Too hot for cake

Yes, there really is such a thing as too hot for cake.

It has been record highs two days in a row here in Denver -- and it's been too hot to move, much less do much of anything with cake. I am getting things pulled together for Threadcakes, and if we get lower temperatures tomorrow (we are promised to), I will do the photos for the tutorial on gumpaste for Friday.

I will have to make cake this weekend regardless -- I am doing the trial run of the various cupcake flavors for Denver HandmadeHomemade in July, and since this next one is going to be outdoors, having to worry about stabilizing icing in the heat should help ensure that the cupcakes look delicious from start to finish next month. (And yes, there will be a post out of that, too, so two two two things in one!).

Cake 101: Lesson 9 Gumpaste

This is really more of lesson 9a.

So what is Gumpaste? It is a modeling compound you can use to make more elaborate structures out of than chocolate or fondant.

I usually buy mine either in the premixed pouches or in the cans you add water to, but it is possible to find recipes online.

It takes a varied drying time - the frames for the movie cake dried far faster than the center disk of the reel - and, like fondant, you can mix color in or paint it on afterwards.

Stay tuned next week for part b in which I will show how to use it.

Threadcakes is open

And once again, I have not done anything at all before it opens. Who, me, procrastinate?

Actually, that's not entirely true. I have the gumpaste on hand, and I think I have settled on a design.

The design itself is from a penguin shirt. The penguin will be out of gumpaste and reside on the top of a three tier cake.

The three tier cake will be done topsy-turvy style (there's a first time for everything!) and will be covered in fondant in a light blue with snowflake fondant cutouts on the tiers.

In my head, it looks awesome. In reality, we shall see. (Also, it's totally an excuse to buy another cricut cake cartridge so that I have one that does snowflakes.)

Sneak peek

It's cake archive Monday. I need to pull together a couple of posts about some photos that are on the new gallery page, but here's a sneak peek at the latest cake I did -- you can see it come together in both the July and August Cake University episodes, which we just shot last night.

Cake University

You may have noticed that I'm a little behind on Cake 101.

The next lesson is intended to be gum paste, and as I am getting ready to do Threadcakes, I thought I'd do a picture tutorial instead of just text, so it'll be a little bit.

Additionally, we are shooting two episodes of the blip.tv series this weekend (if all goes according to plan) and hopefully I will have them up at the beginning and end of July (if I put them up all at once, what content do I have to keep my readers coming back?)

I have not forgotten you, dear students of Cake University, never fear! Just think of it as summer break.

Handmade Homemade July 14th

I will be vending at the Denver Handmade Homemade market on July 14th, 4-8pm at Green Spaces (1368 26th Street, Denver, 80205).

So be sure to get your vote in for what kind of cupcakes should be there, and if you're local, come on down and see me!

A poll!

For those of you not following Denver Cake Ninja on Facebook (and why not?! :D), here is your opportunity to tell the Cake Ninja what she should bake if she gets into the Handmade Homemade market.

Your options are:

Black (Guinness) and tan (vanilla or Harp) cupcakes with marshmallow frosting
Chipotle red velvet with cream cheese frosting
Creamsicle - orange cupcake with vanilla buttercream
Gingerbread stout with marshmallow frosting
Chai with cardamom buttercream

The three top vote-getting cupcakes (votes counted here and on Facebook) will be the ones I make for the market and the locals can come and get some.

Not local? Dying for a dozen of any of those flavors? The Cake Ninja will ship, contact me for pricing and availability. Local, and still dying for a dozen of a flavor? Same thing -- contact me for pricing and availability.

Wednesday Randomness

I am slowly trying to get back into the habit of regular content for the blog, and will be doing a bunch of tweaks and updates to the website to add additional pages and content in the nearish future, but for now you get the couple most amusing search terms that brought people to this blog of late.

1) "i m doing cake i too often" - impossible. No such thing as doing cake too often.
2) "how to decorate wilton carousel cake" - I am not sure the neon ninja carousel was quite what they were looking for there.

The rest were pretty straightforward -- pint glass/guinness glass was pretty common, and "the movie camera cake" had a fair number of hits as well. I was pleased to see that googling "Denver Cake Ninja" returns something somehow affiliated with me for 80% of the first page of links. (There is a bakery in Denver that talks about its cake ninjas, but while they may live in Denver, they are not the Denver Cake Ninja.)

In addition to getting the website to have more information, I'm getting new business cards (with the awesome logo) and probably will be getting different labels to put on cake/cupcake boxes. Since I'm looking at doing the Handmade Homemade market, I will need labels that list out the most common allergens that could be present in the food. (I will also have sheets with the actual ingredients of whatever I end up making, but it's good to have the warnings on there.) I am also leaning towards buying or making a t-shirt/apron with the logo to wear (possibly both). That way I'm a walking billboard for my own stuff. Look also for possibly an appointment widget on the blog that'd allow people to schedule cake and cupcake deliveries. I have a feeling that if I can get the ball rolling this thing just might be successful.

Updates

So, you may have noticed the updated look and feel of the blog (sadly, no new content, but I am working on it).

The logo is the delightful work of artist extraordinaire Rachel Dukes, of Poseur Ink.

It was an interesting process -- I started with one idea, she did a fabulous sketch, I came back and said "wait, no, what I really want is , please don't kill me" and she did another fabulous sketch, we refined the colors, and here's what you see - a ninja chef octopus, which if you know me personally, you know makes perfect sense as a logo.

In other news, I am trying to get into the July 14th Denver Handmade Homemade Market to actually sell some cupcakes. If I get in, I will let everyone know what time and where to come and find me.

And, last but not least, I have a facebook page for Denver Cake Ninja now, too. So feel free to like that and get updates and weird rantings about cake :D

Otherwise, I have some cake and cupcake photos to upload, a solid idea of what the next two Cake University videos will be, I just need it not to be 90+ degrees since that's not a friend of frosting in order to shoot them, and I'm getting ready to start on Threadcakes again (Opens mid-June, closes mid-August. Gumpaste, ho!).