 of them in the wedding party today. Plenty of cake for this small event.

Your caramel sounds yummy but a bit thick for what I need to do with it. You see I'm mixing in toffee candy bar pieces so I need the frosting to be sorta fluffy. However, your filling sounds PERFECT for my mom's double chocolate and caramel cake later this year so I've copied your recipe for then! Thank you VERY much!

Cat

I mix chopped up stuff like that through ganache all the time , You just add a bit more cream , it sort of doesn't set until you spread or pipe it on the cake.  You could whip it if you like to make it fluffy , like a whipped ganache. 

Or you could add it to a plain buttercream. I have done it with choc ganache and it is lovely . I don't see why the caramel wouldn't work. 

I've underestimated the time needed for a big project...again!!  Crazy week with DD home from college, and DS out of school now, so didn't get as much done as I should have!

Graduation party treats for a friend tomorrow (uh, today!) :

24 decorated sugar cookies plus 5 for top of small cake  DONE

cupcake tower BUILT and covered with Contact

6 in cake coming out of oven in a few minutes

84 white mini cupcakes ready to go in oven

84 chocolate cupcakes not mixed yet!

Gonna have to be a quick job of icing in the morning!

Hope everyone else is having a smooth night!

No cakes for me again this week as I am fighting with a quilt that I am putting together and hoping to finish soo.  I'm happy to keep checking back to see everyone's pictures, though.

AJust one for me :) [IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3244027/width/200/height/400[/IMG]

The 5" jewelry box is beautiful!! :)

AI always love lurking and looking at everyone's beautiful cakes. None for me this week.

Cat I use the Salted Caramel Buttercream Frosting by Sprinklebakes. It is really yummy.

Happy baking

Mimi! If it can be whipped like chocolate ganache then I think it will work perfectly! Good too cause it sounds simply YUMMY! And your jewelry box is wonderful. I simply love making cake look like it's anything but cake!

Cazza..you quilt? I swear that sewing is the only craft I've never been able to master. I knit, crochet, paint, draw, sculpt, scrapbook, make jewelry, and, of course, photography, but never ever have I been able to sew. My mom has tried several times to teach me. One of my friends is simply incredible and she's tried to teach me..I just get lost in the patterns. So while I'm normally a DIY'er this is one thing I get someone else to do for me. My friend is making my granddaughter this adorable "owl" dress for her 5th birthday because I wanted it for her and can't make it myself. So I have a LOT of respect and awe for anyone who can do it! If you think of it could you pm me a photo when you are done? I think quilts are just lovely!

Matty, I see those cakes and I always want the clothing that is depicted! LOL! Too Cute!!

Ana...a rocket cake!?! You are BRAVE! I can't wait to see this one!

So for this upcoming week I have a Baby's 1st Birthday cake along with 2 dozen cupcakes for our baseball team. I've already made the topper for the cake and it's drying. It's a rather big single tier cake and, as always, I dread having to cover such a large tier in fondant. But they requested the big 10 inch cake instead of a tiered cake for ease of cutting out at a park so on tier it is. I'll have it done before we leave for the Bay Area next Friday night so I'll be starting FNCC early (around 5pm PST) and then I'll log back in when we arrive around 9pm PST. 

Looking forward to seeing the finished cakes!

Cat

AOnly one cake this weekend, certainly not my favourite but the customer loved it. [IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3244223/width/200/height/400[/IMG]

I see some very pretty cakes up again this week.  Great job everyone!  Cara, it may not be your favorite, but as long as the customer is happy...  I think it's cute.

Lovely cakes this week everyone :) Cat, I use caramel SMBC for my caramel cake fillings. I use Bravetart's caramel recipe (check it out on her blog, it's amazing) and mix that through SMBC (once the caramel is cold of course!). It's just beautiful.

Just working on a couple of toppers for baby shower cakes this weekend. No cakes to make but I made an awesome Southern Peanut Butter Pie for Sunday dinner tomorrow!

Done!

Woke up early this morning for pics, light is best at this time.

Cat, don't know about brave... as I was trying to smooth it over and make the fins yesterday, all I could think was that I was stupid!

Anyway, here it is. Not my neatest job, but I always try and push myself with my kids' cakes :)

A

Awesome cake! And the fondant is smooth! I wouldn't know how to cover that shape with fondant! Lol

I just finished my space theme cake! Yay :)

[IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3244485/width/200/height/400[/IMG]

[IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3244486/width/200/height/400[/IMG]

I love the rocket and the space cake!! Gorgeous job ladies!

A

Thank you! :)

Your little spaceman is just too cute :)

anaelisabethlee - even if you panelled the fondant and the joins showed, you could add some detail to the joins to make them look like metal panels on a rocket. It would work well both ways. Spectacular job on it! I'm so impressed, my head is spinning just looking at it!

Wow, we have had some adventurous cakers this week.  Everyone's cakes are fantastic.  I have been trying to make bougainvillea today.  I think it is going to take me weeks to make enough to cascade down the side of a cake.  The tiny little centres are so fiddly and then all the leaves have to be veined.  Still I was enjoying myself, but have slaughtered my back enough for one weekend, between that and the quilt.

Aanaelisabethlee, maybe when you make it again (lol) you can can try the panelling ;)

Cazza - bougainvillea are so fine and delicate!! I'm not surprised it's taking forever. Is it for an order?

Thanks, Cat, for the FNCC, I look forward to it!  I've been watching for a few weeks but this is my first participation. beautiful work this week, everyone!     

Wedding celebration cake for a coworker after an out of town wedding. Chocolate top & bottom tiers, coconut middle tier. Wish now I had made the bottom 12" instead of 10" but I learn something every time I make one.

Have a great weekend  

AI made a couple cakes last week I'd like to share.[IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3244714/width/200/height/400[/IMG][IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3244715/width/200/height/400[/IMG][IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3244716/width/200/height/400[/IMG] I LOVE all the cakes posted on here this week. Look great!!!!

Only one cake this weekend, but it was pretty big.

AI usually don't post pics on here, but after many sleepless nights this past week working on this, I wanted to share. I was at this party and so upset after the caterer tore all of the fondant off before cutting the cake! [IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3244742/width/200/height/400[/IMG]