Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Birthday


This cake began with a customer wanting a birthday cake. She was looking for a good quality cake with a simple design. This cake is only 6 inches which is considered an individual cake, it's the smallest that I do. Most cake requests I get are large and involve fondant so doing an individual cake with only buttercream was a nice suprise. This is a white cake filled with a raspberry buttercream. It's decorated with a white buttercream on the outside of the cake with an edible flower on the top of the cake. The pearls on the cake are edible as well. I think that every mom deserves a beautiful cake on their birthday. I hope she has a wonderful day!

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

A Little About What Makes Us Special...

We use natural ingredients at BECCA'S blue BAKERY. In our cakes you'll find eggs, sugar, flour, water, butter or vegetable oil, cocoa powder and real vanilla. You will not taste any high fructose corn syrup or additives because we don't use any. We believe that great taste comes from great ingredients. We strive to present the best possible product to our customers so that when you taste a BECCA'S blue BAKERY product you'll know because it's taste will be superior to others.

Our buttercream is made with real butter we do not use shortening. It's whipped to the perfect consistency.


Monday, September 28, 2009

Espresso Bites




One of the surprising big hits at the fall tasting was the espresso bites. I had rectangle samples of my espresso cake out for people to try and they went quick! I even had a customer who wanted to purchase them. That surprised me since they were just my samples and I didn't have pricing for them. But we came to the conclusion that mini cupcakes would be the right size for her party. I think it's a really cute idea. And I must say, the espresso chocolate buttercream is so heavenly! It's so light and fluffy! If you love your coffee then you will just adore this buttercream. It's quickly climbing my personal list of favorites.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Pecan Tarts

Why is it so hard to find Pecan Tarts in southern California?? They are a delicious fall treat! I wonder if it's because people don't know about them here. I know that if people knew how delicious they were then even the grocery stores would be making them. I grew up in a Texan family and we always had Pecan tarts in the house around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Not only do they smell heavenly but when you bite into one the flavors of the brown sugar and vanilla and pecans all mix together to form the most wonderful taste. And the crust, oh the crust is divine! It is so light and flaky. And they're just the right size for a quick bite, although I doubt anyone can eat just one. For my family I usually make a batch of 5 dozen, and they go so quick! I'm selling my pecan tarts from October through December for $8.00 per bakers dozen. Hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Pumpkin Pie



The smell of pumpkin pies bring back so many wonderful memories of my childhood. They are one of my favorite deserts ever! I use my mother's recipe for pumpkin pie because it's still makes the best pumpkin pie I've ever had. For me and my family, it just isn't fall until we've had a slice of pie. It seems like we wait all year for that first slice of pie. My pumpkin pies are for sale from October through November for $12.00. If you want to order a pie for Thanksgiving please order at least a week in advance.


Sunday, September 20, 2009

Pumpkin Pie Raffle

On the night of the 27th I will be raffling off two pumpkin pies. First entry is free. Any more entries are 2 tickets for a dollar. Drop your name into the pumpkin jar by the free samples. I'll draw the winning name at 8:30pm! Good luck!

Friday, September 18, 2009

Pumpkin tea cakes


Our pumpkin tea cakes are a delightful treat! Made from scratch, our pumpkin cake is topped with a fluffy whipped cream cheese topping and pecan brittle. The pumpkin tea cakes are approximately 2 1/2 inches wide. They come as 2 for $4.00, 6 for $12.00 and a party pack of 12 is $22.00


Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Fall Preview Party

Join us on Sept. 27th for Becca’s Blue Bakery free fall tasting. Stop by between 7pm and 8:30pm to sample some delicious delights that will be for sale this fall. Treats include pumpkin pie, pumpkin chocolate cake, mini pumpkin cakes, and pecan tarts. Come and enjoy some of the best treats fall has to offer!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

America Loves Cake


A family member came across this article in the newspaper and passed it on to me. I found it very interesting. It states that "as children we learned to associate cakes with celebration, joy and good times." I found that statement to be very true. If you think about celebrations, usually a cake is involved. I think cake is a gift not only to the recipient but also to ourselves since we get to enjoy a slice too! This article got me thinking back to special moments in my life and not surprisingly most of them involved cake. These days most cake orders I do are for events such as birthdays, promotions, marriages, holidays, baby showers and even the baby's arrival. Cake is a way in which we share in the celebrations together. I love cake and apparently America does too!

