BUCHE DE NOEL

I love to make Buche de Noel's.  This one was made from a chocolate roll cake and filled with hazelnut buttercream.  I frosted it first with ganache then made it look like a log with chocolate buttercream that I combed with a combing tool.  The holly leaves and berries are made from gumpaste and the mushrooms are meringue.  The santa and trees are molded chocolates.

Merry Christmas!!

DOUBLE LAYER CHOCOLATE BROWNIES

This recipe is for Rae and Cheryl and anyone else that wants a super brownie bite.

These make great gifts for any holiday and the leftover bits that you will have after cutting them out with a biscuit cutter will be perfect for serving over or in ice cream.

Enjoy!!

For the bottom layer

115g Unsalted Butter

70g Semisweet Chocolate (chopped)

1 1/2 Teaspoons Vanilla

1 Teaspoon Instant Espresso Powder

Pinch of Salt

207g Sugar

2 Large Eggs

70g Unbleached All Purpose Flour

170g Toasted Walnuts (chopped)

For the top layer
225g Semisweet Chocolate (chopped)
115g Unsalted Butter
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
Pinch of Salt
1 Teaspoon Espresso Powder
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
1 Large Egg
4 Large Egg Yolks

METHOD
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

For the bottom layer:
2. Melt the butter and chocolate together over a double boiler. Whisk & remove from heat
3. Stir in the vanilla, espresso powder, & salt.
4. Whisk in the sugar.
5. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking after each addition.

6. Stir in the flour and nuts.

7. Scrape into a 13" X 9" pan that has been lined with parchment paper.

For the top layer:

1. Melt the chocolate and butter together over a double boiler. Whisk & remove from heat.

2. Whisk in the sugar, cream, salt, espresso powder and vanilla.

3. Add the egg and egg yolks one at a time, whisking well after each addition. Stir until smooth.

4. Spread evenly with an offset spatula over the bottom layer.

5. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the center should have a bit of moist batter clinging to it. Do not over bake.

6. Cool to room temperature then cover and refrigerate to make cutting easier.

WHITE LILLY WEDDING CAKE

This cake is very similar to the Yellow Rose Wedding Cake.

The two top tiers were red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. The third tier was chocolate cake with chocolate mousse, fresh strawberries, ganache with crunchy pearls and the fourth tier was white butter cake with pastry cream and fresh strawberries.

I highlighted with pearl luster dust the lacy icing work on the second and fourth tiers. The light caught it and really made it pop.

This cake was really heavy but I lifted it myself into my VW, delivered it to the venue and it made it there in one piece. Whew!! It is always nerve racking delivering wedding cakes.

HOLIDAY PARTY GOODIES

CHRISTMAS COOKIES

DOUBLE LAYER TRUFFLE BROWNIES

MINI APPLE PIES

These are a few of the items people have been ordering for holiday parties. I love this time of year even though it gets crazy busy.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE.

QUINCEANERA CAKE

This cake was done for a Quinceanera which is a party for a girl turning 15 in the Hispanic community.

Her colors were gold and pink and when I delivered the cake the birthday girl had on the most gorgeous gold gown.

The flavors of two of the cakes were chocolate with chocolate mousse and fresh raspberries and the other two were lemon cakes with raspberry mousse and fresh raspberries.

The party was outside at night so the cake was delivered when the party was in full swing. They were having a great time and I got to see the reaction of all the guests when they saw the cake. It was really fun.

San Diego Charger's Cake

Did this cake for Becky who is a real San Diego Charger's fan. It was a lemon cake with lemon curd and lemon buttercream.

I don't follow football but I heard the team won after she received her cake.

Quilted Wedding Cake

This cake was for a wedding at a winery two hours away from here. I was a little nervous about driving it that far in my VW. I took the long way around so I could stay away from the winding road of the mountain. It arrived in one piece, no problem!!

The bottom tier was marble cake with vanilla buttercream and chocolate buttercream. The middle tier was chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and crunchy pearls. The top tier was white cake with vanilla buttercream. I covered it with Ivory fondant and quilted it. The dots were lapis colored fondant. The bride and groom like to fish so they found this cute topper for the cake.

The Oak Meadows winery was a perfect place for a wedding.

