Fun with Piping Bag

For some odd reason, I have never tried using a piping bag. I've always used a piping syringe with tips... So I finally bought some disposable bags and couplers, and tried it out on some cakes for work (for the August birthdays...).

A gigantic brownie chocolate cake with buttermilk buttercream frosting.

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

The cream cheese frosting peaks don't hold as hard as the buttercream ones, but they sure are pretty!

Strawberry Shortcake Strawberry Cake

This weekend, I was thinking that it would be nice to bake a new kind of cake (I've been making my three standbys for awhile now--chocolate/brownie, carrot, and oranage), and thought that strawberry cake would be a good one to try.
I found this amazing, gelatin and cake mix-free strawberry cake recipe at the A Dash of Sass blog: http://adashofsass.com/2009/03/01/homemade-strawberry-cake/
I baked two large cakes (base and rounded top) along with a little 4-incher to make sure that it was delicious, which it definitely was, topped with some leftover cream cheese frosting from the fridge. No pictures of the tester- it was gone pretty quickly!

Strawberry flavored cake in the shape of a strawberry shortcake
dessert with "whipped cream" cream cheese icing.

Engagement Party Cake

We recently got to enjoy a lovely afternoon with our friends at their lawn bowling engagement party. This brownie chocolate cake is imprinted with their initials, which end up looking like "LOL" - which is an appropriate message for them to celebrate and have fun with each other for the rest of their lives.

Old School: PRL Creme Brulee

A few years ago, I brought food for a PRL lunch, which I topped off with some live creme brulee-ing action in the wood shop. What a treat. And of course, I had to bring in metal spoons for cracking the top- plastic just would not have worked...

Braided Challah

4 strand challah braid

Twilight Book Cake

This is a cake for a girl's Twilight-themed birthday party. We tried some new things, like the black marshmallow fondant from scratch. To depict the four book covers: the apple is a real apple, the parrot tulip is silk, the ribbon is satin, and the chess pieces are real chessmen.

The name lettering on the spine is cut from marzipan.

Groom Shower

A cake for a coworker's groom-shower at work.
Three tiered carrot cake with rounded edges.

Superman and Batman Cakes

Simple cakes with marzipan superhero logos.

Coconut Macaroons

Coconut macaroons with milk and dark chocolate drizzles for a friend's Seder.
These things are delish!

Scott's pretty piping

Simple Cakes

Just a few basic cakes for a monthly birthday celebration at work.

Baby Shower Cakes

Baby shower cakes. Chocolate and orange layers.
The little cakes were for the siblings of the baby-to-be.

Bridal Shower Cake

This is a tiered carrot cake for a bridal shower at work.
This was the tallest cake I had ever made, and it is clearly in need of some internal support!

Bacon Veggie Burger Cake

This cake was a birthday cake for a coworker who enjoys a nice veggie burger covered in bacon. This is all cake and icing, with the exception of the bacon, which is marzipan covered in simple syrup to achieve that delicious bacon grease look.

Nice greasy bacon

Dolphin Cake

This was a simple cake for a coworker's young daughter and I'm sure that she was expecting a much more "cartoon-y" dolphin.
This is a carrot cake, with a walnut from the cake used as the eye of the dolphin.




Walnut eye

Sushi Cake

The Sushi cake was our first cake together.
The main cake is a round carrot cake covered in cream cheese frosting "rice", and the two small "ginger" and "wasabi" cakes are covered in marzipan.

Mixing the icing colors for the sushi tuna and avocado.

Ginger and wasabi cakes.