That time I made an edible colon...

Over the years, word has gotten around that I make cakes as a hobby and sometimes I get requests to make cakes for friends or acquaintances. If things align with my schedule and it's something that I think is feasible in terms of my skill set, I will try to do it. This cake request came at a really busy time in my life and at a time when I wasn't sure how I'd be feeling health wise (more on that in a future blog post) but I could not pass up the opportunity to make such a fun cake combining two things I love: healthcare and baking. Notice how I didn't say 'colonoscopies' and baking...because that would just be weird...who would want to combine a colonoscopy and a cake?? Ahem. 

This blog has primarily been about sharing my experiences making cakes. I think I have posted one recipe and I have not done any tutorials. The lack of tutorials is because I am not an expert at cake decorating and also because I am usually pressed for time and cannot take step-by-step photos. For some reason, I felt compelled to take step-by-step photos of how to make the colon for all those people searching the internet on how to make an edible colon. If by a minuscule chance you've arrived at this page by searching on edible colons, I hope you find this helpful. If you weren't looking for cake decorating information, I just don't know what to say. 

It has been over a year since I made this cake. Time has flown as always with other things on my plate and I also wanted to edit the names off of the front of the cake for this post but had no idea how. Please note that my photo editing skills are non-existent. 

Since the colon was going to be on top of the cake and was relatively small, it didn't make sense to carve it out of cake. Making it out of pure fondant, gumpaste or molding chocolate is too heavy and would also be difficult to transfer to the top of the cake. I went with good ol' rice cereal treats. As I've mentioned in the past, I find the prepackaged treats easier to use as I feel you can condense them much easier into the shapes you need and get a smoother surface versus freshly made homemade rice cereal treats.

Alright, so where does one start when making a colon? The first step was to make a template for the colon. I did an image search for a colon I was happy with (I think it was from a textbook) and printed it to a size to fit the top of a 9-inch cake. I printed it slightly smaller than I wanted the final colon to be as items tend to get larger as you add layers of fondant/chocolate (1).

I taped the colon onto a cardboard cake board and covered it with wax paper for my work surface. That way I could easily see the picture of the colon and also had a way of sliding the completed colon onto the finished cake.

Next, I rolled little balls of rice cereal treats to closely resemble the size of each distinct section of the colon as per the picture (2). Once I completed all of the pieces (3), I melted some white chocolate candy melts and used a small brush to attach everything (4). After that, I painted the entire colon with melted chocolate to be certain everything was secure and it makes it yummy (5).

The next step was to give the colon a bit more dimension. I used modeling chocolate to round out some sections and to adjust the size, as well as to shape the rectum (6). Once I was happy with the overall shape I used a flesh-coloured mixture of modeling chocolate and fondant to cover the entire colon. I added details using the same chocolate/fondant, such as the polyps and the appendix, and finished off by using various colours of petal dust to add depth to the colours (8).

I let the colon settle for day (covered in the fridge) prior to transferring it to the cake, and while I worked on the endoscope controls, the cytology brush and forceps. Now for my PSA: Cancer Care Ontario recommends all individuals over the age of 50 be screened for colorectal cancer every two years (Fecal Occult Blood Test or colonoscopy depending on your risk). Now before you start running, my cytology brush and forceps are not to scale! If caught early, colorectal cancer has a 90% chance of being cured. So get screened!

The forceps and cytology brush were made with both modelling paste and gum paste. I used small scissors to make the teeth on the forceps and the bristles on the brush. 

The "semi-colawn"

So there you have it. This is the closest post I have to a tutorial and it's about a colon. 

I had a lot of fun making this cake. After it was complete, I threw the printed picture of the colon (which had been severed by this point) into the recycling. The following week, my husband was leaving for work only to find the colon picture on our lawn. My husband sent me a picture and I laughed out loud all the way to my doctor's appointment. I had to phone my sister so I didn't look crazy walking down the street laughing to myself. His friends started making colon jokes like, "did you perform a colawnoscopy?" or "was it a whole one or a semicolon?". 

My husband said that I have a knack for making scary or gross things cute. I hope I achieved that with this colon cake! 

My next post (if I ever get to write it) will be about why I haven't been baking/blogging very much in the past year so stay tuned...

Spring, I invoke thee!

Yes, it is summer now, but I made this cake before it was even spring. There was snow outside. I shudder at the memories. This was a birthday cake for my sister-in-law. She loves the super sugary frosting grocery store cakes and always asks for extra flowers on the cake. I decided to make my own version of a sugary flower cake. 

