Reviewing for You: Pillsbury Purely Simple White Cake and Cupcake Mix

Product: Pillsbury Purely Simply White Cake and Cupcake Mix.  I'll admit, I've been using this product for the last 6 months or so, as an emergency cake mix to keep in my cabinets.  For when your neighbor brings home a new baby and you need to bring something over as a welcome home gift.  Or your boss tells you about a presentation you're giving for 2 hours the day before you give it (true story).  We've been looking for that go-to cake mix for awhile, and figured this one was worth a shot.  Aldi's white cake mix is often a stand in for this one, as it has a really good taste to it, but it still has lots of chemicals in it.

Claim to Fame: It's right there on the box above: Pillsbury claims this is an all natural cake.  No preservatives, no colors, nothing artificial about it.  The ingredient list shows this to be pretty accurate, at least as far as a major food company is concerned:

Furthermore, all the ingredients you add are things you would naturally keep in your house 100 years ago.  That's always my test: if I can buy it on the Oregon Trail, then it's a natural product in my book.

If we're going by the Oregon Trail rule of thumb, a few of the ingredients are a bit of a stretch.  I'm sure the early pioneers did not carry Calcium Phosphate or Xanthan Gum.  But in general, I'm impressed that their list of ingredients contains only things I know and can pronounce.  As could the Oregon Trail settlers.  I think.

Price: $ ($0 - $10) I will say, these box mixes run on the expensive side.  The Aldi box mix I mentioned above runs me $0.99 every time I throw one in my cart.  Each of these boxes have been running me in the $3 - $3.50 range, depending on where I find them.  Although, since this is a newer product right now, a lot of these boxes also come with a $1 off coupon, which helps cut down on the costs a little.  Still, you're paying at minimum double the cost of a generic cake box mix.  Xanthan gum ain't cheap, folks.

Testing it Out: To truly test this out, I figured I'd make a cake for some friends, feed it to them, and see if they noticed it was a box mix.  The old blind taste test is the only real way to gauge the quality of a product.  Baking the mix was as easy as any other mix you would typically find.  Throw the mix into the bowl, cream the butter, and then add the milk and eggs.  I will say that by the time the batter was ready to go into the pan it was very thick, almost the consistency of a pudding.  I had my concerns about that, but they were ill formed.

The cakes baked up beautifully, no major issues.  Once cooled and iced, you would never know if this was a cake I slaved over for awhile, or just another box mix I picked up at the store.  Only the unwilling subjects of my test would know what was going on.

So I brought the cake to my friends, told them I baked it because they were amazing (partial lie), and sat back and waited while they ate it.  The praise was universal:

"This cake is really good."

"The cake is really moist this time!"

"Wow, the flavor of this cake is great!"

To be fair, I was prodding them for these answers, so maybe they praised it a little higher than they normally would have because I was the baker.  But no one threw out their piece of cake either, I can promise you that.  Like Godzilla on an unsuspecting Japanese town, that cake was flattened in a matter of minutes.

When I told everyone they had just eaten a box mix they were pleasantly surprised.  As my one friend noticed, "Box mixes usually have a certain taste to them.  You can just tell they're box mixes.  This one didn't have that taste."  This girl probably would've rocked it on the Oregon Trail.  She's the kind of person you put in your wagon with you.

The Results: The results were very strong for me and for Pillsbury.  The cake mix seemed to hold pretty true to their all natural ingredients claim, and it was as easy to bake as any other box mix.  The unsuspecting cake judges loved the cake's taste, and once I let it slip that it was a box mix they all agreed it was a mix they'd be willing to purchase themselves.

Final Verdict: As I said at the beginning of this post, I've kept this mix in my cabinet for the past 5 months or so.  That isn't a fluke.  It's worked wonders for me in a pinch, and I continue to have a spare box or two up there in case of an emergency.

Rating: **** 1/2 out of *****: This would have received a perfect 5/5 from me, but I had to take a half point off for the price.  This mix can be costly.  Sure it's all natural, but I also know flour and sugar are not expensive ingredients, Pillsbury.  But if you find a coupon, go buy this.  You won't be disappointed!

