Pop Up Birthday

One of my favorite clients called me on Monday or Tuesday and asked if I could make her a cake for Saturday for her boss' Fathers' 70th Birthday.  I didn't have much going on that week so I told her, "of course!"  She emailed me a picture of what she wanted and I got started on Friday evening, baking the yellow cake.  I tried a new recipe that looked pretty good.  I really liked the texture of this cake.  It had structure but still had a great crumb.  The original recipe called for shortening as the fat but I substituted butter for half the fat.  I also read something that said the fat and sugar should be SUPER creamed, so I stuck it in the KitchenAid for about 7 minutes (much longer than I normally cream the sugar).  I think that will be my thing to do from now on, as I was really pleased with this cake.

It's one 10" round (one layer only) topped with the numbers cut out of yellow cake and covered in vanilla buttercream frosting.  I did not level the top of the round because the inspiration photo kept it.  I think I much prefer the flat top, as it makes decorating evenly much easier (you can see where you're thick or thin in the icing department much more easily).  I froze an 8" round for carving, then scaled and carved the numbers.  After I crumbcoated the cakes, I smoothed the top only of the 10" cake and the zero.  I used tip number...well gosh it's the large leaf tip, I don't remember the number!  74?  Something like that.  Anyway, I used that tip to put on the vertical lines around the sides of the 10" round.  I then decorated the numbers (except the edging and flowers) with tip #16 (medium star tip), placed them on the cake (CAREFULLY!) and piped the swirl edge border around them and at the top and bottom of the round.  After spaceing the letters and marking the placement on the cake with a toothpick, I piped the letters in black.  I also used that color for the lines on the numbers.
The flowers I made out of rolled "buttercream".  It's pretty much just shortening and powdered sugar, and I happened to already have some on hand.  I used my floral cutters to cut out the shapes and rolled them gently larger, then placed and painted on the centers with food gel coloring, thinned slightly with vodka.
I did all the decorating on Saturday morning while my wonderful hubby was out with E.  I wanted this cake to be as fresh as possible!  They came to get it at around 1pm and they loved it!  I always enjoy people getting a kick out of what I do.
Coming up next I am going to make a wedding cake.  I'm going to post on Craigslist in the free section and see if there's anyone out there who wants a big ol' beautiful cake before the end of the month, only having to pay for the ingredients.  I hope someone bites, as I need to get a wedding cake under my belt and I am hoping to advertise with A. Chris' wedding photography business and I need a wedding cake picture for that!  Wish me luck!

Funny Little Burger Cake

So yesterday was April Fools' day, and since I had already made the Spaghetti and Meatballs cake I needed a new idea.  We invited a couple over for dinner and I thought another little cake (read: 4 servings and NO leftovers for me to pig out on).  I really wanted another shaped food cake, so I went with a hamburger.  I made up a boxed cake (is this becoming a trend for me?  OH NO!) into a 6" and a 10" cake.  I put them in the oven at 350 and let them bake for 10 minutes, then my Mother-In-Law called to say she was outside.  Miscommunication!  I thought she was going to be around 30 minutes out!  So I turned off the oven and let them sit in there while we went out.  They came out a little overcooked but otherwise fine.

When I came home I used the 6" cake for the base and covered it with white frosting.  The bottom and top buns I cut out 3.5" diameter.  The "burger" part was about 3" diameter and thinner.  The top bun I shaved into a dome and covered, and the bottom I just covered in the tan frosting.  I put the bottom bun on the base, then frosted the burger all sloppy-like so it looked sort of real and placed that.  I made the cheese and veggies out of fondant I had leftover.

Cheese first!  The pickles were light green with dark green outside.  I did this by rolling the lt. green into a thick log and rolling out a rectangle of the dark green, then using a serrated knife to cut thick chunks of that off and rolled them to the correct pickle size.  The tomatoes are just red fondant circles and the lettuce is dark green (I love me some romaine!) cut into ovals and the edges I rolled with a special frilling tool to make them lettuce-y.  I placed all these things (in this order) and cemented them with a drop or two of water, then used the #3 tip to pipe on the mayo and ketchup (just colored buttercream).  Then I placed the top bun on and piped on sesame seeds with the #2 tip in white.
It was a fun little cake!  When our guests

arrived, however, they had brought these HUGE WONDERFUL cupcakes from a little bakery out in the West End, so I decided to give it away on Craigslist.  We did have the most wonderful time visiting!  We don't invite people over enough to entertain.  I just have a kick hanging out with adults, now that I'm in full mama mode all day most days!  Right now I'm waiting for someone to come pick it up.  I really love doing that.  I think I need to start donating cakes to causes or something, it really makes me happy!
Edited:  The guy came to pick it up right after I posted!  Hurray for free cakes!

Leisure Cakes for my Hubby

I made a couple of cakes this past week, but they were ALL FOR US!  Hubster kept saying that I make all these good pretty cakes for other people but he doesn't ever get any, so I set about on a mission to make cakes!  He just recently got a great new job, so to celebrate I made him this cake.

