Dinosaur King

This cake is for Marcus who turned 7 this month.

We've been decorating cakes for several years now and it's always interesting when we get unique requests. This time the challenge came from a boy --he wants 3 dimensional dinosaurs from a Sega game called Dinosaur King. You can read about the card collecting game here. One lazy afternoon, my sister and I went to the Timezone with our nephew to check out the game-- and we found out that it's basically a digital rock, paper, and scissors game!

It took the whole week to make the two dinos! After drying them, they were assembled then painted to make them look scary. The next concern was how to place it on the cake. He wanted a T-rex and a Triceratops fighting. Again, there are limitations of sugar art hence four obvious support were used to prop up the dinos. Three were used for the T-rex which in my mind would've probably saved them had they had better support during the Cretaceous period!

Trees were placed on the background -- all of them made out of gumpaste as well. Two shades of green were used to make tree and the trunk was painted in dark brown to accentuate the tree bark.

We use the Dinosaur King logo as pattern for the name on the cake based on the color scheme of red, orange and yellow.

The problem with 3D cakes is they are transport sensitive. When we got to the Discovery Suites, the T-rex tail moved! Luckily, we had royal icing with us to fix the problem.

150 pieces of mini cupcakes were placed around and below the cake. The final layout gave the cake another dimension! I love the final look of the cake and I hope Marcus did, too! We were not able to meet him but his Mom likes the set-up so yey!

Cake: Chocolate, 10"

P.S. Thanks @joefrago for the directions and support!

Quintbelles Insider: 3D Cat

We rarely get to do 3D cakes so it's exciting when there are requests for them! Chloe, the birthday girl, loves cats! After looking at several options, we decided on an orange tabby cat.

Her mommy doesn't like fondant so we agreed to use marshmallow icing instead --something we rarely do too! Double excitement for us. We love trying new things, you know :)

And so, here is the cat cake.

Tadah!

So here's how we made this. Start by baking an 8" round cake, a 8" bowl cake for the body and a 4" cake for the head. Crumb coat the cake as below.

Crumbcoated

Then cover the cake with the orange marshmallow icing. Since cat fur isn't actually very smooth, we didn't think it was important to smoothen out the icing all too much. After which, we put in the details-- paws, eyes, nose, tail, whiskers!

Coated

Finally, the finished cake!

The cat looked like its frozen in surprise so we decided to put eyebrows!

We were told that the birthday girl liked that cake! So, yey for us! :)

The Thermometer

For the longest time, we have been eyeing candy thermometers. I don't know what took us so long before deciding to do so~ they're great for a multitude of things but best of all, you don't have to second guess the temperature of whatever it is you're doing.

Two recent cakes were made out of boiled icing and to make that icing, you'd need to boil sugar and water up to a certain degree 260degrees to be exact-- and since we didn't have this nifty gadget yet, we were eyeballing the temperature of the mixture.

Based on a chef (from cravings), you can test sugar temperature by using your fingers and some cold cold water.

Here is something I found on the internet:

Tests for Sugar Temperature

To water test, fill a small bowl with cold water, remove ½ teaspoon of sugar mixture from the saucepan and drop into water.
Leave for one minute, then test using thumb and forefinger.

Thread 110 - 114°C (230 - 238°F)
The sugar mixture will form a fine thread if pressed together then pulled apart.

Soft Ball 114 - 118°C (238 - 245°F)
The sugar mixture will form a soft ball which can be squashed flat.

Hard Ball 118 - 138°C (245 - 280°F)
The sugar mixture will form a ball which will hold its shape when pressed.

Small Crack 138 - 152°C (280 - 305°F)
The sugar mixture will separate into threads that will snap cleanly.

Hard Crack 152 - 163°C (305 - 325°F)
The sugar mixture will separate into threads which are brittle and hard.

Caramel 174°C (345°F)
The sugar mixture becomes golden in colour.

The problem with this is that it's not accurate. By the time you figured out which stage it is, it might already be too late. Hence, our two not quite perfect attempts on boiled icing. We dont have pictures to show though but trust me, it wasn't pretty!

Our third attempt though was perfect! It was the right consistency, it was easy to spread and was easy to decorate with. Now we just have to figure out how to make it smooth! Any tips?

Tips for Joining Bazaars

Below is a post we wrote two years ago for Filipina Homebakers Online Group (July 2008) *********** We are not expert bazaaristas, but a few stints the past few years taught us a couple of things: 1) sell a product that is unique. Some organizers make sure there are no redundant products so you won't compete in an event where there are 5 to 6 suppliers of cupcakes or brownies! But as homebakers, we should experiment and come up with new and exciting things to offer the market. 2) sometimes packaging matters When targeting the Christmas market, it is important that your super delish baked goodies come in pretty packaging too! It doesnt have to be extravagantly packaged, a simply christmas-y accent would do or maybe a gift card that comes with the goodies. 3) Consider the crowd attracted to the Bazaar. Location is very important. Different bazaars attract different crowds thus it affects what products will sell. A high end bazaar would most likely have people who prefer sugarfree goodies than a low end bazaar. 4) look for bazaar organizers with good reputation You'll get less headaches if the organizers are actually organized. Do they have specific media plan for the event? Flyers? Ads? Are there other activities to bring in bigger crowds? Will they be charging entrance fees? Note that its not bad to participate in bazaars with entrance fees, sometimes you actually know what kind of crowd will attend the event. Try to get feedback from other Bazaaristas. 5) Check the dates and time of the bazaar Are they open during the weekdays? weekends? What time are they open? During office or school hours? After office hours? How many days? If you are required to stay until closing, will you have someone to prepare for the following day's goodies? These are the things you have to consider. Make sure to ask whether the location is airconditioned or open air, covered or open space! Because Icings melt! 6) Calling cards (and flyers) are a must Not all visitors will buy during the event. They will probably buy a box or two and if they like your product, they might order by bulk! So always have calling cards ready 7) Start Planning! Christmas is around the corner! Most of the bazaars are starting to offer booths. So if you're planning to join, better start early! :) These are the things we feel important to share! Do you have others?

Decorating Tools

Quintbelles has been baking and cake decorating for about 15 years. If Malcolm Gladwell is correct, we are about to hit the big time soon. Calculating the total amount of time we've clocked in cake decorating, we have about 8,000 hours each! That's a lot of time in the kitchen, right? But we have to continue to learn new things!

Here are some things we'd like to share regarding Equipment and Tools we use:

Xacto blades are awesome.

For the longest time, we've been using disposable large cutter blades-- but xacto blades can make more intricate cuts and shape! Perfect for making chinese characters too!

Dry pastry brushes makes you feel like paleontologists excavating fossils but they're really perfect to brush away excess powdered sugar in the cake.

Wet pastry brushes are great for everything else-- painting on the cake and gluing pieces of sugar decos.

Not all cake deco tools are needed. Craft tools are great too! But make sure that to use them solely for cake decorating.

What tools can't you do without? Leave a comment! :)