Star Wars Cake

It's been a long time since we blogged anything, so today's a good day to change that! :)  Let's catch everyone up to date with what's been going on in our baking world.

First, we've had a lot of fun this past month creating some fun projects for customers.  We had a request for a birthday cake that couldn't have ANY chocolate in it because they had given chocolate up for Lent (a cake without chocolate...such a travesty) and we had two King Cake orders for Mardi Gras this year.  Earlier this year we got to plan and create a Disney Princess cake for a preschool-aged birthday party.  And we also set up a Twitter account where we tweet about how much we're craving brownies (who doesn't crave brownies??).  You should go follow us, especially if you love to see what we're up to!

I think we're all caught up now!  So let's move on to the main event: last weekend's cake!

We love Star Wars.  We are geeky bakers and we have no problem admitting it.  We saw Star Wars several times in theaters over the Christmas season.  Han Solo is our space crush.  If you don't at least mildly tolerate Star Wars, this blog post probably isn't for you.

So when someone gave us the task of creating a Star Wars themed cake, well....we couldn't help but dive into this idea with both feet.  Again, please read the paragraph above: We love Star Wars.

The challenge became, though, what do you put on a Star Wars cake?  There are so many iconic moments, characters, and scenes from that movie, it's hard to pick just one and turn it into a cake you love.  We finally settled on an idea that seemed to be simple enough to execute, with a pretty high return on the Awesome Scale if we managed to successfully pull it off: We were going to build the Millennium Falcon.

To build the Falcon the right way, we would have to use some skills we don't always bring out for most of our cakes.  First off, we were going to have to build the ship out of compressed Rice Krispie treats, to maintain a better height to weight ratio.  For long time readers of this blog, you may remember we first used Rice Krispie treats in this cake we made last year, but it's not a technique we normally use.  And for this cake, it would be our biggest krispie creation ever!

Millennium Falcon supplies all ready to go!

Working with Rice Krispie treats (hereafter dubbed RKT because we're lazy) is not always the easiest.  If they're not compressed properly they tend to flake off at the worst possible moments.  It also takes a lot of work to smooth the surface in preparation for the fondant you're going to be layering over all of it.  And, of course, it's hard not to want to just eat them all! (RKT are a weakness for us).

Dowel rods became a life savor for us when creating this.

In the end, though, we managed to get a shape we were fairly happy with.  Dowel rods helped to secure the front of the ship while we prepared it with both icing and fondant.  It took the strain of the weight so that no random parts of the ship fell off.

Also, can we just say, in general, before a cake is done, they are some of the ugliest things we've ever seen.  They're lumpy and oddly shaped, and sometimes you put a piece of cake together and just think, how in the heck is this even going to come together into something that even resembles the end result we're trying to achieve.  Yet somehow, miraculously, it almost always does come together in the end.  Those little end details and piping work usually manage to take a cake from blah to beautiful.

Look at how awkward this is, halfway through the creating process.  It's going to look a lot better than that by the time it's done.

So one of the reasons we really liked the idea of this cake is how much piping work it required -- we love a good piping challenge.  This one was no small task, either.  The piping all over the ship is what transformed this RKT from odd blob to the ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.  It gives the cake depth and details in a details and symmetrical way that we adore.  We would honestly make this cake every day if we could!

Base cake and icing reporting for duty!

After the ship was done, it was a pretty easy assembly of the base cake with the Star Wars logo running along side of it, some small stars detailed on, and then the placement of the completed Millennium Falcon on top.  Over and done with.

Check it out, and tell us what you think:

So there you have it!  Our first (of hopefully many) Star Wars cakes that we were able to create!  It was definitely a hit when we delivered it, so we can't wait for another Star Wars cake request to come along.

As a reminder to everyone who is planning out Easter dinner already, make sure you get your order in with us for the holidays.  Cakes, pies, cheesecakes, we've got you covered!  Help support small business and contact us today!

