Birthday Cake for the World

This was a cake I made this past weekend for a huge birthday party celebrating anyone from our church group who had a birthday in February, March or August. So I decided to make a cake trying to incorporate all of the inside jokes from our group of friends.
My mother saw the final product and commented "that cake looks a little schizophrenic".
I had a lot of fun with this cake, because of the variety of stuff to put on it, all the laughter about all the jokes that went into it, and because for the first time, I had someone else working on the cake with me!
Also, I think this is the best cake reaction I've ever had, considering everyone spent about 10 minutes discussing the cake, and trying to pick out which piece related to them the most.

One of the challenges with this cake was all the colours we used to make it. And running out of icing tips and icing couplers.
Also, some stuff was too complicated and really hard to illustrate. Like the "Be A Man" song from Mulan.
Overall, though I think this was probably my favourite cake to decorate. :)

Valentines Chocolate Cheesecake

So, I finally found a heart shaped springform pan, so I made a chocolate cheesecake for my family for Valentines.

Chocolate Fudge Cheesecake

Crust:
1 1/2 cups vanilla wafer crumbs
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup butter

Cheesecake:
2 cups chocolate chips
3 bricks (250 g) cream cheese
1 can sweetened condensed milk
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 300. Mix together crust ingredients and press into a springform pan. Melt chocolate in double boiler or microwave (I find microwave is easier and works just fine with chocolate chips). Beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add in sweetened condensed milk and beat in until smooth. Add in chocolate, eggs and vanilla and beat until well blended. Pour into pan and bake for 55 minutes.

Shamu Cake

This is a cake I made for a friend's birthday the other day. She's one of those people I just love making cakes for because there are so many ideas for her, and also because of how much she loves whatever design I decide on. Last year, I made her a Jedi-Mickey Mouse cake. This year I considered going Disney again, but then I decided to go for Shamu instead. She has a Shamu lunchbox, and so I decided to base the design off of that.

I had another friend secretly take a picture of her lunchbox, so I was able to try and copy it.
Isn't he a happy Shamu?

Starbucks Cake

This was probably one of my favourite cakes to make. It was a fairly basic buttercream transfer, that just turned out really well. Plus I had the great fun of surprising the friend I made it for. :)

Gingerbread AT-AT

This year, I decided to go a little non-traditional with my gingerbread creation, so instead of a house, or a barn, or a church, I bring you a gingerbread AT-AT.

This idea was first posted on my Facebook wall a few weeks before Christmas, with a picture of an AT-AT made by a professional bakery in the States. I decided that this would be a fun challenge to try and make my own.

We started with my brother designing a pattern for all of the pieces and then I baked them in gingerbread and laid them all out.

Then we started building.
We had some difficulties when the head didn't want to stay on to the body. There was originally a neck as well, but we got rid of that when we realized it wouldn't hold the weight of the head.
I was very nervous when we balanced the body on the legs, but it was surprisingly stable.

Then we started decorating.We added lights along the sides of our Christmas AT-AT.Also plenty of pretzel cannons and a viewscreen.
And also, we have a snowspeeder, crashed with its tow rope around the AT-AT's legs.
We also have the rebel defense army.

And then we have a warning triangle on the back...

Merry Christmas from Hoth!

My gingerbread and icing recipes can be found with last year's gingerbread blog post.

Whipped Shortbread

I made these the other day for an event where the engineering students were handing out coffee and cookies to the homeless. My mother tasted a few for 'quality control' before I took them and demanded that I make them again. So I have another batch in the oven as I type this.

Now, I would recommend that you don't even attempt this recipe unless you have an automatic mixer like a KitchenAid or a Bosch. I wouldn't suggest trying it with a hand mixer because it requires almost a half-hour's worth of whipping/beating.

2 cups butter
1 cup icing sugar
3 cups flour
Maraschino cherries

Pre-heat oven to 350. Grease some cookie sheets. Beat butter for 5 minutes. Add in icing sugar and beat for another 5 minutes. Add in 1 cup flour and beat for 2 minutes. Add 1 more cup flour and beat 2 more minutes. Add the last 1 cup of flour and beat for 10 minutes. While it is beating, halve the cherries. When the batter is done it should be similar to buttercream icing in consistency. Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet and press a half cherry into the center of each cookie. Bake 10-15 minutes, until they are starting to brown around the edges, but are mostly still pale.

Chocolate Truffle Loaf

So after last weekend's banquet we had some ingredients left over, including six pounds of mandarin oranges, 1.5 liters of whipping cream and about 4 bricks of butter. So I've been trying to use these things up.

Fortunately it was a friend's birthday this past week so I made him a chocolate truffle loaf 'cake' and used up a significant portion of the whipping cream and some of the butter. (I'm taking the oranges to the school today to feed to hungry university students studying for exams)

Chocolate Truffle Loaf

3 egg yolks
1/2 cup whipping cream

16 oz semi-sweet chocolate (2 boxes of the Bakers stuff or that much in chocolate chips)
1/2 cup corn syrup (the recipe said light, but I just used regular)
1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup icing sugar
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla

Line loaf pan with plastic wrap.

Whisk together egg yolks and 1/2 cup whipping cream. Set aside.

In a medium pot melt together chocolate, corn syrup and butter on medium heat until melted and well combined. Stir in egg mixture and continue to cook for about 3 minutes, or until it starts to thicken. Let cool to room temperature.

Mix together icing sugar, whipping cream and vanilla and beat on high speed with electric mixer until stiff peaks form.

Fold whipping cream into (cooled) chocolate mixture until it is one consistent colour.

Pour into prepared loaf pan. Cool in fridge for several hours until firm. (I did a couple hours in the fridge and a couple in the freezer because I was in a hurry)

Turn out onto serving plate and remove plastic wrap.

This was a super rich, super tasty dessert and my mother has requested that I make it for Christmas Dinner. :)