We had such a horrible winter everything was white, grey, brown and just dirty looking for too many months! I was ready for some vibrant spring/summer colours. 

I am not fabulous at piping flowers with frosting. I much prefer working with fondant or modelling paste. Personally I think that it is not only easier (for me anyway), but you can get much more creative with the types of flowers you can make. This blue ruffle flower below was made with several different sized circles of modelling paste. I thinned out and ruffled the edges using a stick tool with a tapered end. I then placed the layers one by one in a small bowl with the largest circle on the bottom and getting smaller as I got to the centre of the flower.

I used plunger cutters for the daisy type flowers. The make the centres, I took some brown modelling paste, pushed it through a strainer, scraped it off with a knife and then used a circle cutter.
I also made ribbon roses which I think are really cute. The thick, puffy look is a nice contrast to the thin ruffled flowers.

I used a 5-petal flower cutter to make the other flowers - I don't even really know what to call them since they aren't modelled after anything real.

Since my sister-in-law enjoys sugary frosting, rather than just simply icing the cake, I decided to pipe ruffles around the cake for a maximum frosting to cake ratio. I used a rose petal tip (#104) to make the alternating shades of green ruffles. I had a bit of trouble when I got to the top edge and turned the tip the wrong way around prematurely but the overall effect is still there. 

The cake of course was vanilla with vanilla frosting - no shortening used in this 'grocery store' cake though. Just lots and lots of butter!

Bachelorette Cake

This cake was made for a friend's bachelorette party back in February (yes, all the way back in February). Given my time limitations with work and school, the bride-to-be's sister kept the design request relatively simple and picked a fun and flirty bustier in purple and grey to match the wedding colours.

I am self-taught in terms of cake carving. I have seen some bustier cakes online in which they use a heart shaped pan for the top and bottom of the cake. I've also seen cakes in which the bust part is created using a bowl or ball-shaped pans. I am sure that this approach 'wastes' less cake (there is no waste of cake in this household!) however I don't own any heart-shaped pans and also wanted more control over the shape. Also, carving layered cakes versus using a bowl or ball-shaped pan ensures that every bite of the cake still has a good buttercream to cake ratio. 

Once again, I did not plan to take pictures of the process of cake-making, so this picture is taken with my iPhone with less-than-optimal lighting (not really complaining about a sunny day as we had so few this winter). I used a 9 x 13 inch pan and traced it onto a large sheet of freezer paper. I then sketched the outline of the bustier within 9x13 space. I cut this out and used this as my carving template. To make the top of the bustier (it feels strange to write about breasts and cake together but also feels immature to say 'cake boobs'), I baked and filled three 5-inch round cakes. I cut the template apart where the cups meet the bodice and used it to carve away the top of the bodice part to make room for the cups. Once everything was in place, I worked on carving the curves working very gradually until I was happy with the final shapes. I crumb-coating the entire shape, put it in the fridge to set and then covered it in purple fondant. 

It is very challenging to get dark purple from white fondant. I would have liked a darker purple but time was not on my side. I used a ribbon cutting tool for the detailing on the bodice and around the cups. To make the frills, I cut about 1-inch wide ribbons from fondant mixed with some tylose and used a bulbous gum paste tool to ruffle the edges. 

The cake was chocolate filled with chocolate swiss meringue buttercream. With the cake and the fondant-covered large board, it ended up being quite a large and heavy cake to transport. I was extremely worried about dropping it. I somehow managed to hold this cake with one arm while locking the door to my house, and then proceeded down my icy steps and very icy driveway in very high stiletto boots to a taxi. I safely made it out of the taxi, across a very slippery lobby floor and got the cake to the party in one piece. Whew!

I have a couple of more projects to write about and will do that gradually when I need breaks between analyzing my data for my research. Cake-making will continue to be infrequent but I hope to be up and at it more frequently after the summer. Alternatively, if any of you blog-readers out there are statistics aficionados who like to help out random people on the internet, I can get back to baking sooner!

The one that got away...

I debated whether to write about this cake that I did back in August for my niece's first birthday because the outcome was less than optimal. The purpose of my blog is to write and share my hobby with others and that includes projects or situations that may be a challenge or that may not be a success. This is one such project.  

One may look at the picture above and wonder what the challenges might have been. Overall it's a pretty cake. My sister-in-law wanted something pink and girly and suggested an ombré cake. She doesn't like fondant very much so I did a frosting-covered layer on the bottom and a fondant-covered layer for the top.  