We'll be back soon with another update or 12.  As always, for more frequent updates on all the delicious goodies we're baking up, make sure to follow us on social media.  We promise looking at photos is completely healthy for you!

See you soon!

Birthday Cake: High Sea Adventures

Oh my word, where has summer gone?  It’s mid September already??  Mid-September???  Every year we think we want autumn to arrive, and every year we’d trade all our pumpkin spiced yumminess for another week by the pool.

Blame it on the calendar, but we’re super far behind on our blogging too.  Apologies to the three of you who regularly read our site (and boy do we appreciate it!)

In August we had a fun order for a themed cake we’d never done before.  Sarah is an old friend of PSR, and her dad was celebrating his 60^th birthday.  She had no idea what she wanted for a cake, she only knew they wanted to celebrate that he was 60.  Enter PSR!

When we meet customers to discuss orders with them, most people are worried because they don’t have any idea what kind of cake to request.  Relax, we always tell them, this isn’t our first consultation.  We usually ask some questions about themes, ideas, visions, etc., and within 20-30 minutes we can make a rough sketch for you of our vision for your baked goods order.  For Sarah, she listed a few things her dad was into, including boating, and we latched onto that idea.  A few napkin sketches later, and we have our vision for this cake with Sarah’s stamp of approval.

This cake ended up different than planned, though, which is something bakers don’t always tell you about – we change our minds a lot, sometimes mid-assembly.  For Sarah’s cake, we wanted to have just a boat to eat, but the more we worked with the idea, the more we felt it was incomplete.   The boat itself was also very unstable, so we added a cake base to give it a little more color and support.  

The end result, though, is something we couldn't have planned better if we tried.  It was a perfect addition to a 60th birthday family celebration!

Up next: We've got a lot of orders coming your way in September, from an order for a College event to another Pittsburgh wedding.  Stay tuned for more details, we'll try to blog sooner rather than later!

The Dog Days are Over!

August, where have you gone?  Summer, where have *you* gone??

It's been a wild 6 weeks here at PSR.  We spent a lot of time traveling and a little time baking.  Sometimes it just happens to work out like that when supper hits.  The call of the ocean, the mountains in all their glory, we headed out of town on several occasions and didn't think twice about it.

Ok, maybe we thought about it twice.  But that's it!

As August begins to wind down, kids head back to school, pumpkin spice EVERYTHING hits us, PSR is back with some awesome news and updates for you.

1. We have a fun themed cake coming up this week we're excited to share with you.  It will be a challenge, but one that we're totally up for.  Stay tuned on our facebook page for live updates, because we will be showcasing alllllll of the skills we've magically learned over the years.

2. PSR has signed up to help the Geek Girl Brunch Pittsburgh chapter with some awesome baking orders they have.  So be prepared to see a lot more geek-themed baked goods pop up in this blog and on our fb page.  We're super excited and already have a million ideas for some wonderful treats we'd like to eat!

3. As a friendly reminder to all you fall-lovers out there, our pumpkin cheesecake cupcake is available September - November only.  To borrow a phrase from 1999, it's the bomb dot com.  No really, it's amazing!  But it's only around for a few months, so be sure to order a few before it's too late!

It's Thursday, right??  We lose track of time some days.  Time to go enjoy the last few weeks of humidity in the burgh!

Birthday Cake: Big Hero 6

Maybe, just maybe, we'll be almost caught up on our blogging finally with this post.  Maybe!  Yay for rare weekends off!

Recently we've had a ton of orders for cakes, and not so many for cupcakes.  For some reason, it seems to come in waves.  All April we baked up dozens upon dozens of cupcakes for orders (we had to reorder cupcake boxes, that's how many we shipped out), but since then it's been a steady stream of cake designs.

Cakes are definitely more challenging to make and decorate than cupcakes, but they let us have a little more creativity, which we like.  After all, there's only so many things you can do to decorate a cupcake.

If you remember last year, we made a surprise birthday cake for our little sister, who owns her own photography business (don't remember??  It's ok, click here, catch up, we'll wait till you get back to continue).  We felt a camera cake would best fit her personality, and we were happy with how it turned out.

