Valentines Day seemed like a good reason to try another recipe out of the latest Christina Tosi cookbook. This cake was chocolate chip cake layers (which on their own are SO good!) topped with cookies n creme frosting, chocolate crumbs and mint liquid cheesecake. 

I'm not normally a huge fan of mint in baked goods but this was amazingly delicious! It didn't make the cleanest slices ever on the plate but what it lacked in presentation, it made up for in flavor!

This cake was for an office birthday. I was intrigued by the idea of adding grapefruit to a cake. It seemed like the flavors in the cake would be as vibrant as the birthday girl and it did not disappoint!

The raspberry bundt cake itself was delicious but I baked it in an angel food cake pan that apparently is warped so I ended up with cake batter all over the element in my oven! The addition of the grapefruit glaze to this cake is genius but the recipe came out of a Christina Tosi cookbook so I shouldn't be surprised. I will definitely make this one again!

This was my first attempt at making a mirror glaze cake since my master class in December. I was both nervous and excited to try it out!

The center layer was kiwi jelly surrounded by a creme Anglais soft cream.

The outside mousse layer was a mango mousse with a base of almond Joconde and almond crumble.

Then the real magic happens! I was so happy at this point when I saw that the glazed cake had turned out the way that I wanted it to! There were things that I can improve on next time as I had a few air bubbles in my mirror glaze and I didn't pour enough glaze in a few places. Overall though, for a first try, I'm very happy with the results.

It looks nice when it's sliced too. I'm already planning the next mirror glaze cake. I think I am officially hooked! :)

I had a friend cancel plans at the last minute and I used my free Friday night to try out this recipe from Christina Tosi's latest cookbook, All About Cake. This pile of deliciousness was dulce de leche cake layers soaked in milk topped with dulce de leche, milk crumbs and dulce de leche frosting. The frosting was amazing! This one would definitely be worth making again!!

I met the birthday girl in May of this year and she immediately started planning what cake she wanted and it took her until September to decide on this design. The unicorn horn and ears are made from fondant but everything else on this one is buttercream!

One of the instructions I was given was to make sure there were lots of buttercream rosettes so all of her friends could have some. I suspect they didn't run short on buttercream!!

I was lucky enough to spend three days training with one of the best! Over the three days, we learned lots about baking, chocolate making and mirror glaze! The days were long and I found the course challenging. I'm not used to being on my feet all day so my back and feet hurt quite a lot. The room was freezing cold to make sure the chocolate would temper too. All that being said, I'm grateful to have had the opportunity and I learned so, so much over the days of the course.

I've been watching Ksenia Penkina on Instagram in amazement for a few years but seeing it in person is much better. This one with the gold leaf may be one of my favorite mirror glaze cakes ever!

These three cakes were part of the presentation table at the end of the three day class. I can't wait to try one of the donut cakes (like the pink one) at home!

I believe I did the mirror glaze on this cake :) It's topped with a chocolate sphere.

These are some of the chocolates we made during the class. The colors were incredible in the chocolate and the shine on them was amazing. They tasted spectacular too! The exotic caramel with banana and coconut was my favorite!

This was a pistachio calamansi entremets containing pistachio matcha mousse, sour calamansi cream, pistachio waffle crisp, and pistachio dacquoise.

This beautiful creation is dark chocolate & hazelnut dacquoise, cocoa nib crunch, coffee namalaka, and hazelnut mousse.

This entremet had a joconde base, almond crumble, kiwi jelly, soft cream and mango mousse. 

The finished presentation table was so festive and I also loved the decorations on the chandeliers!

This is the first cake I've tried out of the new Christina Tosi cookbook All About Cake. I needed to make a cake for a birthday in the office and this seemed to be the best fit in terms of flavors.

This cake was vanilla cake layers soaked in fresh squeezed lemon juice filled with pickled strawberry jam, milk crumbs, lemon curd cheesecake and topped with pickled strawberry frosting and more milk crumbs. 

The finished cake was really good, if a bit hard to slice. One person at work even said it was their favorite cake they'd ever had! I can't wait to try the next cake from that book :)

I had the recipe for this cake open in my browser of my iPad for about six months. And last week, the perfect opportunity presented itself! I found out it was my boss's birthday and she loves chocolate!

The cake layers are a fudgy chocolate cake, the icing is milk chocolate mascarpone Swiss meringue buttercream. There's a little chocolate-bourbon glaze on it and lots of salted caramel and dark chocolate crisp pearls to add some crunch.

The original recipe can be found here:
https://www.stylesweetca.com/blog/2017/7/17/triple-chocolate-fudge-cake-with-milk-chocolate-cloud-frosting 
For the record, you can count on any recipes you get off her site to be excellent and if you don't have her cookbook Layered, you should get it asap! I only made a few minor changes to the recipe and it was a huge hit in the office!

When I learned one of my favorite people was moving to a new job, I offered to make the cake for her farewell party and then started trying to narrow down the flavors. I couldn't decide between two recipes so decided to make them both!

These margarita cupcakes with tequila lime Italian meringue buttercream were SO good! The cake contains frozen margarita mix and it's so light and airy! I topped each cupcake with a lime slice and a cocktail umbrella.

The cake was raspberry cake layers with a mango Swiss meringue buttercream. Both the cake and the icing used freeze dried powder instead of fresh fruit and the flavor was really good! I topped the cake with freeze dried raspberries, mint leaves and fresh raspberries.

There are two different flavors of cake layers in this cake. Vanilla confetti cake and strawberry confetti cake. The recipe actually calls for you to make homemade sprinkles, which I had never done before... and may never do again. This amount of green sprinkles took me about 45 minutes to make before I gave up and went to the store to buy sprinkles. I did use these homemade ones though and they do taste better than the ones you buy in the store, if you happen to have a free day to only pipe sprinkles!

There are also two kinds of filling in this cake - strawberry cream filling and confetti buttercream. The combination of all of these parts together is really delicious!

Even with sprinkles in the buttercream, I was able to ice it smooth before the fondant went on!

The logo is entirely made from fondant and I was happy with how well it turned out! The baseball hat is constructed from rice cereal treats covered in fondant.

The baseball and bat are also rice cereal treats covered in fondant. The lacing on the baseball was piped with piping gel. The cake is sitting on a real home base plate glued to a cake drum for stability.

The real test for this cake is going to be if it can survive a mid summers day drive to Seattle! Fingers crossed!!