Cake for an Architect

I was asked to do this cake by a friend for friend :P I have never thought about doing a cake for an architect so it was a bit challenging to come up with an idea. Especially since I was a bit limited on time and could not do what i really wanted to do (which one be some awesome architectur-al building model thing :P )

 

After some research I came upon many architecture cakes that had maps and tools. So I decided to go with that.

It was fun doing them, especially the tip of the pencil! I am very proud of that :D


Oh and I finally managed to figure out how to fully cover a cake with fondant without any creases :S so yay for me!!!


What do think of the cake?

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Pretty in Pink Ribbons, A Mother's Day Cake

I know many people who don't like to celebrate Valentine's day or Women's day or Children's day but I have yet to meet a person who does not celebrate Mother's day (and I really hope I never will!!!!)

Have you ever asked yourself where did it all start? Now there are many stories and legends explain the origin of mother's day but almost all of them have the same "storyline". One such legend (Egyptian) says that Mother's day started as annual festival to honor the goddess Isis, who was commonly known as the mother of the pharaohs. Another legend says that it was to honor Greek Goddess Rhea who was the Mother of most of the major deities including Zeus.

To make a long story short, Mother's day was a day to celebrate the goddesses! =D

Now despite the fact that no gift to your mother can ever equal her gift to you, we all should give it our best.


This year I decided to go for something less material and more personal! Yes, yes you guessed it, I've finally come to my point!!! ... A Mother's Day Cake. I made my mom the cutest and (surprisingly) one the simplest cakes ever! 
I wanted to make a "pretty" cake this time and my gut feeling said: RIBBONS!
and I NEVER disregard what my gut says :P

I saw a tutorial on one of the most amazing cake blogs you can ever find on how to make a fondant ribbon and did it!

I just love the result! I opted for a bright hot pink to contrast with the light colors of the cake itself.

The inside of the cake if a fluffy moist white cake with a swiss meringue buttercream (I flavored it with some fresh yellow lemons)

As for the pink sprinkles you see on the side, those were homemade also =D, from normal table sugar. I just added some sugar with a little pink food gel inside a plastic bag and shook it.

Even the inside was pink!

Finally, I'd like to dedicate this post to my wonderful amazing lovely supporting mom! I love you so so sooo much and I hope you liked (and enjoyed) this cake. I realized that the "pretty-ness" of the cake is directly related to how much I love the person.. so it's no surprise your cakes are always the best! Thank you for everything, I know I can be a pain "sometimes" but I hope you'll forgive me for it and realize just how much I love you!

I hope all you readers have as amazing a mom as I do!

To all mom's out there: Happy Mother's day!

Oh and if you haven't seen my mom's other cake, here it is: A bouquet of Roses
and sorry for the many pictures, I just love this cake!

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Cinnamon Rolls

A while ago, (and after everyone kept asking me for them) I finally made some cinnamon rolls!

Cinnamon Rolls and Cream cheese frosting!

Aren't cinnamon rolls just the most delicious cinnamon-filled gooey-ness ever created?! I would very much like to meet the genius who created it and give him/her a big big hug!!

It's just heavenly!

They were surprisingly pretty easy to make, they just needed some time (for the rising/baking).

While looking at recipes online, I realized that most dough-related recipes need some kind of bread machine. But I did NOT let this put me down :P I continued my research and finally found the perfect one on Allrecipes. (One of my go-to-sites for recipes)

It has the easiest cinnamon rolls dough recipe. I made the dough, let it rise for a while (I used instant yeast so the process was pretty fast!) Then I rolled it out and spread the dough with a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon and lots n lots of butter!! =D Then I rolled the dough into a log and cut it into circles. I let the rolls rise a bit and baked them in batches over the weekends.


Oh and I finally found a delicious cream cheese frosting recipe to drizzle over each hot roll!

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Lazy Cake

You know how sometimes you reach a place where you know the advanced steps of something but have forgotten all about the basic simple ones?

Yes well, this is very similar to my story with lazy cakes! I know how to make a complicated fondant rose cake but when it comes to a simple biscuit cake, it NEVER comes out the way I want it. I've tried MANNNNYY recipes and none work! Biscuit cakes are one of my favorite cakes (surprise! surprise!) so it is very important that I find an AWESOME recipe.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, I was having lunch with my family at Leila's in Verdun and I was looking at that amazing wall they have. It was full of old pictures, ornaments and books. I love the atmosphere there, very neo-classical! Anyway, I was looking and I found this book called: " أنا و ابي والشوكولا " which is Arabic for "Chocolate, my dad and I".

I quickly looked inside and sure enough it was a recipe book for everything chocolate!!! And sure enough they had a lazy cake recipe!!! =D I was thrilled! I went home and tried the recipe and it turned out.....

wait for it.....

AWESOME!!!!!!!!

I want to share it with you:

Here's the English Translation:

Preparation time: 12 minutes

Freezing Time: 3 hours (I couldn't wait that long though :P I took it out after around 2!)

