Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Those are a few treats I made for the Holidays. Nothing decorated 'cause I didn't have time.

This is called Pave, it's a Brazilian dessert and there's a sweetened condensed milk based cream, bananas, cookies and meringue, very very sweet. I forgot I wouldn't unmold it and I used this "ugly" pan:

These are meringue cookies I made for the first time. They turned out delicious, just like from the bakery, seriously!! They just don't look as nice because I "iced" them like a swirl icing for cupcake, them they sort of cracked out, but I know next time I have to use another tip and make it in, let's say, one piece:

And here they are, all packed for presents:

Here are some of the panettones I made. It was kind of hard to find the right recipe (I've tried 3). I still haven't found it, but the ones I tried turned out very tasteful, however, I still don't like the consistency. They feel like bread or loaf, not panettone. Panettone is really soft, like a pillow in my opinion. I bought a branded one and comparing to mines, they do feel like a pillow lol. At least I got to give them the same taste and smell. Everybody loved them, as bread with a panettone taste :) :

Just testing...

This was just a test. It's a Brazilian Wedding Favor. It's filled with Dulce de leche. I was testing a brownie bites silicon pan, which disappointed me a little bit because I read somewhere that it wouldn't be needed to grease it, but it wasn't that easy to take the cake out of the pan as well as wash it out. But the shape was pretty nice, though. Next time I'll just spray a little butter or oil. However, I have to use another Dulce de Leche Brand or make it by myself 'cause it wasn't supposed to be so liquid and be sucked by the dough lol, but it was supposed to be thick and look like a mini sandwich.

I've been thinking about what's gonna be my next challenge... I hope a birthday cake or a wedding cake.

Cupcakes 4 Charity...

Last October 1st my husband and I joined the event that Cupcakes4Charity organized. It was really fun and full of delightful cupcakes. We had music, drinks, raffles and fun :)
Those are the ones I made for the event. The pink ones are strawberry cupcakes with one of the Brazilian strawberry truffle fillings iced with strawberry buttercream. I tried to ice the cupcakes with the filling but it was way too soft, I guess 'cause I used the white chocolate morsels instead pure white chocolate :(

The dark ones are chocolate cupcakes filled and iced with Strawberry Chocolate truffle. I didn't get a picture of the inside, but it's pretty much the same as the strawberry, but dark brown lol And yes, the truffle was perfect for icing!!! I called strawberry chocolate because I mixed in some strawberry preserves, but honestly, I think it didn't add too much taste. I needed to have added some candy flavor maybe.

Autumn Cupcakes for a Cause...

Those were the cupcakes I made for Cupcakes for a Cause. It was a Bake Sale at Brooklyn Flea Market organized by Cupcakes Take The Cake. I hope we got to sell all cupcakes the volunteers took. I made them in Autumn Theme.

Coconut cupcakes decorated with marshmallow fondant and chocolate icing and coconut filling (Beijinho in Brazil):

Close up of the inside:

Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing and chocolate filling (Brigadeiro) decorated with a marshmallow fondant pumpkin:

Close up of the inside:

The tine brown ones are chocolate mini cupcakes iced with brigadeiro and the flower ones are coconut cupcakes decorated with marshmallow fondant:


Here is just a picture that I set up with all of them:

Wedding Cake Course with Brazilian Cake Designer

In the picture, it's me receveing the certificate from Flavia Millas, a very famous Cake Designer in Brazil who came for a 3-day class in Stamford, CT last weekend.
It was great!! She gave us really important tips and taught us her techniques and recipes. Everything delicious and beautiful!! She's been working with sugar for 21 years. And she is a very sweet person :) in both meaning lol.

PS: I did finish Wilton Course 3 and 4, just forgot to take pictures of the certificate which I'll do soon.

Mini Banana Dessert Cups...

Banana pudding topped with banana sweet (banana and sugar boiled together). It can be a banana pie filling as well.

Leo's Birthday Cake

It's a chocolate cake filled with 3 layers of coconut cream. It's called Prestige Cake in Brazil.

Just to show the detail of his hair and accessories lol:

YAY!!!!

Yay!!! I figured out what was wrong with my blog that didn't let me add links and other stuff: THE BROWSER!!! I was using Mozilla Firefox and now Google Chrome. Viva!! Let's organize things over here. Or at least, try it.

Brazilian Mini Carrot Cake...

This is the Brazilian Carrot Cake. Very different than American as we can see in the last post. Usually, the Brazilian Carrot Cake is not filled, but I wanted to try the new set of pans I bought for mini cakes. It's covered and filled with Semi Sweet Chocolate Ganache. The flowers are made of Royal Icing.

After refrigerate, the ganache gets uniform and the fill looks perfect, just like the box shows:

Same cake, same filling, different decoration:

Brigadeiros and Trufles with strawberry...

The brown ones are truffles and the ones with the sprinkles are brigadeiros (Brazilian chocolate balls, but they are made with condensed milk instead table cream as the truffles). All of them involve a strawberry. Yummy surprise.

Brigadeiros:

Truffles:

American Carrot Cake...