It was made up of leftover frosting, strawberry filling, and two 6" chocolate cakes I baked on accident.  I know, I know, it's hard to understand how someone can bake two cakes on accident, right?  Well I did and that's all you need to know!  Hahahaaa.  I was going for a whole sunrise theme, since I had leftover frosting from the Striped Kitty cake that was in those colors and a little leftover white.  This cake was SOOOOO yummy!

April Fools' Day is tomorrow, but for some reason I thought it was today and DH has school tonight after work and won't be home until late so I decided to do April Fools Dinner last night.  I made a shepherds' pie that looked like...well gosh I'm really not sure.  I guess I'd say it looked like a chocolate and strawberry mousse pie.

The bottom is regular meat and onion stuff and the top is mashed potatoes dyed pink.  My secret weapon when it comes to sneaking veggies in is putting shredded carrots into everything.  This dish, sloppy joes, everything.  Anyhoosit, here's a picture.  It was pretty tasty!

For dessert I made a Spaghetti and Meatballs cake.  It's a lemon cake (boxed!  EEK!) with buttercream "noodles" and cake balls on top, covered with strawberry sauce.  It was fun to make!

I found myself laughing out loud the whole time I was making it.  The dish it's in is one of my Moms Heisey Crystal serving platters.  I'm not even sure if that's the right spelling for the crystal.  She has a whole collection, so I know they exist, but I cannot for the life of me find them online now that I'm trying not to look stupid and misspell stuff. Ah well, I'm sure all of you on the interwebz forgive me.
Have a long and happy warm day!
Edited:  I discovered the type of crystal platter, and I changed the spelling accordingly.  I spelled it Hi-C, like the HFCS laden, Red-40 havin "kids" drink!  I'm a silly, that's all there is to say about that!

My Busy Weekend, Part 2

The last cake that was due this weekend, on Sunday, was for the same client who picked up the Striped Cat Cake on Friday.  Her twins turned 8 (did I mention that already?  I just can't remember!) and she had the awesome cute idea of using the figure 8 cakes for both of them, decorated very differently.  It was truly inspired!

The Race Track Cake was very straightforward and a welcome cake after the hard time I had with the last cake.  Just two 2-layer 8" rounds pieced together and frosted with chocolate frosting colored dark gray (think asphalt).  I layered, fit together, covered, let it crust, and smoothed with Viva paper towels on Saturday night and let the cake hang out in the fridge until the morning.  During waiting/baking times, I made the flags out of gumpaste and let dry a little, then painted on the checkered flag and handled it roughly...MISTAKE!  It ripped right next to the "pole".  So I did it again and painted one side, then let it sit overnight with the fan on it.  The next day, fully refreshed, I piped on the outlines on the cake, piped the grass around, painted the other side of the checkered flag, and *poof* cake was done!  The client was to place some Hot Wheels on the track prior to serving.  Super cute!  Happy Birthday to Twins!
By the way, moms of twins are amazing.  Every time I see twins, I set their mom on a pedestal.  You know the best part?  They usually have makeup on and their clothing matches and has no stains (totally unlike me, and I only have one)!   It's simply awesome to me when I realize that there are mothers out there who can handle two at one time.  To all moms of multiples out there, you rock!

My Busy Weekend, Part 1

I'm still recovering from this weekend.  I had three cakes due, one on Friday, one on Saturday, and one due today (Sunday).  I'm not sure even how to start describing it all, so I guess I'll just dig in!

  I had a Striped Kitty Cat Cake due on Friday.  It's yellow cake with chocolate filling and crumbcoat, covered with vanilla buttercream applied with the grass tip to look like fur.  The inspiration photo was pretty boring and the Client pretty much gave me free reign with design, which was nice.  Two of the cakes this weekend were for her.  She has twins that are turning 8, and she was inspired by the figure 8 shape in the two cakes she picked out.  I decided to do a tye-dyed fondant cake board to add flair.  Baking and layering was very simple, and this was a pretty straightforward cake.  It did take me a while to stick the "hair" on (not to mention my carpal tunnel was going nuts on me by the end!) but it was a very relaxing activity.  I did end up putting green cat eyes on it after I took the picture, but forgot to take another afterward, so this is what I have!  As I was looking at the inspiration picture vs. the picture of my cake after she left, I realized I didn't add whiskers!  I hope nobody really noticed...well I guess I just called myself out on it anyway!
The next cake was due on Saturday.  There is such a long and drawn out story to this cake, so I'll condense it as much as possible.  The Clients were a very sweet couple and they wanted the Bucket of Bud Light cake.  It looked pretty straightforward so I went to work.  Everything went wrong that could!

During our consultation, I told them I'd use rice krispie treats covered in chocolate for the bottles...then I saw something online that I really wanted to try and I went out and bought this paintable latex molding compound and spent two days making a mold out of a beer bottle and letting it dry.

Then I poured super hot sugar into the mold and these wonderful bottles came out!  I was so excited, so I wrote the client and asked if she wanted the sugar bottles...good thing I did, because she was pretty excited about the rice krispie treat/chocolate combo!  I do have to admit, the RKT bottles were much more tasty!  So I set about making the bottles by making a 1/3 recipe of regular RKT and molding it to look like a very skinny bottle (to allow for the extra layers of chocolate to be painted on top).  Each bottle took 1/3 recipe of RKT.  The secret to making them hold their form is to pack them very tightly!