Fast forward to last week, our little brother was turning 23 and we wanted to make him a cake too.  He likes Disney movies, Asian culture, and goldfish crackers.  We took the first two likes and combined them into a Big Hero 6 cake.

The hardest part about this cake, ironically, was finding the figurines we would add to it.  Disney, stop marketing the crap out of Frozen, already, you have other wonderful films that aren't getting the attention they deserve.  Like Big Hero 6.  

San Frantokyo turned out pretty well for a last minute cake, and it tasted yummy too.  So now we've made cakes for both our siblings off our bucket list, finally!!

More cake updates coming soon.  We're excited to tell you about all this, guys!! :)  Stay dry out there this week!

PSR Goes International (kinda)

Sometimes the baking business is the pits.  Dishes to wash, invoices to write, budgets to magically budget.  If you think our lives are some magical fantasy episode of Ace of Cakes or something, that's very far from the truth.

But for every ugly dish we have to wash and dry long after we want to crawl into bed, we have moments that are fun and special and remind us why we got into this business in the first place.  Moments like this weekend, when we completed our first international order.

An international order for PSR is like the Pittsburgh International Airport claiming it's an international airport.  Sure, they have a daily flight to Toronto and Cozumel, but most people don't think of the PIA as an international travel destination.  Same with a bakery in Pittsburgh.  International orders?  What?

Here's what happened, though.  A woman contacted us from the UK to let us know her son's birthday was coming up, and he was now living in Pittsburgh.  She was hoping we could bake and deliver him a cake.  It took some planning, since most of our customers pay with cash or check on delivery (thanks, PayPal!), but once the logistics were worked out, we decided to make a cake with a Welsh dragon on top.  And write "Happy Birthday" in Welsh on top.  Because, you know, we majored in languages in college (nope, we didn't).

The cake turned out fantastically, though.  Take a look at some of the photos below of the prep work and finished results!  And stay tuned, we still have another wedding cake and birthday cake coming up soon that you'll want to see (no, really, you will!)

The head and neck of the dragon were molded from rice krispie treats.  It's a light-weight replacement for cake that's easy to sculpt)

Also, if you're like us and didn't know the difference between Great Britain and the United Kingdom, we found this handy dandy map for you.  This isn't just a baking blog, you guys, we're here to educate!!

Vanilla

If you're a longtime reader of this blog, you know we sometimes wax poetic about flavorings.  In our humble opinion, many a good baked good can be ruined if the flavoring of something is off.  Too strong a taste, it cancels everything out, too little a taste it leaves you feeling underwhelmed.  It's what can make or break a baked good.

Vanilla, then, is the master flavor to us.  Even if you've only ever baked chocolate chip cookies using the directions on the back of the package, you've used vanilla.  Our sister (who claims her kitchen is her 'walk-in closet') even owns vanilla.  That she purchased on her own, at the grocery store.

The problems casual bakers have, though, is there are too many vanilla options anymore.  Which one do you use?  The paste, the extract, the imitation, the seeds??  What started as a quest to just make some chocolate chip cookies to go along with the chick flick you're about to dive into has turned into a colossal headache in front of the spice rack.

We feel your pain. And we're here to help.

We own just about everything in the world vanilla-wise.  No, seriously.  We're going to break it down for you in an easy-to-understand guide right now.  So that next time, you won't have to stress about which vanilla to use.  You will look like a vanilla guru because you'll already know.

1. Imitation Vanilla

Imitation Vanilla is what you owned in college when you had to bake something for that bake sale your favorite club was holding but still had to make rent that month.  It's cheap, especially when you see the list price as $2.99 and the pure vanilla extract at $5.59.  Heck yes, imitation vanilla all the way!

When to Use It:  We use imitation vanilla sometimes, and don't want you to think it's a cop out.  In certain situations, it's not.  Here's our rule of thumb for vanilla: if it's not one of the main flavors you should be tasting, then use the imitation.  Vanilla enhances the flavors in products, makes them pack a punch in your mouth.  If your chocolate cake recipe calls for some vanilla to be added to the mixture, the writers of your recipe didn't lose their minds -- the vanilla is there to make the chocolate taste punch.  But, since you want to taste the chocolate in the cake, use the imitation vanilla in this situation.  Half the cost, same effect.

