Romy's Baking and Cake Decorating

  A special Graduation Cake Bubby graduated from High School! I still have to pinch myself to believe it, because it feels like I just dropped him off at preschool.  On that day so long ago, I was so nervous about how he would do that I couldn't go home and waited the entire three hours he was there at the nearest café in case they needed me to pick him up. A lifetime ago, when he was 3! The family was coming to a brunch at our house before the early evening ceremony and we prepared a nice spread including a corn chips with guacamole, a cheese array, pork tenderloin, local asparagus, couscous salad and plenty of beverages. I decorated the house to make it look festive for the graduate and he received lots of gifts of money, a watch, t-shirts and more. The grand finale of the afternoon needed to be a special cake. I decided to try  this recipe  from Preppy Kitchen because I wanted a hefty cake in 8-inch pans.  I liked how simple it was to put together! I didn't h...

Bubby had a Big Birthday coming up! I always try to tailor his cake to whatever he's into or sometimes even obsessed by at the time. Last year it was Twilight Zone and before that it was Wheel of Fortune.  Right now, it's all about hamburgers!  He'll grab a burger anytime he can and loves Burger King commercials. Yes the child who grew up eating homemade organic foods and hardly ever being served beef can't get enough of fast food. He didn't have any specific requests regarding the flavor. I thought a darker cake might work better than a butter-colored cake, so I decided to make a Red Velvet Cake .  Since it was only our tiny family celebrating this year, a 6-inch cake was the right size, and I chose to make  this  cupcake recipe from Sally's Bake Blog. Making a cupcake recipe, which usually yields two dozen, in two 6-inch pans makes for two thick cake layers, and what I really like about this is that you only need one layer of frosting in between. This cuts dow...

Bubby is graduating high school this year! It feels like I just dropped him off at preschool 5 minutes ago, and it's hard to even remember everything that happened in between. He's participated in an afterschool social group for the last two years, and yesterday was their farewell event. When they asked parents to send in snacks, I knew a cake was in order.  And I had all the ingredients in the pantry to make a Vanilla Sheet Cake.  Something I've actually never made before! I used  this recipe  from Joy of Baking. I used a Pyrex 9x13 glass pan, which is great for transporting cakes because it has handles and a lid. More on that later... The cake was supposed to take 35 minutes in the  oven but thankfully I checked at 33 minutes and it was ready to come out. In fact, it looked a bit overbaked, and I hope it wasn't dry. I took the cake out of the pan, which I'd lined with parchment, to cool on a rack so I could frost it faster. In the meantime, I made a simple van...

  "Butterfly" sugar cookies Bubby's afterschool club is having a bake sale tomorrow. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make some decorated cookies!  I thought of an Easter theme, but often schools object to holidays that not everyone celebrates. Plus, we just had the first day of Spring.  The perfect occasion to use my butterfly cookie cutter!  I'd made the dough yesterday morning, always using Martha Stewart's sugar cookie recipe, and baked the cookies in the evening.  So I thought the project would only take me a couple of hours today. But nothing ever goes according to plan!  It took me over an hour to lay out the supplies, make the royal icing, tint it. I like to use  this recipe  from Sally's Baking Blog.  But today I ran into trouble with the consistency. Although in the bowl it looked like 10-second icing, as I piped it, it was still too thick and the piping tips kept getting clogged.  It must have been exceptionally dry in th...

Freezing temperatures and burst pipes had us postpone our family gathering. I'd spent Christmas Eve preparing a Boston Cream Pie that Grandpa wanted and we ended up "having" to eat it ourselves. Fortunately, our neighbor was willing to take half! The recipe is Lucinda's Boston Cream Pie  from Martha Stewart, and the No Fuss Pastry Cream  also from Martha Stewart, and the ganache is from Sally's Baking Addiction . Though the cake was delicious I'd say the ratio of cake to pastry cream was a bit off because the cakes were a bit tall for my taste. If making again I'd still choose the 8"cake pan size but perhaps remove some of the batter to make into cupcakes. In this ganache recipe you use corn syrup for shine. Maybe the cream needed to be at room temperature cream instead of straight from the fridge, because the corn syrup didn't fully dissolve and I had to put the mixture through a sieve. So I don't know if it made a difference in the end. For...