Then I coated each one with milk chocolate, two layers, by brushing it on.  Mmmmmmm.  The labels on the bottles are painted rolled buttercream.  The labels on the top were SO tiny, even my super small brush was too big to use very easily!  I did multiple labels trying to get them better...with no avail.  Instead of freaking out, I just went with the best I could do.  I overshot my abilities on this one, I think!

When the time came to stack the tiers (3 tiers of 2-layer chocolate cake with strawberry filling and vanilla buttercream frosting) I realized I had drastically underestimated the sheer weight and top-heaviness of the cake.  I tried setting the bottles in the top and the whole top tier broke into little pieces.  And I realized that the party was in Petersburg and there would be a stop in-between...the cake needed strength!  So that night I stayed up until 2am (usual bedtime on the weekends?  10 LOL) baking more cakes and re-stacking using 1/4" dowels hammered through the reinforced 2-layer foam boards (replaced the cardboard I had used before) and into the new 4-layer (up from 2) foam cake board at the bottom.  I measured, cut, and sharpened the dowels and actually used a HAMMER to push them through all the layers.  Then I made a pilot hole in the the bottles by pushing a dowel through the bottom center of all the bottles and placed those on four of the five 1/4" dowels.  The top tier broke into pieces AGAIN.  The picture is right before things got really ugly.  I realized the bottles had to set very lightly into the cake, not set in as was described in the tutorials I'd seen.  At this point I was going nuts, so I boiled some sugar and corn syrup to the hard crack stage and poured it into the cracks.  MISTAKE!  lol I am so lucky I didn't ruin the bottom two tiers.  I was so tired at this point that I put it in the fridge and went to bed.  The next morning I woke up at 7am and started baking again.  I made the label for the bucket out of regular fondant and coloring gel and placed it.
The ice is 1/2c sugar and 1/2c corn syrup melted down and boiled until just before it turns yellow.  I crinkled up a piece of nonstick tin foil (nonstick part is CRUCIAL) and made little ice cube trays of sorts out of it. Then I poured the hot hot sugar into the "mold" I had made and let them cool, then popped them out and set them on the cake.  Voila, ice in the bucket.  And you know what?  They tasted like cotton candy to me! 

The cake was done.  Gosh, that was the condensed version, and I'm pooped out!  I wish I was more proud of it than I am, you know?  I spent SO much time and energy on it.  At least it tasted good!  I did get an email from the Clients today that told me that everyone LOVED the cake and it was SOOOO good, so that makes me feel really great...but I really wish I could have knocked this one out of the park for these people.  But, as a good friend of mine told me about this situation, we have to have bad experiences in order to appreciate the good ones.  She is so smart! :)
I will post later today or tomorrow about the Race Track Cake.  The Client is bringing little matchbox cars for the top, and I want a picture of it all finished!

The Fruits Of My Labors!

So I gave away the Soccer cake on Craigslist for free a while ago, and I got a really nice letter and pictures in return!  I just wanted to post really quickly and share the good vibes!

Hurray for eating cake!

Flower Power!

  Another week, and another cake!  After last week, my housework got WAY behind, and I was sort of looking forward to just chilling out and cleaning the house...okay.  Maybe not looking forward to cleaning the house, but you get the picture.  Then I got an email from a lady asking about a rush job for another Sweet 16 cake!  I love these kind of things.  You have people that have almost given up hope on getting the cake they want.  You can almost feel the resignation that they will end up either paying $600 or just going to Walmart for their cake through the internet.  At any rate, They sent me a few pictures, and I gladly accepted the challenge!
  I had a heck of a time with the fondant.  The first two tiers I covered I messed up on.  They just dried out too quickly.  In order to re-do them, I had to make more fondant and wait 8 hours for the batch to cure.  ARGH!  But I eventually got it and covered and stacked the tiers.  Blank slate.  White cake.

I rolled out a black fondant ribbon 1.5" wide and wound it around the bottom tier.  Then I started putting on the vines.  It was relaxing work, but definitely something different.  After putting on the vines, I placed the ribbons around the cake and secured them at the back.  Since they are satin, I couldn't use water or gumpaste glue under them.  I secured one end, wrapped the cake, and secured the other end with a dab of the glue.  This left an ugly little mess at the back of the cake.  Probably not noticeable to anyone but me, but gosh I didn't want to leave it there.  Anyhoos.  I cut and placed the flowers.  I had moulded the numbers for the top of the cake on Monday night, the night the clients came over, so they had ample time to dry.  They had craft sticks pushed up into them before they dried, so they were pretty secure.  I wound a few vines around them and attached flowers.  Then I covered the cake board with black fondant and placed the bottom (orange) ribbon.  I made a template for the name on the board, then scrapped that.

Block lettering didn't seem to fit the vibe of this cake, so I rolled out another long snake of fondant and wrote her name in cursive.  For the tittle, I made a little tye dye fondant using all the colors I used on the cake and cut out a little flower.  It was uber cute, I think!

  I then turned my attention to the back of the cake.  It was very plain.  The birthday girl had told me she didn't mind if it was just plain, but I really wanted to spruce it up and I had extra fondant, so I started playing with it.  I cut out a massive amount of flowers and went to work sprucing it up!
I love how the back turned out.  It reminds me of the back of a wedding dress, you know the ones that have the buttons going all the way down the middle of the back and down the skirt?  Anyway.  I had a good time!

