Kahlua.. a sweet success

As a follow up to wednesday's blog, I had told you about my experimental cakes that I was going to make.  Both cakes sold within 12 hours of their creation.. Definitely a success in my book, especially for being a dessert cake.

The chocolate turtle cake consisted of me having to make Kahlua caramel which was one of the main ingredients besides the chocolate cake.  Now just a little background into my caramel making history.. I haven't made caramel since culinary school and I wasn't exactly sure how to make it.  So I did what any new age culinary connoisseur would do and I google'd it.  I found some great tutorial videos on how to make sure the caramel would remain a sauce and not turn into a brick.

I first started with a half cup of butter and two cups of brown sugar, let the two come to a boil in a sauce pot.  After boiling for 1 minute I added a half cup of Kahlua and allowed the mixture to cook for an additional 30 seconds before adding one cup of heavy cream.  Ta-da!  Kahlua Caramel....  mmm yummy

Add some of that Kahlua caramel to the buttercream and you have a sweet success story.  Four layers of chocolate cake filled with three layers of Kahlua caramel buttercream, topped with ganache icing and garnished with pecans chocolate shavings and drizzled with Kahlua caramel sauce.

Chocolate Turtle Cake with Kahlua Caramel Buttercream

Here is another sweet success of the week.. a beautiful 60th birthday chocolate cake filled with alternating layers of chocolate buttercream and white buttercream.  Decorated to be similar to a Japanese cherry tree.

Japanese cherry trees

Have a great week everyone.. this week is going to be a wild ride.  I have 6 wedding cakes, for a total tier count of 19 not including shop orders, or shop cakes.

Wish me luck!