HAPPY 8!

Co-worker's son's birthday. Chocolate sponge with straberry jam filling. Cake was topped with raspberries before delivery. Ok, I need to work on my cake writing skills. It's tough.

SURPRISE PARTY PLANNING

I was asked to plan a surprise 50 birthday party for a good friend.

My first chance to be a party planner (excpet for my wedding...). Rich was great to work with, he trusted me with decisions and budget, which was great. Ginny's favorite color is pink, so we had lots of pink decor (including pink M&Ms). The main cake is red velvet (see note below), the cupcakes with white frosting are carrot cake, and the cupcakes with pink frosting are chocolate. Shane gifted me a rectangular tray that holds 12 cupcakes, very cool.
Note: my first time making red velvet cake. I used to avoid this cake because most often it tastes chemically to me. But this recipes was great, no baking soda taste. Will definitely repeat.

WELCOME BACK

Co-worker Fred was out on sick leave for 3 months. He's finally back and well. We had a little suprise morning party for him... I made chocolate chip cookies, blueberry lemon scones, and the apple strudel in the previous post.
I use a basic scone mix recipe to which I add chocolate chips or fruits. This is the first time I make it with blueberries and lemon zest. Tim at work said needs a tad bit more salt, and less lemon zest. I thought I'd overdone it with the liquids and they were too soft. Will have to retry.

HOW TO STRUDEL

My favorite lesson when I used to work at the bakery was making the apple strudel. Starts with a buttery dough chilled overnight. Filling of granny smith apples (with peel), breadcrumbs, sugar, walnuts, and cinnamon. And rolled up into one giant slug. Bake for 45-60 min.

TRICK OR TREAT

TREAT! Creepy cupcakes for the work party. Base is gingerbread. Topping is colored buttercream and candy decorations.

BAKING BUG

I got the baking bug last night... so I looked for a cupcake recipe for which I had all the ingredients on hand. Chocolate spice cupcakes was it: ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, and a good dose of molasses. They are very rich (keep that glass of milk on hand!) and yummy. Recipe is a keeper.

PRINCESS CAKE

Birthday cake for Princess Megan who turns 6. Megan loves the Disney princesses, and all things pink. A cute cake for an adorable little girl.

CO-WORKERS BIRTHDAY

Baus asked me to make a cake to celebrate two co-worker's birthdays during staff meeting on Monday morning. So I picked a new recipe to experiment with. The original recipe asks for cranberries, but I couldn't find any at the store. Hope they're good.

QUINCEANERA

I was asked to make the main cake for a Quinceanera, to be supplemented by cupcakes purchased elsewhere. Color theme was white, gray, and green. The invitation had a gray ribbon with a calla lily, so that is what I went for. Unfortunately, this time of year it is very difficult to find fresh white calla lilies... so I got silk ones instead to place on the cake. Didn't stay

at the party long enough for the cake to be cut... so waiting on comments.

Coffee Cake

Celebrated co-worker's birthday with a coffee cake. I used a recipe from Epicurious, but it was too sweet and not fluffy enough. Last year's coffee cake was much better, but I can't recall which recipe I used.
I have several cake orders coming up in the next week... so stay tuned!

Basic Cake Decoration - Session 4 (Final)

For the last day, our homework was to bring a 3 layer cake, covered with plain frosting. And then to decorate it on our own during class. Ok, I'm exhausted working 2 shifts yesterday (engineer by day, baker by night) and was just not inspired. So I made a cake to celebrate tomorrow at happy hour a coworker's birthday. I'm a little dissapointed in myself, it's cute but

not much technique went into it.

Basic Cake Decorating - Session 3

In the third class we learned to pipe leaves, drop flowers, sweet peas, rose buds, roses, and clown bodies. It was a messy situation. Practice practice practice is necessary.

Next session is the "final," we bring a frosted cake and decorate it in class. Not sure what I will do yet... any ideas?

Sweet Bread Day

I was the fortunate recipient of a giant zucchini. So of course zucchini bread was necessary. I like using my mini silicone loaf pans, unfortunately one of them was lost and now I only have 3. So a couple of taster cupcakes will also be made. This recipe only used up a quarter of the zucchini. Roasted another quarter... and now considering making more bread to give away. It so happened there were several bananas on the verge of a nervous breakdown, so banana bread they became. Extra bananas were frozen for smoothies.

Garlic Crush

Met up with coworkers at secret pizza joint in Los Gatos Hills... and fell in love with the pizza oven at first sight. This is Nonno's Pizza & Pasta. And the pizza was great, nice medium crunchy crust. Jalapenos make it oh so much better.

My Addiction

My name is Vanessa... and I am addicted to Mayfield Bakery's (in Palo Alto) chocolate chip cookie. It is big and flat and chewy and chocolaty gooey. Yum. Whenever I visit a bakery for the first time, I always get a chocolate chip cookie. A good bakery should have a really good chocolate chip cookie. And if they don't, I don't return. They are often too fat, too dry. However, Mayfield is the exception. This is THE BEST chocolate chip cookie I've had at a bakery. And I keep going back for more. This is my second one of the week.

Basic Cake Decorating - Session 2

Second session we got right to piping. I improved my skills with some tips I have used before, and I learned several new tips. Among them were the single star tip, tripple star tip, shells, weaving, garlands and spaghetti. We also did some stripping, my colors were kelly green and acqua blue. It was a bit messy, but lots of fun.

Groovy Birthday

Birthday cake request of a spice cake with cream cheese frosting. I decorated the cake with vanilla pirulines on the sides, and added a ribbon to hold them up. Cake was super rich with the cream cheese frosting, and I had even reduced the frosting by half.

Basic Cake Decorating - Session 1

First session of the Basic Cake Decorating at Cakeworks was a demo. Instructor Julie showed us how to split and frost a 4 layer cake. The cake was pre-baked and cooled, used the shops "ultimate white" cake mix. We each got a shot at piping borders, garlands, and a rose, resulting in a group effort cake. And then we ate cake! Class let out early so we could
shop for supplies for the next session. I am looking forward to improving my basics and learning new tricks.

Cupcakes for Mama

Strawberry filled vanilla cupcakes with whipped cream frosting. Simple and yummy. Not too sweet, and just enough.

I need to remember to bring a camera along, iphone photos just doesn't cut it.

Spongebob Challenge

Group of IT and docs peeps at work challenged me to make a Spongebob Squarepants cake (I think it should be Rectanglepants). How could I say no? Spongebob was fun to decorate. Inside is chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Outside is decorating whipping cream.

Chicken Pox Flowers

Gumpaste flowers class at Cakeworks last night was fun. Although my sense of flower beauty is off because I ended up with chicken pox alien looking flowers. I'll need to practice practice practice! Fortunately my cousin Huebo provided me with a box full of cutters and tools a while back, so I am ready to roll!

Welcome

Welcome to the new blog for KYZYN (ˈkī-zən\) CAKES, my new adventure in cake baking and decorating.

The business cards are out, and I was told I would have to start a website or a blog. I figured a blog would be easier. I have also secured kyzyncakes.com just in case.

Until an order for a cake comes in, I will keep myself entertained in a couple of classes. I'm taking gumpaste flowers and basic cake decorating (never hurts to brush up on techniques) at Cakeworks in Campbell, CA.