BABY SHOWER CAKE

This cake is for a baby shower. The hostess gave me the invitation which was the inspiration for the stripes. She also said she would like baby booties on top of the cake. So this is what I came up with. I hand made the booties and the block out of gumpaste.

The flavor of the cake is chocolate with vanilla buttercream tinted blue. I also made 50 mini cupcakes. Half were chocolate with caramel filling and vanilla buttercream frosting. The other half were vanilla with caramel filling and vanilla buttercream frosting. All the frosting was tinted blue and the vanilla cupcakes were tinted blue as well.

PINK CASTLE CAKE

I did this cake for a little 3 year old and all she wanted was a pink castle cake. I heard she was thrilled and she and the other kids at the party were eating everything on the cake even the rice paper flags.

It was a marble cake with ganache and hazelnut buttercream fillings. I also put the crunchy pearls in the ganache for a little surprise crunch.

The cake only needed to feed 13 people so I made a 9" X 4" which would feed about 22 people.

It was fun to make and for my first castle cake I was happy with the outcome.

HALLOWEEN PEANUT BRITTLE

I have been making lots of peanut brittle. 99 pounds of it to be exact for a Halloween order and here are pictures of the way I am packaging it this year. If anyone else wants some just respond to this post or send me an e-mail at pastrypam@hotmail.com and I will be happy to make some for you too.

MINI WEDDING CAKE

This cake was done for Nicole who works at the beauty shop where I get my hair done. She was married quite some time ago but never got a wedding cake on her wedding day. So for her anniversary she wanted a wedding cake to celebrate with her husband. She had a very romantic dinner and evening planned and I hope this cake helped to make it extra special.
The flavors are vanilla cake, vanilla bean pastry cream with fresh strawberries. The roses are hand made by me out of gumpaste. I told her to save them as they will keep forever if stored properly.
This cake is so sweet I just want to squeeze it!!

FAYZIE'S TOPSY TURVY CAKE

This cake is very similar to another Topsy Turvy cake I did but in completely different colors. I was a little nervous about the colors because I only had a bad e-mail picture to look at for the color palette. When I got to the venue I was happily surprised to see just how well the colors matched the table linens. There was even a gold underlay that matched the gold numbers and letters on the cake.

The cake was chocolate with a chocolate mousse filling and crunchy pearls. Covered with chocolate buttercream and fondant.
With all my fretting over the colors I am very happy with the way it looks.

Here is a nice thank you I received from the hostess:

"thanks for everything pam, the cake was beautiful AND delicious. and we LOOOOOVED the candy and peanut brittle."

HALLOWEEN COOKIES

I love this time of year, the fall flavors like pumpkin, apple and cranberry, the spices like cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, & allspice, the holiday cheer and these Halloween cookies I made last year.

So much fun!!

PEANUT BUTTER INGOTS

This weeks Heavenly Cake Bakers project is Gold Ignots but I decided to do the Peanut Butter Ignots as the recipe was basically the same and I thought the peanut butter would be better. I think these Ignots lacked flavor so I doctored them up with a peanut butter buttercream rosette and chocolate transfer's left over from the cake in the previous post.

I took them to the beauty shop and they liked them. Most of the recipes in Rose's Heavenly Cakes are great just not these Ignots.

BANANA CHOCOLATE CAKE

This cake was so good!! The cake was banana and the filling was chocolate pastry cream with fresh bananas in it. It was covered with chocolate ganache and homemade transfer sheet decorations. I put a little gold luster dust on the transfer sheet as I was making them and then I found the perfect gold candles to bring it all together.

The gentlemen I made the cake for was thrilled and called me the next day to tell me just how much he and his guests loved the cake. His inspiration for the cake was a childhood memory of his grandmother's banana cake and being the gracious man that he is he told me mine was better than his grandmother's. Now that is a compliment.

OCEAN THEME CAKE

The flavor of this cake is by far my most favorite of all!! 4 layers of lemon chiffon cake with three different filling layers; lemon curd, lemon buttercream, and lemon mousse. Can you tell I like lemon?
The birthday girl loves the ocean and ocean themes. I made the shells, pearls, and grass out of gumpaste, the coral out of royal icing, and the pebbles are chocolate candies.
The cake is covered with three colors of fondant (green, blue, white) swirled together and is supposed to resemble the movement of the ocean.
Sure wish I had some leftovers of this cake!!

