Boo hoo; add sprinkles

Last weekend in October to try any halloween decorating. I saw these really cute ghost cupcakes made with fondant. I haven't worked with fondant yet (and am intimidated) so decided to use a glaze.

Glazing is pretty easy, you just mix and pour... I assumed that the glaze would smooth over any bumps and dips in the buttercream but it just accentuated them. Since I was doing cupcakes I was able to practice, adjust, practice, adjust. It's all about the learning curve.

My ghosts were sad and lumpy put instead of boo hoo-ing I added crystal sprinkles. I think this will be my icing-fiasco solution from now on, if nothing else, my daughters will be dazzled.

Add easy faces and we're ready to go haunt my sister's house.

The glaze was de-li-cious!

Star Wars...

"The star tip creates the most celebrated, easily accomplished decorations!" -- wilton.com

With this Wilton message in mind I thought it would be easy breezy to create a spider cake and a soccer cake. Not so "easily"... In Wilton's defence they do suggest the triple star tip for filling in large areas. But I wasn't afraid, I had the 1 star tip and was ready to roll!

Both these cakes call for black icing, but I'm not a fan of black icing. It's hard to make true black and if you buy the ready-to-go tube black then the flavor doesn't match the homemade icing. I love to use it for accents, but not for the amount of cake that needed to be covered for these designs.

Anywho, the star technique eluded me a bit. But it was really good practice. I also worked with candy melts again to create the legs of the spider. I think I'll really like candy melts with more practice.

My spider cake, purple instead of black and candy melts instead of store candy:

And my soccer cake:

I made both of these with the Wilton soccer ball pan. My girlies thought it was totally fun and so did I!

"I love you, pumpkin"

I was told how much I was loved often as a child. Which was great on many levels, including completely distracting me from the fact that my parents referred to me as pumpkin... a big, round, orange gourd that people gut and decorate...

And still today I am filled with warm fuzzy feelings around pumpkins.

Here's how my current cake story begins...

Once upon a time there was an amazing shop filled with gourmet dry mixes to make wonderful soups, breads, and dips. This shop, Custom Cafe Foods, has a very special item called Pumpkin Dip. One afternoon the Queen (that's me) decided that Pumpkin Dip and Pumpkin Spice Cake would make a heavenly marriage and live happily ever after...

To make the Pumpkin Dip you mix one dry mix with 80z cream cheese and 1 cup canned pumpkin (ummmmm... yum). They advertise that you can serve this dip with apple slices, ginger bread, graham crackers... but I have found that a spoon works just fine and inside a cake would be even better!

Making the Pumpkin Spice cake is just as easy; mix 1 box spice cake, 1 can pumpkin, and 3 eggs. Bake. Decorate. Eat.

So here is my Pumpkin Spice cake with Pumpkin Dip filling covered in cream cheese icing covered in slivered almonds:

I am still having major problems with my cream cheese icing. It tastes great but is way to soft... It's kind of melting off of the cake.

Nuts... drove me a little nuts. I don't know how real bakers do it, but when I was putting the nuts on the cake my youngest daughter walked in and said "WHAT are you trying to do?"... so not only did it feel awkward and wrong it apparently LOOKED awkward too.

My first birthday cake!

Okay, so in my secret daydream I get to make cakes all the time and enter crazy cake competitions and win thousands of dollars, just for fun!

Dial down to reality, I'm still learning to work with buttercream, so it was really exciting when a co-worker asked if I thought I could make this cave cake. Looks easy, no problem.

Gorgeous thought I was crazy! (note that I do not deny any crazieness) She said that "no cake is as easy as it looks"...

But is was very easy! The mom who created the cake left great instructions. 'Coarse, she made meringue cookies for the boulders... did I spell meringue right?... and I just put globs of icing for the boulders... I DID take it up a notch with my totally edible candy signs "cave" and "bats"... Not to mention my candy-colored-white-haired Luke Skywalker figurine!

Can you see the yellow bat eyes in the black darkness of the cave?!

Chocolate bundt cake, cut and twisted. Buttercream icing. Quick chocolate powder. Candy melt signs. Brills!

Last note: I did some google searches for "cave cakes"... kept running into images of cave STALAGMITES... which are natures wedding cakes... they are beautiful, but I bet even mine taste better.

