Practice makes perfect!

I made a practice wedding cake with an ocean theme to it. The flavor is orange cream cake, with strawberry blood orange filling, vanilla buttercream, and white chocolate seashells. I made the filling at home with fruit from a local produce stand. Yummm!!

It's beautimous and tasty!

It took me about three days to make it and decorate it (I was also busy being lazy), but the cake was definitely worth my time. It was so delicious! I was originally just going to leave the cake without the bubbles and white chocolate seashells but it looked soooo boring, so I woke up with bubbles on my brain and transferred them to the cake. Yayyyy brain bubbles!

This was the first time I'd ever stacked a cake. I got a lot of great tips from looking online at YouTube videos and other blogs, especially this site. Definitely use some gardening shears (the things that cut small branches in half) for the wooden dowels. My scissors were pathetic; they were so bad it's not even worth explaining. I had to use my butchers knife to cut the dowels, which severely dulled the blade. Not cool..

Once I got the dowels in it was pretty easy to assemble. Make sure the icing is dry though, otherwise it'll stick to the cake you're trying to line up and you'll mess up the icing by moving it around. If the icing is dry, the cake you're stacking on top should just slide a little until you get it in place. Another tip I have: Don't decorate the bottom until you've stacked everything. You'll want to go ahead and decorate some of the hard stuff because it's easier to do on a rotating cake stand than on a tall, stand-still cake. Once you've assembled you can decorate the bottom. If you try to add decoration to the bottom before stacking it WILL come off on some parts.

Now let me tell you something you may or may not know. If you're a baker, you have probably figured this out. If not, pay attention:

Food coloring can altar the color of things that come out of your body.

Let me just give you an example. Say, you made a batch of Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip cookies and you used pretty much THE WHOLE ENTIRE BOTTLE of food coloring to color the cookies because you wanted a really bright vibrant red. At some point, you're going to come out of the bathroom and think, OMG I'M GOING TO DIE. My poop is red! I have cancer, I have hemorrhoids, I have AIDS! When in reality, you have red poop because there was so much food coloring in the cookies you had (because you ate a lot of cookies).

Not saying that ever happened to me... just giving an example.

As it turns out, teal altars the colors of things as well. It actually makes poop green. Now if only I could find something to make it white, we could have some Christmas poop.

JUST KIDDING! I'm not that vulgar. tteeehheee.

Ahem, *awkward pause before topic change* I'll be practicing with more wedding cake ideas as the weeks progress. I have so many ideas that it's difficult to just stop thinking and pick one. If any of you would like to give me some ideas, feel free to comment or send me a message. If I pick your idea for the cake, I'll make the cake with your ideas and post your name with the finished product photos!

Also, I'm trying to find ways to add a recipe widget or something to the blog so it's easier to share my goodies with you all. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

~Amber

Wedding Cake, Numero Uno!

I've already messed up on my New Year's resolutions by not updating my blog regularly! Since the beginning of January I've moved, gotten two jobs, a lot of job interviews, and I'm just now starting to get everything under control. Yes, it's been more than a month since I've moved and I still have packed boxes in my apartment.

Me? A procrastinator?? Psh, never!

I would like to update all of my readers on my latest activities. Except for last Friday; there was a man in a dress, and a dollar bill... that's all you need to know! Agghhhemm, anyways, I made a cake for Valentine's day that I didn't take any pictures of. It was a big beautiful heart shaped chocolate cake. I made the icing look spiky  I loved the heart shape but I didn't like the spiked icing look so much, so instead of photographing the cake we ate it. This past weekend I made a small 6 inch cake for a cake tasting. I decorated it very simply but the flavor was outstanding, of course. What else would you expect of me?

Blueberry Lemon Zest cake by Amber Duncan (Photograph by Amber Duncan)

Beautiful, yes?! The cake is Blueberry Lemon Zest. There are whole, fresh, organic blueberries mixed in a lemon cake, with lemon buttercream icing and a blueberry filling. I let my friends taste test some cupcakes like this. One of them took a bite and gasped, saying "OH MY GOD" with a full mouth, and then proceeded to sing a gospel sounding song and bowed to me. I guess it was good (I sure as hell love it, and if it were legal, my boyfriend would marry it)!