GOLF THEME BIRTHDAY CAKE

This cake was done for a surprise 50th birthday for a man that loved to play golf but wasn't very good at it. His wife bought the golf cart figurine and I designed the cake around it. It was a fun cake to make. The cake was chocolate with my homemade raspberry jam, chocolate mousse with fresh raspberries in it. Chocolate and raspberries are just a perfect match.

TOPSY TURVY CAKE

I made this cake for my accountant's wife's birthday. It was a surprise so I had to sneak it over to their house while they were out.

The bottom tier is a 9" chocolate cake with hazelnut buttercream and ganache fillings. I put callebeaut's new crunchy pearls in the ganache to give it a crunch. The middle tier is a 6" marble cake with chocolate buttercream and ganache fillings, and the top tier is a 4" white cake with vanilla buttercream.

I have decided I love 4" cakes. They are so cute!! I never used to make them because they were hard to cover with fondant but I just love their petite size and I think they balance out the whole cake better than 6" toppers.

I love how this cake turned out. The birthday girls' favorite colors are mint green and peach and she also likes gold. I added the lavender because I thought it went well with the other colors. I used an ivory colored fondant over the cakes.

I sure hope she was surprised when she came home to find this cake, I know I would have been.

CHOCOLATE BANANA STUD CAKE

This weeks Heavenly Cake Baker project is the Chocolate Banana Stud Cake. We were supposed to "stud" the top of this cake with upside down chocolate chips. I decided to shave some chocolate onto the top instead. I had a wedding cake tasting today and decided to use this one as one of my cake offerings. I baked the cake in two 6" cake pans because I needed to put a filling in it for the cake tasting. The bride wanted strawberries, I like banana and strawberries together so I thought this would be a good choice. The flavor of the banana is very subtle and I didn't even tell them it was in there at first. The other cake choices were white cake with pastry cream and fresh strawberries and my all time go to chocolate cake with vanilla bean buttercream.The couple chose the white cake pastry cream combination. They did not love this chocolate banana cake, they thought it was dry. They preferred my regular chocolate cake and I will agree, it is more moist.I noticed after making the chocolate banana cake and refrigerating it overnight that the crumb was a bit crumbly upon torting it. Maybe that is why Rose's suggestion was to make the cake in 1 - 9" round cake pan. I didn't think it was dry just more dense than my other chocolate cake.My husband is eating the leftover Chocolate Banana Stud Cake right now and thinks it is great.

MINI VANILLA BEAN POUND CAKES

After a long time away and many challenges I am happy to be back to participate in this weeks Heavenly Cake baker's project. They are Mini Vanilla Bean Pound Cakes. I wanted to try out this new mini loaf baking pan and this was a good time to use it. The cakes baked up heavenly as do all of Rose's recipes. The cakes have a wonderful taste and vanilla aroma and were very easy to make. The recipe called for a Vanilla Cognac Syrup. I made a Triple Sec syrup because that is what I had on hand.
Check out Rose's Heavenly Cakes for the recipe.

YELLOW ROSE WEDDING CAKE

I have been away for a while, because my little dog Babycakes had to have hip surgery. We had it done in Reno, Nevada by a wonderful doctor that specialized in hip surgery. I have been giving her water therapy by taking her in the pool or bathtub and letting her swim. It is time consuming because after her swim I have to dry and comb her long hair. We do this three times a day. She is getting along nicely, in fact today we went on a long walk and she used the leg like nothing ever happened. I am so happy and relieved that the surgery worked.

I came home to make this wedding cake. It is 4 layers of white cake with 2 layers of coconut mousse and 1 layer of passion fruit bavarian for the fillings. The tiers were covered with fondant. The decoration on the first and third tiers is a copy of the wedding invitation on rice paper. I love the yellow roses!!

ANNIVERSARY CAKE

I made this cake for a client's tenth anniversary. It is a tiny version of the original wedding cake I made for her ten years ago. Her father who is a chef instructor hired me for both cakes. I hand made (out of gumpaste) all the flowers on the first cake and he saved them, wrapped very carefully, and gave them back to me to put on this tiny cake. What a special memory for the happy couple.

The picture below shows a picture of the original wedding cake.