I vant to drink your bloooood!

H-a-ll-o-w-ee-n!

My brother-in-law requested a swirl cake... I assumed you had to take a chocolate cake and a white cake and mix it together... but Duncan Hines (or probably any other cake box brand) does it all for you!

Not so easy in my favorite 8x3 in round cake pan. It was more a yellow/fudge mud cake... but the flavors he wanted were there. I definatly need to practice my swirling technique.

Regardless of what cake flavor I baked this weekend I was determined to create a halloween themed cake. I really have been wanting to make the hair-raising cake, but don't have the pan (or the cake carrier) to get it done. I've thought about modifying the cake decor to one that will fit my cake pan/carrier, but will need more energy to do so. For some reason, I had enough energy to modify UP... and created a cake version of toothy grin.... plus some bloooood!

I'm pretty satisfied with my bloody gift to my sista's hubby:

As a side note, after taking this picture with the camera on my computer, I TOTALLY crashed into the side of the cake. Green icing + mac book= freaked-out-baker! Cleaned up the computer and patched up the cake... we will pretend nothing ever happened.

A few of my favorite things...

Brown paper packages tied up with strings...

Here are a few of my favorite things:

My 3 inch high round pan (perfect for 1 box of cake)

Baking strips, make the cake come out even on top!

Better to level you with! Never a crooked cake again!

Bend at the knees and lifting is a breeze!

The bowl that is the soul of my cake.

Don't kid, these are the best with a lid!

Smoooooth and groovy!

Silicone valley!

And of coarse, www.wilton.com for the best products, recipes, and ideas.

As I've said, I am a very loyal Wilton customer. I also have several tips and love to use them all. I prefer the disposable icing bags... Gorgeous uses the washable feather weight bags, she's a better person than I am.

Romantic Raspberries...

And by romantic I mean... covered in chocolate.

I had a couple of misses in the last few weeks. So I went back to the recipe that seems to work for me, chocolate raspberry cake... Plus, it's what my co-worker, Keith, asked for.

As Gorgeous will tell you, I can't just leave "good" alone. I decided to do a 3 layer cake this time, I have only done two layer cakes so far. I baked my cake, chocolate box with cream for water and butter for oil, and it came out perfect! So far so good! I let it cool overnight while my girlies and I had a slumber party with Gorgeous. Okay, I'm stalling because what happened next is kinda stupid...

I actually took out a ruler and measured the height of my cake. I wanted three precise levels. Then I took my nifty cake leveler and cut the bottom layer... I had NOT adjusted for the height of the cake board! So my bottom layer was WAY to short. Who would have thought that the thickness of a cake board would make such a difference, probably someone who would think to factor it in.

Decision time: 1. Have 3 extremely different layers, or 2. Attempt 4 even layers. I went with option 2... didn't work out so well...

I could have attempted to even out the 2nd layer (from the bottom) but at this point I was afraid there would be more filling than cake.

I covered the cake in chocolate buttercream icing and until it is cut I will pretend that underneath that buttercream is a perfectly layer cake.

THEN I covered the chocolate buttercream with chocolate ganache! I tried pouring it, hoping for a nice evenly dripped cover... it's more like a poured mess. But a CHOCOLATE poured mess, which makes all the difference in the world.

I had also played with candy melt and put a heart on top and raspberries around the bottom. All in all I think this cake is a success, but won't know until tomorrow when it is sliced and tasted.

Piece of Cake

Referring to something as a "piece of cake" is often used to describe a situation that was easy, or required little effort...

Unfortunately, today's cake was NOT a "piece of cake". Today's cake DID prove that it doesn't matter what it looks like, just what it tastes like.

I got up early this Sunday morning. We were scheduled to meet my sister's family at the park at 10:00 am. If I was going to decorate a cake in the afternoon I had to get it baked before we left.