2. Pure Vanilla Extract

All of your grandmothers had this stuff floating around in their kitchens like it was milk.  You'd ask for vanilla, they'd head to the pantry and return with 12 of these bottles, because they were on sale, and who doesn't want 12 bottles of pure vanilla extract??

Vanilla extract can run from your supermarket off-brands to bottles full of "Tahitian Pure Vanilla".  That's code for liquid gold, pretty much.  Yes there's a taste difference between the Shop-N-Save Pure Vanilla and Tahitian Pure Vanilla, but there's also a price difference.  Generic pure vanilla will run you $7 for 4 oz. on a bad day.  Tahitian Pure Vanilla is $15 for that same 4 oz.

When to Use It: If you don't have vanilla bean paste (see below), use this whenever you're baking something where vanilla is the main flavor you want to come through.  Vanilla cake, blondie brownies, even chocolate chip cookies.  And whenever you're making icing!

3. Vanilla Bean Paste

Ahhh, have we ever told you of our love for vanilla bean paste?  We LOVE vanilla bean paste.  It is the nectar of the gods, we swear.  Vanilla bean paste can be used measurement for measurement the same as vanilla extract.  Vanilla bean paste, though, is thicker, like a syrup, and full of actual vanilla beans.  When you make something with vanilla bean paste, you'll be able to see the beans in whatever you bake.

This stuff is expensive too (the 4oz. bottle above was $13), but my oh my we cannot recommend this stuff enough.  Once you switch over to this, you'll never go back to vanilla extract.

When to Use It: Whenever you want to die and go to vanilla heaven.  Anything where you want the vanilla to shine through, that's when you should be using this stuff.  And it tastes amazing in a vanilla buttercream icing.  Trust us on this.  No, don't trust us, go make some right now!!

4. Real Vanilla Beans

Where it all begins...getting back to the roots of nature with an actual vanilla bean. If you've never worked with an actual vanilla bean before, have some patience, and buy an extra one just in case.  It takes a lot of patience to split it open and scrape out the seeds inside.  The result, though is fantastic -- vanilla in its purest form, the way it was meant for all of us to enjoy.

When to Use It:
You can mix in a real vanilla bean seeds any time a recipe calls for vanilla (along with some vanilla extract, to help it mix throughout).  One of our favorite things to do with a vanilla bean is to make vanilla sugar.  Find an air tight container, fill it with sugar (both white and raw will work), split open a bean and nestle it deep into the sugar.  Let it sit for a long time.  Long time as in you forgot you even put that container up on that high shelf until it's time to make Christmas cookies and you're looking for your gingerbread cookie cutter long time.  The vanilla will seep into the sugar and you'll have some wonderful vanilla sugar for baking with.  Or for coffee.  Yum, vanilla sugar in coffee is amazing!

So there you go.  You feel like such an expert now, right???  You're welcome!!

Wedding Season

By springtime, we're itching to get outside again.  Throw on some shades, find some new shoes, soak up some of those almost-forgotten-about rays.  Winter in Pittsburgh just goes for so long, doesn't it??

Springtime also means we're in full baking mode.  Most of your New Year's resolutions have been abandoned by now, and will birthdays, weddings, and graduations all being scheduled, PSR is usually in overdrive with orders.  This spring is no exception.

We took a month or so off for some personal changes (we moved!), but now that spring has arrived we're back in full swing here.  We are booked solid for the next 3 weeks, and have weddings planned for this summer already!  

Tonight we're celebrating the wedding of a good personal friend of ours.  Kara has been in our lives for 11+ years, and this weekend she is getting married.  This is Kara (and a rare picture of Lis too!):

Timing didn't work out to make her wedding cake (plus, it becomes a lot harder to do that when you're in the wedding), but we decided to make her a cake tonight for her rehearsal dinner.  Because there's no such thing as too much cake when it's your wedding weekend!

