2014, Here I Come!

It's a brand new year! 2014 marks the 2nd year of Chu On Cakes, and 4 years since I made my first decorated cake. It was for my friend's birthday, and I wanted to try to make a chocolate collar. (It turned out ok, it is cake after all, so it was cut into, and eaten and everyone was happy!!!)

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2014 starts off with my 2nd easiest delivery, back to Rachel's house for her birthday party! She wanted a whimsical cake, primarily orange with the colors hot pink, lime green and purple. Whimsy to me includes diamonds, polkadots, random pattern, etc.. I wasn't sure how the colors would work, so I did a mock version on windows paint, went through a couple of versions and settled on the one I liked best. Fortunately, Rachel did say, "surprise me" in her instructions, so I was able to have some freedom of design. I've always wanted to try my hand at these polka dot/whimsy design, and I was so happy at how it came out! :)

I also experimented with some new recipes, a 1-2-3 recipe for shortbread cookies: 1 part sugar, 2 parts butter, 3 parts flour by weight. I think I prefer mine with a bit more butter, sugar, and a bit less flour. It's a nice little batch to test different flavors though.

I tried two different flavors: first, I wanted to do a little taste test for my Chinese New Year cookies, so I did one with All Spice. It smelled awesome, and it tasted pretty good. I'm not sure if i super liked it though. Will have to do further testing!

Second, a orange cardamom cookie - I think I put in too much orange zest, my tongue is tingling, but i'm also a bit allergic to citrus, so maybe it's that? Ended up making little buttercream sandwich cookies with them. You can see the orange zest and the little specks of cardamom in the cookie. :)

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Throw Back!

Some these photos will link you to a whole album I used to dedicate to one project. I so rarely take step by step photos anymore!