My Dudu

Hey guys,

It's been almost one year since I started in this baking/blogging world... and I have to reveal a secret now. Why did I start all this? Well, I love baking but I did all of this for something biggert, the most important person in my life: my son! I'm a proud mommy and I love my son so much! I always dreamed about doing his birthday cakes and this year I baked 2 cakes for him (one for his birthday in school and the other one for his family party).
Also for the family party I did all the candies and cupcakes. I was very happy with everything! He really loved his 2 parties! ;)

His cake for school: vanilla cake filled with dulce de leche and with brigadeiro filling! So Good!! 

His cake: the bottom cake is a vanilla cake filled with dulce de leche and the top tier is chocolate cake with brigadeiro filling.

The cake table! we love Elmo!

Carrot mini-cupcake with brigadeiro frosting. 

Dark chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream.

Happy baking!!

Messy Cake

Hey guys!!


See, I'm updating my blog!! I'm so proud of myself!!! :)
Anyway, I had an order for a messy cake (do you remember my messy cupcakes? No? Here is the link: http://bit.ly/f1FqaU )
The cake was white chocolate with fresh strawberries ad frosted with marshmallow. So good!!! :) I also used some fondant to decorate it. I really wanted to make a fun and colourful cake and I like the way it turned out! :)

Happy Baking!!

Chocolate-cake box

Hey you guysss!! ;P

Valentine's Day here in the U.S. in on February 14th but in Brazil is in July 12th and my husband is very lucky because this year (just like the year before) he'll get sweet treats for both Valentines Day! :D For the american V-day I made him a very special cake. It's a cake that I saw on Bakerella site a while ago and I always wanted to try. It's a heart- chocolate-box made out of cake and fondant! Super cool!! :) And to get better... the "cake-box" is filled with cake truffles (which are the same thing as cake pops just without the stick).
My hubby loved his gift! The flavour of the cake is dark chocolate and I used cream cheese buttercream (OH MY GOSH, this is so yummy!! I totally recommend!!) that I also got from Mrs. Bakerella and you can find the recipe here.
I hope you like it!! 

And there it is... the "box" of chocolate! yummy!!

Tha cake truffles

More truffles

Oh, oh... a broken heart... ;P

Happy Baking!!

Ah, the butterflies...

Hey guys!!


Well, our stay in Chicago is heading to an end and I'm really sad! I'm in love with Chicago!! :) Not so much about the cold though... lol....but after the groundhog said that the spring will come sooner this year I decided to bake a cake to celebrate that! So I decided to make a butterfly cake with some new cutters that I bought from PME. 
The cake is a choco-lime with marshmallow and it was really delicious!! But I had some problem with the Wilton fondant. I don't know why but as soon as I got that fondant in my hands it started to wrinkle... yes, to wrinkle... so weird... Not nice, Wilton, not nice....:(

Happy Baking!!

My first order.... :D

Hi guys!
Couple weeks ago I had my first order!  It was for a very special boy who is my son's best friend. He wanted a Toy Story b-day cake, so I  accept the challenge and went straight ahead  to start modeling the Woody and Buzz for the first time in my life ... I even can say this: modeling for the first time in my life!! I searched the internet a lot trying to find a lot of inspiration and then I remembered that one of my friends, Chris Parga, from  B de Bolo had done a wonderful cake from Toy Story before. I recommend you stop by her blog! She is a lovely person and I'm super fan of everything she does! And I was inspired on the cake she made. Now I have to say ... modeling characters is not easy, ok?! I spent 3 days to assemble the dolls! I thought the result was pretty cool. But I know I still have a lot to learn!

Happy Baking!!!

Circle Cake

Hi guys!!
So, my sister-in-law is here visiting us and she celebrated her 31st birthday here with us. And of course I did her cake... ;P. Too bad that I didn't had much time to decorate, so I had to choose something more simple but I kinda like it the result. And I got the chance to use my brand new cake pedestal that I fell in love with... :D
It was a chocolate cake filled with white chocolate buttercream and fresh strawberries! It was sooo Yummy!!

 Happy Baking!!

Bzzz Bee Cake

The bzzzz bees on spot!

Hi guys, how are you? Yesterday was the final class for the flower course from Wilton. Again we had to make a cake iced with buttercream and use the techniques that we learned during the course.

I made a carrot cake with raisins frosted and filled with "real" white chocolate buttercream that my dear friend Layla taught me.  To decorate I made fondant flowers in three shades, some leaves and three little cute Bees (that I did using the tutorial on the blog: http://chiccookiekits.blogspot.com/). I also used the classic Wilton technique: the "basketweave". I twas pleased with the result..., what do you think?

One important detail: I used this amazing real buttercream (no crisco on it) and it is real light and fluffy but the fondant flowers got a little heavy for the buttercream so they weighed too much and pushed down all the buttercream ... Luckily, I managed to take pictures of the entire cake before going all down! …lol… live and learn right people?

The cake... I guess you guys can see that is starting to collapse here... :( 

The flowers..

Next week begins the Fondant Course! Woohoo! Finally! :)

Happy Baking!!

To my gradma, with love

My beloved grandmother left so many wonderful memories to me but unfortunately she passed away almost 3 years ago. She was and still is very present and important in my life. She was very talented in everything she did. My gradma used to make some caramelized candies that are very elegant and chic, for her grandchildren she used to bake  and decorate 3D cakes also she would bake tarts, pies, cookies… a lot of yummy treats!  And she always would give spatula for me to taste what she was doing.. hmmm ... and I loved! And today I'm here, trying to follow her steps (I still lack many ....) and trying to honor someone so special in my life.