Then when the Mamma and Daughter came to get the cake, they LOVED it and the girl gave me a wonderful letter telling me how pleased she was and how thankful she was.  It truly made my week!  My husband was so happy for me, too.  That is just really thoughtful for a 16 year old, you know what I mean?

Well, this week is over and I made another cake for a family member, but we ended up not getting together, so I'm probably going to give this cake away on Craigslist tonight.  It's kind of a bummer but no real biggie.  It was a fun little cake and I really enjoyed doing buttercream grass on it.
  With the leftover cake from the soccer cake, I experimented for the first time with cake balls.  What you do it crumble up cake, mix it with buttercream frosting, and ball it up on the end of a stick.  Then you freeze it nice and hard.  Then you take milk chocolate and melt it on a double boiler, add a teaspoon of shortening, and stir it up.  Then you swirl the frozen cake balls into the chocolate until they are nice and covered, then you put them in the fridge, then...you eat them!  I'm really looking forward to making these more often.

What a good use of that extra cake you cut off the top of the domed cakes and the extra little bit of buttercream you're invariably left with.
  I'm contemplating using ganache to cover the next cake.  I'll keep you posted.

Wu-Tang parties with SpongeBob

 This week I had two cakes on my agenda. There was a SpongeBob smashcake for a little boy's 1st birthday and a Sweet 16 cake for a big party!  SpongeBob first, because I'm just aching to write about the Wu-Tang  cake and it's such sweet expectation!

  Dean is turning 1!  Grandma wanted a special cake just for him.  It's nothing incredibly outlandish, but it was a fun little cake.  It measures 7"x5".  I never watch SpongeBob so I had to go completely off of pictures, but I think it came out well.  The original cake we decided on was out of fondant, but of course, the one year old doesn't want fondant!  So this is me trying to make buttercream look more fondant-y.

The Wu-Tang cake was a MONSTER cake!  It weighed about 50 pounds.  The tiers are 12", 10", 8", and 6".  It took over 15 hours to decorate this cake (without baking times included).  It is all yellow cake with two layers of buttercream filling and two layers of strawberry filling.  There were five pictures we took inspiration from when the clients came to order.  From those five we came up with this concept drawing that became the Wu-Tang cake.  Why Wu-Tang?  Do you see the tops of the Wu-Tang symbol?

Well, I do!  It was truly wonderful working on this cake and I was so happy to see it's completion.  It feels like I haven't done laundry or answered emails since Tuesday!  On this cake I tried out a new technique of covering the cake board with fondant.  It was fairly simple and I really enjoy doing something new.  The stars were difficult to figure out how to put on.  I made the stars out of gumpaste and pressed two together to sandwich the wire, then painted them and let them dry.  I was going for a more "puffy" kind of look to the positioning of the wires, but the gumpaste proved to be just a little too heavy for the gauge of wire I selected.  I think it looks pretty good anyway, though!  The clients loved it, and that was the best part!
Well, my back aches and I'm ready to cuddle on the couch with my hubby for a while.  Long days and pleasant nights, everyone!

Princesses and Pirates!

This great little coffee spot in Carytown does kid's parties, and they have given me a chance at making their cakes.  This is the second party I've done, and I'm so excited about it!  The place itself is small enough so you can see everything, and yet large enough so your kiddo has room to romp around.  There is an infant play area and a "big kid" play area, and everything is clean and kept tidy.  The coffee is excellent and the staff is SO friendly!  They are affiliated with the church that meets at the Byrd Theatre on Sundays (I can't think of the name!) and it's just one of the best places to take your kid when you need a little "me" time.  They also have activities like story time for the little ones.  Their parties are reasonably priced, too!  So I just really like working with them.  Anyway, I'll get on with the sweets!

The theme was a Princess theme (with pirates for the boys), so I made some gumpaste crowns by using a large cutter that comes with the floral kit from Wilton, then shaped and cut, and put in a weird holder that I got from the Children's Museum to dry...I know, weird.  I don't even know what this thing is.  But it worked perfectly!  After they dried for two days, I thinned different colors with alcohol and painted on the gems.  Then I let the alcohol evaporate completely over the course of four days (just to be sure, this IS a kids party!)

For the pirates, I cut circles of gumpaste, then used the leaf cutter and rolled the results LONG.  I used those for the bandanas.  I then drew on the faces and decorated the bandannas using the aforementioned thinning technique.

After baking over 40 cupcakes (you have to always make a few extra for the ones that don't make it for whatever reason) and cooling them, I made the buttercream, colored it, piped it, and placed the crowns and pirates on.  I think they're adorable!  Except when some of the princesses went hussy and  joined the pirates.  That was just uncalled for!

Happy Birthday to my Husband!

My husband is a truly special sort of guy.  He works full time, goes to school nights, and is a great daddy when he's home.  I wanted to get him something really special this birthday.  He has wanted a T5-1000 Voltmeter for about two years now, but hasn't wanted to spend the money on it.  Perfect gift idea, right?  So I got him one ($60 off!) on EBay.  I let it slip that, well, IF I had gotten him, say, an 8GB Ipod, would he use it?  He started to get all excited...the trap was set!

