Laces OUT!

In honor of the Super Bowl I whipped up some goodies.  Nothing too fancy but I had an idea to make these little guys and look how cute they turned out!  I made chocolate fudge cupcakes and snickerdoodle cupcakes.

I used the "grass tip" with green buttercream for the grass, mini pretzels for the field goal posts, and Milk Duds for the footballs (painted the laces with white gel icing). I made little toppers with the Green Bay and Steelers logos.

I had the itch to make a cake too so I made a 3 layered cinnamon buttercream cake.  I dusted the top with cinnamon sugar and made the football out of gum paste.  Not sure why I used yellow icing, it was the first color I grabbed.

Congrats to the Green Bay Packers! (glad football is over, I'm not a fan lol) 

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!!

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Today is my mom's birthday! Yep, our birthdays are only 5 days apart which makes for a fun week.
I bought her some goodies and I made her a cake!

She's a red velvet lover (well, who isn't right?) so I wanted to be sure to make one of her favs.
I made a 3 layer cake: red velvet / french vanilla / red velvet, covered in vanilla buttercream and marshmallow fondant.  I topped the cake with fresh hydrangeas ( I love these flowers!!)

It's so pretty, I hate to cut into it but cake it meant to be EATEN so we shall EAT IT!

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.

NY Yankees Say Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Mr. sweet tooF!!  He's a hardcore Yankee fan so what better way to say I Love You than to make him a Yankees birthday cake!
After much research, I decided to make him a baseball hat cake.  I used a glass Pyrex bowl (thus the dome shape) and a second 6" tier and covered in marshmallow fondant.  I used fondant for the brim too.  My goal was to make the color of the hat darker (true Yankee midnight blue), but sheesh, it takes forever - and lots of icing coloring, to make it that dark (and my hands were getting tired of kneading).

He loved it! I'm pretty pleased considering it's my first "odd" shaped cake :)
The cake is a Lemon Cake with Cream Cheese frosting!

Toy Story Fun!

So when I realized my nephew's 4th birthday was coming up, I knew I wanted to make a fun cake for him.
His party theme was Toy Story! (seems to be a popular choice this summer).  I was so excited to make this and couldn't wait to get started.  I decided on my nephew's favorite flavor, chocolate! or as he calls it "choc-lick" haha (what kid doesn't want a chocolate cake right?) I used a vanilla buttercream filling and covered it in marshmallow fondant. First tier was 3 layers, second tier was 2.  All chocolate goodness.

Here's the final product!

I bought little Toy Story figurines and placed them around the cake (the little army men climbing the cake are my fav!) I found candy icings,  placed a couple on the cake,  added a Buzz Lightyear candle and tadahhhh.....all done!

We also had cupcakes for the kiddos.  I topped them with buttercream, added sprinkles and topped it with candy icing. So cute!

Red Velvet Love

Tonight I made a cake simply "for the sake of eating" as  sweet tooF put it.  He said "this one doesn't have all that crazy fondant on it, it's just to eat" haha.

Well he is right.  As he reminded me yesterday, he ate the last cupcake (aka we ran out of baked goods) and it was his way of saying "more please".

So tonight I made a Red Velvet cake, Buttercream filling, and Whipped Cream icing.  This was the first time I made homemade whipped cream.  It was SO easy! (and yummmmm-o)  I know the "classic" red velvet is covered with cream cheese frosting but I really wasn't in the mood for anything heavy.  The whipped cream was so light and fluffy and best part, it was so easy to make!

Here's the recipe:

2 Cups Heavy Whipping Cream
1/2 Cup Powder Sugar
2 Tbsp Vanilla

That's it! Oh and here's a secret - for good consistency, chill your mixing bowl and your beater in the freezer or 10 minutes before making it.  Something about the cold helps.

Anyway, enough of the blah blah blah... here it the cake!

Mixing up the whipped cream

All done! Nothing fancy. Just a "cake for eating" LOL

Baby Noah is Here!

The anticipated arrival of baby Noah James is here!! My dear friends Patricia and Jasen welcomed their little love bundle on 7/12/10!  So what did I bring the new parents? A cake! (did you think I was going to say diapers or something?) Patricia commented on how much she loved my first fondant cake and wanted one so of course the birth of her beautiful baby boy was the perfect time!

I made a 3 layered chocolate fudge cake with home made buttercream frosting and of course, marshmallow fondant!  

I absolutely LOVE how it came it!!! Let me tell you, I originally tried to find the footprint cookie cutter but no go, so I had to draw and cut these little feet and toes by hand.  It was a struggle at first, I tried an exacto knife then later realized good ol' fashioned scissors worked.  I wrapped a pretty little satin brown and blue polka dot ribbon, added his name and done!

I'm finding it easier and easier to make these cakes with every one I'm making.  It's true what they say, practice makes perfect!! 

Oh and there is no way I can end this post without posting a pic of the cutest little man EVER!!!

Introducing Noah James :)

                         

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July, what better way to celebrate than to make another cake! (Not that I need an excuse haha).

So I decided on a two-tiered cakes this time (what can I say, I'm a rebel) but this time I knew I didn't want to use the ready-made fondant so I opted to MAKE my own! I found a great recipe for Marshmallow fondant that turned out great! (It is a bit messy to make but it's WAY easier and yummy!). 

The recipe is:

16 oz bag regular or miniature marshmallows
1 – 2 lb bag confectioner’s sugar
2 Tablespoons water
Shortening
Cornstarch

Seriously, that's it. You melt the marshmallows, mix with powder sugar, knead and VOILA! done! It's WAY easier to use, flexible, stays moist, easy to color and taste a lot better than the boxed kind.

So back to my cake, home made buttercream frosting, 1st tier - chocolate fudge, 2nd tier - yellow cake with fresh strawberries filling.

Look how cute!!

 I piped stars made out of icing and used cookie cutters for the stars.  I will NEVER go back to the boxed fondant, the Marshmallow fondant was a million times better.  I'm still learning how to smooth out the surface, hey it's not as easy as it looks.
Anyway, I took the cake to a 4th of July party and it was a hit! Everyone couldn't believe it was my second cake. Oh and it was yummy!!!

My First Fondant Cake

So I love watching those cake shows (Cupcake Wars, Ace of Cakes, DC Cupcakes.. I DON'T like Cake Boss) the new rage in cake decorating in fondant.  I decided to give it a shot.  I picked up a box of ready made fondant at Michael's and went to town.  First let me say, it's not easy to work with. My kitchen was a disaster, it looked like cornstarch and powder sugar got in on and had a baby on my counter (and some on the floor).  So back to the ready-made fondant. This stuff dries FAST. So if you plan on making tons of shapes and using different colors, good luck.  I also wanted to use some colors and didn't realize you're supposed to use ICING coloring NOT food coloring. Oops. It made a sticky mess.  Thankfully I found some icing coloring, but it takes a lot of that stuff if you want to make a dark color (pastels are way easier).

So I made 2 - 8'' rounds of yellow cake with homemade buttercream frosting.

So I wasn't a fan of the ready-made fondant. It tasted like sweet Playdoh, but hubby seemed to like it.  I wasn't too crazy about how hard it was to work with.  I didn't realize how time consuming this was until I was done and it was something like 6 hours later.  All in all I was really proud of my 1st fondant cake and now I'm exciting about making more!