Sugar Free Apple Cake

Finally something healthy!  I had someone ask me if I made any sugar free cakes and I've not tried any recipes so I started with this apple cake.

The recipe I found used agave nectar as a sweetner.  This is a controversial issue though, various people seem to think that agave is no better than sugar, and it is very similar to high fructose corn syrup.  So I was left a little confused about whether this was going to be a useful sweetner for diabetics.  Please tell me in the comments if you know more, or have recipes with natural sweetners, I dont like to use splenda.

I do know that it is a little sweeter than sugar, so you can maybe use a little less than you would with sugar, and this cake incorporates whole wheat flour and large chunks of apples, so I think that offsets the sugar spike that you might get. 

I thought the cake looked quite nice just as is, but it could be served with a little whipped cream cheese sweetened with honey or agave, or maybe whipped cream.  I can see this being a nice afternoon snack for me, I plan to make another in a square pan and cut into squares and freeze.

Whole wheat apple cake (adapted from dinners and dreams)
Preheat oven to 350f, prepare a 9 inch pan with oil and/or parchment

4 medium sized apples, peeled, cored and chopped into 1 cm pieces)
1 packed cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vietnamese cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 oz (1 stick) butter softened
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Sift flour together with baking soda and cinnamon
Beat together the agave, butter, vanilla, salt and eggs, fold in the flour and the apples and pour into the prepared pan.
Bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Taking things a step further

I know you've all been watching my little blog for a while, seeing more and more cakes pop up and less and less recipes and food, and I'm finally ready to take my business to the next level.

I've been very lucky in that I've been using some commercial space for a while now, but I recently took a step and signed a lease on a rental kitchen which I'll be sharing with others in the Clairemont area of San Diego.

So now its time to take things to the next step.  I'll be hanging up my labcoat at the beginning of August, and maybe wearing a chef coat more often (more likely a t-shirt and jeans!).

I'll be taking a trip to Australia to spend time with my brother and his family, and apparently constructing a princess castle for my niece's 3rd birthday, then I'll return and start as many classes as I can get into at Grossmont College.  I'll hopefully get my culinary degree soon.  In my spare time I'll be building my business and selling my cakes.

So this is where I need help.  I'm moving things forward to the next step, so if anyone has ideas or suggestions on where they think Jennywennycakes should be going, then I'd love to hear them.  I've got a good network of friends who I've made cakes for and I'm hoping that the word of mouth aspect will continue and propel my business so that it gives me an income to support myself.  Wish me luck!!

My main goal is to continue to use the best ingredients to make delicious treats, I'm happy to use my favorite schaner farm eggs, and I'll hopefully be able to use lots of other local produce.

As I mentioned, I'll be unavailable from August 10th-22nd, but apart from that, please consider me for your next party, wedding or shower event!  'Like' my page on facebook to keep up with whats going on in the kitchen, I'll start updating the flavors I'm baking in the kitchen, so you can swing by and get a 6 pack of cupcakes if you let me know a couple of days ahead!

Oh, and I used that wacky random number generator at random.org to pick a number, and it came up with comment no 9, canine cologne!  Yay!  I'll be in touch to find out how to get you those guitars!!

These are sad times

These are sad times people.  I just got a frantic email from a friend who is going to a birthday party and wants a cake, and the town that the party is in has no bakeries that use actual real ingredients.  They wanted something with strawberries and whipped cream, and there was no-one that could do that for them.  All the bakeries use a synthetic product, one version is named 'pastry pride' and is a 'non-dairy whipped product'.  Ew.

I hope people realize that the cakes they are buying from the grocery stores and some bakeries are completely full of these disgusting ingredients.

I also refuse to use these.  I'm sorry that my cakes can't sit around for days at room temperature, and they will melt in the heat, but they also taste great and are made of actual real things that you and I might recognise as a food product.

Thank you, rant over!  I'll be tallying up the comments in the giveaway and choosing a winner at random.  Keep watching folks!

Oh and full disclosure, this cake was made during my internship at an unnamed bakery and it is covered with a vile hydrogenated oil, mixed with 'butter flavor' and vanilla and copious powdered sugar.  Bakers like to get hold of the old trans fat version as it apparently is easier to use.

An extremely geeky weekend!

Some really awesome cake ideas have come my way recently, it started with a schoolteacher in Portland enquiring about my periodic table cupcakes. I ended up making her a set of periodic table cupcake toppers for her bakesale! She posted a picture on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/jennywennycakes) of the finished cupcakes if you want to see, meanwhile here are some pictures before I shipped them.

