         
Archive for October, 2007ChicagoMonday, October 29th, 2007Wow! What a crazy weekend!About 2 weeks ago, we were asked to provide a sick amount of goodies for a convention we were already planning to attend… in CHICAGO! A whirlwind of planning, swearing, and baking ensued, resulting in 300 or so decorated cookies, 560 servings of cake (4 tired cakes of various heights), 200 mini cupcakes, and 1500 of our gourmet cookies. (more…) First Celebrity Cake!Saturday, October 20th, 2007
A carved birthday cake for a reality tv star! Shawn Bakken (of Beauty & the Geek fame) is a soccer playing Scout leader. My grandma said to your grandma.. “I’m gonna set your CAKE on fire..”Sunday, October 14th, 2007
This started off with a moist rum and cinnamon cake. I made a traditional bananas foster as a filling - bananas, creme de banane liqueur, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, pecans, and lots of rum! It was finished off with a brown sugar buttercream. The entire cake should have served 56 people.. but 25 or so people finished it off within minutes!
About the title of this blog.. I had leftover filling, and it was just tooooo good to waste.. so I piled it on top of the cake. Later that evening when we were about to serve it, my inner pyromaniac emerged, and we decided to try to set the cake on fire. Bananas Foster IS supposed to be served flambed afterall! Well, either I cooked the alcohol off, it soaked in too much, evaporated, or just plain wasn’t high enough proof.. for whatever reason, we were unsuccessful in igniting it. Set the cake stand on fire for a brief moment, though! Good times. I was pretty disappointed - a picture of a flaming cake would have been a wonderful addition to this blog! So, we’ll be doing a re-do at some point, with some modifications made to accomplish that one simple goal - a flaming cake. I will post photos when we do! In the meantime, the cake earned rave reviews, and the weirdest compliment I’ve ever received. “I’d order a whole one of these if I wanted to kill myself!”. I was a bit taken aback by such a comment (from a sweet old man, at that!).. but then he explained it as a way to go by eating so much, that he loved it. LOL!! I LOVE experimenting with new flavors, and I am thrilled at how this one turned out! Obscene new offering.Sunday, October 7th, 2007
“Obscene” as in “OBSCENELY DELICIOUS!” Not entirely sure that this batch of experiment is going to make it to my “authorized guinea pigs”, given the way my husband/assistant has been eyeing them. He’s talking about having 13 of these for supper instead of a normal supper. Hrmm. What are these? Look like basic cupcakes, right? Wrong. These little bites of heaven are Macadamia nut white cupcakes.. with Macadamia/whipped white chocolate mousse “frosting”. It’s actually going to be added to our product line as a filling, I use it on mini cupcakes for experiment/tasting purposes. Generally speaking, my flavors go before many guinea pigs before making it to the site. This will be added even before it makes it to the guinea pigs, it’s JUST that good! I know! Next up… chocolate & walnut! Croquembouche! .. and “suffering for art”Monday, October 1st, 2007
Celebration Generation is pleased to announce the addition of Croquembouche to our offerings! These delicious towers of gourmet profiteroles are available with a choice of fillings (pastry cream, mousse - in various flavors), and with a variety of design options. They are a traditional French wedding cake, and are increasing in popularity in the UK and the USA. They can be dusted with icing sugar, drizzled with chocolate - white, milk, dark, or colored! - wrapped with spun sugar, decorated with gumpaste, icing, silk, or fresh flowers, adorned with ribbons or crystals.. and so much more. Sooo very good! We made one of these for a convention this weekend, and it was the talk of the hospitality suite! Of course - and this is the “Suffering for art” portion of the title! - I have to mention the danger element of these! Not to the client or the guests it will feed, but to ME! One poorly thought out move, and I find myself with a severe burn - as I did on Saturday morning. Ouch! The caramelized sugar I used to construct this is *nasty* stuff if it makes contact with skin while still hot. Caramelization happens at around 350 degrees! Yum! 
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