Blueberry Lemon Zest Cake by Amber Duncan (Photograph by Amber Duncan) Flowers purchased by Awesome Boyfriend for Valentine's Day gift.

The couple absolutely loved the cake! The bride said, "[Name] and I loved the cake! You could really taste the flavor of the blueberries which was missing from my previous samples and I really liked the lemony filling, it brightened the flavor nicely"

*Pause*
Let me tell you something about myself...
I try to abstain from being too vain or full of myself BUT... after hearing that and finding that my cake won out over the local popular wedding cake places, I was so full of myself I probably looked like a puffer fish, spikes and all. I finally started to wear down after a few hours but I'm still kind of puffy and spiky on the inside. Now begins the real adventure: preparing for wedding delivery and set up!

Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Luckily I have a few months to practice all of it, but I know I'm going to rock that big awesome cake! The bride wants a simple textured cake with sugar magnolias and possibly ribbon on the cakes in the center. The texture will look like this, with the flower placement on the bottom of each of the three tiers.

Image retrieved via Google

Today I started making my practice cake. It's going to be a three tier Strawberry Blood Orange cake. I made some strawberry orange jam today that will be the filling for the cake. The cake batter is soft and moist with a little hint of orange flavor in it, and I think I'll make an orange buttercream to cover it. For colors I'm thinking either teal, red, and lime green, or teal, peach, and cream. Thoughts? Ideas? I really love the decoration of this cake. I'm thinking of trying it out for good practice.

Image retrieved via Pinterest

That's all I have for tonight. *whew*  As always, feel free to comment or message me with questions or thoughts on my posts!

~Amber

Sweater Season/Flu/White Chocolate Houndstooth Wafers

Sweater season! I love the cold; sweaters, scarves, and fluffy socks wooo!

You know what else goes along with that?

Colds and flu's. I'm really glad I got my flu shot this year. I think I'd be in a much more severe condition right now if I hadn't. My lover boy and his whole family have some kind of severe cold; they passed the sore throat and head congestion on to me. Last year I had it bad. Counting my blessings! I found this really interesting image on Facebook yesterday. A friend had posted it. It's really interesting facts about common fears.

Do you see the fact that says 36,171 Americans die from the seasonal flu? How scary is that?

I think it's kind of funny they put the whole "Americans audited by the IRS" thing in there. Is that the average adult's nightmare?!

I never want to be in that dark place. No offense.

Now.. onward to food related things. This blog is called Big Awesome Cake after all! In the midst of my sickness last night I had an energetic rush that lasted all of ten minutes. I wanted to make Randy some awesome Alabama themed cupcakes. I was thinking some Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting with heart shape houndstooth wafers. I never made them. After that energetic rush, I ran out of breath (as raggedy and harsh as it was/is) and crashed on the couch to watch Waterboy.

"Man that's some high quality H2O!"

Onward to the white chocolate houndstooth wafers. I haven't made them yet, but in my head they look amazing. My plan is to pour out some tempered white chocolate and apply my houndstooth sugar sheet, then use my mini cookie cutters to cut cute little hearts or circles. 

I think it's going to look awesome. Thoughts?

Time for me to lay down and watch Being Human on Netflix!

~Amber

Images:

http://blog.freepeople.com/2012/09/closer-favorite-fall-sweaters/

http://kusleika.com/breakfast/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/beafraid.jpg

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/the%20waterboy

http://www.shopping.com/Luck-s-Lucks-Edible-Image-Houndstooth-Black-Prints-Luck-s/info

Resolutions 2013

Hello readers! How was your Christmas and New Year? Mine was excellent, except for the life threatening tornado that hit my city on Christmas night. Thankfully, no one was killed. Christmas Miracle! I've been thinking about my resolutions for this year and so far this is the best of what I've come up with. 

What are my lovely readers planning this year? I'd love to know and get some new ideas!

I'll most likely edit this a few times before I'm completely happy, but here is a rough sketch of what I'd like to do to better myself, my life, and possibly the world (it's a stretch) in 2013. Most of them are just for me though :)

1. Learn to decorate better. Wedding cakes, birthday cakes, fondant, gum paste, modeling chocolate, stacking and adding tiers to cakes, etc. Anything that can improve my skills in baking for my future storefront!