The ruffled flower was made by cutting about 1-inch wide strips of thinly rolled modelling paste and rolling a modelling stick back and forth along the edges to create a ruffled effect. I was a bit short on time to make this cake as I had been working late and getting ready for a trip overseas. The flower ended up being a tad off-centre. In retrospect I should have been taking a step back to look at the cake after each flower layer to ensure that it was straight or in addition to marking the cake for the outer edge of the flower I could have also marked the centre of the flower. This would have not required a significant amount of extra time and would have ensured a straighter flower. Alas, that wasn't the suboptimal part of this cake project. 

For the ombré rosettes, I used a fairly large star tip. I portioned out just under a third of my batch of frosting and tinted it dark pink. For the next shade of pink, I just added white frosting to the leftover dark pink to get a lighter shade and then repeated for the lightest colour pink. This part was decently problem-free with the exception of some of the edges not being very neat. 

I placed the cake on a fondant-covered board as I usually do, and was annoyed that I managed to get a fingerprint on one side of the board near the front. The cake was placed off-centre to allow room for my niece's name. 

Like many of my other cakes, I placed the board on a cake stand to photograph it. Sometimes to get a good angle, I move the cake around on the table, sometimes I stand on my tiptoes, sometimes I stand on a chair. I had really gotten all of the photos that I needed and then I thought, 'ah, just one more'. I moved the cake stand back to get a better angle. Since I had placed the cake off-centre on the board, the centre of gravity was toward the back. As I pushed the cake stand back, the cake slipped off of the cake stand, and I'm not sure if I froze but everything really did feel like slow motion. The cake slipped onto the table, then slid off of the table and onto the floor. Surprisingly the cake landed upright however the impact of the fall caused the cake to collapse. It was not salvageable. This was not a reality tv show or a bakery where there might be extra staff, buttercream/frosting lying around, extra fondant, extra sponge cake. I had nothing. My husband held me while I sobbed. And then I went into panic mode. There was an hour until the party started but it would take an hour to get there. I thought that maybe I could make another cake and get it there by the time people had finished eating. I sent my husband to the grocery store to get more butter. I called my sister for reinforcements. I turned on the oven to preheat. As I watched the oven climb slowly in temperature, I came to the realization that it would be impossible. I called my husband and told him to forget the butter. I called my sister to tell her not to bother coming over. My husband called his sister to tell her what had happened. I felt awful on the way to the party. I felt awful when I arrived at the party and my niece was wearing a dress that matched the destroyed cake perfectly. It didn't take too long for me to be able to laugh a little about it and thankfully the cake was for family and they were very understanding.

I don't really have a moral to this story. As I am just a hobbyist, it is unrealistic for me to have extra cakes on hand in case something like this happens. Perhaps don't place cakes off-centre on cake boards or be extra careful while taking photos. In the grand scheme of things, it's just a cake. Although if you've ever watched Kings of Pastry, don't tell the MOF hopefuls that it's just sugar. In the end, I was there to celebrate the first year of a wonderful, beautiful, healthy little girl. 

A despicably pretty minion cake

This cake has a bit of a history. Since seeing the movie Despicable Me, I really wanted to make a minion cake because they are just so darn cute and I love cute things. My youngest nephew's birthday is in December and last summer my sister tried to show him multiple Despicable Me videos to convince him that he wanted a minion cake for his birthday. He ended up wanting a Michael Jackson Thriller werewolf cake, which he got. He is already planning his cake for next year - something to do withe Harry Potter and Spiderman. He said to me "Aunt 'Deece' (which is how he says my name) you can have funny little yellow guy for your birthday." I didn't do a decorated cake for my birthday or my husband's birthday this year - I did an apple cake with butterscotch cream cheese frosting and a banana chocolate chip toffee cake with bourbon frosting and chocolate ganache. They were delicious but did not fill the 'funny little yellow guy' quota. Someone in my family was going to get a minion cake. It was only a matter of time. Next family birthday - my sister. I thought it would be a great cake for my sister as a reminder that she really needs to work on her cake idea brainwashing skills with her kids. 

The cake design in itself was not overly complicated. It's basically a yellow cylinder. It did require some structural support though and some cake carving skills to get a symmetrical domed top. The cake was six 6-inch layers of almond butter cake filled with strawberry swiss meringue buttercream. I used a plastic centre dowel when stacking the cakes to ensure that it wasn't a leaning minion in the end. Once the cake was all stacked, filled and crumb coated, it measured about 8 inches tall. 