I then found myself involved with a 'mad scientist' birthday party. I modelled a birthday message out of the elements, I had to cheat a bit with the 'D' and actually made a mistake, since it has an atom number of 1 (duh!) and I made sure that the numbers, elements and colors were accurate to their intended homes in the periodic table. I added flasks around the side of the cake with a measurement of '7', the girls age.

This was accompanied with another 2 dozen cupcakes decorated with labcoats, flasks and a periodic table birthday message.

I then got to work on 'the planets'. Cakes are getting to be higher stakes as the kiddies grow up. This 4 year old is apparently very knowledgable about the planets, and I'll admit I was pretty worried to deliver it! His eyes were so wide they nearly popped out of his head, I'm thinking this was a good sign?! I even added a little pluto to give to him

so he could decide whether it belonged with the other planets.

The cake was a lemon cake with raspberry buttercream, I also had jupiter in cake, the rest of the planets were rice crispy treats.

This was also accompanied with cupcakes decorated with the sun and planets.

Lastly, a super hero themed party. They arent fans of fondant, so I made a banana choc chip cake, filled with cream cheese, bananas and caramel and covered with buttercream with just a few fondant accents. This is a fun option if you prefer to cut back on the fondant

Vegas-Design Inspiration

We went on a little road trip for the weekend and were lucky enough to be able to stay at the Wynn in Las Vegas.

I was very happy to have some down time and relaxation, but the surroundings got me excited with lots of design inspiration!

My absolute favorite thing was the chrysanthemum flowers at the check in desk. I'd love to create something similar on a cake with the high shine-laquer finish.

I was disappointed that the photos didnt really do them justice.

I was also surprised to find out that they are apparently a funeral flower in Italy, so it would be in very poor taste to put them on a birthday or wedding cake in that country. Wow, you learn something every day!

Happy 90th Grandma!

l recently popped back home for a week so that I could celebrate my wonderful grandma's 90th birthday, along with all the family. It was so wonderful to spend a week with my mum, brother and niece and then end the week with a party with 35 others to celebrate grandma's 90th.

On all my recent trips abroad, I've had some kind of fragile sugar pieces in my luggage and this was no exception, I had a bright fuschia peony, which I was delighted to find made it all the way home in one piece with only one petal damaged.

We practiced all week singing 'Happy birthday great grandma' with Poppy, and she sang the loudest of everyone! Maybe partly because she had been patiently waiting for several days to eat the birthday cake!

The cake was a dense chocolate mud cake with a marscapone whipped cream and whipped milk chocolate mocha ganache, as I know grandma likes tiramisu, so I used that as inspiration. I was very honored when the event manager grabbed me to let me know that it was the best cake he'd ever had!!

After the candles were blown out, each of the grandchildren read out a verse of a fantastic ode that my cousin wrote.

When Violet Joyce Griffiths was born
her name caused a family storm
With a grandmother’s outburst,
Violet came first
But everyone knows “Joyce” is the norm

An education she set out to get
Being female was not a great bet
Evacuated to Wales, but hard work prevails
She got her degree and off she set

To Africa young Joyce did go
Researching nutrition and farming you know
Then back at home, in her field she became known
The title world expert they did bestow

She has always been an adventurer
Len wooed her out in the Gambia
In their caravan home, through Europe they roamed
With every passing year they grew happier

With three daughters the Doughty family starts
Her sense of adventure to us she imparts
Now four generations, there’s big celebrations
Her love of life is in all of our hearts

She retired then life really got going
Her interests and talents ever growing
Wood carving art, Scottish dancing apart
Too many to keep this verse flowing

For a better role model we couldn’t have dreamed
She’s broken barriers, she’s the feminist supreme
What it’s possible to achieve, if in yourself you believe
We’re so lucky to share her great genes

I wanted to say a big thank you to Jaqueline from Petalsweet Cakes, it was so wonderful to try using one of the peonies I learned to make with her. I'd encourage anyone to take a class with her, she is so serene and well organized, it is a very relaxing way to spend a couple of days.

Slow blogging times

I've been terribly slow with the blogging lately, life has really got in the way. I've had some great foodie things going on with fun cakes, the ICES conference, and a house remodel. Thats all got in the way! I thought I'd share some of my cakes that I've been making, its been a fun time and I think I've made some progress.

My dear friend is getting married in a couple of weeks, and I've been working hard on my cake skills to make sure I can make her a great cake. Since its going to be square, I've been practicing square cakes. I had a fun time creating this little display with a yo gabba gabba theme.

This 'little mermaid' themed cake was a lot of fun. I dont like doing human characters so I cheated with a cute little birthday candle from Toys R Us and then added lots of my own touches. It was a lot of fun getting the disco dust and shimmering powders out for lots of girly glitter!

I also had a request from a friend to make a 'mighty boosh' cake for her husband. His favourite episode involved a pac-man game, so I thought it would be fun to add that as a border.

It was also really fun to make a wedding cake, always a happy occasion, the bride was super sweet and wanted something really simple. I loved how this came out.

My most recent cake was quite a project! My friend stealthily had to 'borrow' her sons favourite toy for me to take pictures and measurements of, then I set about making this big garbage truck out of cake. I knew it was a success as soon as I got to the party, everyone was very excited with it, especially the birthday boy, I saw a picture on facebook him standing next to the cake with the biggest grin I've ever seen!

I'm really enjoying making these cakes, I'm hoping to start a small side project selling them soon, once I've got a kitchen space organised. If you're interested in my cakes then feel free to follow me on facebook at www.facebook.com/jennywennycakes to hear more, or email me at jennywennycakes at gmail dot com.

That will all have to wait though, I'm jetting off to the UK for a week and I'll have lots of stories about chip butties, curry, and hopefully an incredible wedding cake for my friend!

Cakes cakes cakes!

I guess one of the reasons I havent had much of a chance to blog is that I've been so busy making cakes for friends! I've been able to get lots of great experience in, but it doesnt leave much time for anything else!

I thought I'd share some of the fun stuff I've been up to.

This was a fun little set up for a 1 year old birthday. I finally discovered the magic of the glue gun, which was just wonderful for putting pretty ribbon on my cake stand!

A friend's son turned 3 and he requested a 'cat in the hat' cake. I was very happy with this tall hat cake, and modelled 'thing 1' and 'thing 2'. I even had alternating layers of vanilla/red velvet cake inside to match the fondant, which apparently went down very well. The birthday boy stuck to eating the characters!

I had my first try at a flower pot cake, this was really fun to do, I added some cake crumbs for soil.

Another set up I was quite proud of was this spiderman party. I hand modelled spidey and popped him on a fondant spider web. It was accompanied with some cupcakes topped with spidey themed toppers!

There have been lots more but I wouldnt want to bore you, feel free to click on my flickr page for more, and to keep up with how I'm doing with my cakes, you can 'like' me on facebook at www.facebook.com/jennywennycakes

Cake extravaganza!

I've been so busy attending classes, making easter goodies and all sorts that I've not really been trying any new recipes! More grossmont cakes to come, although we finished the last cake baking in my cake class and we're now doing cake decorating for the rest of the semester.
We started yesterday with buttercream roses, I never got the hang of them. I feel like I just dont have enough interest in them, I cant see myself ever wanting them on my cakes, so there is no incentive to try and perfect them. I might try at the weekend again though.

I started with some cupcakes for a fellow medicinal chemist, making dinky little labcoast and drawing molecules, and some beakers and erlenmeyer flasks, really fun!



Then I had the pleasure of making a cake for the lovely Canine Cologne, who was celebrating a birthday, I'm so glad I finally got to meet her, she's just as sweet and fun as I imagined and I'm really glad she took a risk and asked me to help with her special birthday. Thanks for the shout out too!

I made a banana cake with caramel, banana and cream cheese frosting with chocolate fondant.

The other request was the chocokat cupcakes, these were also fun to make, I love doing cartoon characters!

We then moved onto easter, and I made a mixture of cupcakes with an easter theme, I was asked to make some peeps ones, and some baby birds. I rounded it out with a few birds nests with robin eggs in

I also enjoyed making a fun easter cake. If I'd known quite how big it was going to end up, I'd have made lots more daffodils for it, I also made a birds nest basket with chocolate, caramel syrup and rice krispies

The most recent project was a spur of the moment thing, lots of people are always banging on about 'Yo Gabba' and I have no idea what it is but it sounds fun. A friend recently gave birth to a very adorable little boy, her 2 year old was being a very cute big brother and I thought it would be really fun to make some treats with his favourite characters on. I was really happy with how they came out, I'm a bit annoyed with myself for not taking the time to pipe the frosting, but the characters are cute.