Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. S!

It's been kind of slow on the blog front, but for very good reason!
Two of my friends got married last week, and they were gracious and awesome enough to let me bake for it!


I, admittedly, am not skilled enough to test the waters with my own recipe creations, so I often go sifting through the internet (or blogs I'm subscribed to) to find something special.

After a few trial wedding cakes, it came down to this lineup...

The Cake:
Delicious white cake recipe I had found on Baking Bites blog. I found this recipe last year and it is the same I used for my Dad's wedding cake. I used vanilla bean rather than vanilla extract, and this time around I used coconut extract instead of the almond extract.

The Filling:
The couple's muse for the cake was a coconut cupcake from The Steeping Room. I figured the only way to incorporate coconut into the cake was through the filling. Next time I'm in Hawaii, I'll definitely have to find Chantilly Cake! I combined the recipe for Chantilly Cake Frosting with whipping cream to lighten it up for a filling.

The Buttercream:
Absolutely the only buttercream recipe I will ever use! I found this recipe for Swiss Buttercream last year for my Dad's wedding cake on Smitten Kitchen's blog. It is so delicious! My taste buds were after this buttercream after having tasted something similar on my best friend's baby shower cake. Smooth, buttery, and just sweet enough...this buttercream never fails me! This was my crumb coat on the wedding cake in this instance.

The Fondant:
I haven't experimented with fondant at all until this opportunity! It was somewhat exciting to do so, and I was even more excited to learn about Marshmallow Fondant. Having had many wedding cakes with TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE tasting fondant, this was a simply amazing discovery for me. Initially, I had used a recipe where you combine marshmallow fluff with powdered sugar and let my mixer do all the work - for the real deal I used a completely new to me recipe from What's Cooking America for Marshmallow Fondant. It was extremely easy and saved my mixer some burn up time.

Everyone loved the cake. I wish I could take credit for it, but it's due to all these wonderful people who came up with the recipes!

Baking the cake was really fun. Being cake number two, I still need to work on my timing and cake decoration skills. Which equals...naked cake!

Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. S!

Almost defeated by the Throwdown

Two of my new friends are getting married end of March! I'm trying to woo them with some different wedding cake possibilities, and after talking to them it sounded like they wanted something with coconut - since their favorite cupcake at The Steeping Room was the coconut cupcake. Having never baked with coconut before, I thought I'd sniff around for a decent recipe.

I came across Bobby Flay's Throwdown Coconut Cake from the Food Network site. I read through it and it seemed pretty good, essentially a white vanilla bean cake, using coconut custard in between the layers, and a coconut simple syrup. There was even a recipe for coconut infused buttercream. Yippee, let's do it.

There were a few steps that required chilling ahead of time. For me, it's easier to break these up to the night before so I'm not slaving away in the kitchen all day. However, the simple syrup is all I had steam for.

The next day, first thing was the coconut custard. Making the custard reminded me of when I had made vanilla bean ice cream. You have to delicately mix the heated milk mixture with the egg mixture and hope it doesn't turn into scrambled eggs before your eyes! Both times I've done this, I've been lucky and came out unscathed. After the custard had time to cool and spend time in the refrigerator, it was time to make the cake.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like baking the cake is the easiest part. I love using vanilla bean. You cut the bean open and scrape all the seeds out. The scent is so fragrant and it's amazing how it all breaks down to little dots. Maybe it's the simple things...but I love vanilla bean. Ok, so basically this cake recipe is a white cake with vanilla bean and egg whites. It seemed to be light and fluffy.

Once the cake was done and cooled, I began to make the coconut cream and the buttercream. The coconut cream was a cinch, no biggie, and went back into the fridge. The buttercream, however, I would not recommend to anyone. I had my doubts as I was mixing it together. 3 sticks of butter. 1/2 of the coconut custard. A smidgen of powdered sugar. NOTHING ABOUT THIS WILL FLUFF INTO MAGICAL BUTTERCREAM! Mixing and mixing, and realizing I was about to be late to my dance class, I called it good and was stuck with a major decision. This stuff was basically pure butter. If I left it out, it could melt further and not be usable. If I put the buttercream into the refrigerator, it'll rechill and not be usable. I decided on the latter, hoping to make it work.

I get home an hour later and sure enough, the buttercream is harden back to its butter form. I put it back in the mixer and try to salvage something of it. I almost scream defeat at this point because it looks horrible. I do what I can to make a crumb coat on the cake, and decide the rest is better off in the trash.

This means all my eggs are in a basket for my first fondant attempt. I couldn't take anymore baking disappointment that night, so I decided it's best left for the next day.