The cake took forever. I was making a white cake, subbing cream for water and butter for oil. This cake smelled so good! I set the timer for 50 min. My oven tends to run warm. But when I checked on it the cake totally wiggled, I didn't even put my stick in it... it was CLEARLY still baking. 10 min later I checked on it again... mmm, a little more time. 10 min later, now 1hr and 10 min baking time, the wood stick comes out clean. But when I flip it over there is a HUGE crater in the middle:

Totally not suitable to decorate (and I had a really cute fish decoration in mind). So I did the only thing left to do. I packed the cake up, put some chocolate buttercream in my bag, and loaded the car with the kids to head to our picnic.

The minivan was filled with the scent of a deliciously baked cake. You couldn't tell that there was an unsightly crater in the middle.

After playing and eating and playing some more I brought out the cake. Everyone wanted a piece... So I cut around the center (still not cooked) and put chocolate buttercream icing on the side. Perfect treat for a perfect afternoon in perfect weather. (Yes, because I didn't grab a tip and was just squeezing the chocolate buttercream out of a coupler it DID resemble a fresh pile of poo... which all the little girlies found hilarious and added to the fun.)

At 10:10 pm I have a second attempt at white cake in the oven. I'll have to decorate it tomorrow night and go to work empty handed on Monday morning. But, hopefully, I'll be decorating a perfectly baked cake after work tomorrow.

A ZEST for life!

Usually I ignore the "zest" ingredient in a recipe. How much can it add, really? Well, so much zest was called for in the Lemon Heaven and Margarita cakes that I had to suck it up and learn to zest.

Before I went shopping to get a zester I went and got my nails done. They always have the tv on a cooking channel. Coincidentally, the show on was talking about zesting. There are two kinds of zesters, apparently. One is a grating and one is more of a peeling. (This is what I have surmised, so I could totally be wrong.) Anyway, I could only find a peeling zester. But it worked... and made a huge difference in the taste of the cake and icing. So, note to self, don't blow-off the zest ingredient.

The zest of the lemon and lime filled my kitchen with such a great tangy sent. I might start zesting just for that reason.

Lemon Heaven and Margaritaville...

Last weekend I went with two recipes. Both were failures... and successes.

Margarita cupcakes: got this recipe online, it sounded really good. I must have done something wrong because the cupcakes came out really spongy. I'm very new to the baking game and probably didn't add the 4 oz of tequila correctly. The icing though... going to be one of my favorites for all time. It's a cream cheese icing with a tang of lime... to-die-for!

If you hopped on the link above you saw (someone else's) cute cupcakes. But, as Gorgeous warns me against, I tried to be too creative. Who want's to do a cupcake with icing on top when they could do an upside down cupcake with lime icing as the filling with a nice light green vanilla ganache... apparently, me. In my mind this was going to be delicious and beautiful... reality fell a bit short...

My light green ganache turned out more frankengreen... and vanilla ganache is not as forgiving as chocolate. I deemed this cake edible enough to take to work... and they were all eaten.

This same weekend I made a lemon cake with lemon filling covered in vanilla ganache. I was going for a petifor look... so I baked the cake in a square pan, cut into two layers, and filled with lemon filling. The cake was SO moist, I used a lemon box cake using heavy cream instead of water and butter instead of oil.

Everything was going so well! I cut the cake into 2 inch squares, prepared the vanilla ganache, and started pouring on the cake. There is a reason they tell you to cover your cake lightly in buttercream before ganaching. My lemon squares were NOT pretty. I was so discouraged I didn't even take a picture. But then I tasted them...

**Side note: I don't eat any of my cakes. I taste them. I enjoy the process, but I don't need the calories. So, I have a very small bite of my cakes, to make sure they are edible, and that is enough for me.**

I. ate. a. whole. piece. It was heaven. The vanilla ganache had soaked mildly into the lemon cake. Heaven. I'll post a picture the next time I make it. Because no matter how it looked, I will make it the exact same way.

Leftover Raspberry Filling...

How long can one keep raspberry (or any) filling? Can you freeze it? I just don't know! I was NOT up to making a whole cake this weekend. 2 cakes the weekend before had worn me out.... but I didn't want the raspberry filling (or the money spent) to go to waste.

S0000 upside-down chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling covered in chocolate ganache. Two things working here, I get to work with the cupcake filler tip AND I'm desperate to work with ganache. Wilton's website (special spot on my bookmark bar) has a shortcut to ganach: 1 bag of candy melts and 1/2 cup whipped cream. This should be easy!

