A Washington Captials Cake

A good friend of mine asked me to make a Washington Capitals cake for her son for his birthday.  He is a dedicated Washington Capitals fan (actually, the whole family is).  No joke, the design was not easy to hand cut, so it did not come out great.  But it was pretty close. 

 

Oh, and he's a HUGE Ovechkin fan, hence the number "8" jersey.

 

 

I have learned a lot about fondant lately.  Number one thing I've learned?  It isn't just me who doesn't like the craft store brand of fondant.  It really is gross.  I have started using a brand that, while popular amongst professional bakers, is not easy to use.  The trick?  Number two thing I've learned is to use cornstarch to stiffen it up a bit, otherwise it is pretty sticky.  Both the flavor and texture are much more appealing.  I cannot stress that enough. 

Notes:  milk chocolate cake with milk chocolate buttercream.

Go Fighting Tigers!

My daughter's soccer team had their end of season soccer party last night.  I volunteered to make cupcakes as I'm always looking for a reason to try something new.  Her team name this past season was the Fighting Tigers, so here is what I came up with.

 

 

Notes: milk chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream and fondant toppers.

Pink Rose Cake and Cupcakes

 

 

While making a pink rose cake for a friend for her birthday, I decided to use some of the leftover batter to try a few rose cupcakes.  I used 6-inch cake pans for a small, personal cake so there was enough leftover batter to make about a dozen cupcakes.  I really like the look on the cupcakes.  I think they are delicate and very feminine.  

Notes: The cake and cupcakes are fluffy white with almond flavoring and the frosting is almond flavored buttercream.

A First Holy Communion Cake

So last week I posted that a friend of a friend had asked me, via text by my friend, to make the same rose cake for her daughter's First Holy Communion this weekend.  (Was that confusing enough? ; )  When I actually spoke with the woman on the phone and said, "So, you want the exact same cake?" her response was not what I expected.  "Actually, I saw this cake on Pinterest and was wondering if you could do that."  Gulp.  I've seen cakes on Pinterest.  They're usually gorgeous and very detailed.  I mean, that's why people post them, right?  She sent me the picture and I studied it.  And studied it.  And studied it some more.  I called her back and said that I thought I could pull of something similar.  It would be great learning opportunity for me.  The most important thing I learned was to store the cake out of the reach of my toddler.  Remember what happened with my practice rose cake?  Yes and that's why you can see it here in the top of my pantry.

 

 

Once covered in fondant, you have to set the cakes aside for awhile before you dowel them (put the support sticks in).  That's why I needed a safe place to put them for awhile.  I loosely covered them in plastic wrap and left the pantry open in order to keep fresh air flowing.  I didn't want the cake to absorb stale pantry air.  Going back to the dowels, I only doweled the bottom layer, using inflexible drinking straws.  The thought of using wooden dowels in a cake does not appeal to me.  I'm afraid of splinters in the cake, so inflexible drinking straws is a good alternative that a lot of people use.  To dowel the layers together for transport, I'm guessing that you would have to use a wooden dowel.  I haven't looked into that as I haven't needed to yet. 

 

 

So here is the finished product.

 



 

 

 

My favorite part of this cake is the bow.  This was really so easy to make. 

 

 

 

 

Here is an excellent tutorial for making not only this type of fondant bow, but also a Tiffany bow of fondant.  Seriously, ANYONE can do this!  It is that easy.  Give it a shot.

 

Happy Mother's Day to all of you moms out there!

 

 

 





 



The Rose Cake

First off, I only have one picture of this cake.  And, to make things worse, I took it with my cheap cell phone.  I finished this very late in the evening and dashed off to get it to my good friend's house as it was for her daughter's First Holy Communion early the next morning.  I forgot to take a picture with my camera, since I was in such a hurry but, since my computer had totally crashed weeks ago and I lost my camera software, I'm not sure I would have been able to get it on  the computer anyway (since I'm not even sure where the box with the software is right now so I can reinstall it).  So, to recap last week, my husband was out of town, my computer wasn't working, my cell phone was having issues, and, well, you get the idea.  Crazy week.  So here is the one picture I *did* get.  I took a picture with my cell phone because one of my sisters asked me to send her a pic when I was done.  And, also, I wanted to send a shot of the cake to my brother and sister-in-law because my niece is making her First Holy Communion in two weeks and I'm doing a very similar cake for her.

 

 

This is the ever-popular rose cake from i am baker.   Honestly, this is the first cake I have made using this technique.  After watching some YouTube clips, I had made a small cake earlier in the week to practice on.  I removed the layers from the pans and placed them far back on the counter to cool.  Unfortunately, it wasn't far enough.  As I sat typing an email two rooms away from the kitchen, my 2yo approached eating a giant chunk of the cake.  So, essentially, the dog toddler ate my homework.  (And, apparently, the lazy susan lower cabinet is a nice step stool for a toddler.)  Add that to the list of things from my crazy week. 

 

I'll post better pictures next time I make the cake, which will actually be for another First Holy Communion this weekend.   See you soon!

 

 



Thomas Cupcakes

My youngest son just turned two and he absolutely LOVES Thomas.  So, naturally, we celebrated with Thomas cupcakes.  (I made a Thomas cake, too, but forgot to get a picture.  Whoops.)   I used a blue frosting as the background.  Then I used gray, white, and black fondant to make the face, eyes, and mouth.  Black edible food marker came in handy for the eyebrows, nose, and cheeks.

I used a circular cutter to make the face and a smaller cutter to make the eyes.  To shape the mouth, I used the same circular cutter that I used for the eyes and then simply cut it in half.  To make the black part of the eyes, I used a drinking straw to cut very small circles.  A small black rectangle at top was the smoke stack (or whatever it's called : ).

I served them on a standard cupcake tree.

What I would do differently next time:
- make the eyebrows more triangular in shape
- make the nose bigger
- make the cheeks bigger

Good luck!  And if you make any, send me your pics.  I would love to see any of your creations. 

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.