Stephanie’s Cakes

What do you do when you have three family members graduating at the same time? Throw a triple graduation party, of course - with a cake that features each graduate’s school colors, hobbies, and the next school they will attend! I got the idea for this cake from a similar design in an old Wilton design book, but I made it out of one large sheet cake rather than three individual cakes - I thought it would look more like a real bank of lockers that way. The cake is iced in buttercream with sculpted fondant accents for the banners, stickers, and the lifeguard’s whistle. The little combination locks came out just right - they might be my favorite part of the cake!

A few months ago, my brother-in-law and his fiancee asked if I could make a croquembouche for their end-of-December wedding. Yes, it was certainly out of my cake-and-buttercream wheelhouse, but this was a challenge I couldn’t resist - and it was something I could contribute to make the wedding extra-special.

Then I started to worry: how was I going to do this? I’m used to making and decorating cakes, not cream puff towers; I’ve never worked with caramelized sugar, I’ve only made a few cream puffs in my entire life, and I’ve either got to transport this thing 2 hours in the car or make it at the site (my husband’s grandmother’s house, luckily) the morning before the wedding.

I combed through my cookbook collection for cream puff recipes and croquembouche advice. I searched the web for photos and instructions. I read through every choux paste and croquembouche and caramelized sugar post on egullet.org - all the tips about how to assemble and how to be careful with the hot sugar and so on. And I made hundreds of practice cream puffs, burnt two batches of sugar (pee-yew!), and stacked a couple of small test croquembouches.

Slowly, I started to feel a lot more confident that I could do this - and not only that, but it would turn out pretty well. Nevertheless, my fingers and toes were crossed that it would not rain that day… not only because the wedding ceremony was outside, but because I didn’t want the cream puffs to come tumbling down in a pile of humidity-softened sugar, melting filling, and floppy pastry!

We headed up to the wedding site the day before to help get the place ready, so I carted half my kitchen along and made everything on-site. After several hours in the kitchen (and a last-minute run to the store for heavy cream, whoops), I had 200+ profiterole-sized puffs, a double batch of pastry cream and a triple batch of cheesecake mousse to fill them, and my caramelized sugar ready for assembly the next morning. (I caramelized the sugar and put it in a glass container to microwave later; I didn’t want a hot pot of sugar on the stove while people were running around doing wedding-y tasks.)

The next morning, bright and early, I started filling puffs. The wedding was at noon but family photos were at 10am, so I had about three hours to get the croquembouche ready — not to mention getting all pretty for the pictures. Puffs for the bottom half of the croquembouche got a filling of vanilla pastry cream; those on top half were full of cheesecake mousse.

When it came time for assembly, I relied on advice from an egullet.org member: build the croquembouche inside a cone form. I rolled a sheet of posterboard into a cone, lined it with Reynold’s Release foil (the kind that’s supposed to be non-stick - it lived up to its name, thank goodness), warmed up the sugar, and started dipping and sticking to form a hollow tower of cream puffs. I dipped only the sides to stick the puffs together; too much caramelized sugar per puff, and eating one nearly pulled your teeth out.

Despite having to re-warm the sugar a couple of times, the construction went well and faster than expected. Since I hadn’t made a test version this large, I was surprised at how heavy the cone got as it filled up… and that made me worry. Would it support its own weight?

The croquembouche sat point-down in its dunce-cap cone until about 11:30am, when I set it on its stand, removed the paper cone… it was still standing! Next, however, I had to remove the foil. Slowly, I pulled… a little further… a little more… and it was done. The croquembouce was standing on its own - and quite solidly, I must say. I slipped a few more cream puffs into gaps around the bottom to even out the base, and that was ready for showtime. Huge sigh of relief.

After the ceremony, I popped into the kitchen, heated up my sugar again, and made some spun-sugar strands to wrap around the croquembouche. I didn’t make these earlier in the day because I knew they would be the first to soften and potentially melt in a warm house full of people. I made three sets to wrap around the cone. And then… finished!

Here’s how it came out:

I’d say the final height was about 1.5 to 2 feet, involving somewhere between 160-180 puffs. By the time they served it, the sugar was just a little soft, enough so that we could break off chunks of puffs without smushing them or sending sugar shards all over the carpet.

We served them with raspberry puree and dark chocolate sauce. It was a hit, the bride and groom were happy, no one lost a filling while eating the caramel, and I was thrilled. Now I can’t wait for an excuse to make another one… I’d love to try a chocolate one…or, if I made a savory croquembouche, what to stick it together with?… hmmm… this could require some more experimentation…

An adorable baby shower cake made to match the theme of the baby’s room - farm animals! The cake was chocolate with chocolate buttercream filling, and chocolate basketweave on the sides. Yum.