The main challenge of the cake was covering such a tall and narrow cake with fondant without tearing and creasing or pleating. I am not sure what the proper technique for covering a tall cake is but what I did managed to work well. I rolled out my circle of fondant a couple of inches smaller than what it should have been for a normal cake knowing that the fondant was going to stretch quite a bit as I smoothed the fondant against the cake to get out any pleats or folds. The other part is that knowing it was going to stretch and therefore be susceptible to tearing, I rolled my fondant thicker than usual. Normally I roll my fondant about 3/8" thick or slightly thinner and this time I rolled my fondant 1/4" thick. The last component: you have to work very fast! As the fondant dries (which depending on which brand you use can be very fast) it becomes more difficult to smooth out any folds without leaving marks on the cake. I ended up with one very small tear at the very bottom of the cake which wasn't such a big deal since it was being covered with a dress. 

I looked at several pictures of minions to decide what facial expression I wanted. They also vary a little bit in hairstyles. I went with a little bit of hair scattered evenly over the top of the head. The hair was made from gumpaste. I let it dry overnight and then placed it into the scalp right after covering the cake with fondant while the fondant was still very soft. I made quite a few extra pieces of hair accounting for possible breakage. I used a daisy cutter/plunger for the little hair accessory.

For the mouth I used a ball tool to indent the shape of the mouth while the fondant was still soft. This resulted in cleaner edge than if I had cut out the shape of the mouth. I then spread a very thin strip of purple fondant in the indented area and filled it with uneven looking teeth. 

Now I know that a pink dress is not the typical outfit for a minion - they are typically wearing blue overalls unless they are in disguise trying to get a stuffed toy unicorn from a toy store, or cleaning as a French maid. I decided that seeing as how the cake was for my sister and it was also Mother's Day weekend, I would do something spring-like and feminine. I wanted to keep the dress in a similar style to the overalls they wear. I first wrapped a skirt around the minion creating folds for pleats as I went around the body. I cut out a rectangular piece for the front and then strips for the waistband. I used a stitching tool to create the look of seams on the dress. 

Since the cake was celebrating my sister's birthday, I thought it was only appropriate to have the minion celebrating with a cupcake. It was also a very logical place to stick a birthday candle.

My youngest nephew spent a lot of time staring at this cake. My sister said to him, "See, don't you want a little funny yellow guy for your birthday?" My nephew replies, "Yes, and I want Harry Potter, and Spider Man...." I think we should just quit while we're ahead and stop asking him about his cake for next December. If we don't, I'm going to end up making ten different cakes for one birthday.

I had a great time making this cake. People often ask if it is heartbreaking to cut into a cake that I've spent so many hours making and my response is typically 'no'. This cake was not the most time consuming cake that I've done but I think it was the hardest one to cut into. I wanted to keep it, like a stuffed toy. Thank goodness for a blog to document the memories!

A collage of cupcakes

My husband recently mentioned to me that my life is a little like a sitcom. I say 'yes' to everything and then hope it all comes together. I somehow manage to jump from adventure to adventure and it all works out in the end. This is probably not good for the sanity of myself nor those around me and is generally a flawed philosophy for life. 

I also can't keep things simple. I think 'Fifty cupcakes? A variety of themes? No problem. I'll do a few 3-dimensional decorations and the rest will be simple 2-dimensional decorations. Tah dah!' And then as I start to make things, I think to myself, '2-dimensional is no fun! I want to make cuter things!' And then halfway through the week, I have bags under my eyes, I clutch my decoration to-do list on the subway and revise my plan of attack on my way home from work each day. I think to myself, ' I need a baking break' and then I somehow finish the cupcakes, I am thrilled with them and think 'wow, I should do this again soon!'. This is the story of my life. Actually below is the story of someone else's life - in cupcake form! 

I was told a few things about the guest of honour: He likes a particular business organization, cycling, tools and food. For the business aspect, I did a couple of books titled 'The Art of Business' and a couple of business shirts and ties. I made some simple bicycles for the cycling.

I think I had the most fun making the tools and the food. I had done several of the tools before when making construction-themed cupcakes. This time I also made hand saws, wrench and nuts, and screwdrivers in addition to the drill, measuring tape, square and pencil, and my favourite, the X-acto knife. 

