Mother’s Day Purses

I was so excited to create these cakes for my mom and sister! I’ve been thinking about them for the past few weeks, so it was so fun to see them finally turn out – and be happy with them!!
The giraffe print was for my momI tried two new techniques on them and LOVED both of them…so, they will become my standard “tools” I use, especially when creating the sculptured-type cakes. I tried ganache for the first time…I used buttercream in between the three layers of brownie and then ganache’d the outside. It created this smooth, hard shell that made it so easy to put the fondant on. I need to practise getting it really smooth with a warm knife, but it was a bit difficult because this cake wasn’t flat. I’m so excited to use it on the next cake!
The other new thing I tried was making chocolate plastique…it’s basically chocolate clay! My friend summer sent me this recipe which worked the best…I tried another one before this and it wasn’t so smooth and easy to work with. It ends up having a similar consistency to fondant. All the brown cut outs are the chocolate clay. It SO yummy and fun to work with!!!! So, instead of using chocolate fondant, I’ll use the chocolate clay.
I also got a new Kitchenaid mixer for Mother’s Day – WOOT WOOT! I’m so excited about it, but realized there is a learning curve when using it because I messed up my buttercream on these two cakes. It tasted good, but totally collapsed on me…I think I used too high of a mixing speed and collapsed the meringue base I used. So, that’s another reason I used the ganache…to give the cakes some stability. So, I’ll have to use a lower speed and try it again. But, wow, was it easy making stuff…I could actually leave it mixing and get other things done instead of standing there holding up my arm because it was falling asleep when I used my hand mixer!!

The zebra print was for my sister and her first mother’s dayStay tuned for more cakes to come…I have several treats coming up over the next month or so…thanks for looking!