Two days later I told him I'd opened the Ipod to charge it for him and put some songs on it, and the screen was broken and I'd had to send it back and hopefully the guy would fix it and not rip us off.  (Tee hee hee, I was all upset).  So then I set about making his cake.  I used that same spice cake I made last time I wrote.  I had cut it to size and frozen it.  Then I placed the voltmeter in the middle of the plate and decorated it to look like an Ipod.  Last year we were pretty broke and I made him a cake that looked like a voltmeter, so I thought it would totally throw him off.  We sang Happy Birthday, and he cut into the cake.

Only, the knife stopped and he couldn't cut any more!  So the jig was up!  He knew something was going on, but he thought I had an Ipod in there!  He scraped off the top of the cake and, VOILA!  Only the best present EVER!  He was so excited.  I'm pleased.  Notice the empty battery, that made me laugh for about an hour.  The cake was sort of a rush job, but I like it anyway!

Gumpaste Flowers and Basketweave

This cake is for a baby shower.  I am so pleased to be able to be a tiny part of this!  I was given a few pictures and pretty much free reign to design this cake.  I have been in love with basketweave for so long, so I decided to do the topper as a basket of gumpaste flowers.
The yellow cake recipe I've been making recently has baked funky and has been incredibly domed (which means more cake gets tossed out to level the cakes) the last few times I've made it, so a new recipe was in order.  I found it on Zaar, baked it up, and taste tested it.  Really really good.  I think it's better than the SeriousCakes yellow cake recipe.

 

This past week I made a cake aptly named "Eggless, Butterless, Milkless Cake."  I was a tad concerned that it would come out gross...boy was I mistaken!  The recipe came about during WW1, when those three items were in very short supply.  It was an amazingly flavored spice cake.  I made up some fresh blueberry syrup and layered it in, then topped it with some freshly whipped cream.  My hubby was so pleased!  I baked it in a jelly roll pan and layered it 4 layers high.  I had to add two dowels to keep it from toppling.  We ate up 2/3 of it right there...after Stinkie went to bed...we are mean parents!  The next morning, I ate the remaining third for breakfast.  I kept telling myself it was good for me somehow because it had blueberries on it.  Yeah that doesn't make sense!  Anyhow, I'm off like a dirty shirt!  Be back another time with my husband's birthday cake!

Edited to add:  The person who ordered this cake did a no-call, no-show for pickup, so I gave it away on Craigslist in the free section.  I will ALWAYS collect 1/2 down from now on!

Princess Castle Cake

Okay, talk about a rush job!  For some reason, I got it into my head that, because of the snow, Doll Baby's party was going to be postponed...and I neglected to make her cake!  Then yesterday at 3pm I got an email from my Mother In Law, affirming that the party is still on!  So, I started baking like crazy.  By midnight, I had a cake.  Granted, by the end I was exhausted and the turrets could have been smoothed better, but overall, I am pleased with the outcome.  My good ol' hubby took care of Stinkie the whole time!  (Rousing round of applause for my husband!)
This cake is made with the castle setup from Wilton.  I am less than pleased with the directions on the package and the fact that you are supposed to attach 1/4" dowels to the bottom of these heavy tower pieces with frosting.  Yeah, that didn't work.  I shoved the towers into the cake where possible and frosted the heck out of the ones that are set on the cake board.  Wilton's instructions stated to place all the towers, THEN add the gumpaste flowers and decorate.  After trying to put leaves on the top towers while avoiding the other standing towers, I gave up on the directions and built as I went.  There are something like 250 gumpaste flowers on this cake, and more than 700 piped leaves.

There are a few things I will do differently next time.  I will cover the turrets with fondant (buttercream was a PAIN in the rear).  The set comes with a pattern for cutting it.  The bottom layer needs to be tall enough for the door, which stood almost 1/2" above the top of that layer.  The bottom layer is about 4.5" tall...so I guess it's a three layer cake.  I had to draw on the door.  Also, there is a pointy roof thing that was too deep to fit in the 2" space left around the top tier.  I think I will not center the cake in order to leave enough room.
I had a pain of a time baking the cakes.  I used my regular recipe.  6c of batter in the 10" pan, 2c of batter in the 6" pan.  It took an hour for the 10" cake to bake!  It ended up rather overcooked on the outside and undercooked in the middle!  I must get myself one of those core heat distributer things.
It was an experience and I did enjoy it.  But soon I need to make another cake, a very special cake for my very special Husband!  His birthday is the 9th!

Well, Why Not?!

I'm feeling pretty froggish today, so I'm just gonna leap!  Let me preface this by saying that the snow has me feeling a little boxed in and I'm aching for escapism right now.  Earlier I was thinking, "What's so darn great about snow?  It sucks."  Then it hit me.  Snow is totally awesome in Summer!  When you eat it!  So I searched the great interwebz for how to make Sno-Cone syrup.  It's totally easy.

