A Happy Birthday Easter Cake - More Fun With Fondant

Tomorrow we will be celebrating many birthdays along with Easter.  One family member actually has a birthday tomorrow.  I was asked to make the cake so I decided to do a two-tier cake with the bottom layer being the birthday cake and the top layer having a more spring-like theme.  I had intended to do more decorations but I've been sick the past several days and had a slightly sick baby, too.  So after five hours in the kitchen this afternoon, beginning with making the cake and ending with the fondant decorations, I decided I better finish up and feed the family dinner.

I was able to get four names across the bottom (sending a shout out right now to my sister Ann and my nephew Luke for having nice short names...thanks!), each separated with a fondant candle. 

Now that I've had a few attempts working with fondant, I thought I'd share a few things I really like about it. 

1.  A lot of people seem to like the taste.  That is a bit of a relief to me because I am not particularly fondant of it.  (I know...really bad joke. ; )  Some day soon I'm going to attempt to make my own.  I've already purchased the supplies to try it; I just haven't had time.

2. I prefer to buy white fondant and add my own color.  At first I was hesitant to do this but fondant takes color so well...and easily!  (You might want to wear decorating gloves when doing this because your hands take color easily too. : )  When doing this I recommend the old rule of "Start with a little; you can always add more."  I had intended for a much more pastel look on this cake, but ended up with really bold colors.  It still came out ok.  It just wasn't what I had planned for. (Here's a picture with better lighting so you can see what I'm referring to.)

3.  I really like that fondant is very much like playdough in that you can always re-roll and remold it.  There were a few times when I messed up with the fondant molds in doing the letters and trim.  No problem.  Simply re-roll and put it back in the mold.  EASY!

Other notes:

This is the second time I've tried a two-tiered fondant cake and neither time have I used supports and had no problems.  I'm guessing that's because I used 6-inch and 8-inch pans.  If I went bigger, I would probably have to dowel it.  But for these sizes at least I could get away with no dowels. 

The cake is almond flavored, filled with lemon curd, and frosted with an almond flavored butter cream.

Happy Easter!

Follow Your Inner Star - Cupcakes for an American Girl Party

On the day my daughter turned 7, she also had her American Girl club.  The mom who leads the club most graciously agreed to let me send cupcakes.  So I started thinking about how I could go along with the American Girl theme of "Follow Your Inner Star."

I had seen this idea long ago on Bake It In A Cake (great tutorial there, btw) and had wanted to try it since I first saw it.  I figured that a star baked in a cupcake would be a great idea...you know...follow your *inner* star.  Our *inner* star would be *inside* the cupcake. 

I started by making a white cake batter.  Once it was made, I pulled out a cup and a half of the batter and colored it pink.  I poured it into a prepared 8 x 8 dish.



 I baked it at 350 for about 20 minutes.  I let it cool completely and then used a star cookie cutter (about an inch tall) to cut out the star shapes.

Using an edible food marker, I made two marks on the wrappers.  This way I would know where to cut the cupcake (across from dash to dash) so that the star would be visible.  This is an important step or else you may not get the star shape when you cut.

Per the instructions on Bake It In a Cake, I poured two tablespoons of the remaining white batter in before I placed the star in each cup.  I placed the stars in standing sideways to the marks on the wrapper and covered with about two more tablespoons of white batter.  I baked them at 350 until cooked through. 

After they were done, I tested a few to see how the stars came out.  Some came out really well.

Others, not so much (like the one pictured at the top of this post that I had frosted).   That happens, I suppose.

I finished them off with, of course, a red fondant star.  I used the same cutter that I had used to make the inside stars.   And a cute box adds to the look for sure!

This Should Have Been My First Post

An explanation about my blog:

I have loved baking as long as I can remember.  I think I got my start when I was very young as I helped my mom bake Christmas cookies every year.  Eventually, by about my 8th grade year, she let me take over. 

I have always enjoyed making things from scratch.  I have always longed to be a great baker, learn cake decorating, and master anything that goes along with making desserts.  

A few years ago I took a cake decorating class at a local craft store.  I won't go into details but it turned out to be a disaster.  It was then that I decided  I would just teach myself. 

I gave birth to my fourth child two years ago and am reaching the point where I have enough extra time to finally get my house clean  dive into learning all things sugar. 

Here begins my journey.  Care to join me? : )

Cupcakes for a Swim Banquet

So I'll go ahead and say it...seems funny to have the word *pink* in my blog title and my first post has nothing pink in it.  Oh well. 

My sons had a swim banquet this past weekend, that included a potluck, and I signed up to bring a dessert.  Cupcakes, being a finger food, seem to work well for this kind of thing.  I wanted to try my hand at fondant, which I've been playing around with lately.  I decided to try to make the team swim cap in fondant as a decoration.  What came in handy was that I was assigned to help with the toddlers during our homeschool group Lent retreat.  One of the things we were playing with was playdough.  So, while I was hanging out doing playdough with the toddlers I played around with the shape I was looking for, since fondant is kind of like baker's playdough.   Here is what I came up with when I actually went to cut out the fondant.

I cut a hand-drawn template for the swim cap out of an index card (very bottom center of above picture).  Then, I used bright yellow fondant and edible blue food marker because that is what their team swim caps look like.  Here is a picture of their actual team cap.  You can be the judge at how close I got.

I actually liked much better the way the fondant cut-outs looked before I put them on the cupcake.  I felt that once I put them on the cupcake they were a bit unrecognizable.  I need to work on visualizing the shape once it's placed on the cupcake.  Or I just need to work on better placement.  Maybe both.  Anyway, here is the finished product.

And then I threw in some chocolate cupcakes with a homemade peanut butter frosting because, well, who doesn't like chocolate and peanut butter.  Topped, of course, with miniature peanut butter cups.  The frosting on the swim cap cupcakes is a homemade vanilla bean vanilla frosting.  I used both vanilla extract and real organic vanilla bean.  The flavor is amazing and, frankly, it looks more fancy with the vanilla specks running through it.  Unfortunately, you can't see that in this picture.



I guess they turned out pretty well.  They all gotten eaten anyway. 

For the peanut butter frosting, I mixed 1/2 cup of peanut butter, 1/2 cup of organic vegetable shortening, a teaspoon of vanilla, and 2 tablespoons of milk in a standing mixer with the whisk attachment.  Once it was all blended well, I added one 16 oz. box of powdered sugar.  This was not blending very well so I added some more milk.  That did the trick to help blend it better, but then it was a little thinner than I wanted it.  I added a bit more powdered sugar and that did the trick.  I think you just need to play around with it until it reaches the consistency you're looking for.  Once I got the right consistency, I let it mix up for a few minutes to get it light and fluffy.

I'm hoping to do some type of American Girl cupcakes for my daughter's birthday to share with her friends at her American Girl club.  Right now I'm thinking some type of pink frosting and a fondant star topper.  Hope to be posting in a couple of weeks.