Cappuccino Truffle Cake

I decided to try a new recipe for a Cappuccino Truffle Cake.  In attempting said recipe, I tried making chocolate truffles.   This was quite funny.  Not.  Actually, it would have worked had my white chocolate melts not petered out.  Rather than melting into a nice coating, they melted into a paste.  Bye bye chocolate truffles.

The cake itself was REALLY yummy.  Almond butter cake with a coffee/Kahlua butter cream, with nuts and store-bought truffles.  (I hid some non-coated truffles under the store-bought ones.

It was a hit.  Sadly, I forgot to take a picture with anything but ze' crappy cell phone camera before we hacked right into this puppy.

My sad little non coated dark chocolate
truffle peeks out from the bottom right of the stack.

Words Fail (a Cake Wreck)

I am by no means professional. I was pretty much self-taught until I took two Wilton classes last fall. I've only made silly/cutesy cakes. I wanted to try something new and classy.



I also decided to try a new recipe at the same time as being new and exciting with the decorating.



I am an idiot.

The cake itself was very tasty. I got this recipe from Cake Central. It was like eating a soft Oreo. The problem was they all broke coming out of the pans. All 4. In the soft cake, I placed a strawberry filling. Then I decided to try a new icing recipe; chocolate ganash. So, new cake, filled with strawberry, & new icing.

All is well, sort of, until I try to ice it with buttercream. The broken parts broke even further. The cakes were leaning. The home made fondant was sticking, the ganache was oozing from under the fondant. ARGH!!!!

I gave up.






I didn't want red icing. I wanted a red ribbon, but the ganache made it impossible.

It's also "bowl-shaped because there was no way to carve this cake level. It tore.

Words failed me. Oh wait. They didn't.





If at first you don't succeed...


pitch a fit, swear you're never trying a fancy cake again and go to bed angry.

Then wake up, breathe and know you will try again.

Wonky Cake Attempt

Also known as the Topsy-Turvy cake, a Wonky Cake is a cake that just defies gravity. It looks like it is about to topple over. There are several tricks to this cake style, the first being...the cakes have to be tall!


I set out to make two of each sized pan cake I was going to attempt. (Hence the chocolate cake that I overfilled. I was going for height and failed).


There was a lot of baking going on. I so wish I had a second oven and duplicates of the pans I own. I spent several several hours making cakes, baking, cleaning, cooling, to start all over again with more pans.


Six cakes later (2 ea. of 6", 8" and 10" sizes), I called it a night.



The following evening was time to make the MMF (crazy mess), Peanut Butter Butter cream icing, Oreo Cookie Cream Cheese icing and some regular butter cream icing.



Peanut butter icing. YUM!!!






Cream cheese icing with Oreo cookies mixed in it. Heaven.





NOW comes the fun part. Fun as in hard really. LOL One cake is split right down the middle and iced. The second cake is split at an angle, then flipped around on itself, creating a really steep hill. This is all iced and put on top of the straight cut cake.









The cakes are then iced all over and put in the fridge to let the icing harden.


Starting with the largest layer, I traced and cut out a circle the size of the cake that will go on top of the biggest one. The largest being a 10" cake, I cut an 8" circle out of wax paper and used it as a template to cut an 8" circle into the 10" cake. This circle is then carved out of the 10" cake, making a level area for me to put the next cake into.






See, it's all an illusion. Although it looks like the cakes are tipping, they are actually sitting level. Tricky, huh?



This cake above is then covered in fondant and wood dowels are cut and placed in the center to give the support to the next cake going above.



(fondant was too sticky/mushy)




The same exact thing is done with the 8" cake. I cut a 6" circle, and scoop out the cake, ice it again, cover it with fondant, and then place the 8" cake on top of the 10" one. This picture below shows the 8" cake "inside" the 10" one, while the 6" one is being covered to be put on top of the 8" one.

After placing them all together, I decorated the cakes using fondant and colored icing.

So here's the final product. It's not pretty but not bad. My first attempt at this. The fondant was too soft (MMF). I think if I attempt this again, I'll use the professional grade (NOT Wilton) stuff.

Note: The stars on top are actually supposed to be suspended by wires. I should have made very very thin out of gum paste a few days ago, so they could dry. The fondant was too heavy and the wire was to thin to hold the stars up.

Here are some stars made of construction paper, so you can see what I meant to make with the stars.

Cake fall down, go boom!

I decided to make a chocolate cake. I went with a recipe from the 500 Cakes book I bought a few months back. All was going well.


Isabel insisted I be "Tasha" of the Backyardigans. She colored the mask herself.

I filled the pan with batter and put it in the oven. About 35 minutes later, I smell burning from the oven. The cake was overflowing over the sides and batter had fallen on the hot elements. Great. I overfilled the pan and now I have to clean the oven.

After over an hour, I opened the oven and this happened.






Foom! Implosion. I have never ever had that happen. Weird. I heard people talk about it in cake class, but this was a first. I guess since I overfilled the pan, the center was just not getting cooked. What a waste.

MMF

No, I am not being crude and calling you an MMF.



MMF = Marshmallow Fondant. Not sure what the extra M is there for. My sister-in-law suggested that it was because MF just sounds wrong. :)


MMF is a home-made fondant using, you guessed it, marshmallow and powdered sugar with a teensy bit of water). On the recommendation of a couple of friends, I decided to try it. I searched the web and found this recipe for MMF. I was skeptical but thought, what the heck. The marshmallows and powdered sugar were inexpensive, especially when compared to the fondant I normally buy. I DO NOT use Wilton fondant. It is disgusting. I use Satin Ice.




I was a little worried at the onset. It was sticky and I thought the powdered sugar would never blend with the marshmallow.

Jacob helps me, by adding water as I felt it was necessary.



After about 10 minutes, I got fondant! The right texture and a great taste! I was beyond excited. Now I could make fondant as needed and spend less doing it.

It was time to try it on a cake. I tinted it green, rolled it out and covered my cake.

Fantastic! I will post more on the cakes I have made recently soon. They are a surprise, so I can't post until the end of today, July 18. :)