It's all about the icing/frosting

I seriously need to practice more on my cake decorating, and attend some cake decorating classes (well I can watch the Wilton online videos and practice at home). I've been watching Ace of Cakes, and I soo wish I could decorate like them. Granted, they usually use fondant and just pipe stuff, but still.. I wish I could pipe. I can't even fill the piping bag correctly and use those tips (that goes on the piping bags). I did some research about icing, and there are different types for different things. So I need to learn how to make a thin (yet dense) icing so that I can practice piping "happy birthday" and any other words. I need to learn the art of applying the correct amount of pressure (squeezing) and writing at the same time. There's angles we're supposed to hold our hand/tip at, and too much squeezing can be bad...

I am good at baking the cakes, but I have no creative/artsy talent - this is why if I ever really opened up a bakery, I would need to hire people who can decorate the cakes. I've tried to use the store bought icings to practice my writing - I should've taken a picture of it before I threw it away, but I threw it away for a reason - it sucked. I have bought fondant icing, which Sam has been using to write on the cakes. Sam usually does my piping, but occasionally I see his words start out a nice size and then the letters start to become smaller towards the end. The downfall is that the tube is difficult to squeeze and sometimes you get fondant buildup and that messes up your letters. This is why I need to figure out how to use the piping bag.

I did google and find some tips on how to ice and smooth out cakes (well if you use buttercream icing). I think my best work is Sam's bday cake... it looks smooth and the writing isn't bad. Yes, that is a cookie monster blue. I bought color paste for the icing. I cheat tho - I use store bought white icing as a base to mix colors and to pipe since I have fallen lazy and don't want to try to make the right type of icing. One day, I will learn. Everything has to be made from scratch! (syke)

Yes, I piped these cakes; all the previous ones, Sam did.

Death by Chocolate

As most of you know, I've been allergic to chocolate, yet I still like to eat it occasionally. I do shy away from chocolate when it comes to chocolate cakes, though they look tempting. People ask me, what is it that I am allergic to? The cocao? the caffeine? I think it's more the cacao than the caffeine because I drink soda and used to drink coffee like no other. I first realized I was allergic to chocolate when I was a kid - going through the lunch line and hearing "you're not cool unless you drink chocolate milk". So I did, and every day I did, I went home with a terrible headache. One day, there wasn't any chocolate milk in the cafeteria, so I had to drink plain white milk - and no headache. So I stuck with white milk and realized I don't do well with chocolate, who cared what the other kids thought. Dark chocolate hits me real hard, the migraine comes fast. Milk chocolate, I can take little bites of because it's diluted or whatever. So if you offer me a snickers bar, I can eat the fun size and be alright. So - it's not that I don't like it, I'm just not supposd to eat it.

Now, that doesn't mean I rule out baking with chocolate. If someone requests a chocolate cake, I will make it. The first chocolate cake I've made was a chocolate cake, with chocolate/strawberry mousse and a chocolate ganache. It was for my friend Mandi, before she left for Europe. The next few chocolate cakes I made wasn't bad, but there was one cake, I think it was the red velvet cake (b/c of the dutch cocoa - or was it the german chocolate cake??) I inhaled the cocoa dust and the next day had a migraine. Yeah, I know.. what?!? I need to invest in gloves and a mask when dealing with chocolate.

I'm sure my chocolate cake days are not over, since everyone but me can eat chocolate. My toughest challenge was a half and half cake. My aim was to make them side by side (vanilla or almond cake on one side and chocolate cake on the other). Sam suggested I have them put in the same pan, meet in the middle and swirl the middle to be a marble cake. It's an interesting idea, so I tried it. I think it worked out, though I had to quickly make another batch of the almond cake to match the chocolate cake. So far, no complaints.

My only complaint, most of my cakes have icing or frosting - no one can see the inside. I need remind Sam to take pics of when they cut the cakes at his work. I need to see how the inside looks.