more cakes

maybe we should change our name to unofficial cakes!

These are Zaven's birthday cake (with poured sugar!)




and this is the cake Caly made for her teacher.

Zaven's cake was supposed to look like the lost city of Atlantis. I don't know if it looked like Atlantis, but it tasted yummy! Some of the poured sugar carmelized just a bit and it was SO good. The top piece was super hard to get right because my kitchen got humid and it wanted to crystalize. I finally just gave up and let it instead of re-melting the sugar.

We used a silicon baking mold. It was super cool. I've never done poured sugar before but it was fun (if frustrating).

Amazing! they both look deliciousssssssssss

That is such an imaginative cake, Karen! I wish I could have been there to walk around it. Where in the heck do you get a mold like that? And what was the mold called? Your family is so creative!

That is cool karen, I think it definitely looks like Atlantis...how did you get it to look that way...poured sugar..I have never done it..tell us a bit about it..(if you don't mind)

Cool Beans... I love seeing all these cake photos, creations... no way would I attemp, but would gladly pay for some one to make!

Cool Karen!
I want to know more about poured sugar too.

Cool, how did you do that sugar? It looks great

Lori wrote:That is such an imaginative cake, Karen! I wish I could have been there to walk around it. Where in the heck do you get a mold like that? And what was the mold called? Your family is so creative!

Well, the mold for the top is called an inside out bundt cake pan. I had bought a silicon bundt cake pan a few years ago at walmart on clearance. The outer pieces (the green ones) are the way the bundt pan looks when it's right side out.

I didn't have internet when I tried this, so I don't know if I did it the right way, but here's what I did. I put 3 cups of sugar in a saucepan and added e drops of food coloring. Then I added just enoughwater to make the sugar wet. I turned the heat on med until the sugar got liquid, then I put a candy thermometer in the liquid. I turned the heat up and watched the temp. It'll go up to 220 which is the temp water boils at. Then it just stays there for a while while the water boils off. Then it starts going up again.

On the candy thermometer it shows all the different stages that sugar goes through. It does soft ball and hard ball and soft crack and hard crack. For this, you need hard crack. At each stage the temp kind of hovers for a while before starting to go up again. I turned up the heat to high but you have to watch because it goes from too cool to burning really quick as it approaches hard crack.

If there's any crumbs of unmelted sugar on the edge of the pan when you pour it, it will all start to crystalize. That's what kept happening to me.

I'm sorry to bump this up but I forgot to add one thing in the directions and didn't want to screw anyone up.

If you do make poured sugar pieces, be sure to keep them in ziploc bags until you're ready to serve the cake. They get sticky and nasty in the humidity of a hot kitchen.

I put the big piece in a ziploc big bag. It worked perfect and I kept thinking of how I could write a BzzReport about it if it was still a campaign.

Funny about the Bzz Reports, Karen! I used my Windex window cleaner yesterday to wash my dad's exterior windows for the 2nd year in a row for Father's Day. He was telling me that he has a cleaning lady that comes in when he needs her. SHe said she'd do window exteriors if he gave her enough notice and she could bring her buckets, squeegee etc. He told her about the WIndex tool and cleaning pads and she had never heard of it. He told her the windows dried themselves streak-free. I could bzz that thing every year. Best invention ever!

sounds like I have to get me one!

Karen, I'm glad you bumped it! IMissed it!!

I love it!! I've never tried poured sugar.. I'll have to try it. that is sooo cool looking!! and thats one of my favorite colors!!


Caly's cake is sooo cute!

Im glad you bumped it too! I had never heard of poured sugar before and I also love the color.. It's beautiful! Im confused though.. Did you pour the sugar in the mold and that is the top part? When you said to keep the sugar pieces in baggies I got a little lost.. sorry

I poured the melted sugar into a silicone mold. Then when it cooled and was solid again I took it out of the mold and put it on the cake. The cooled sugar will get sticky if you leave it out overnight in a warm kitchen (think lollipop stuck to your car upholstery) so I put it in a ziploc so that the heat and humidity wouldn't cause it to get sticky.

So it gets solid like hard candy?
I am looking for a recipe for sugar mold I guess....like the easter eggs that you look into and there is stuff in them.,..and they are made of sugar.

Yup. It makes hard candy. Some of what we made were hollow. But it's hard to get those out of the molds without cracking them. I think you'd have to layer them to make them thicker, but I didn't try that so I don't know how it would work.

Erin, I remember those candies!