Take one package of Kool-Aid, mix it with 1/2c sugar and 1/4c warm water inside something with a tightly closing lid, then shake it like crazy.  Then after the syrup is cooled, make a big snowball and pour the stuff over it.  Eat.  Repeat as necessary.  Our snow today was all powdery, so I just scooped a big bowl and patted it down.  This totally hit my sweet craving!
So then I did the dishes.  A friend brought me a whole chicken for dinner last night, and I plopped it in the crockpot with some spices.  I made a gravy out of the drippings, then served it with pretty basic rice and these awesome 40 minute bun/roll things.  SOOO yummy!  Well, anyway.  Then I didn't do the dishes until 8pm the next day, and I hate cleaning the crockpot.

I tossed all the contents into a 5 gallon pot with a few liters of water, and I am boiling it down for the stock.  I was considering making soup or stew, but I have no noodles.  What point is chicken soup without noodles?  No point, that's what.
I'm pretty much completely snowed in here, since our car isn't exactly the most snow worthy vehicle (I love my Volvo though!), so when I got a craving for sodapop I was sad.  Then I decided to make my own.  I've made ginger ale a few times and I love it.

So I made a simple syrup with 2c blueberries (frozen), 1c water, and 2c sugar.  I boiled that for a while, about 20 minutes.  I accidentally forgot about it and it boiled over (see the icky mess on my stove top?!)  I strained it once to get the berries out (saved those for pancake toppings for tomorrow breakfast), then twice through a washcloth to get all the seeds and whatnot.

Then I poured it into two-2 liter soda bottles, added 6 to 7 cups of warm water (think around 90 degrees), and 1/8t dry active yeast.  I just love feeding sugar to yeast.  My heart does a little happy dance for all my little yeast buddies who had to live in the refrigerator for so long, but now get to swim in warm water and gorge themselves on sugar.  I don't know why.  But it makes me happy, so that's cool with me!  Then I put the caps on and shook 'em up.  Now I gotta wait 2 days or so for the carbonation to build up, but I am SO excited, and it gave me something to focus on this cold cold evening!

Spiderman Cake and Cookies!

So I decided to try something new, since I do happen to love every little kind of cooking and baking.  A client asked if I could make a Spiderman cake, and of course I agreed.  Then she asked if I could make cookies for the kiddos, and of course I couldn't refuse!  I had found a super yummy sugar cookie with hard icing on Zaar for Christmas, so I decided to use that.  It's a great recipe by a woman dubbed "Kittencal".  The client dropped off the monies and things, and gave me a paper with a picture of what she was wanting, and I got to work.  But more on that later.

The cake was a Spiderman cake, as I said before.  I decided to try making it 13" by 13"...a size I don't own in bakeware!  So I made 9x13 pans, cut and pieced.  By the time I got the shape right, they were only 11" around anyway...ARGH!  I have 12" cake pans and could have not had to waste the cake!  I ended up making 3 boxes of mix, just to realize that they wouldn't have enough cake for the party!  AH!  So I made another 10" round cake and put on another layer (that's 3 layers for anyone who's counting) and that should make it much more useful.
I was really pleased with the buttercream I made.  It just seemed wonderfully consistent and creamy.  Each batch comes out a little different, even though there's the same ingredients, because of how much you let the mixer work on it.  Anyway.  I was pleased.

Another thing I liked was how the red turned out.  I have had many problems getting a good red frosting color using the Wilton No-Taste Red...it always comes out pink, no matter what I do!  I searched and scoured the interwebz for the answer, and it was...start using the pink coloring, add a little tiny bit of yellow, THEN add the red.  I can't believe it took me this long to just buckle down and research it!  I had been using a TON of the coloring gel and not even getting close.  Now, I can just use two or three big glops on a craft stick and voila!
I've also decided that I love to color frosting yellow.  It's just beautiful.
A few days ago, I got three cake orders in one day.  That's the first time that's happened to me!  As far as this week is concerned, as it stood on Wednesday, I had the Spiderman Cake on Friday, a baby shower cake on Saturday, and my Best Girl's birthday cake on Monday!  Whew!  Talk about full!  We have snow in the forecast, so the Spiderman cake may be on hold due to weather.  The baby shower has been postponed until next weekend (breathing a sigh of relief.  I would have gotten it done just fine, but now I can spend more time on the decor, since it's got moulded flowers and stuff on it).  I am super excited for Doll Baby's cake.  It's going to knock her socks off!

So, back to the cookies.  I found myself very disappointed in them. They are SO messy!  I decided to hold off on doing them so they would be as fresh as possible for the kiddos.  I tried to bake them on popsicle sticks, but the dough just got too warm when I tried to insert the sticks, it mushed the shape out of proportion, and they had to be pretty thick which changed the cookie texture.  I tried securing the sticks  with royal icing, but it just wasn't strong enough to hold up to a kid eating the cookie.  Does anyone have any tips or pointers to do this easily?

