Vanilla cream with fresh berries

Before I take my short vacation I'll show you my cups with delicious vanilla cream gently covered with ground dark chocolate or with sliced almonds. The first I decorated with spring daisies and the second ones with fresh raspberries and blackberries. It's easy to make, to decorate and to eat :) Bon appétit!

It's time for vacation :)

Dear friends and cake lovers,

CakeSophia will be closed from July 6th 2013 till July 16th 2013. 

I wish you great summer with more sunny days and a lot of smiles! See you soon :)

Lion cake

The lion cake is for the 3th birthday of a cute boy from the daycare of my daughters. His name is Konstantin but  all his friends from the daycare called him "Tino". He adores all jungle animals, dinosaurs and mainly lions. That animal was his desire for his birthday cake. That's why I decided to prepare a cake full of palms, lianas, big green leaves, all kind of animals - monkeys, parrots, elephants and of course a majestic lion on the top. The kids adored the cake and I think Tino was extremely happy with his lion too :)

I adore the cake also. Like all kids' cakes I made it with a lot of love and enthusiasm. I know how happy can be a kid when he sees his favorite character on his birthday cake. That's why I have stimulus to make more decorations and to bring more smiles on children faces. The sparkles in their eyes are the biggest prize for me.

 And now it's time to show you Konstantin's cake.

Cheesecake for a very special friend

Today my friend Vania has a birthday and I surprised her early in the morning with....a  cheesecake (and something else,of course). She doesn't like any buttercream or fondant cakes and desserts, anything with chocolate... The only one dessert that she may eat is a tiny piece of cheesecake. It was difficult to me to resist not making a cake for her. Anyway, it's a birthday. The two words "cake" and "birthday" always go together in my mind. That's why I decided to surprise her with traditional cheesecake. Here you can see what I prepared for her yesterday.

I used this recipe. It's very well explained, with details and photos. I hope that it's really delicious as it looks on the photos.

Happy birthday, dear Vania! I wish you all the best!

Cinderella cake

Today's cake is for the 4th birthday of Annabelle. I noticed during my practice as a cake decorator that girls at the age between 2 and 4 simply adore that kind of cakes - Barby doll or Princess. My first princess cake I made for my daughter exactly for her 4th birthday.

The cake for Annabelle is red velvet with the traditional cheese cream filling, first covered with red velvet buttercream and then with baby blue fondant.

Congratulations and happy birthday,Annabelle! Be happy and healthy young lady!

Cake Rebecca

As I promised you, today I'll present  you one of my favorite cakes.In my last post I introduced you with the cake for her father. Today I'll show you another cake in yellow and purple but this time it's for a baby shower. The baby girl Rebecca will be born approximately in 10 days. And here it is: 

I made this cake extremely quickly. I am keen on making cakes for babies and children. There are always involved a lot of love and care. And here is the moment to wish smooth arrival of a happy and healthy baby!

My basketball cake

Today's cake is for the 35th birthday of a man who I don't know personally but I know that he is a big Lakers fan. I think that is enough to explain why his cake looks like that...

Now I'll share with you some "secrets". First, that was my first cake in the shape of a ball and being honest with you it was a big challenge. There were some friends who tried to calm me down with the words "Don't worry, if you made a rectangular or square cake, it's much easier. You will see!" And I saw :) - it wasn't so difficult but it wasn't so easy too. Probably a crucial role in that day played the humidity in the air. Everything was melting very quickly, even in my hands. 

Anyway, some words about the layers. I baked them in a ball shaped pan and that definitely helped me a lot. But only in the beginning :). Half of the ball was a purple cake and the other half-yellow. I thought it would be a nice surprise if even the cake layers correspond to the Lakers colors. Each half I separated in two and after that I stuck them with chocolate frosting in a zebra pattern (yellow-purple-yellow-purple). I covered the ball with butter cream and everything looked perfect till the moment when I had to cover the cake with the fondant...And the fondant started tearing apart! For a sec. I lost control. There was only one thought  in my mind -  I spoiled the whole cake and the birthday party. Isn't it terrible?!!!! I removed the fondant and I started from the beginning. The second time it was better but not perfect for me. The fondant easily stuck to my fingers and I had to work extremely quickly. I don't want to justify myself but that was the main reason why I couldn't make a perfect round shape...

And because I knew that the person is a big Lakers fan I printed the name of the team on an edible sheet and decorated the cake. I put also one small sticker on the scarf around the ball and the cake was ready for the big day. It was an important day because at the same day there were two parties - a birthday and a baby shower. The man with basketball cake is the father of a baby girl Rebecca who is expecting to be born in 10 days. There was another cake for the baby shower that I'll show you in my next post. Be patient :)

Soccer playground

Last week I made a cake for Alex. This charming young boy is a  son of one of my friends here and he celebrated his 9th birthday. Alex is a very close friend to my son and they both are big LEGO fans. That's why I was very surprised when his mother asked me to make a cake for his birthday like a soccer playground. I haven't any idea that Alex now has another obsession - the soccer. Even the whole family is obsessed by this sport. I hope in that way I surprised not only Alex but all the other family members.

And here it's the time to share with you how I discredited myself. I decided to make extra 12 cupcakes decorated with green fondant resembling the grass of the soccer playground. I used soccer baking cups that were going together with decorative picks. Everything was perfect. I made everything on time, the cake I left in the fridge, the cupcakes on the kitchen table and I went to make a walk and take advantage of the sunny afternoon. In an hour coming home, happy and full of energy I noticed something weird on the table - the cupcakes looked awful. Just for a second I asked myself what had happened. The answer came immediately - the sun coming through the kitchen window had melted my decoration. I couldn't believe?!?!Was it so warm? Anyway, I was disappointed of myself why I hadn't protect the cupcakes ...And now on the pictures you will see instead of 12 green cupcakes the only 3-4 left without a lot of damages :) I am glad that everything was OK with the cake....