I tried to make a variety of foods to go on the cupcakes. These toppers involved a lot of different colours and a lot of small details which meant a lot of work for my finger muscles! On a couple of mornings, I was convinced that I was developing arthritis in my hands. 

No birthday would be complete without cake (or I suppose cupcakes in this case) and I couldn't resist putting a piece of a cake on top of cake. I have an appreciation for redundancy. My husband would call it recursion. Geek. 

Following along with sweet foods, I made a few little donuts with sprinkles. Who doesn't love desserts with sprinkles? Doesn't it make you feel happy, young and carefree? I felt slightly carefree while making these donuts, and then I looked at my decorating to do list and it brought me back to reality. 

I made quite a few fast food items including hot dogs, hamburger and fries, pizza and fish and chips. The fish and chips was one of my favourites and I included the peas in a ramekin (as they do at our favourite pub) which I usually push to the side because I hate peas. I've really tried to like them. I even have a t-shirt that says 'Give peas a chance'. I'll stick with the fondant ones, thank you. 

I was also happy with how the hamburger turned out. This one had lettuce, cheddar cheese and tomato slices. I also made little fondant sesame seeds. 

I included some stereotypical 'guy' foods like barbecue stuff and steak. I included peas with the steak. I don't know if that's a real thing. I suppose the healthcare professional side of me was thinking, 'That's a really big piece of meat. It needs some vegetables and fries don't count!'

My other favourite food (in true form and fondant form) is sushi and maki. This maki is made with fondant cucumber, crab, avocado and rice. Each rice grain was rolled by hand to taper the ends (because I have an abundance of extra time OCD). 

Group shot! Although there were a few distinct themes for this cupcake collage, overall they worked well together. The cupcake flavours were vanilla/vanilla, vanilla/chocolate, chocolate/chocolate, chocolate/vanilla and red velvet with cream cheese frosting. 

Okay, one more group shot. I couldn't decide which photo I liked better.

Next cake project will be something simple but delicious! We'll see if it's blog worthy and if I'm able to get photos before it's gobbled up.

Bright baby shower cupcakes

My baking projects and subsequently my blog posts are becoming a tad few and far between. As much as I would like to spend more time on baking and blogging, I am learning the importance of finding balance in my life. Baking is my hobby - 'an activity done in one's leisure time for pleasure'. I have realized that when it no longer fits into 'leisure time', the 'pleasure' aspect of it can become diminished. I am always happy with the outcome of the projects I choose and never have regrets for taking on a project at the end, however sometimes the process in itself may not be so fun and that defeats the purpose of Sweet-D Cakes. 

These cupcakes were an example of a nice light, bright and fun project. People frequently ask me if cupcakes are easier or less time consuming than putting together a fondant-covered cake. I can't say that they are less time consuming because it can take hours to put together many toppers each containing small details that are in themselves time consuming. The benefits over doing a full cake are they tend to be less messy - no cake crumbs from trimming, levelling or torting cakes and I typically use frosting rather than swiss meringue buttercream for my cupcakes which is faster to make and makes yummier leftovers to eat with a spoon later on. The cons of cupcakes is that often they can be more time consuming due to a large number of small details versus fewer cake topper components that can be made up to 2 weeks in advance. Also, you cannot really bake the cupcakes ahead of time and maintain good quality control as they will dry out much quicker than a cake as there is more surface area and with a cake and you can seal in moisture when you cover it with buttercream and fondant.

For these cupcakes, I wanted a little more oomph than the typical pastel colours associated with babies, so I used a hint of electric/bright coloured gel pastes: fuschia + electric pink, lime green, turquoise and egg yellow (okay, egg yellow is not that bright but I didn't want them to be blindingly bright). I think that I could have used a bit more lime green in the scalloped circles as the green is not very discernable from the yellow.

All of the decorations are made from a mixture of fondant and gum paste in about a 3:2 ratio.
The little booties were very simple to make and very cute. As they were simple and plain, I added a couple tiny little flowers to each set.



For the baby faces, I rounded the edge of each fondant circle, added a hat with a little pom-pom and created a ribbed knit effect using a quilting tool. I dusted the cheeks with a bit of petal dust to add a bit of baby rosiness.



The cupcakes were red velvet with cream cheese frosting piped on with a large star tip. I used brown cupcake paper rather than white so that the red did not obviously clash with the cupcake toppers.
The result was a neutral base for bright and cheerful baby-themed decorations.