Little Red Corvette!

Up until now, every time I baked I used my mom's good ol' hand mixer from the 70's.  (seriously, she's had this since before I was born, it's a faded yellow too.)  Anyway, it's always done the trick, but I always drooled over the AWESOME KitchenAid mixers I would see on TV but could never convince myself to pay for one (they're pricey! and I'm cheap).
Since I've been baking more, I figured one of these babies would make things much easier.  Finally, the day came. Hubby kept telling me "just do it!" What finally convinced me was, hubby has given me a gift card for $50, the store was having a 15% sale and KitchenAid was offering a $30 rebate. Ok, ok. So I did it!
Here is my new baby!!!!

Isn't she a beauty!!! I was SO excited to bring her home and USE IT!!!
I wanted to make everything under the sun haha, but I ended up making vanilla confetti cupcakes with homemade cream cheese frosting.  Sorry, I was too excited and didn't take pics of my cupcakes ha!  What have I been doing without one! The cupcakes practically made themselves! This machine is heaven sent. If you are a baker, and you don't have to be a professional or be one that bakes daily (or even weekly) this is a MUST buy. It speeds up the process by freeing you up to do other stuff while this little gem mixes everything for you!

Yay!!!  This is going to be dangerous.

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!

Sweet TooF

What can I say, I married a man with a MAJOR sweet tooth. Lucky for him, I'm not much for sweets ( two bites of cheesecake and I'm done, cake with no frosting please!) so he usually gets to finish the job.  I love keeping busy with fun little hobbies and I recently started to bake.  Let's just say now I'm hooked.  What's used to be baking the occasional cake or cupcake every few months or so, is now...what can I bake today? Needless to say, I'm sure we will pay for this in the upcoming months when we have major fat asses.