I said all this to tell you that I finished the first module of my Wilton Method course. Next week I'll start the flowers course and in November the fondant one. For our final cake we had to to use the techniques we learned during this module (which was the basic one).

We had to decorate with buttercream and do any kind of cake but my cake came out as a disaster ... hahahaha ... I tried to make the cake type "checkerboard". This cake my grandmother used to make for my grandpa and I thought it was a good way to honor her but unfortunately I failed. The vanilla batter disappeared completely and got very hard, the chocolate batter was great but when mixed with vanilla got terrible ... hahaha ... anyway, at least I tried but I'm not a quitter and I'm going to do once more!! I kinda like my final cake and I hope you like it too...

Happy Baking!!

Wonky Cakes

I'm that kind of person that love the things that were different, funny and creative. Of course that the tradicional also pleases me but the "crazy" things get my attention. If you noticed I'm writing about the Wonky Cakes...lol...These inclined, crooked cakes are awesome, crazy and perfect in the same time! I want so bad to learn how to make them but I still haven't found a course here in Chicago area. I only found in Canada and England. If anyone knows where I can take the class around here please let me know!!


My Wilton instructor told me about a lady in England who make this Wonky Cakes. Her name is Lindy and her company is Lindy's Cakes. Her cakes are gorgeous and she also teach some classes but the problem is that she lives on the other side of the Atlantic!! My dear friend Layla from Layla Pegado Cakes is so lucky!! hehehe
This video I found on Youtube and it is kinda like a tutorial and it is very nice to watch! I hope you guys like it! :D

Happy Baking!! 

Trying new recipes

Hi guys! Sorry for my absence! My son is suffering with his teething and they are coming all at once... so the motherhood needs to come first! But I managed to take some time and grab him with me to have a fun time in the kitchen so I could try 2 new recipes: Chocolate Chiffon Cake and Chocolate Ganache. Both were very good, but together I thought it was a disaster! hahahahahaha ... the cake and the ganache has a super strong chocolate flavor, is wonderful, is not sweet. And I made the ganache that they taught us in Le Cordon Bleu with 70% cocoa chocolate. Actually I think that for a connoisseur of "chocolat" those recipes were very good but for those who like a sweet chocolate treat (like me) weren't ... I will repeat the recipe, but I will make the ganache with milk chocolate.

The mini cake won my pool this week so I baked in mini cake pans but I did not decorated or make it fancy... just plain chocolate cake with some sprinkles on top...

Chocolate Chiffon Cake (Le Cordon Bleu)

Dry Ingredients

2/3 cup of flour plus 1 1/4 cocoa

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

Liquid Ingredients

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup of egg yolk (about 4 Jumbo eggs)

1/2 cup water

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Merengue Ingredients

2/3 cup egg whites (which gives the whites of 4 eggs ...)

1/3 cup sugar

A pinch of cream of tartar

How to make it

In a large bowl combine all dry ingredients

Using a separate bowl combine liquid ingredients and then add to the dry ingredients.

Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until frothy and then add the sugar to finish the meringue.

Place the meringue slowly into the mixture of liquid and dry ingredients, mixing very gently with a spatula. Mix until all the ingredients are combined.

Place in two 8”cake pans to bake on the preheated oven (350F) for about 25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cake cool in pan for 15 minutes and then continue cooling on cooling rack or parchment paper.

Ganache Chocolate (Le Cordon Bleu)

8 oz dark chocolate

1 cup (8 oz) heavy cream

Heat the cream (do not boil) and then add the chocolate to melt in hot cream.

That's it for now!

Happy Baking!!!

Le Cordon Bleu

WOWW!! I need to start my post with WOWWWW!!! Oh my gosh, the class was wonderful! The Chef McNabb who teach us is a lovely person and very funny too. The 3 hour class seamed to be like a 3 minute class. It was so good!! I have to say that everything that they use there are from scratch. And it's delicious!


In the beginning of class the Chef taught us to make a chocolate chiffon cake (which by the way is GREAT!!), buttercream, ganache and marzipan. Then she began teaching us how to make the buttercream rose.


I got so happy because I had this fear about making flowers. But it's not that complicated, we just need to practice. 

I was trying to film when she was making the roses but I don't know what happened to my camera and the image is not so good but I guess we can take something out of it....

And I really think that I did well (please people, give me a break here, ok?! hahahaha... it was the first time that I did the roses... :D). And then we lear how to make flowers, fruits and people out of marzipan. here's a picture of my cake (please don't judge me too much... hahahaha).

I loved the class and Kinda make me want to take their "Baking and Patisserie" Course but now it's impossible (besides being very expensive... ). But in October I'll take the cookie class and in February the chocolate class...hmmmm....


Oh, I almost forgot to tell you... when we were learning to make the flowers they brought us some snack... handmade focaccia and at the end of class they baked us fresh pizza (all done by the culinary students)!!! Wasn't nice?? I loved it!!! Well... it's Cordon Bleu we are talking about, right?! :D


So, did you already vote in my pool this week?? Vote!! I'm dying to know what I'll bake next week!!! :)


Happy Baking!!!