I did the red background on Thursday night (the night I baked them) and planned on doing the final decorating on Friday, the pickup date, during nap time.  If I finished them at 3pm, they would have about three or four hours to harden completely before I had to pack them up.  The client emailed to ask when she could get them (the earliest) so I said 3 and went to work, working FURIOUSLY FAST so they would have time to dry.  I didn't wait for a confirmation email...D'oh!  She didn't end up getting off work and coming over until after 7, so I could have taken my time and made these look better.  She liked them, though.  I don't know if I'll do cookies from now on because they are SO labor intensive and I'm not great at mass amounts of freehand (the nerve damage in my hands starts to act up), but they were fun anyway!  There were 31...no, wait, there were 32.  I gave one to a little boy I sit for to share with Stinkie.  They loved them.
Well, it snowed today and it's supposed to snow until tomorrow.  It's beautiful, but it makes me concerned about having all the necessary ingredients for Doll Baby's cake.  I'm not sure if her party will continue as scheduled (Monday morning), but I'm going to make it anyway so she can have a beautiful cake like I promised her.
Long days and pleasant nights, everyone!

Happy New Year!

This is just a little post to memorialize the past year for me.  I have been so thankful for all the changes in my life, and all the obstacles, and all the wonderful times.  I just wanted to take a moment and say that, from the bottom of my heart, I love ALL my family.  Regardless of hard times, personality conflicts, and stressful incidents, you are my support and light.  Thank you!

Playing the Fool for New Years!

I had a good time making the New Year's cake this week.  It was pretty straightforward as far as design goes.  I got the idea from Ace of Cakes Chef Duff-

Then I just kind of thought, how do I make this into a New Year's cake?  Well, diamonds are much more flashy and fun than squares set on their points.  So I'll do diamonds.
Figuring out the colors was strange for me, since the red has fizzled in my video card and I haven't gotten it replaced yet.  I asked my hubster what he thought, and of course he said blue (you'd have to know him).  Then he said blue and yellow.  Between the two of us, we got to yellow background, blue diamonds, and white dots.  I was at a loss as to what to do with the top, so I just let it ride for a while.  The cake is this luscious mocha chocolate cake...YUM!  Another recipe from Zaar.  And the filling is CARAMEL!  Let me say this again, so you don't miss it, CARAMEL!  I am so excited at this point!  Actually, this is the same cake and filling that I have at the top of my blog, the cake with "Alice" written on it.  That's some good eats!  Speaking of Good Eats, I totally heart Alton Brown.  So anyway.  Made two 10" rounds, and two 8" rounds, made the caramel filling, made the buttercream, made and dyed the fondant.  So far so good.  I knew I had some gumpaste left over for the numbers or letters, so no worries there.  Time to decorate!
I put the 10" layers together with the caramel, then crumb coated with buttercream.  Rolled out the yellow fondant (I used golden yellow instead of lemon yellow) to less than 1/4" and laid it on.  Smoothed out the top, pressed the sides, and trimmed.  One layer covered.  I like to get my cakes covered with buttercream and fondant to keep them fresh as soon as possible.  Then I had a command decision to make, and I made it.  Blue fondant covering the top tier.  Then I set the top tier gently on top of the bottom tier.  It's really important to note here that the first time I did a layer fondant cake, I covered the bottom tier, put on the top tier cakes uncoverd, THEN tried covering that with fondant.  Big mistake, and not something I'm apt to ever do again!
The motley was a pain at first, since I started out by cutting a strip of fondant 3/4" wide, then cutting on a diagonal EACH PIECE separately.  Soon I noted the folly of my ways and went into mass production.  I cut a bunch of strips 3/4" wide, squared it, then took a measurement from the bottom right corner to the left side of one strip that measured 1", so that one diamond had a 1" side, and cut it.  Then I measured 1" intervals all the way up.  Then I put the ruler down on the correct angle and marked where the line would be at the left side of the sheet of fondant, and the rest is ruler history.  I don't know if that made sense, but it felt good to write down!
I attached the diamonds with a small brushing of water on the backs.  After I did the bottom tier, I felt it looked so nice, I should just keep going with it.  So I rolled out the blue fondant and repeated.
Let me stop here to talk about something I learned about Crisco.  It steals red.

I couldn't figure out why the heck my black kept turning green when I did the Lego cake, and now I know.  When I rolled out the gumpaste for the numbers, I rolled them on a slightly greased surface.  I wanted the colors to be swirly purple, so I made that happen.  Rolled out the gumpaste and cut the numbers, and let it dry for a bit.  When I lifted it, I saw the underside had gone completely blue, and not even swirly.  So now I know, and you do too, that if you want your sugar art to keep its color, keep it away from Crisco!  I don't know the science of it, and to be honest, I'm not sure I want to.  It's weird.

I got in touch with the client after I started, and she informed me she wanted purple in the cake if at all possible (her decorations were all purple).  No biggie, since I hadn't done the white, I just did what would have been done in white in purple.  Then did the 2010 in purple too.  I stuck them in the cake, outlined them in yellow, and here's the finale!   ...Remember, I can't see red, so I'm hoping this picture is a good 'un!

