Pina Colada Cupcakes

"Escape" with these Pina Colada Cupcakes!! (yes this post comes with music)

 I really made the Black Forest cake smaller so that I could make these bad boys!! These came out sooo good!! It was a coconut cake made with coconut cream and of course some Malibu Coconut Rum =). Since I made a cherry simple syrup for the Black Forest cake, I thought it'd be cool to use the leftover pineapple juice for these cupcakes (with another shot of that rum). I filled them with crushed pineapple, and topped them with a Coconute Cream Cheese (more rum please) Icing and toasted coconut. A new favorite for me (and my brother lol)

Black Forest Cake!!

I usually plan to bake on my nights off from work so I was looking for new recipes to try. My mom took notice and suggests : "how about a chocolate cake...with chocolate filling..and cherries?" lol so i go "black forest? alright I guess so". I made a 6inch Black Forest cake for her and like 4 cupcakes out of the leftover batter. I made a chocolate cake, cherry simple syrup to moisten (with the extra cherry juice and black cherry schnapps..SO GOOD), cherry filling using canned tart cherries, chocolate pudding (cheated and used a box of devils food instant with a cup of milk and a little shot of "whipped" vodka), whipped cream and maraschinos to top it off ..she loved it!

I filled the cupcakes with the cherries and topped it off with the pudding, whip and maraschino.

Biker Baby Cake

So one of my best friends asked me to make a cake for her son's 1st birthday party....Biker themed.
I decided to do a leather jacket cake (Orange Cream) and put a Big Wheel (made of gumpaste) on top and Root Beer Float cupcakes with fondant flames =)

Spidey!!

A good friend of the family (like a brother to me really) asked me to do a cake for his sons' birthday party (their birthdays fall around the same time so they had one party) last year. It was originally going to be Spongebob but the mother called and changed it to Spiderman (Spongebob will be this year and it's coming up soon so keep checking back).

This was a Red and Blue velvet cake, marbled for that Spidey effect =) with Cream Cheese icing

Miami Dolphins Cake

My brother's best friend (we call him Mr. Turco) is a huge Dolphins fan. When his 26th birthday came around, I thought it would be cool to try to do a helmet cake (haven't done one before this). I had no idea how I was going to create the logo, then I decided to cut it out of fondant and paint it (food coloring of course).
It was a surprise and he loved it. I wish I had a picture of how he was eating it lol He ate it in a way that it kept the helmet shape because he "didn't want to ruin it".

This was an Orange cake with a White Chocolate Cream Cheese icing.
I pearl dusted the white fondant and the guard was made out of gum paste.

Wedding Cake on my own

This is the first wedding cake I made on my very own.I was doing my externship at an Italian Bakery in Spring Hill, FL (closed,unfortunately) where I was literally getting paid in meatballs. The woman who owned it was very sweet and made me an Italian lunch everyday. We got an order for a wedding cake to be done and she was sure that I could do it on my own. Of course I pretended to have full confidence in myself but I was scared thinking "oh my God, this is big time stuff". Well, she showed me the idea the couple had and whatdyaknow? It turned out pretty good and the newlyweds were happy. <3
Do I remember their names? No, BUT I remember this cake lol. (c'mon it was yrs ago and I didn't even do the interview, my boss did lol)

This was a Butter cake with fresh Strawberry filling, Vanilla Buttercream decorated with Fondant swags and fresh flowers.

 

Chocolate Cupcakes Caramel Buttercream

 Last wednesday, my sister, brother, and I planned to get everyone in one spot and have a family dinner for my mother. I was tricked into making both dinner and dessert of course (didn't see that one coming lol).I was determined to "perfect" the Caramel Buttercream I had attempted to make a week prior (too soft last time) so I chose to pair that with the chocolate cake I recently fell in love with and a (homemade ;) ) caramel drizzle. A success!!! YAY!!

WELCOME

Hello there! Welcome to my new blog for Bangarang Cakes! I'm so excited to share with you what I love to do.
I bake.
I went to culinary school to be a Pastry Chef. One of the best years of my life. I learned so much and met some great people. In cakes class (how freakin' cool is it that my college courses were "cakes", "bread", "custard"?), we were allowed to be more creative and as soon as I found out what our first big project was, I got so STOKED that before he (CHEF RALPH) could even finish explaining all the details, I had already begun sketching out ideas.
We were to pick a theme and decorate a cake using only modeling chocolate. He showed us pictures of what other students had done to kind of inspire us I guess. Many had chosen movie themes, especially Disney, and even Music so I thought it'd be awesome to do a song... "The Girl from Ipanema". I'm half Brazilian and following tradition of doing Brazilian themed projects for school, I thought it'd be perfect.
After making this cake and seeing how excited I was that I had an idea and it came through, making cakes became my favorite part of being a baker/Pastry Chef. Probably because I had no idea I was capable of being creative in an artsy way...and it working out lol.

 

Oh, and if you're wondering how I got the name "Bangarang", please do yourself a favor and watch "Hook". One of the best movies of all time, seen it over and over again and quote it often =).
Thank you for taking interest in this new project of mine and I hope you keep comin' back because there's more to come!