Guava cake revealed finally

I know it's been a while since my last post.  Things have been a little hectic in the past month.  I got a 2nd job (well 4th if you count my main job, my cake hobby, and being a PT SAHM) and added another day to my work week, signed up for several continuing ed courses, and was busy making cakes.  With all of that going on, I just didn't have any downtime to add to my blog.  But, tonight, I decided to just MAKE the time to create at least one new post. 


My last one was on how my guava cake had bombed and I kept meaning to post a picture of it, but life got in the way and a month or so later, here it is.

This was definitely not one of my better cakes overall.  The cake and icing combination didn't complement each other and my icing job definitely had many imperfections due to me trying a different technique.  It's called the upside down method.  Basically, you ice the top of the cake, put a cake board on top once you're done, then you flip it over and cover the sides.  This should help to even out the icing on top of the cake.  However, it appears as though the wax paper I covered the cake board with had numerous wrinkles and left marks in the icing (as you can see in the bottom picture).  It was also very uneven on top and the edged weren't very clean.  In addition, I decided to let my son help me put some of the flowers on and his contribution were his knuckle prints :-)


I did get to finally do the diamond pattern I've been so wanting to do for the longest time.  I finally got me a diamond impression mat and so I used it on this cake, along with the stitching/quilting tool to make it look like it was sewn .  That was one the one thing that I was happy with.  I can't wait to use it on a fondant covered cake to get the quilted look!


And an hour later, I'm finally done with this short post because FB kept pulling me away!  


Have a great one folks!

Guava Cake Bombed

Ever since the cake show last month, I've had the bug to make lots of creations in both flavor combinations and design.  Since I'm from Hawaii and I miss, miss, MISS the local flavors, I decided to try to bring some of that here to the DC metro area.  I found a place online that sells all my favorites: guava, passion fruit, and mango!  Yippee!!!

Now onto make some awesome, delicious cakes...or so I thought.  I LOVE and MISS the juices back home...passion orange, guava, passion orange guava (aka POG), strawberry guava.  That was my inspiration for my Hawaii cake.  I decided to do a guava cake filled with passion fruit curd and covered with passion fruit buttercream.  Sadly, the flavors were a little unbalanced.  The guava cake on it's own was fantastic and the passion fruit buttercream was divine!  But, when I put them all together, the passion fruit curd overpowered everything, the guava taste was lost, and the buttercream was mild, almost to the point of being bland. :-(  

I adapted the guava cake recipe from The Cake Doctor.  I still need to tweak it a little, but overall, I'm happy with it.  I just need to change the flavor combinations.  Oh well...back to the drawing board.  I guess that's just more cake I have to eat...I mean make. :-)

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Yes, yes...I know.  It's WAY past St. Patrick's Day.  But, since I really didn't start blogging until after that day anyway, so I have an excuse ;-)


I've been doing a lot of fondant covered cakes and have been shying away from buttercream covered ones, mostly because it's easier to get a nice, smooth finish with fondant.  But, I wanted to practice/perfect/hone...whatever u want to call it...my buttercream skills.  St. Patrick's Day was coming up and what better way to celebrate than with a cake!  Plus, I've been wanted to test out some new flavors.


I decided to do a lemon cake.  I used Lorann's Lemon Emulsion flavoring.  It has a more intense flavor than lemon extract and doesn't break down during the baking process, thereby maintaining it's intensity.  

I used an 8" x 3" round and torted it.  Filled it with lemon/vanilla buttercream and covered it with vanilla buttercream.  Then, I added fondant decorations and below is the final result.  As with my son's cake, I didn't document my process so all I have are pictures of the final creation.

I created my little leprechaun from a picture I found on the web.  I printed it out, created a stencil with it, then went to work.  Several hours later, I finally had him finished.  I keep forgetting how long the little components actually take.  I looked at this picture and thought it was going to be quick and easy.  The length of time it took me to complete him could also be due to my OCD and the fact that I am a perfectionist, so everything I do takes double the amount of time a simple task normally would ;-)

For the four leaf clover, I did the same...found a picture online, printed it and created a stencil.  I cut out a number of them and placed them all around the side of the cake (see pic above).

Aside from the amount of time it took me to create the leprechaun, this was a fun and easy cake...not to mention delicious!  This will definitely be added to my menu of flavors.  I'll be making another lemon cake for Easter!  YUM YUM.