Happy Father's Day!

I dedicate my last cake to my husband. I made it especially for the Father's Day as a gift from our family. That's my way to tell him how proud I am of him as a father of our three beautiful children.

The idea for this cake came a long time ago...I wanted something special, something that will be touchy for my husband...and then came the idea with the Volkswagen Beetle. He is a big fan of all VW cars. Of course, as a man, he prefers a model different from the Beetle but I thought that it will be very cute to put on the cake "The Beetle". Immediately when I took the decision that the car will be orange (one of my husband's favorite colors), the cake appeared in my mind in brown. I like the combination of these two colors. While I was planning the cake and the decorations I couldn't get rid of the daisies. I changed a lot of ideas but the daisies appeared on all my images. That's why I decorated the cake in that way.

And some words concerning the taste and the flavors....A combination of 2 coffee layers with 2 cappuccino layers and the filling is homemade vanilla cream. The beetle is edible too. Under the orange fondant I made a mix of dried figs (my husband's favorite fruit), almonds, rum, cocoanut oil and ground cookies.

Happy Father's Day to my Dad,too! Unfortunately, I can't make and surprise him (because of the distance) with another cake. This year he will receive a virtual one :)

I'll stop with the pictures because probably most of you are bored with my cake...

Cake with poppies

For a very long time in my mind there were only ideas for cakes with red poppies. Unfortunately, the ideas were only in my head. Probably they express my compelling desire for sunny and beautiful spring with green meadows full of colorful flowers, bird songs and fresh air. Finally after so many cloudy days I decided that it's time to carry out my dream and to create my cake with red poppies.

I made it for a very close family and I hope it was a nice surprise.

And now some words for the cake - four layers of devil's food soaked with almond milk and covered with raspberry confiture. The filling  made of Philadelphia Chocolate and sour cream brings additional chocolate aroma to the whole cake. Let's stop with the writing and see some pictures...

Brownies - NEW recipe!

I would like to share with you my new experiment, my new recipe. Yesterday while I was  watching  TV, my attention was attracted by the name of the dessert that they presented -  Brownies made of red beans!!!! It sounds weird to me but immediately I put down the recipe and today I made it for my family.

Here is the recipe:

500g red beans (kidney beans),cooked

3 eggs

4-5 tbsp. brown sugar

Mix all the ingredients well, strained them. Then add:

4-5 tbsp carob powder

3tbsp vegetable oil

1tsp. vanilla extract

Bake the mixture in the oven at 350 C for 25min.

And here is the final result

My opinion: It's delicious! Definitely I'll make it again! Now I am curious to see the reaction of my family :)

Tiramisu

Last week I made for a close friend one of my favorite desserts - Tiramisu. For my friend Tiramisu is also a favorite dessert. No doubt! How  can you resist it?!?! Layers of soaked in coffee ladyfingers and delicious cream of mascarpone cheese, eggs, sugar, vanilla and rum...

Different variations of Tiramisu exist but all of them correspond to the name - "pick-me-up". Always brings satisfactions, smiles and happy mood.

My friend asked me for a simple Tiramisu - no fancy decorations, no satin ribbons. Just the irresistible dessert. And here it is!

 

Birthday cake with a red rose

My post today is for a cake that I made last week. The lady that ordered the cake wanted to surprise her husband for his birthday. Isn't it very romantic? I admire couples who maintain their love every single day with such tiny and simple things as sending a love message, or giving a bouquet of flowers or as in our case ordering  a cake. It so simple to show your partner how important he is for you. Don't leave it for tomorrow, for your anniversary or for some other occasion! We live today, at this present moment!

That's the reason why I was so thrilled to prepare the cake. Unfortunately, there was one main obstacle around the cake preparation and that was the air humidity! Everybody who lives in Montreal knows about that problem. For me as a cake decorator this time of the year is a big challenge. When I put the fondant on the cake I have honestly less than a minute or two to make it smooth. After that the fondant becomes very sticky and it's incredibly difficult to work with it. That was and the main reason why I couldn't make sharp corners and well smooth the cake. The same is with the writing  - the pens refuse to work on the fondant, everything is melting and sometimes it's very discouraging.

Anyway, I won't complain. I am happy with what I am doing especially when I see the smiles on the faces of my friends receiving the cakes.

The cake is cleaned of decorations. It's plain and simple as the true and pure love...

Memories from my childhood

Today I made my favorite treats from my childhood. The name is "skalichka" (the translation in English is "small rock") and everybody from my country knows what I am talking about. Even if you haven't been fans to this treat I am sure everybody remembers how they looked like. Just in case I found some pictures in the net for you. 

 

Now do you remember them? They were almost in every patisserie ...And almost nobody liked them except me and my friend :) We have heard so many awful things about them, how they have been prepared and so on and so on but none of them stopped us from loving them. For me they were delicious treat!

Today, after so many years just all of a sudden I decided to prepare them at home. There are a lot of different recipes depending on your taste. Usually they are prepared like the cake pops here adding zest of lemon, always with melting chocolate on the top and sprinkled with cocoanut flakes...

I made mine with ground cookies, ground walnuts, almonds, cranberries, dates, all stuck together with cocoanut oil.

You can add some drops of alcohol that you like, rum for example. Sprinkle them with cocoanut flakes or with some colorful sprinkles.Everything is in your hands! Enjoy them! They are irresistibly yummy!

 I was so in a hurry today  that I forgot to sprinkle the cocoanut flakes :) Anyway, they are just for me!