Friday, September 11, 2009

Halloween Cake






























When I think of Halloween, I think of chocolate and pumpkins! This was the inspiration for the Halloween cake. It's a scrumptious pumpkin cake with a middle layer of chocolate cake. The cake is covered in a chocolate glaze. It's decorated with a frosting spider web and plastic spider in the corner. It is 8 1/2 inches wide and 3 1/2 inches tall. Becca's Blue Bakery will start accepting orders for the Halloween cake beginning Sept. 28th. The Halloween cake is a special price of $20.00!

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Golf Cake














This cake was a last minute order. I literally had one day to get it done. The good thing was that my customer wanted a simple golf themed cake. Their only real specification was that it needed to be chocolate, so that's what I focused on! Inside is a deep chocolate cake with a light chocolate buttercream filling. It's a delicious combination. The fluffy light chocolate buttercream balances out the deeper chocolate flavors in the cake. This is my favorite buttercream! It's addicting. I also made a deeper coco flavored buttercream for the outside of the cake. I used Fondx to cover the top of the cake and shaped the golf ball and water hazard. I painted the "green" with a deep green food coloring. I love the little golf bag I molded with the fondx, and of course it's all edible. It's less than 2 inches tall and it's probably my favorite part of the cake!

Friday, September 4, 2009

Celebration cake





This cake is the biggest tiered cake I have ever made. It might look small in the pictures but this cake was well over 3 feet tall. It seemed fitting as it was for my husband. His favorite cookie is oreo and so I made an oreo cake recipe that has since become a favorite. The oreo cake has crushed oreos in it so with each bite you get a bite of oreo. The crushed oreos soften when cooking, absolutely delicious! The bottom layer of the cake was three separate layers filled with a vanilla buttercream and a chocolate buttercream. Each cake tier (except the third) was 3 layers and filled with both buttercreams. I wanted the third layer to be smaller to add somevariance. Each layer had a different design. The whole cake was covered in a high quality fondant and then air brushed with food coloring. Coming out of the top of the cake are shimmered fondant balls connected by wire. It was the heaviest cake I've ever made. And since it was for my husband, I made him carry it.

Treasure Chest Cake




My son wanted to have a pirate party for his 4th birthday. So I thought, hmm....should I make a pirate ship? No... I made a cardboard one outside for the kids to play in. Hmm... what would a pirate want... um... more gold! Of course, a pirate is always searching for more treasure. What better way to celebrate a pirate's birthday than to give him a whole treasure chest!? My amazing sister came down for the day and watched the kids so I could make this cake in one afternoon. I still owe her for that....among many other things. I used different tools from my kitchen to make the fondant have a wood grain texture. I surrounded the cake by crushed graham crackers (sand). Then I took milk chocolate and marbled it with white chocolate and shaped it into seashells which I scattered at the base of the cake. The chest was filled with edible pearls, chocolate gold coins and edible jems. Cost of cake ingredients: a lot, time and effort involved: a lot too, the look in that little pirate's eyes when the cake was presented to him.... priceless!

Olivia Cake


One of my close friends hired me to make her daughters birthday cake. Her daughter was having an Oliva (a kids cartoon) themed party. I took the colors of the character and Incorporated those into the cake. Polka dots on the bottom and stripes on top. A fondant bow was wrapped around the front. And I rolled fondant balls to go around the base of the cakes.

Birthdays


















After I made my sister's wedding cake I didn't make anything for a while. But the fire to bake was still there in my heart. When a birthday came up in the family, I'd jump at the chance to practice creating cakes. So when my brother-in-law's birthday rolled around, I was excited to try something new. He was in his first year of college so I wanted to do something fun and unique. I decided to do an open laptop on top of a book (seemed very collegiate). I wrote "Happy Birthday Bryan" on the monitor of the computer. It turned out great and I really think he was surprised! Family birthdays have always been a great time for me to try new ideas.

Where it all began



My passion with cake started as a little girl. When my sister and I were little girls we promised each other that we would make each other's wedding cakes. But my love for making cakes remained hidden until it was time for me to own up to my promise to my sister. She wanted an Italian creme wedding cake with a middle layer of milky way cupcakes. The top and bottom tier were covered in fondant and I piped vines on the sides of the cake (which matched their theme). She loved her cake, inside and out. And now, looking back, this is where my cake obsession started. A great place to start in my personal opinion.