Kara loves purple above all else (well....lime green too, but who wants to see a lime green cake??) so we went all out on the purple shades for this cake.  And the flavors underneath are just as yummy: lemon raspberry, vanilla bean almond, and chocolate mocha!  If you haven't forgotten about your New Year's Resolution by now, I bet this is testing your will power!

We'll be back soon with lots more updates, since we have lots of work coming up in the near future.  If you're planning on contacting us for some baking work, might we suggest you do it sooner rather than later??  We're already scheduling well into June for customers!

Enjoy this beautiful weekend, guys!

Surprise Cake

So for the past few posts we have been hinting about a surprise cake we were creating soon but couldn't give you the details about.  Maybe that was kind of mean of us to do, dropping hints and offering no other details, but we have been so excited about this cake for so stinkin' long it was hard not to just tell everyone what was going on.  But we were patient, and the cake was finally delivered last night so we can tell you all about it.

This is our little sister, Allison.  She used to be that annoying little sister who follows you everywhere, but she has grown up to be a pretty awesome human being, and one of our best friends.  She runs her own wedding photography business (shameless plug here) so it's safe to assume she's pretty obsessed with photography.

A few months ago, we decided to do something nice for all of our siblings for their birthdays.  As much as we bake for customers, we don't ever really take the time to bake for close friends and family, mainly because we're so busy filling business orders.  But we decided to go with a themed cake for Ali's birthday, and what better theme than a camera?

The cake itself was actually a pretty straight forward design.  It's nothing ridiculously over-thought, and the cake inside is a classic vanilla bean (after red velvet, that's the cake Ali prefers).  What made this cake a bit of a challenge, though, was we did not make this in our own kitchen, where we have all of our supplies labeled and organized and ready to go.  We made this back at home, in our parent's house, where nothing seems familiar, and the only supplies we had were the ones we remembered to pack.  Imagine trying to paint a picture with only half of the paint brushes you normally have.

Even though we were limited in supplies and space, and the humidity tried to melt the fondant a good half dozen times, we're fairly happy with how the cake turned out.  Simple, whimsical, and pretty, exactly how the perfect cake for our baby sister should turn out!

Next up -- a pretty awesome cake for the baby brother.  But again, that idea will have to stay under wraps until we finally deliver it to him.

Happy Memorial Day weekend, guys!!  Enjoy the beautiful weather!!

Orders, Orders, Orders

Is there such a thing as too much of a good thing?  When you're starting your own business does that even exist?

This past week has been INSANE for this small bakery.  We feel like we're just now getting the chance to take a deep breath and clean up our kitchen.  Last week we had 5 (count 'em!) orders, and none of them were small by any means: 3 dozen personalized cookies, a birthday cookie cake, a toffee bacon cheesecake, a red velvet cake for a party, and 2 1/2 dozen cupcakes, including some gluten free ones.  Whew!  By Sunday, this was kind of how we looked:

It was a great week for our business, though, there's no doubt about it.  Not only did we make some nice money baking all this up, but we got to catch up with some old friends on a few of the deliveries and make some new friends on others.  Starting your own business is all about making connections and letting the world know you're there and open for business, and we certainly completed that mission this past week.

One of our favorite treats from this past week has to be our order for vanilla bean and butterscotch cupcakes.  A customer randomly emailed us asking for a last minute order, and it's been awhile since we had anyone asking us for these.  If you've never sampled this before, take a look, it's a beauty...

Sometimes the best treats are the simplest combinations.  We're not breaking any taste barriers here with this combination, but man if it isn't one of the best.  The understated vanilla bean plays off wonderfully with the homemade butterscotch, which, secret, we sometimes eat straight out of the bowl if there's any extra left.  If you've been thinking about ordering some cupcakes for awhile but have been unsure about what to order, might we recommend these?  You really can't go long, and it's a hidden delight on our cupcake menu.

This week we have some more orders coming up, including some more involving bacon.  You people and your pork products!! :-)  Keep looking to our Facebook page for more goodies, and perhaps a small flash sale later this week.  If we can get our act together!