Amount: One Cake

Ingredients:

• 4 Biscuit packs (I used Ghandour, aren't those biscuits just amazing?!) - crumbled and crushed
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 250 ml of milk (one cup)
• 1/2 c. white sugar
• 200 g softened butter
• 125 g chocolate

What to do:

1. Melt the butter and chocolate in a saucepan on medium heat and then add the sugar, egg, milk and vanilla. Mix well!
2. Remove the mix from the heat and add the crumbled biscuits. Mix well with a wooden spoon.
3. Place the mix in pan of your choice. (I have an english cake pan that I wrapped in plastic wrap first. I then added the mix and closed the top with more plastic wrap.)
4. Place the pan in the freezer. (I thought the freezer was too strong for it, so I placed it in the refrigerator for the last 30 minutes.)

Note: You can cover it with a chocolate glaze, if desired!

FINALLY: taste the most delicious lazy cake you'll ever eat!!

Here's how mine turned out.

 I hope you give it try! And don't forget to tell me how it turned out =)

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A million sheets of heaven: Mille Feuilles

Photo Credit: Diana Loutfy

Mille Feuilles: Puff pastry with French cream and a topping of powdered sugar! Is there a more perfect combination?

I found in this recipe in the Cake Boss's book. (I plan of trying out all his recipes! There's a 100 of them =D ) But he calls these Napoleons. The only difference is the topping. I used powdered sugar, whereas his had icing on top.

My family has been asking for this dessert for a long time now, and I've always been afraid of how the puff pastry will turn out. It's a bit hard to control, but once you know how to work with it, you'll get the results you want.

Anyway, I made this dessert by following these steps:

1. I baked two rectangle puff pastry sheets.

Photo Credit: Diana Loutfy

2. In order to make French Cream, I mixed both Italian Custard Cream with Whipped Cream. Whipped Cream is simply 1 cup Whipping cream to 1/4 cup sugar whipped until thick. The Custard is bit more complicated but the basic idea is that you should simmer some milk with vanilla essence on medium low heat. In a separate bowl, whip up egg yolks, sugar and cake flour. Then mix both together until thick. After taking of beat, you add a LITTLE bit of butter and refrigerate. (I'll make a more detailed recipe soon and add it to the index :) )
3. You cut up the puff pastry and assemble!
4. Sprinkle some powdered sugar on top.

Photo Credit: Diana Loutfy

Bon Apétit! 

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Car Cake

This is my first fondant car cake! And I'm pretty proud of it.

I realized from working with cakes, that I'm going to have to learn about A LOT of different things: from flowers, to people to cars!! It's really amazing work!

Back to this cake:

This cake is an old red mini cooper! I know: mini coopers are smaller than this, but well I really just couldn't cut out all that cake!! At the end, it's all about the cake, no?

Well this was pretty challenging! I baked two LARGE cakes, stacked them up, froze them then started carving. I had like 10 pictures of cars in front me while I did this. After I got the shape I wanted, I frosted it, put it back in the freezer then covered it with: yes you guessed it: marshmallow fondant =D

The details were pretty fun to make, the license plate, the lights, bumpers etc.

Oh for the windows, I just covered the cake with some white fondant first then with the red. Then cut up the windows from the red fondant and voila! Windows =D

What do you think??

Do I have a future in making fondant car cakes? :P

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Be my Valentine, Snoopy Cake

Helen Keller once said:

The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.

But well, there's no harm in trying right? :P

and what is better and more beautiful than a cake?!

This year, I decided to go for something a bit out of the ordinary.

I just love snoopy! He's very special to me, and I find him the cutest thing ever =) and during this time of year, I thought I'd use this to try and bring some smiles to peoples' faces.

Snoopy (K)
Photo Credit: Diana Loutfy

I saw a similar cake while looking at some awesome cake designs and directly knew I wanted to make this for Valentine's.

Be my Valentine!
Photo Credit: Diana Loutfy

The red house works perfectly with all the hearts, don't you think?

Photo Credit: Diana Loutfy

Now the house wasn't very easy to make :P But I put my mind to it and was able to! I had to build it from some cardboard (I had no cardboard, so I used an empty Ghandour biscuit box) and then wrap it with red fondant. Snoopy was just the cutest thing to make (and surprisingly the easiest!) I just used some white marshmallow fondant and rolled them into balls, shaped them up a bit then stuck them together. I crafted Woodstock, the yellow bird using (yes!) some more fondant and placed a cute little heart on top.

And whats says "I love you" more than a heart?! I tried to put as many hearts as possible on it!
You see, I always say: If you make a cake and you're all happy and full of love, the end result would be great! That's the secret =D

This cake was no exception. I went into a frenzy of hearts and red and cuteness!  All I could see for two days was hearts and mushy stuff :P I just love this cake and am so proud of it!


I just hope that this day is full of happiness and love! I wish everyone would find that special someone to enjoy this day (and every day) with and be as happy as I am.



There's nothing better than being in love now is there?

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone

Photo Credit: Diana Loutfy

Photo Credit: Diana Loutfy

Photo Credit: Diana Loutfy

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