Smoothing Frosting with Paper Towels

My cousin told me there was a friend of hers asking how to use Viva brand paper towels to smooth frosting, so I'm going to try to explain without photos, then post photos with the next post.
The type of buttercream is pretty important. I use this recipe from SeriousCakes on YouTube:
22T unsalted butter, room temp
2/3c Crisco
2t vanilla extract
5T heavy whipping cream
2lbs (or thereabout) of sifted powdered sugar
1-2T light corn syrup
Use a KitchenAid or hand mixer to cream the butter and Crisco really really well. I mean, cream it like crazy. I don't think I'd ever really try using a hand mixer, but not everyone can have the blessing that is a KitchenAid.
On low speed, add the vanilla, 1t at a time, then the cream, 1T at a time, till well blended.
Beat it some more. Leave it on low speed though, you don't want too many air bubbles.
Sift in the powdered sugar, 1/2c or so at a time, until very stiff and well mixed, scraping the sides often.
Add corn syrup and maybe a little more cream until you like the consistency. Remember to keep it on low, and don't overbeat it muchly.
Okay, so you have your frosting. Color it if you want with Wilton gels or powders, but don't use the liquid stuff you find in the grocery store because it could totally mess up your frosting. You can use Wilton tip #789 with a big old bag to pipe it on the cake, or you can splat a bunch on top and cover the whole cake with a mass of frosting. Basically, it's easier to take off frosting than put it back on, so you want to make sure you put a ton on. Then you go around, smoothing the cake as best you can like you normally would. When you get it nice and smooth, let it sit for 20 minutes or so, until it crusts (this just means you can touch it lightly with your finger and not get any on your finger). Take the paper towel, lay it gently against the surface you want to smooth, and use a flat scraper (I use my cake spatula, the blade from my broken thin chopping knife, and my hand) and run it lightly over the paper towel a few times. Lift off the towel, reposition, and repeat as many times as necessary.
So that's about it. I love SeriousCakes. There's a link in my previous post to her channel on YouTube, but here's a link to the video where she shows how to do this technique. She is flipping awesome.

Cake Boards and Lacing and Cartoons, OH MY!

This past week has felt so hectic!  I feel like I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off.  My Mother In Law's birthday was on Monday, and we all went over there on Tuesday to celebrate.  She had asked for a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, so I had a chance to make this amazing carrot cake from RecipeZaar.  I wanted to do a dark cake with white lace-type decor, so I made chocolate cream cheese frosting to coat the cake, and regular cream cheese frosting to decorate.  It was a very heavy cake.  The one thing I don't like about carrot cake is that there's strings of things in it - the carrots themselves, coconut, pineapple, all in all just a stringy sort of cake.  This makes leveling with a Wilton leveler next to impossible without tearing the cake up, so I just used a serrated knife for the bottom layer and left the top with a small dome.  I put the vanilla icing in the middle, lined up the layers, and frosted the whole thing with the chocolate.  Then I let that set for a while and used Viva brand paper towels to smooth the frosting.  I filled up a pastry bag too full with the vanilla frosting and started to freehand, then realized I needed more control.  That is a mistake I don't plan on making again!  I emptied half the frosting, then went about with the design.  I had piped some royal icing made from an egg white and powdered sugar onto wax paper two days earlier in an attempt to do real lace, but I wasn't careful enough removing the dried pieces so I came out with just the hearts and the letter "S".  Also, I should have listened to the directions on the website I found and used Wilton tip #2 (or even better, #1), instead of trying to be cool and using #3.  I worked the stuff I could save in, piped the decor on the top, piped the shell border, and called it a cake!

The next two cakes I made for a party at Cartwheels and Coffee, a great little coffee shop/kids play area in Carytown.  The manager was kind enough to give me a chance at making some Dora and Diego cakes for a party this weekend.  Let me tell you, there are like 25 different colors of icing on these two cakes combined!  I just bit the bullet and bought a pack of 50 bags and an extra 8 couplers.  It was SO worth it.  Three, THREE different colors of gray on the Diego cake.  I made the colors up the night before, and I made the "skin tone" color too light, but the next day I just started the cakes anyway and they came out fine, I think.  I wanted to make sure I got these done as close as possible to the date they were needed so they would be super fresh.  I used the Wilton shaped cake pans to minimize any margin of error.  The Dora cake was a basic yellow cake.  I got the recipe from SeriousCakes on YouTube.  I love her buttercream frosting recipe, too, so I decided to try out her Chocolate Cake.  YUM!  I also used a caramel sauce as the filling.  That recipe was from KittenCal on Zaar, and I had to modify it a bit so it would get hard enough to work as a filling.  I boiled it for an extra 20 minutes or so so get a medium-soft ball (when dropped boiling into cold water).  It was SOOO good!  I've found the hardest part of making cakes is not sampling!  I have to wash my hands so much that I'm starting to get chapped.  I think I'm going to have to get some Bath and Body works soap.  Mmmmm.  So without further ado, here they are!

I'll put in a word here about the cake boards.  NO WAY am I going to pay 2 bucks for a piece of cardboard.  I just went to the produce area and asked for a box, then measured and cut to size, then covered those with glue and glued tin foil to them.  I placed the cakes, cut them into layers, put in the caramel, then set the top layer back on.  Then I used a razor knife to cut out a desirable shape.  It was quite a bit of extra work, but I'm not askeert of some work!  I did splurge for cake boxes, though.  Pretty sure I don't have the skills needed to make those out of scratch!
So I hope the party people are pleased with these cakes and I hope they enjoy the yummy cakes!  I didn't get to sample the yellow cake, but I did have enough chocolate batter left over for a cupcake.  I smothered some caramel sauce on that bad boy and WOW it was amazing.
The next cake I have due is a Margaritaville, beach themed cake.  Wish me luck!