Have a fabulous week, friends!  

Lis

Yep...It Happened

Welp, folks, our morning started off really well.  Wanted to try out a new recipe, and we figured what better day to do it than an overcast Sunday in Pittsburgh.

Then...well, then this happened...

One cookie cake in 20 pieces on our counter.  Yep.  Happy Sunday to us!

We've told you many times for every wonderful thing we make we make an equal mess that ends up in the garbage.  Here's proof.

If you're in the area, though, it tastes delicious.  We added 3 types of chips, dark chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate, and butterscotch, as well as some walnuts.  Yummmm!! :-)

Baking Up Fresh: Dr. Who Birthday Cake

Happy weekend friends!  It's mid summer, the Pittsburgh Pirates are in first place in the MLB, and we are rocking the baking as we head into the July 4th holiday weekend.  If only summer time was a little cooler so we didn't have die slightly every time we opened the oven.

This weekend we've been busy baking a themed birthday cake for our baby brother.  He's finally turning 21 (huzzah!!) and we decided to surprise him with a Dr. Who cake to ring in the anniversary of his birth.

Haven't seen Dr. Who?  It's ok, we haven't either.  So it was a little challenging when we decided to make this cake, since we don't even know what the show's about. (since making this cake, a doctor, who can apparently change actors depending on the season, can time travel, or something like that, and tries to save the world.  We think...)

All we know is the one lady in Dr. Who is also in The Office.  So we found some comfort in that.  At least it wasn't too weird.

Since we can't make a cake of Nellie (how creepy would that be to see!!??!?!?!) we decided to go with the classic Dr. Who image: the Tardis.

We have no idea what this is actually used for in the show.  We think it's for time travel, but don't quote us on this.  We still haven't seen a single minute of this show.  However, if you type "Dr. Who" into google we guarantee images of this pop up.  So we thought, why not, let's build a Tardis out of cake.

Sounds simple...pretty straight forward too.  We forgot what a pain in the butt dying fondant navy blue is, though.  Since it's cheaper to buy fondant in bulk white, we hand-dye 95% of all our colored fondant, the only exception being black.  The darker the color is, the harder it is to dye...which is why we buy our black fondant.  But navy blue...that's about as close to black as you can get, which means it's going to take a lot of dye, a lot of kneading, and a LOT of time to get the right color.

To give you a perspective of time, it took us almost an hour to get our navy blue just the right color.  Partially because we're perfectionists, partially because we added too much black dye and it started to veer into the "grey" category.  With some work, though, we got it into the perfect shade we were looking for.  After that, it was just some simple decorating, and the cake was good to go.

Here's the finished result...what do you think?

Pretty close if you ask us.

What we loved about this baking challenge was our own lack of understanding on this cake theme: we've never seen the show, and it's not like we have the time to sit down and watch 10 episodes to get into the feel of the cake...we had to just jump right in and hope for the best.  Thankfully this show has such an iconic image we could use to replicate into a birthday cake.

Enjoy your holiday week, it's supposed to be beautiful out!!

Cupcakes vs. Cakes

As a baker, we have created some pretty amazing treats.  Cookies, pies, cupcakes, cakes, brownies, sugar doves, Swedish rolls, tarts, and a million different types of icings.  Some less successfully than others, we'll admit, but still checking them off our list.  Our favorites, though, usually involve cake, as you faithful readers know.  There's something about a good cake that just make us smile like a Cheshire cat.

Sometimes when customers order with us, they go back and forth between whether they should order a cake or cupcakes for their event/party/wedding/Tuesday night.  We never realized what a serious decision this was until people really struggled to make the ultimate decision.  For some people, this may be the hardest decision they ever have to make.

To help with your ultimate decision, we have compiled the following arguments for choosing both cakes and cupcakes for your special occasion.  Read carefully, and may the best baked goods win!

