Cookie Monster Attacks!

Oh my, where has the time gone!! It's almost the end of the year. So much food, so many treats (and my ass keeps getting bigger I'm sure) ah yes 'tis the season to PIG OUT.

AnyHOO, I recently made a couple of cakes for my friend's little boy's 2nd birthday.  Her bday party theme was Cookie Monster!  I was so excited to make these cakes. I had tons of ideas but wanted to make something really cute (and yummy of course).  I was only going to make the little birthday boy a cake but then figured I'd make something for the adults (the kids were getting cupcakes).

After lots of brainstorming, I found a 3D Cookie Monster that was adorable! But then thought, crap, can I make that? It looks really hard.  Well, I went for it, and let me say I was SO pleased with my little guy.

This first cake is a 2 tiered cake covered in fondant.  Top portion was chocolate and bottom was carrot (it was super moist!)  All the cutouts are fondant and Cookie Monster's eyes are marshmallows.  This was a HEAVY cake.

Now comes my little guy, Cookie Monster! First let me tell you that this puppy took FOREVER to pipe ( I had to take several breaks as my hand cramped up). I used the "grass" tip and colored the buttercream Wilton's Royal Blue.  It took a TON of icing color, but soon I realized this stuff darkens over time (I made him the night before the party) so the next day his "fur" color was PERFECT!  His eyes are fondant (held by toothpicks) and his mouth was colored in with black icing.  He's made out of chocolate pound cake (you need to use a dense cake when making 3D cakes).  I used Wilton's Cuddly Bear pan to shape the body. I then cut off the ears and shaped the mouth.  I also added more cake for the arms/hands to make them stand out more.  I stuck and cookie in his hand and VOILA!  Here's my monster:

I'm so happy with how my 3D Cookie Monster came out. Best part, they were both yummy cakes and I received a lot of compliments on them.

Here's a shot of the birthday table with all the goodies!!

Second Class Cake - FAIL

So for our second class we were asked to bring in a one tier cake (flavor of our choice) and to use the rest of the batter for cupcakes (we're going to be decorating cupcakes for next week's class).

I brought in my plain yellow cake (hey, she said to use box cake mix and I certainly wasn't going to make it from scratch and then ruin it by covering it in their disgusting class buttercream recipe...so 99 cents box of Duncan Hines mix it was).

We learned how to "tort" our cake which is basically cutting through the middle (in half) and adding filling (see below)  Rocket science right? Not really but again remember, this is the BASIC class.

I filled my cake with vanilla custard. So it was time to decorate and we were given a choice of patterns/designs. Let me first say that there is no way, you can do all of this in the time allotted...or at least I should say, there is no way you can do it PROPERLY. First of all, you have to crumb coat your cake before decorating. Crumb coating is applying a THIN layer of buttercream over the entire cake to "seal" in the crumbs. This way, when you are spreading your frosting, you don't have crumbs attacking your spatula thus getting all over your pretty white frosting. You have to let the cake SIT for a while (at LEAST a good 15-30 mins) to allow your crumb coat to dry, but we didn't have this time.  By the time we got started, I had less than an hour to decorate my cake. That's not enough time.
Anyway, I did what I could.  I tried to crumb coat and let it sit for about 15 mins and guess what happened?  The teacher came around and said "I think you can decorate now, it looks pretty dry". Uhm, no lady, it is not dry I can tell.  She grabbed a paper towel to try and smooth the top of my cake and BAM ruined the top by smearing the icing all over the place.  GRRRREAT. THANKS LADY.  So I had to re-ice.  There goes 15 mins I just wasted. (Oh and I also made a pearl border that she smeared off with her stupid paper towel).

Anyway, long story short, here is my stupid cake.  I think it looks ridiculous.  I didn't have enough time to choose a "prettier" design from the options we had and honestly toward the end I just wanted to get the eff out of there.

Fabulous fish right? Yeah right. I'm telling you, it looked stupid.  What a lame ass fish. I didn't have enough time to coat it properly, the teacher smeared the top, it was a joke of a cake.  I wasn't proud of my cake at all and if it weren't for the fact that I knew sweet tooF would eat it, I would've thrown this crap in the trash.

This week we are going to decorate cupcakes.  They better turn out better than this stupid ass fish cake.

Wilton's Cake Decorating Basic Course

The displays for the cake decorating courses at Michael's have always caught my eye and I finally thought, well why not? Could be fun right? They're inexpensive and I'd love to learn new ways to decorate.

So they have 3 courses (they are each 4 weeks long, meeting once a week):

1. Decorating Basics
2. Flowers and Cake Design
3. Gum Paste and Fondant

I was REALLY interested in the 3rd class, gum paste and fondant. I love working with this stuff! But I figured, let me take all 3.  I signed up for the first course, Decorating Basics (and bonus, all classes were 50% off! so I paid something like $22 - cheap).  You buy the student kit that basically comes with most of the things you need to get you started (used a coupon - of course - so came out to about $17).

Had my first class tonight. I seriously think some of the people in my class have never even seen what a cake looks like.  I know the course is "Decorating BASICS" but COME ON.  Yaaaawn, what a bore! The instructor spent the majority of the class, a whopping TWO hours, showing us what baking pans look like, how to make cake FROM A BOX - uh you read the directions? and showing us how to use all the tools in our student kit.  Oh and she made Wilton's Buttercream Icing Recipe in class, which let me tell you, it's GROSS. Tastes exactly like the crap they use at your local Ralph's / Vons / Insert your grocery store here.  So apparently this is the recipe we are supposed to make to decorate our cakes.  I have no problem using this for things like borders and flowers, but to frost my whole cake in this junk? Let's just say I will NOT be eating my cake from this class. (Stay away from this recipe). Oh and the instructor said "for real buttercream icing, you don't use butter" Sorry Sarah Lee, I'm using butter.

Anyway, the only real hands-on exercise we did was decorate a couple cookies with ONE tip, the star tip #18. I guess the purpose of this is to start practicing how to use a decorating bag and how to make little stars (a huge bore I tell you).  Throughout the night I had to keep reminding myself that I DID sign up for the basic class.

Wanna see what I made?  2 stupid shortbread cookies with a shitload of stars.  Oooohh Aaaaahhh impressive, I know :-/

Exciting stuff huh?

I won't say it was a complete waste of time, I did learn a few tips on baking and it was fun to watch some people showing off the stars they made all proud, when they actually looked nothing like stars.

Next week we are supposed to bring in a one tier cake to decorate in class.  I am a bit excited about this because so far the majority of my cakes are fondant cakes. I'd love to practice making regular buttercream cakes (using my OWN buttercream recipe).
Let's see how this goes. I'll keep you all posted.

P.S. the cookies weren't half bad, Mr. sweet tooF ate them both right when I got home (did you expect otherwise? haha)

My New Caddy! (No, I Don't Golf)

 I hate having all of my baking stuff just tossed in a random kitchen drawer (always a pain when looking for something, especially my frosting tips) so I picked up the Wilton Tool Caddy.  It's perfect! Holds up to 48 tips, and 12 jars (icing colors, luster dusts, etc.) and all of my miscellaneous items.  Best part is, as everyone knows, I never pay full price for anything at Michael's.  I picked this baby up with a coupon and ended up paying $15 for it! (reg. price $25.99).

Here is it, filled with most of my stuff.  I'm still "stocking up" and buying things little by little (hey, it can get pricey). So far it's the perfect size and I LOVE how it's all in one place now!  Side note - It's too plain,  I need to personalize it somehow.