First of all, I've finished Wilton Course 4, but my cake didn't work at class and I couldn't finish it. I have to make it again, but I still didn't. I made my first American carrot cake and I liked it. Specially because this one is GLUTEN FREE and my husband and I are surprised with it. It tastes just like the "regular" carrot cake: delicious!! However, next time I'll make it, I won't fill it. There's no need for it in my opinion. The cake has a particular taste that doesn't need to be distracted by the icing filling, just like any other carrot cake. Some day I'll make the Brazilian Carrot cake, just to register and it's as good as the American version, but very different.

I do have to practice a lot how to icing a cake. I still don't get it. It's always full of mistakes grrrrr. I like so much to cover the cake with fondant because it looks so much nicer lolol.

Halloween Premiere...

I know, it's too early, but the stores are getting full of Halloween stuff already, so I decided to do some ...

Those pound cake bombons (or simply cake balls) were a test. I covered them with chocolate and decorated with royal icing:

Butter cookies packed individually. Those ones were decorated with royal icing:

Some of those were decorated with fondant:

Mini butter cookie:

Friendly Cows cake...

This cake I made for my friend Suelen, just like she wanted: with the cows and the black circles.

It's a vanilla cake filled with doce de leite (a sweet cream made of milk). She loves doce de leite so I carved a little the center of the layers, then I could put more filling in it. But I guess it was too much filling lol. I followed the step-by-step from Loja dos bolos e dos Doces.

Wilton Course 4 - Fondant and Gum Paste

We have practiced a few flowers in this course, but I forgot to take my camera :(. At least we didn't have time to finish this cake there, so I could take pictures at home. In the 2nd class of this Course we tried to finish our carnations and learned how to make fantasy flowers with gum paste. I finished decorating the cake just yesterday at home. It's a vanilla cake filled with a coconut cream, it's a kind of creamy macaroons or macaroons dough colored with green gel coloring. This cake I was gonna give to my friend Luana, who's going to visit her family in Brazil, but I just saw her on Sunday (I said that somewhere in this blog). That's why is yellow and green outside and inside. It's yummy! My husband took it to his work and they devoured it lol The fondant I made with marshmallows again. Also, we learned how to make marble effect and used it for covering the plate, but this was 2 weeks ago.

Ooops...

Sorry, I'm late... We didn't have time enough to finish the cake yesterday at the class, so I'm finishing at home...
AND I FORGOT TO SAY, the last cake (the blue one) I covered with marshmallow fondant made by myself! It's easy and cheap! It dries well, but I haven't tried it for any decorations yet, just for covering. And it tastes SO MUCH BETTER than Ready-to-use rolled fondant. It's edible lol. It's very sweet, but at least it doesn't taste plastic. I can't give a cake with something that doesn't taste "edible". Once, I gave a piece of cake covered with ready-to-use rolled fondant to a friend of my husband and he went straight to try the fondant and after that, he didn't even want to try the cake. It was awful! But he was right, even my husband and I don't eat it lol .. So, I decided to try the MMF and it worked. My friend and the other guests ate it, not all, because it's very sweet, but at least I heard "Humm! it's sweet, but it tastes good!!" I don't care if people don't eat it because it's too sweet, I care if people try something it's on my cake and say "Eeeeww what is that? it's disgusting!", then my name is on the game. Nothing like a proverb we have in my country "You want it well done, do it yourself", or something like that haha Next one I'll try, it'll be the Brazilian Rolled Fodant, which I'm sure tastes awesome too, even if it's sweet.

Practicing...

This cake I made for my friend Luana who's going to visit her family in Brazil in 2 weeks. It was supposed to be the cake I'm finishing today at Wilton Class (I'll post tonight when I finish it), but I made this one because yesterday was the last time I would see her before she travels. I made it blue, because it's her favorite color. :) It's a chocolate cake (Sandra Dia's recipe) filled with a coconut cream, prestigio in Brazil.

Independence Day Butter cookies

Wilton Course 3 Last class...

And finishing Wilton Course 3, fondant roses and cake covered with fondant too. I loved it! :) The little cake is filling with passion fruit jam and for filling the big one, walnuts cream :)
Next week we will start the Gum Paste Course. Maybe I'll put a picture of the slices when we decide to eat it. I put a lot of hard work on this cake and I feel bad to cut it, I just want to look at it lolol like a decoration piece lol.

Getting ready...

... for the next cake... Fondant flowers.... hopefully all of them will be on it lol... I'm afraid they will get hurt on the way to the school.

And here are the leaves :) maybe I'll make some more...

And here with the cakes...

Just to show inside...

As I said before, orange cake with orange marmalade filling. I also moisture it a little with boiled orange juice and sugar, but the cake itself is moisture enough, also, the marmalade helps too. It's just because my husband and I love moisture cakes lolol and in Brazil too, of course :P

Wilton Course 3 - Class 2 ... Fondant

I love it! It's kind of easy to work with fondant and I loved the result. The taste... no good lolol but as my teacher says, it's for the looking. What really matters regarding taste is what's inside in this case. Soon I'll try to make my own fondant to try something more tasty, because I think everything should taste good. This is an orange cake (Brazilian recipe) filled with orange marmalade. We haven't tried yet. We're waiting for getting dry to see how it looks like. Also, we've learned how to make fondant roses. It's much easier than butter cream icing roses in my opinion and they DO look beautiful even if you don't have practice, lol... butter cream roses require a lot of practicing.