Easter made easy

Tip - use a 1M (also called a cupcake tip) to quickly and easily fill deviled eggs.

AT&T is going to drive the cake ninja crazy

So I'm switching day jobs, and tried to take my phone number with me and that has failed horribly.

So if you were using 303-862-1060 to get to the cake ninja, that number won't work. Email cakeninja at earthlink dot net instead :)

Cake in progress

So here is a cake in progress for my husband's birthday. Right now I am working on the gum paste portions. I am using ready made gum paste from a package, which requires kneading in a small amount of shortening. You can also see my planning pages - both inspiration shots and actual measurements. This cake will be roughly 5.5 inches square by 12 inches tall. I will be using an 8" round cake pan and cutting out the squares from it.

Cake flavor is yet to be determined - the husband has not made his request yet. Next steps will be more structural pieces and some decorative bits. Then the painting and any piping of wording.

Based on the photos, can you tell what the cake Ninja is making? (Family members are not allowed to guess.)

Cake 101: Filling and Frosting

It's been a while since we've had a cake 101 video, but here is the latest installment in Cake University -- filling and frosting. See the Cake Ninja wrangle with her most loved/hated tool -- the cake leveler!

An experiment

As you may have noticed, I am not so great on keeping up with blog content. I mean well, but life gets in the way.

So, I am going to try an experiment. For the next two cakes, I will be taking photos and posting on the process from start (concept and reference art) to finish (happy recipients eating cake).

It dovetails nicely into Cake 101, because I'm doing gumpaste for one of them. (Speaking of Cake 101/Cake University, yes there are videos coming, as soon as my editor has time.)

So we'll see how it goes. I am not promising any specific sort of posting schedule, but both cakes are due September 15th, so expect to see more posts soon.

A slight uptick in jobs

I know I haven't posted in forever, mostly because it's been a very busy life at Chez Cake Ninja.

However, I now have two different cake jobs coming up. For Sunday I am doing pastel cupcakes with flowers, birds, and butterflies for a first birthday party. And for the following Saturday I am doing a carrot cake for a baby shower.

Both are for friends, so it's customers I already had in my rolodex, but there's always the hope that some new business will come out of it.

I did not, as of yet, see any new business due to Handmade Homemade, and with the August HaHo having been canceled, and having to bow out of the September and October ones due to personal business, I am not sure I will. But there's always the December holiday market, and next year.

It takes time and energy to build a clientele, and I need to work on having more of both available.

Handmade Homemade

I still owe a post about the whole HaHo experience, but I am thrilled to announce that I will be vending at the next three Handmade Homemade markets at Green Spaces (26th and Larimer) in Denver.

Come out and eat cupcakes on August 11th, September 9th, and October 13th.

(Of course, this means the first two weeks of September will be crazy cake time - cupcakes for HaHo, a rapunzel tower for Eldest Monkey's 4th birthday (unless she changers her mind, again), and a Tardis for the husband.)

What the ninja has been up to

Lots of prep for HaHo on Saturday.

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!).

Finding the time to get it all done

I have fallen behind on my updating schedule, for which I apologize to my readership.

It's been a little hectic between work, trying to get the yard put into our house, and chasing after two young kids. It's not an excuse, and I need to do better, but it is an explanation.

Tomorrow night I need to go shopping for a birthday, and for ingredients for cupcakes to be baked Friday and frosted and shipped on Saturday. I'm trying a new method of packing for the shipping and hoping this turns out better than last time where 1 package was fine, and 2 were pretty much destroyed. Since I'm doing these cupcakes for a charity auction, it's important to me that they be done right. Unfortunately, the labels I ordered won't be here in time. I do have some awesome cupcake boxes that match the blog colors that a friend sent me though, and I'll continue to tack my business card up top.

The leftovers will either be eaten at home or taken to my work or my husband's work. Cupcakes always go over well. However, that's a good six hours out of my night/weekend that I'll have to cram in after the girls go to bed and in the morning, and it takes away from family time.

So the cake ninja would like to know -- how do you make time to bake/make art/do other things you enjoy?

Cake 101: Lesson 8: Fondant

Ah, fondant, delight and bane of decorators everywhere. Most people complain it tastes awful (and some do), but it's exceptional for giving a smooth surface to a cake and keeping it moist and delicious.

This being 101, I am only going to give a quick overview of what fondant is and how to use it. Possibly in a later Cake 101 video, I will show how to apply fondant to a cake.

So what is it? It is a sugar and marshmallow (usually) mix that can be rolled out into sheets and draped over cakes or used to make cut-outs, flowers, borders, etc.

You can buy it premade (and pre-colored if you like) or you can make your own. You can color it by mixing the icing color in as you knead the fondant or you can airbrush or paintbrush color on later.

There are a million and a half tools out there to help you with fondant and to cut fondant, but I have found that cookie cutters work just as well as the specialized tools. The ninjas on the ninja carousel cake were from cookie cutters. I free-handed the sections on the carousel to match the sections on the carousel tops, and then rolled out fondant ropes to twist together.

The Guinness cake seen previously in the cake archive is covered in white fondant, which was then painted with a vodka and icing coloring mix. I used the same technique on the "fail" cake for threadcakes, and the movie camera cake. The border on the Guinness cake is just fondant balls rolled together.

Fondant can seem daunting, but like everything else, it's just practice practice practice. Next week, we'll talk gumpaste.

More Wilton

So, last week I was complaining about a new product from Wilton (it's that time of year -- spam us all with new products). This week I am actually going to give them praise.

Icing tips and couplers. They are difficult to clean. I usually end up throwing mine into their mesh bag and putting them in the silverware holder, and while it gets them clean, it makes them a little beat up. Wilton must have been listening in on my complaints, because there's now a dishwasher tray for your icing tips. I may just have to pick one up.