2. Numero dos kind of pertains to numero uno. What can I say, I love food! Make one new thing a week. Be it a recipe (most likely), a craft idea, or art, I want to create more. 

3. Give more. I'd like to volunteer a few times to help those who need it most or to support a good cause. If I can't donate my money, I will donate my time.

4. Be kinder and less judgmental. I've been working on that for years. It's tough when almost everyone around me (especially my Dad) judges and says nasty things about people they don't know. In other words, I want to stop making assumptions about people I've never met. This has been and will continue to be tricky for me because I was raised in a very judgmental and racist family. I will probably still make jokes, but that's just who I am. I'm sarcastic and I joke about everything; that will never stop. 

5. Post blogs more often. As Pioneer Woman says, "..Consider your blog a precious bloom that requires daily nurturing and watering. If you water a plant once every two weeks, it will shrivel." I water my plant once a month. No wonder I don't have any readers!

6. Although I will be baking and cake decorating more often, I want to focus more attention on eating healthy and exercising from this year on. I did pretty good in part of 2012, but those damn holidays.... grrrr..

7. Remind those closest to me how important and precious they are; life is too short and sudden to do anything else. 

8. Go on more adventures! Life is too short to keep putting things aside! I need stuff to talk about when I'm an old granny. Someone will have to keep the youngsters entertained. 

That is all I have for now. I'm sure I'll think of something else later though! I'm looking forward to spending this year and the rest of my years with my friends and family. 

Happy New Year from me & mine! <3

Have a Big Awesome holiday!!

My eventual soon-to-be sister-in-law (whewwww, say that five times fast) is a very talented graphic designer. I've been working with her for the Christmas special for Big Awesome Cake and I'm soooo excited to say we've FINALLY got the menu done! She was super speedy with her fancy graphic skills (yur a wizard, Harry) but I took wayyyy too much time doing the crazy math stuff I call pricing. I have to go to stores and price every single ingredient needed in each recipe, figure out the cost per, how much I should charge, blah blah blah. I'm absolutely terrible at math. I'm not being humble. My super smart accountant boyfriend had the job of Price Man, but then he got a job working 7-7, 7 days a week, every day until the job ends. We're totally making bank, but I got stuck with price man duties!! 

I'm actually pretty proud of myself. I did everything right without anyone showing me and I even made a really awesome excel book with formulas! WOOOOOO!! 

Anyways, it's late as always, I need sleep, and I really want you all to see this lovely menu! So please check it out and share. Orders will stop December 17th so act fast!

Christmas Cookies & Candies!!!

I am that annoying person that everyone always despises during holiday season because I LOVE CHRISTMAS! Christmas, Halloween, and Spring Break are my three favorite Holidays. I even got the Christmas China out and put in the dish cabinet in the first week of November. Every year for Christmas, I make a but load of cookies & candies to send to my friends. I started doing this about 5 years ago because I was too broke to buy actual gifts, and used the only talent I knew I had back then: baking. I always tried to package them real festive like, so when people received them they'd really look like presents!

Red Velvet White Choc Chip

So far I've got White Chocolate Fruit & Nut Clusters, Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip Cookies, Pretzel Pecan Turtles, Coconut Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, Chocolate Truffles, Chocolate Espresso Crinkles, Sugar Cookies, and Chocolate Almond Biscotti with Peppermint White Chocolate. I don't have pictures of everything because I'm always busy with school, so I have to make these things in what little spare time I have! But they've all been taste tested multiple times by lots of different people, so I know they're a hit. I'm extremely picky about the things I make, so if I don't think it's good enough (and I like to think I have high standards) then it doesn't go anywhere. 

Anyways, with all that said, I'd like to introduce my Holiday lineup!