Choosing Cupcakes

1. Cupcakes are super customizable, which is why we love making them.  For big parties you don't have to stick with one flavor that the entire group has to suffer through.  Heck, half the fun is coming up with the awesome flavor combinations you'll be serving your guests and yourself.  Classic chocolate and vanilla are always winners, but what about pistachio, or peach mango, or even beer cheese and bacon??  Kick your party up a notch with a wonderful dessert flavor adventure for everyone to enjoy.

2. Arranging cupcakes is such an art, and we love the challenge.  At events, it's so much fun to figure out how we're going to arrange the cupcakes for guests to admire, oogle over, and eventually devour.  We've done simple things like tiered platters, and fun designs that involve cake platter, old books, and even cereal bowls.  Staging cupcakes can help tie a theme together, and in larger parties they can be spread to separate locations throughout the party to cut down on lines and potential accidents.  

3. On average, cupcakes will cost you less.  If you have 100 people attending your wedding you order, say, 10 dozen cupcakes for the big day, so you have a few extras on hand.  If the extra 20 cupcakes are there at the end of the night, looks like you have some treats for after the honeymoon, enough to make you happy but not enough to put the bulge on too early into your marriage.  It's a win-win!

With cake, a lot of times you are at the mercy of the "serving size".  The amount of cake you have to buy, and get rid of depends on who is serving it, how much a "serving size" is to them, and how much extra you'll have to buy.  They can't chop half a layer off a cake if you don't need that much--if you buy a 3-tiered cake, you're stuck with all the leftovers, even if you don't want it.  Sure the extra cake is fun to eat for awhile...but eventually, your freezer and your stomach will hate you.

Choosing Cake

1. Cake is the traditional choice.  Sometimes cupcakes just aren't the proper dessert to serve at a function.  Cakes give you that beautiful, elegant drama that cupcakes will never be able to replicate.  If you're going for a bold look, or feel the event won't be as successful with cupcakes, then choosing a cake is definitely the way to go for your event.

2. Cakes tell a story.  While you can place cupcakes in and around a themed setup, it's hard for them to truly portray an emotion other than fun or whimsical.  The size of cupcakes limits the scope of beauty they can present.  Cakes don't have that problem, and can definitely bring the "wow" factor you were missing from a party or event that wasn't there before.

3. Cakes let the creativity flow.  Themed cakes can be as crazy, bright, bold, daring, and elegant as you can imagine.  They can be in any shape imaginable, in any color, in any size, in any flavor.  Cupcakes have some limitations, being trapped in a wrapper.  If you want off-the-wall crazy fun, a cake might be the direction you're looking for.

The verdict is yours to decide.  So what will it be...?  Cakes...or cupcakes...??

Crazy Cakes

Hello friends!!  We are so sorry it has been so long since our last post.  This past month has been crazy with baking, family time, and, most importantly NEW JOBS!!  While our eventual goal is to open our own shop, we have to pay the bills for the time being, and we do that through a normal run-of-the-mill day job.  Except our day job has been pretty close to crappy recently, so we went out and found ourselves a new one!!  In case you can't tell, we're super excited.

We have some big surprises for you guys next week, but we can't let it slip just yet (you'll see why with our next post).  For now, though, we've been having a relaxing night at home finding new things on that vast internet to entertain ourselves with.  Thank you, Al Gore, for such an invention.  Would our parents believe that we can waste an entire night staring at a 13" screen at cats chasing lasers all evening? We're not even sure we do yet.

So we were on the internet tonight, looking for fun things to bake.  Sometimes the best ideas start with a ridiculous idea or post or blog.  And we stumbled across one of the coolest/oddest/best baking videos we've ever seen:

That's right everyone, you can bake a cake inside an egg!!

Is it bad that we automatically ran into our kitchen to see how many eggs we had in the fridge?  Sadly, not enough, and we were too tired after our run today to head out to the store to buy some more.  This might be an awesome weekend idea, though.  How fun would these be at Easter with beautiful dyed egg shells!

Have any other videos/blogs/recipes that have inspired you?  Post in the comment section.  We love find inspiration from the craziest of places.

Hope you're having a wonderful week.  Check back next week to see what all the hub-bub is about!!

Lis