Update and Heart-Shaped Coconut Cake

Well.. It's been a looong time since I baked anything or posted on here but I'm baaaack! I found out last June that I was pregnant and even though I always wanted my own baked goods, I never felt like baking. She was born February 13, 2013 at 8:27pm and weighed in at 6lbs. 12ozs. and is the happiest baby I've ever met. I'll post a couple pictures of her below.

Back to baking; I made a coconut cake for someone last night using a recipe I found online that includes coconut milk in the batter mixture and features coconut flakes on the icing. Well here I go, mixing the butter, sugar, eggs, doing everything I should be doing but oops! I forgot to switch out the regular milk for coconut milk. So here I go again! I make sure to use the right milk, I bake both layers (even though it calls for 3 I just split it into 2) and wait for them to cool. I didn't feel like making any icing so I just bought Pillsbury White icing and used that. I topped it with the flakes which, by the way, I don't remember being so difficult to put on the sides of the cake from the last time I made this cake, and boxed it up!

I tasted the batter and it's always delicious so I hope I have a very satisfied customer! Oh and Happy Birthday to her! Thank you, as always, for taking the time to read this and hopefully for having an interest in my products. I know I don't have many (if any) readers so any that I do have are very much appreciated!

This was the day after Easter Sunday.

Newborn

One Month                                           Two Months

Days away from Three Months old

And below are picture of the heart-shaped coconut cake.

Thank you and have a great day!

Crystal Doom :]

Heineken and Astros cakes

Well I have just been slacking! A couple of weeks ago was the first time I'd ever covered a cake with fondant. That was the Heineken cake. It wasn't too bad, they liked it and I realized I didn't have a reason to be afraid to work with fondant! I just didn't want to screw anything up but it actually came out looking ok. I used a silver glaze for the bottle cap.

Then I was asked to make another cake for this past Thursday that my brother was buying for a friend's birthday. My brother and I don't really like the way regular fondant tastes so I figured I'd try to make marshmallow fondant. Well that was so much easier than I thought!! I kind of messed up a little because the instructions said to add icing coloring before you add powdered sugar so I separated the melted marshmallows into three bowls and added colors. Well not until I'd already colored one part black and another red did I realize that it meant only color at that step if you're coloring the whole batch one color. So I was kind of freaking out a little bit realizing that I didn't know how much sugar to use. Well I figured that out easily, just add until it feels right!! So once I'd gotten them to the right consistency, I made each into a ball, rubbed vegetable shortening over it, and then cling-wrapped it with no bubbles and put it into a Ziploc to refrigerate overnight. :)

Then I baked two 9x13" cakes, cooled them, cut one, iced the top of it, cut the other and placed it on top, did a crumb coat, and then put the white fondant over it. Then I cut the black strips to go around the edges, hand-cut the black and the red Astros logo and placed it on top of the cake. Then I started using my new alphabet cut-outs to get all the fondant letters I needed to put all around the cake. After I put those on, it just looked perfect!!! I loved it! :D that is seriously my best work so far!

Later, I asked my brother what everyone thought and asked if they liked it. He said everyone loved how it looked and tasted! He and everyone else loved the marshmallow fondant, and (because I wrote "Crystal Doom Cakes" on the box) everyone was asking where my bakery was at! I was so flattered! :) One of his friends already asked if I can make a cake for her grandma's birthday – in September! I'm excited to see what else I'll be making within this year!

Thank you!

Crystal Doom :]