Birthday Cake Adventures Part 1

Hello all of you lovely internet folks! This post is going to be pretty long. I've been working really hard for the past two weeks on school, the college association I'm in, and my baking business stuff. So far in the past two weeks I've made a giant pumpkin shaped Spiced Pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing, a failed Angry Birds cake turn cute little girl's Strawberry Lemon cake, one too many pumpkin cupcakes, Strawberry Orange cake pops, Chocolate Halloween style cake pops, and a really awesome University of Alabama Birthday cake. WHEW.

I miss T.V. and lazy days!

Along with all of that plus homework for my classes, I've had a bunch of ups and downs. This weekend was a total shit storm. The Halloween cake pops I made took a very very VERY long time. I made them the night before they were due to ship and I didn't slow down and take my time working on them, so I burnt the chocolate bark. I had to pack everything up in a box so I could work on the cake pops at Le Boyfriend's house on my lunch break the next day. I swear those candy melts were created to stress me out! I think I had a nightmare about it! Candy melts all over the floor, flowing up my legs like dark lifeless melted chocolate SWALLOWING ME WHOLE! *DUM DUM DUM* The good thing is the cake pops ended up looking pretty cute and I got them all shipped off in time, thanks to many factors, including me skipping a very important class.

I had some family drama between me and my dad the same day. I'm a thickheaded Taurus and he's a stubborn Mexican so between the two of us it's like watching a bull fight, except he's the only one wearing the red cape. (It's not my color)

Also, my dog got bit by a rattlesnake and I couldn't afford to take her to the vet until two days 2 days after she was attacked. I thought she'd been bitten by a dog because of how far away the puncture wounds were (about 2-3 inches apart) I finally talked my dad into helping me pay for her to go to the vet, so we rushed her over there. They thought she'd be alright from how she was acting, but she died the next day. The vet said the venom from the snake bite kept her blood from clotting, so she lost too much of it. I buried her this morning. :(  Now we know we have at least one giant rattlesnake on our property. While my poor baby was at the vet, I made the coolest cake I've ever made. I'm really glad I enjoy baking so much. If I had to sit in the house just thinking of my poor dog, I would have been lost in a pile of snot and tissues and stuffed animals.

Don't judge me.

So here goes my actual baking progress. About time, right?

I tried to make an Angry Birds Birthday cake and FAILED COMPLETELY! It was my first time using homemade marshmallow fondant and I think my recipe was a lil bit funky because it was more like super thick icing instead of stretchy workable fondant. I'm going to try making more and see if maybe I added too much water or something, but for the Alabama Birthday Cake I used store bought fondant. I didn't want any unpredictable mishaps going on while trying to make that one. 

The Angry Birds cake was for my boyfriend's niece who has a thing for the game and all things Angry Birds, and likes lemon cake and strawberry cake. I thought, "Yeah, I'll be a good girlfriend and do this for his family. No big deal. I need the practice anyway. This'll be great!" PSHHH. yeah right. On the same weekend I had another birthday cake order to make prior to the Angry Birds one, so ALLL DAY Saturday I was on my feet, baking, rolling fondant, washing dishes. Never in my life will I ever, EVER, do that again. Two cakes in one day = catastrophe.  The homemade marshmallow fondant tore and cracked all over the place. I got almost everything on there and then when I rolled out the black fondant and tried cutting it for the shapes I needed, it crumbled. I threw it in the trash and ran into my room to pout, cry, throw a temper tantrum, and all around destroy my confidence in baking. I kept thinking about the little girl and her birthday cake, and how important it would be to her, and Oh! I can't let her down! When the black fondant crumbled so did my patience, my hopes for that little girl and her cake, and my confidence in what I could do. 

I wanted it to look similar to this:

I don't know who to credit for this image. I googled Angry Birds cake and it popped up, but it's NOT mine.

It came out looking like this......

The next morning I woke up, took off all that crazy stupid fondant and decided to make a simple girly birthday cake. I like it much better this way. Yummy lemon cake with homemade strawberry jam filling and homemade strawberry buttercream. 

The rest of the cakes and images will have to wait for Birthday Cake Adventures Part 2! I hope some of my readers were able to draw hope, inspiration, or comic relief from this blog post. Shit happens to all of us, but the show must go on. If we didn't fight through the hard times given to us, we'd never amount to anything. As always, please feel free to message me or comment below for questions, concerns, or feedback.