Cakes By Carrie-Anne

Tatty Teddy Cake Tutorial

6/3/2016

Tatty Teddy has to be one of my most requested cakes for girls of all ages. I've been meaning to get this blog up for a few weeks now but as it goes...when it rains it pours. First my little girl caught a severe case of chicken pox, it's been wedding cake after wedding cake and then my little boy caught the chicken pox, all while trying to plan a road trip to England. The Dallas household has been chaotic to say the least. But we survived, the kids are on the mend and I now have a working keyboard....a HUGE bonus when writing lengthy tutorials ;)
Right, let's get started!!

I used this image for reference that I found on Google Images

I used an 8inch Chocolate Mud Cake recipe and divided the batter into a 5 inch sphere tin, a 6 inch round and a 6 inch pyrex bowl.

I made chocolate ganache for the filling, mainly as it's great for stability.

I halved my cakes, except the sphere which I baked in halves already. Fill and stack the 6 inch round and the bowl shape.

And there you have it. A perfectly sweet Tatty Teddy Bear. Please subscribe to be sure to get every tutorial I post. I'd love to see your creations too so feel free to share them on my Facebook page. Thanks for stopping by :) x

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How I Made The Pringles Cake

4/12/2016

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I can't tell you how many times I've been called 'Superwoman' in the last 5 years since I've been caking. I always refute this but they disagree....oh if they only knew 😉
It's only recently that I've let myself become an 'imperfect mom'. And I'm totally okay with that.

I have 2 incredible children that like the vast majority of parents would absolutely do anything for them. When I first started caking we only had my daughter. She was little , so working at home with her was so easy. For one, I didn't have a lot of orders coming in being new to the business. She was sleeping (ALL THE TIME) and she couldn't move about too much not being able to walk and all. Then she got older and she needed me more, and we quickly got into a routine that worked for us.
I started getting more orders, and I started getting a bit more stressed but we got through it. Fast forward a few years and along comes my son. Now I have 2 kids to contend with , work is really picking up and I'm struggling!! Don't get me wrong, I have an AMAZING husband who works crazy long hours and when he's home he's helping out with the kids and bedtime routine etc. It started to get to the point where I was taking on far too many cakes a week. And I mean novelty, sculpted, custom cakes that there just weren't enough hours in a day to get done. I was severely undercharging so I was having to double my workload. The house was constantly a mess because I had to prioritise my chores so I could make sure supper was made at a decent hour. My laundry was piling up and I was exhausted (superwoman I assure you could maintain an orderly house and still look and feel as fresh as a daisy and I'm sure she never had breakdowns) Oh I've had my share of those. The ugly crying, lying in the foetal position on the kitchen floor.....
Then things get easier....not a lot easier, but easier, manageable even . You learn to say no (for the most part) you realise that it's okay that for one night a week your kids will survive having a peanut butter sandwich for their supper and ironing will NEVER EVER be a priority! Some days I'm working so much that they do everything they can for a bit of attention, other days I'm all theirs, all day! My children are happy, they're fed, they're clothed and they're loved. So being an 'imperfect' mom just makes me realise that no matter how mean I get (oh yeah, I can get pretty crazy!) and how untidy the house gets, how I'm 'making too much cakes, mummy' , to those little monkeys, I'm pretty darn perfect ☺️

And just when I think I've had about enough of cakes to last me a lifetime, I get a request for a food cake.
I LOVE food cakes....and by that I mean the 'cakes that look like food' cakes. They are just too much fun! And when I'm in a good mood....everyone's in a good mood 😂😉
Here's how I made it....

I baked and 8 inch cake in 2 8inch square tins. Once cooled I turned them out and cut out 9 circles per tin.

I measures the length of the Pringles tube and sandwiched each cake circle until I had the required length.

I let the cake firm up in the fridge and then put on another layer of ganache. This was probably the most time consuming part of the entire cake. Once I was happy with the shape I let it firm up again in the fridge. I then cut off the ends to straighten it out and covered it in fondant.

I airbrushed the cake red and went darker in some spots to give it a bit more definition.

I used some parchment paper and placed it on the Pringles Logo and traced it. I cut around the image and placed it on some very thinly rolled out fondant. I placed the template on to the fondant and cut around it with a craft knife. I went over the template with a soft tip clay tool to make an impression into the fondant.

I painted the fondant using my airbrush colours and then outlined the rest in black using the Pringles tin for reference.

Attach to the top and the bottom and add the ropes.

I then painted the base silver as well as the lip going around the top of the cake.

Using the same tracing method as the logo, I cut out the chip (it will always be a chip to me) I placed it on the cake and painted it with cream/gold airbrush dye. I mixed it with a tiny bit of brown airbrush colour and dabbed it in for a bit more depth.

I rolled out a mixture of caramel coloured fondant and white florist paste. My paste was a bit dry but I used that to my advantage and it made some great texture. I rolled them as thin as a Pringle and cut out similar sized circles. I then rolled the circle into an oval and used lay each one on to a real chip to form them. Once dried, I airbrushed them with cream/gold colour especially around the edges. I then dusted them with cream petal dust.

I used my tappits to make the word 'original' and lightly airbrushed my board with black.

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Honey Bee Cake....and how to make it

4/7/2016

24 Comments

Wow! My first blog!! I'm not gonna lie, it's a very scary thing kinda sorta bearing my soul for a few folk to see. Ok, 'soul' might be a bit dramatic but by soul I mean my ridiculous obsession with all things cake....and for me at least...it's all the same thing.

I've not always been this passionate about cake. I mean I've always loved to bake and I've been described to people by my family as the 'Martha Stewart' of the bunch. I just shake my head at the comparison,but secretly, I kinda love it.

My gran baked, she ran a business from home selling the best cookies and a chocolate cake to die for! She passed that knowledge on to my mom, and although neither of us have been able to properly replicate my Gran's famous condensed milk cookies....my mom's baking is not too shabby. Not by a long shot!

After I graduated high school I had a few ideas in mind of what I wanted to do with my life and none of it involved food. This is going to sound ridiculous but it never really entered my mind that I could actually go to school to learn the Art of Baking. I just assumed that you started out as a culinary chef and then apprenticed and sorta upgraded to becoming a Pastry Chef. I was young and naive. Don't judge me!

So I went to Pastry School, learned the art of Baking and loved every minute of it. We didn't spend too much time decorating cakes, it was really just focused on the science of baking, perfecting every type of dough imaginable, whipping up every concoction you read about in every French book. While I was at school I was working in one of Canada's largest book chains. And of course when you're going to pastry school and working in a bookstore, it's only natural that you start gravitating toward the recipe books and baking section. It was here, (perusing when I should have been working) that my new found love of novelty cakes was born. Confetti Cakes by Elisa Strauss. I was hooked. It was one of the only books that came with me over to Scotland, and a book I still use for reference every so often.

For me making cakes is not just a means to make a living, it's my medium. It's my safe place. It's a place where I can find therapy when I need it. I've found comfort in them. I've also been at breaking point with them, where I've been ready to throw in the towel because it all just becomes too much. It's somewhere that sometimes I put too much energy into but at the end of the day I'm not sure where I'd be without cake in my life...I know how crazy that sounds, after all, to many people 'it's just cake'. But to me, especially lately, it's so much more than that. I get to challenge myself everyday and I get to be inventive and creative and I get to escape to a safe place when this hectic life all gets just a little bit too much. But those are stories for another day....and let me tell you, there are loads of them! I'm looking forward to having you on my blogging journey.

Now on to the fun stuff and how I made this Honey Bee Cake :) x

I first saw this bubble wrap technique on YouTube last year. To see the step by step tutorial you can follow the link here :)

First I covered a 10inch cake board with fondant that I had coloured with a bit of caramel and yellow pro gel colours. I then used a hexagonal cutter to mark random areas on the board.

I rolled some yellow fondant into various sized shapes and then made little indentations for their eyes. I rolled out teeny balls of black fondant and popped those into place with a little bit of edible glue (water works fine for this too).

I used nut brown petal dust and a bit of gold rolkem dust to give the hexagons a bit of definition.

I rolled out some black fondant very thinly and then cut them into thin strips. Make sure to make them long enough to fit around the bee's body.

Using some edible glue or water wrap the black fondant around the bee and secure underneath. I used 2 strips per bee.

I used a heart shaped paper punch and wafer paper for the wings. This is probably the quickest way to make wings especially if you have a punch.

I used this little tool to make an impression in my bees for a little mouth. You can use a cocktail stick, or a knife too.

Take some clean, preferably new bubble wrap and roughly measure around the cake to see how much you need. I made mine a bit higher than my cake as I wanted a bit of overhang. Heat some white chocolate in the microwave or double boiler until just melted.

I then wrapped some florist wire around no my finger a few times to give it a bit of a spring. Dip the wire into a bit of glue and stick it into each bee. I left a few wires straight and also some bees without any wire. L

With a palette knife, spread the chocolate on the bubble wrap until all the crevices are filled. The flat side of the bubble wrap should be facing down. I used 200g of chocolate to cover enough bubble wrap to go around a 6 inch cake. Stick the chocolate covered wrap into the fridge for about 5 minutes. Once the chocolate is set enough that it's just dry to the touch you can go on to the next step.

Make sure your cake is chilled before placing the chocolate onto it. I started from the middle of the bubble wrap and gently placed it onto the cake. Make sure the bubble wrap is flush with the bottom of the cake. Once the wrap is placed all the way around the cake, press firmly. Stick the cake back in the fridge for a few minutes or until the chocolate is set.

Once the chocolate is set gently pull the bubble wrap away from the chocolate. And voila! A very cool, honeycomb effect!!

I again used my nut brown petal dust and Rolkem gold dust to give the 'honeycomb' some definition.

I then stuck my bees in flower picks so I didn't have any wire directly in the cake and placed my bees in random spots. I also broke some of the 'honeycomb' off to give it a more natural feel and then placed the broken pieces on to my board.

And there you have it. A simple but cute honeybee cake. Don't forget to leave a comment. Thanks! X

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Tatty Teddy Cake Tutorial

How I Made The Pringles Cake

Honey Bee Cake....and how to make it

Carrie‐Anne Dallas

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