Princess Barbie Birthday Cake

In the past I have mentioned that I respond to “Call to Actions” with a non-profit organization called Icing Smiles. Icing Smiles is a group that coordinates professional (or skilled hobby) cake decorators with families with a chronically ill child. I explained a bit more about the organization here when I made my last cake for Icing Smiles. Unfortunately with the last cake the young boy had a lot of diet restrictions so the cake I made for him was not able to have fondant or food coloring. Even though the cake tasted great and the family loved it, I still felt bad that the cake wasn’t a super exciting and character-like cake. So this time when I received my call to action I knew I wanted to make it really special!

Princess Barbie, pink, and everything pretty were the words used by the mom to describe the style of cake her daughter would want. So I tried my best to get all kinds of “pretty” on the cake!

Here’s a closer look at the details:

This was my first time using edible paper and edible ink! I was very pleased with the quality from my new cake printer!

This was also my first attempt at making a tiara. Personally, I loved it! Very girly. It wasn’t supposed to super detailed or realistic looking in attempt to keep it looking really playful.

I love ribbon roses!

I like to finish off the back of the cake with buttons. I think it gives it more playfulness.

The cake was a white cake with chocolate buttercream, just as the birthday girl requested! And by now I’m sure the cake is all gone!

If you would like more information on the awesome non-profit organization Icing Smiles, or you would like to find out how you could get involved or give support, you can go directly to their website. I think that their mission is wonderful and would love to help keep it going strong!

Hope you had a great weekend!

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Bertie Travels Through Paris!

I have to say, I am a lucky gal! The Boss had work this past weekend in Paris and I was beyond excited to be able to travel along with him! Having never been to Paris before, I had many “to-do’s” on my list! And since I am still pretty excited about my trip and I tend to talk a lot when excited, I’ll try to keep the post to pictures and quick comments about what was happening in each picture!

There are lots of photos, so enjoy! (Oh, all of my pictures were taken using Instagram)

1) First there was the whole airplane thing! “All Aboard!”

2) We flew through the night and arrived just in time for breakfast!

(Yes, you read correctly… this was breakfast!)

3) The next day we took the “Velib” (an absolutely amazing bike system through out Paris) to explore town! Needless to say, we had a blast!

4) I don’t think it takes a whole lot of creative thinking to figure out the first stop on my list would have been!

5) Soon after the excitement of the Eiffel Tower, we both found ourselves thinking of the other French delicacies. Macaroons were not hard to find!

Chocolates were also a popular accompaniment!

6) It was at this point, our “Tour de Paris” would have to take recess as The Boss had work to do!

7) The next morning started out with some exercise! We knew we had some eating to do, and we figured would should start the day with a calorie deficit!

8) Soon after, we found THE MOST AMAZING crepes I have ever eaten! Breakfast for day 2 was a massive success! 

9) With breakfast under our belts it was back on the bikes for further exploration!

 

10) Look what we found:

Notre Dame

Street Performers

My New Favorite Bike

The best apron I have ever seen!

An impromptu concert on the lawn of the Eiffel Tower

And my new favorite gelato!

Finally it was time to get back on the bikes and find dinner. It was getting cooler out and the sun was finally starting to set. Which by the way, the sun doesn’t set here until 9:00- 9:30! This meant we had been out and about all day and according the Boss’s pedometer thing we had walked over 9 miles!! Who knows how far we biked!

Hopefully you enjoyed my tale of travels through Paris. I have more than enjoyed my stay!

Au revoir!

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Triathlon Cookies

In this household my bakery goes hand in hand with my involvement in triathlon and running. At first that might sound strange, but before you wonder for too long about how in the world does triathlon connect with baked goods, I’ll tell you. For the majority of us triathletes (yes, even us injured ones) we love our food! And rightfully so. After enduring brick workouts, long rides, and tempo runs where athletes have to follow very strict nutrition plans to have successful workouts, we deserve a little reward at the end of the day! It is this “reward” that often comes in the form of sweets! … well for me anyways.

Earlier in my bakery days I created a triathlon cake that showed off my love for designing triathlon themed goods. Now I’m back at it again, only this time you can ship these these triathlon goods!

Can you say “Triathlon Nom”??

These particular cookies were ordered by a super supportive wife who used this gift/ design as a way to say Happy Birthday to her husband while also taking the opportunity to honor all of the hard work and dedication he has shown in his preparations for his first M-dot 70.3! A great idea if I may say so myself!

On that note, good luck to everyone who is reading and has a big race, long run, or training ride this weekend. Remember, there is always cookies at the end, so just keep going!

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Airplane Birthday Cake!

Wow, what a weekend I had! The weekend was actually so busy that by the time I sat down on Sunday night to write my post, I fell asleep on my computer before any of the pictures had a chance to download! So I apologize for the delay, I hope you’ll think it was worth the wait!

The creative inspiration for the cake came solely from the invitation that was sent to the guest. I really wanted the topper on this cake to be the stand out! Here’s what the invitation looked like so you can compare!

This cake was a three tiered vanilla cake with chocolate butter cream. The tier sizes were 6”, 8”, and 10” and should serve just over 50 people!  As well the airplane and pilot were totally edible. The Pilot was modeling chocolate while the airplane was Rice Krispy treats coated in modeling chocolate and then covered with fondant.

Definitely one of my favorite cakes to date!

Sorry about the delay on posts recently. I’m baking so much I can’t write! But don’t worry I have a batch of GREAT triathlon cookies coming up next. Stay tuned for their debut!

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Homemade Chocolate Truffles

This weekend Bertie’s Bakery embarked on a whole new journey!

Chocolate truffles!

I love chocolate truffles, and I have always wanted to learn more about the art of tempering chocolate, so with that I took the plunge into a day of chocolate! There were a lot of lessons learned, but I will say that the time spent was well worth it as the end product was a huge success!

I started with about a pound of chocolate. The milk chocolate was for the centers and the dark chocolate was for the outer shell. The biggest tip that I can offer about chocolate truffles is that you MUST be organized! Prepping the chocolate, measuring the weights, having all of your tools ready, etc. is key to being successful. Once you start heating your chocolate, there is no turning back (or time to run around your kitchen looking for you favorite spatula!).

Once the milk chocolate ganache was made I pressed plastic wrap down onto the top layer of the chocolate.  This helps protect it from getting a thicker skin on top as it cools.

Then using my mini cookie scoop (1.5mm) I scooped endless amounts of ganache onto a parchment paper lined sheet pan.

Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with plain milk chocolate, but I figured this was going to make a lot of truffles and it might be nice to change it up a little. The pan above has: 1) Plain mild chocolate 2) caramel center, 3) pistachio center, and 4) dark chocolate coffee.

Since these rough scoops of ganache need to be hand rolled into nicer, rounder balls, I pushed the pistachios a little further down and popped them back into the fridge to cool. Once they come out cold and a little firm they are much much easier to handle and shape.

I do apologize that there are no pictures of the actual dipping process, but the Boss was off on his trail run and I only have so many hands to balance the delicate and time sensitive steps! Hopefully you can forgive me and will settle for pictures of the final product???

Going from the top row and working our way down (on the photo below):

The green sprinkles on top are the pistachio.
The coco powder dust is the pure milk chocolate.
The dark chocolate drizzle is the dark chocolate coffee.
The white drizzle is the caramel filled ganache center.

Finally I packaged the chocolates up (what was left of them) and disbursed them to friends! I am excited! The flavors worked out fantastic, and I can’t stop thinking about what to put in the next batch!

I’m thinking a peanut butter ganache center is going to be a must! What about you?

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