The flavor of the cake and filling is lemon. Yum! one of my favorites.

COWBOY CAKE

This cake was for two little boys and they were having a cowboy themed birthday party. I borrowed a cowboy hat from my friend Laura of Paleo Women http://www.paleowomen.com/ to use as a model for the hat. Just in case you haven't tried Laura's Paleo Women granolas and cookies you should order some. They are delicious and very healthy.

The flavors of this cake were chocolate and raspberry. I spread seedless raspberry jam onto chocolate cake then top it with raspberry buttercream. This type of cake does not have to be refrigerated so can sit out on the table during the party with no problem. If there is any leftovers I would refrigerate the cake covered just to keep it as fresh as possible.

I put a little heart at the back of the hat and one of the birthday boys saw it right away. That made my day.

TWO FAT CATS WHOOPIE PIES

This week's project for the Heavenly Cake Bakers is Two Fat Cats Whoopie Pies. I have been very busy lately and unable to participate in the HCB's but now I'm back and excited to take part.

I love whoopie pies, have made them for years, and these are very good. The cake/cookie holds it shape after baking and is moist and tender. I made mine mini using a truffle scoop and they turned out to be a two bite little bit of heaven. The filling is dreamy. I doubled everything because I wanted to pass them out to friends and clients. This recipe is definitely a keeper, try making these, they are easy, fun and fast. To guild the lilly these could be made with different ingredients added to the buttercream such as raspberry puree, caramel sauce, ganache, mint etc.

BALLET SLIPPERS CAKE

I made this cake for a little 13 year old ballerina. Her mom used to do some cake decorating and could really understand and appreciate the time it takes to make a cake like this.

I sculpted the slippers by hand out of fondant. It is really hard to get two sculpted items to look the same. I started the second slipper about 5 times before I could get it to look the same as the first one.

The cake inside was chocolate with vanilla buttercream.

The little girls favorite color was Tiffany blue so I incorporated a little of it in the flowers. I think it turned out very sweet in appearance.

SUPER SIZED CUPCAKE

The super sized cupcake is banana with vanilla buttercream. The little cupcakes are chocolate with the same buttercream and banana. This was for a very feminine little gal that loves cupcakes!! The little cupcakes were frosted first and then covered with fondant. I love the smooth finished look of these.

JUNGLE CAKE

Wow!! This cake was a lot of work but I love the outcome. The 6" top tier was white cake with cream cheese buttercream, the 8" middle tier was carrot cake with cream cheese buttercream, and the 10" bottom tier was marble cake with cream cheese buttercream. The client loves my cream cheese buttercream so we designed the cake flavors around the buttercream.

REMOTE CONTROL CAKE

This was a fun cake to make. The flavors
were chocolate cake with a filling of raspberry buttercream and fresh raspberries. I covered it with grey fondant and painted it with super pearl luster dust to make it look metalic.
It is one heck of a remote control, must be for a manly man!!

ST PATRICKS DAY CUPCAKES

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone. Sorry for my absence, I've been busy baking but also exercising/dieting to get ready for summer.

I made these cupcakes for an Irish client's party. I used Rose Levy Berenbaum's marble cake recipe from Rose's Heavenly Cakes. Frosted them with vanilla buttercream and covered them with fondant. The polka dots are royal icing.

The pansies are from my garden. We are now entering my favorite time of year SPRING!!!

DAISY CAKE

This cake was ordered by the nicest man for his wife's 40th birthday. He found me on the internet and he lives locally so I was able to make the cake and deliver it to him at his work. From talking with him over the phone, to plan the design of the cake, I got the feeling he was a loving father and husband. He was so excited to do something special for his wife. I love meeting nice people.

It was a white cake with white chocolate mousse. The flowers are gumpaste. His wife loves the fleur de lis symbol so I put them on the side of the cake and dusted them with luster dust to make them pop.

I love the way this cake turned out, I love the colors and the design. Thanks WR for letting me make this cake.

FIRST BIRTHDAY CAKE

My Grand Niece had her first birthday party today and this is the cake I made for her. It was white cake with white buttercream frosting. There were about 25 kids and their parents at the party and it was held at My Gym in Palm Desert. The theme was rock and roll baby so I decorated the cake with guitars, records, stars and music notes.

Here she is getting ready to dig into the cake.