Decorating a cake for an artist is a high-pressure job! After all, they’re definitely going to notice the proportion of the design, the symmetry of the lines, the small details. I started out thinking that a cake done in the style of Mondrian - the painter famous for his color-block works - would be relatively easy… until I started to realize that one shaky line or offset rectangle would ruin the entire illusion. Gulp! Thankfully, I made a carefully-measured paper pattern before I started, and with its trusty rectangles in hand, everything came out OK.

Why Mondrian? Gary, our departing art director, used Mondrian-style designs in several of his layouts. It was a natural choice!

The cake was white almond sour cream with raspberry filling; the colored squares are cut out of fondant, and the white background and black lines are buttercream. The “Artist Gary” figurine is made from fondant (the paintbrush, however, is real).

(click to enlarge)

An appropriate cake for the fall football season! This cake was made for a co-worker whose fiance (now husband) is a Dan Fouts fan - hence the Dan Fouts San Diego Chargers jersey. The jersey itself is fondant, as are the numbers and logos on the side of the cake; the mini football is chocolate cake covered in modelling chocolate, and the rest is buttercream.

The design is inspired by the jersey cakes made by the amazingly talented Jennifer Dontz and Janet Brown. Check out their websites for some absolutely amazing works of cake art.

When our managing editor, Kathy, decided it was time to leave for greener pastures, the entire staff wanted to make sure her send-off was extra-special. We ran through lots of cake ideas: Hawaiian luau? A stack of books? A laptop computer with an image of our Web site? But we kept coming back to ideas that featured Kathy’s beloved dogs, Frances and Mickey (Mickey’s the dachshund). I decided this was a good chance to really challenge myself by making 3D versions of the dogs.

So we sneakily borrowed and photocopied Kathy’s dog photos while she was away from her desk, and I came up with a design that incorporated not only our magazine (hanging from Frances’ mouth), but also the giant blue mug that lived on Kathy’s desk - an item that everyone fondly associated with Kathy. After a few experiments, several construction diagrams, a double batch of buttercream, and a big dose of “hope-this-works!” faith, two very obedient cake-dogs showed up for the party.

This was certainly one of my most challenging cake endeavors. Both of the dogs are iced in buttercream; their heads are built on styrofoam bases frosted in buttercream, and their ears are fondant. I decided to use styrofoam for the heads because using real cake would have made them too heavy to stay in place (in the case of Frances - I didn’t have time to build a wooden frame that could support a carved cake head) or too crumbly when carved that small (Mickey). Frances’ front legs are made of iced plastic tubes, but other than that, both dogs’ bodies and paws are cake. I took a little artistic liberty with Mickey’s body length, obviously, but it was used to good effect when the blue mug was placed in the middle!
We ended up not cutting into the dog cakes at the party - there was enough cake in the oval underneath the Frances cake to serve everyone - so Kathy took both of them home, where the real dogs had a chance to pose with their sugary counterparts:

Here’s Frances:

and Mickey:

And here are a few pre-party photos, taken before I added the magazine and blue mug (click to enlarge)

Who’s a good girl, fetching my magazine for me? awwww… now, where did I put those snausages?

When my friend Kacey’s wedding shower took on a Hollywood theme, I was excited - that’s a great theme for cake-making! I had lots of ideas: a big pile of film canisters, or something like the Hollywood sign, or an old-fashioned movie marquee… but this walk-of-fame star stood out: it was simple, bold, recognizeable. After much research (thanks, Google Image search!), I created the star template and got down to business - the cake is a 12″ square, and the marble stone-style design is made by flattening together small dots of colored buttercream so they meld into one flat surface. The plaque in the middle is fondant, but everything else is buttercream; I painted the star border, the names, and the plaque with gold luster dust to give it a nice shine. Time to start working on that Oscar acceptance speech!

(click on the images below to enlarge)

I wanted to make a cake for someone who loves cheese, but the celebration we were all attending was going to involve a poker tournament — not exactly the best environment for plates and forks and such. There was only one solution: cupcakes! Portable, easy to eat with one hand, and with some mini cheeses modelled out of fondant and candy clay (complete with frilly toothpick, of course), very appropriate for the cheese-lovin’ host. Get your gouda on!

How do you say “bon voyage” in cake? This luggage cake is the closest I’ve come (so far). Created for a coworker leaving on a three-month tour of South America, this chocolate-buttercream suitcase features fondant travel stickers of the countries on her itinerary, plus our company logo and a San Francisco badge to remind her of home. The buckles and straps are made from modelling chocolate, which is kind of like a cross between the flavor of a Tootsie Roll and consistency of thick playdough. Edible clay. Mmmm.

(click on a photo below to enlarge it)