Confession: I always thought that if a cake had something (filling) IN it then it was cooked that way. I had NO idea that if you wanted to fill your cupcakes with a delicious fruity filly that you did it AFTER they were cooked.

Off to the store for cupcake sheet (I only have a mini one). I'll do a supplies blog later, but you might have picked up on my devotion to Wilton. Mainly this comes from Gorgeous, she has made me a brand-loyal baker. On this particular Saturday, after going to 3 stores and no Wilton cupcake pan insight, I had to buy another brand. It works fine... but doesn't have the Wilton force. (This would be like the Jedi force but for baking.)

Okay, back to the oven... Chocolate cake mix (with chocolate milk for water and butter for oil) cupcakes are out of the oven. They cool quickly and I start filling. FILLING IS SO FUN! The little cupcakes just plump up... living on the edge hoping they don't burst!

Next... the chocolate ganache. What a horror story! 1st attempt: "I can just melt these candy melts and pour them right on the cupcakes"... wrong, way wrong. THEN I read the directions. Ahhhh.... heat 1/2 cup cream and ADD the candy melts.

I poured and then melted red candy melts to add some swishes (very technical baking term):

These were a BIG hit at the office. No messy cutting, personal size, yummy, and pretty. Last one gone at 10:00 am!

After Jamboree!

So, when I came back from Jamboree I was soooo tired! But after a short recovery time I was ready to pick up the mixer again.

As I've continued to decorate, the taste of the cake has become more important to me. It doesn't matter how good (or not) a cake looks if it doesn't taste good. It's more likely that people will chow down on a cake that's yummy than one that's just pretty.

My first carrot cake: I just used a box without adding or changing the ingredients at all, so the cake wasn't anything special but it was still good. This was my first time to make/use cream cheese icing. It was much softer than butter cream and I had to race against a melting cake. It was really fun to make the carrots, and exciting to use new tips!

**Side note: The teenager running the register at the grocery store looked at the items I was purchasing (cream cheese, powder sugar, butter...) and asked if I was making cream cheese icing from scratch. When I said yes, she said "You are my hero"... everyone loves homemade icing!**

The next weekend I decided to take the carrot cake up a notch! I added coconut, pecans, carrot matchsticks, and raisins to the box. I also exchanged butter for the oil and milk for the water called for on the box. Wowsa! This cake was IMPOSSIBLE to cut. Needed an electric knife... not really, but you did have to really work the knife to cut through all the extra ingredients. But it was well worth it! The cake was really good! (I also put carrots "growing out of the ground" around the bottom of the cake. Cute?!

This same weekend I really wanted to try making a filling. I l-o-v-e raspberries. Wilton has a yummy sounding raspberry filling recipe... so, yes I DID make two cakes. I decided to make a chocolate raspberry cake with chocolate buttercream. This was a really good cake. I exchanged b for o (butter for oil) and chocolate milk for water. This cake tasted like chocolate milk! I decided, against Gorgeous' gut, to put fresh raspberries on top...

Ok, 2 cakes in 1 weekend?!? Yes, I am C-R-A-Z-Y! But I was proud of both of them :)

My first class - backstory

So, in July of 2010 I took my first Wilton decorating class... actually at the time of writing this entry it is still the only class I've taken... anyway, I took this class with my mom and my two sisters. My mom, Gorgeous, caught the decorating bug with me and we enjoy baking together on the weekends. Sarah and Siobain enjoyed the class but aren't instantly addicted... but Sarah has to young girlies at home and Siobain is about to pop with her first baby, so there's time for them to become addicted.

The Wilton class was every Thursday for the month of July, I only made it to the first two classes because I have a great job and was at the BSA 100th Anniversary Scout Jamboree at the end of July. But Gorgeous has caught me up... So I guess I've really only taken half of a decorator's class... which explains a lot!

In this class we learned how to make buttercream icing, how to color it, how to cover the cake, and the use of several decorating tips.

From Gorgeous I learned how to make the cake moist (keep it covered with the pan for 12 hrs) and how buttercream SHOULD taste (totally use butter! crisco is NOT a yummy alternative).

My very first cake, came out of the pan:

So it's true, you CAN save any cake with buttercream: