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Showing posts with label graduation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label graduation. Show all posts

YIKES!! 100% Humidity!

Posted by Sean Bordeaux
I created a fun graduation cake for Jackie and Amanda this past weekend. The party was outdoors and it was hot hot HOT! 90 degrees and 100% humidity! It became apparent very quickly that cakes + fondant + high humidity = scary situation.

The poor cake was melting, fast! The 'shooting stars' began to curl and the butter cream filling was making the layers shift. Thankfully there were no disasters and the cake was served without incident.

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Congratulations Graduates 2009!

Posted by Sean Bordeaux
By this time, word of my cakes had traveled around our close circle of friends. I was asked by two of our friends, Anna and Danielle, to make graduation cakes for their kids. I was honored! These would be the first cakes I would create for others.

First was Evan and Anna's son, Little Evan. Evan was graduating from the 8th grade. He is truly one of the best all around kids I have had the pleasure of knowing. He is an athlete, musician, and Nation Honor Roll inductee. Just an all around great kid!


The cake was a 14-10-6 3 tier cake. The school colors are blue and white. The middle tier was gold with stars to honor Evan's induction to the National Honor Roll. We were all very proud of him.

My best friend in the whole world asked me to make her a cake for her graduating kids. Kayla was graduating High School and CJ was graduating 8th grade. This cake proved challenging...the school colors were different (Reavis: Navy and White / Liberty: Red, White and Blue).



It was not my goal to have this cake look like a 4th of July cake...but that is how it turned out. Also, I did not have a star cutter for the middle tier. So they were all cut out by hand. I did attempt the mortarboard cap for the top tier; however, the fondant was not cooperating and I ended up ditching it. 

This cake also marked a new filling: chocolate fudge butter cream. Really good but almost ended in disaster as it melted between the layers in my hot kitchen.

Sorry for the short post! These were pretty straight forward cakes and nothing major happened that stands out in my mind. I would imagine thats a good thing for me...but does not make for an interesting read...lol



Stay tuned...you will be able to laugh at me soon enough!

CHEERS! 

<------
PS:  Sheesh...nice of Amazon.com to place this =)

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EPIC Fail? Almost!

Posted by Sean Bordeaux
With several cakes under my belt, I decided it was time to up the difficulty level. Apparently I believed "anything you can do, I can do better..."! Brittany had just graduated High School and we were throwing her a graduation party. I searched the internet high and low for the perfect cake to recreate...and I found it. 

Picture from pinkcakebox.com


This is a very whimsical cake. They are typically called Topsy Turvy or Mad Hatter cakes. I quickly learned I had bitten off more than I could chew.

Needless to say my mind was set...I was going to create a Topsy Turvy! The amount have cake it took to make this cake still floors me to this day...and mind you...this was not only my first attempt and a whimsy cake, but my first attempt at ANY tiered cake...period. Ya...looking back this was foolish. 

I started baking the layers a few days in advance and freezing them (mistake #1). Once it came time to assemble the cakes, I took them out of the freezer to defrost. I crowned the layers and noticed that the centers were still cold but not frozen. I decided to go ahead filling, carving, and crumb coating the tiers (mistake #2). I began noticing that the cakes were sweating though the crumb coat...there were beads of condensation. I feared the worst but the cakes dried and everything was fine. I wrapped the bottom tier in plastic and moved it on the turntable to the washer machine (mistake #3). I wake up the next morning to find the bottom tier in the wash sink. "Someone" had moved the cake to add a load of laundry into the washer. The *facepalm* moment comes when that "someone" returned the bottom tier to the washer....the cake survived the wash cycle but I am guessing the spin cycle proved to much!

Well there was not enough time to re-bake the tier. So we moved forward with a 2 tier Topsy Turvy. Everything went off without a hitch after the washer incident. There were a few things I did learn from this cake. Notice how the blue fondant looks cracked? It turns out this is a result from using corn starch as a dusting agent on the counter to roll the fondant. I have since switched to Powdered Sugar and never had this problem again. Also to maintain with "school spirit" I colored the cake of the middle tier (now the bottom) blue. The idea was good in theory; however, it turns out that blue is a very unappetizing color to eat.



I can't help looking back at these early cakes and laughing. The tools I was using...its amazing to me I was able to make anything. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this. I am finding it therapeutic telling the story behind my cakes. Stay tuned...more to come...

CHEERS! 
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What started it all...

Posted by Sean Bordeaux
In 2008, I started making cakes for fun. Cakes from the grocery store were going up in price while going down in quality. I had purchased a cake for Michelle's birthday from the bakery case and asked if they could write "Happy Birthday Mommy" on it so the kids could give it to her. Well, what seemed to me a simple request, turned into a major production involving the bakery and store managers. The first attempt looked as if one of our kids had actually wrote on the cake with finger paints. The bakery manager's "fix" included a thick 2 inch ribbon of butter cream icing to cover the previous decorator's abomination.

After it was all said and done, I was saddened by the lack of skill these "professionals" possessed and the poor customer service on the part of the management. From that point on, Betty Crocker and Pillsbury became the standard for all of our cake needs. 

I cannot tell you how it came to be that I enjoyed creating cakes really. I was more of a "look at that cake...I can do that!" type of deal. That in combination with the uprising of shows like Ace of Cakes, Cake Boss, and Challenge, I began to try new things. I started with plastic sandwich bags with the corner snipped off as my piping bag. I out grew those very quickly. Also I had to come up with something better for the icing. The "tub icing" is not good for decorating cakes...nor is it great for taste.

I turned to the internet. I was surprised to find that there is a virtual culinary school worth of videos on YouTube. All of my technique, has been self taught with the help from YouTube. This is also where I learned everything from making icing and fondant to fillings and making roses. This also sparked my love-hate relationship with Michael's. (They love my wallet and I hate it)

Anyways...I guess thats the condensed soup version of how this all started.

As for the cakes. Here are a few of the first documented cakes I made. There were many before this...but I never thought that this would become a career choice at the time.




Priscilla is one of our dear friends. This was a cake I made for her birthday last year. This was actually my first time making and using fondant. This was also still in my "plastic sandwich pastry bag" days. (*sigh* notice the "border") I was very proud of this cake and marked the beginning of the end, as they say.




Priscilla's birthday party was shared with another friend. This was Fabian's birthday cake. I made this one right after Priscilla's. Major lessons learned on this one!! First, I stacked the cakes then wrapped the fondant over both of them. That was a no-no. Second, the bow...hot mess...enough said. You will see in later posts that I have improved some since this monstrosity. 


I hope you enjoyed reading about the beginning of it all...I look forward to sharing all of the other cakes I have pictures of and documenting things to come...

Thanks for reading! 
CHEERS!

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Hello World!

Posted by Sean Bordeaux
Well...I guess I am going to jump on the Blog bandwagon! Better late than never I guess! I will go back though the past year or so of cakes and tell the story behind them. There are a few exciting things coming up for me that I will be looking forward to sharing with you as well. (whoever you are!) lol

**sigh**

So it begins...
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