Night Three of Cake Decorating

On my third night of cake decorating I learned how to make different types of flowers. First though we were instructed to bring pre-made cupcakes (I brought the leftover Red Velvet cupcakes from Sue's shower). She then showed us how to frost the cupcakes. For this particular design we used a star tip and a 10 inch featherweight piping bag with the white Wilton recipe for criscocream. You can use one of the nails the Decorating Basics kit comes with (and your cupcake might in fact fly off of it and go splat), or you can set it in front of you. The point is to cover all the showing cake with frosting, or "the good stuff" as defined by Rita, our instructor. I personally like a little bit of the cake showing; it shows the pretty contrast between the cake and the frosting, especially if you have a red cake and white frosting! But, to each her own. When ready, hold the piping bag at a ninety degree angle, and start at the edge of your cake. Make a complete circle around the edge of the cake, and when you come back around go up slightly on the layer you already made. Keep circling around until the cake is covered. When finishing, stop the pressure on the bag and lift off. If you keep pressure going you will not have a neat little star shape. It should look like this:

Once our six cupcakes were properly frosted we learned how to make shaggy mums, drop flowers, rosettes, and shell boarders. These were all so much fun! Here is a picture of the first flower that we made:

Crazy flowers that were fun, but I will probably never make again.

Mine ended up turning out kind of funky because the frosting was so stiff--it kept sticking to the tip, and refused to let go! Rita told us to not ever use the stiff frosting recipe because it's more like sticky paste, and completely non-malleable. The medium consistency is better, but ours definitely needed to have more water added to it! Anyway, they were fun to make, and everyone really had a ball making these. The one woman had a wilted flower. Instead of the "petals" sticking up, they were sticking to the bottom, and really did look like dead flowers. She worked hard though, and got some beautiful flowers at the end. 

Drop flowers, rosettes, and leaves

The next thing we did was learn how to make a drop flower. You use one of the star tips, press it to the cake, use enough pressure so that the frosting makes lines in the shape of a flower, stop pressure, and finally, lift off! This gives you a lovely flower. With one of the smaller round tips, you can add a dot of frosting to the middle, and make a gorgeous flower! The technique is basically the same for the other variation of the drop star. The only difference is to extend your arm so that it is parallel to your body. Once you have the flower shape starting to form, you turn your arm so that it is perpendicular to your body. this make a little ruffle to your flower. Again, you can use a round tip to make the center of your flower. 

Rosettes and leaves

Rosettes were very similar to the motions of frosting the cupcake. You make a blob in the center of your potential flower, then swing your arm up, to the right, and then finally swinging around to the left. It makes a cute little rosette!

This class was so much fun. I think making leaves was my favorite. The look rather difficult to make, and the tip seems ominous, but it's so easy! I can definitely see myself making these flowers and leaves again. 

I think I added all but one flower to this cupcake. A hodgepodge of everything I learned!

The Royal Wedding

This morning I woke up before the crack of dawn, 4:00, to watch the pre-show of the royal wedding. I had to peel my eyelids back, but I made it to the living room in time to be a part of all the wedding festivities. The excitement was in the air with the rolls royce waiting just outside Kate's hotel, the anticipation of the arrival of guests, and finally of the royal family. I felt like I was there! I took a couple of pictures, only a hundred or so, of the TV to document what I saw today.

Kate looked absolutely gorgeous, and I was so impressed by how calm she seemed the entire time. I wonder if her stomach was in a knot. Can you imagine walking for four consecutive minutes with not only the world's royalty gazing upon you, but two billion people?! I admire her.

Westminster Abbey looked spectacular! Brings back fond memories of when I was there years ago for a college course. It looks exactly the same, and extraordinarily different -- it's incredible to think that I walked where William and Kate walked and saw the things they saw. Must make a pilgrimage.

I love yellow. I think I was a queen in a past life.

The ring finally went on! I thought he was going to have to leave it hanging before her knuckle for a minute there. Persistence gets the job done, though!

Mawwww....replay of the couple's first kiss...it was so quick I didn't have a chance to snap a picture when it actually happened! How great that they gave the people another kiss, too!

They make such a beautiful couple, and you can tell that they truly love each other. What an inspiring story! Who would have thought that your average girl would meet, date, and marry Prince William?

found it especially exciting to watch this special day. William is only a couple of years older than me, and I remember growing up with him (well, via pictures and television). I, like many other girls my age, had his picture on my wall and dreamed of marrying him one day.And Kate got to do it! How fabulous.

I celebrated along with the royals. Leftover strawberry champagne cake from Easter was the perfect cake to honor the couple, and man was it delicious! Notice my coffee mug...rather fitting, I thought. :)

Wishing the couple a lifetime of happiness and love!

Strawberry Champagne Cupcakes!

For Easter I made a decadent Strawberry Champagne cake, and I thought I would make the cake again, but in cupcake form. The secretary in my office was honored today for being spectacular (she really is), and I thought I would contribute to the celebration with these decadent cupcakes. Everyone loved them! Laurie, who doesn't usually like a fruit or berry treat, told me that these cupcakes are point worthy! She is on Weight Watchers (and looks phenomenal), so every point counts! That was most certainly an honor to hear. And, at the request of Matti, I shall now post the recipe I used. I hope you make these and enjoy them as much as I did! :)

Gorgeous Strawberry Champagne Cupcakes!

 Strawberry Champagne Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes

½ cup (1 stick) butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 ½ cups cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

¼ cup champagne

¼ cup pureed strawberries

½ tsp vanilla extract

¾ cup chopped fresh strawberries

2 egg whites

Cream butter and sugar until light and smooth. Add the egg and mix until completely incorporated.

In a separate bowl combine and sift the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a dish combine the puree and champagne. Alternate adding the flour and strawberry mixtures to the butter mixture. Start and end with flour for a fluffy cake. Add the vanilla. Add the strawberries mixing until just incorporated. Fold in half the egg whites, then fold in the remainder.

I like to put the batter into a piping bag to fill the cupcake tins. Batter should reach just over ¾ of the tin.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

1 cup butter

1 package (2 pounds) powdered sugar

heaping 1/3 cup pureed strawberries

1 tsp vanilla

chocolate shavings for garnish

Cream the butter until light and fluffy. With continuous mixing, add a bit of the powdered sugar (add some of the strawberry puree if it gets too thick). Keep adding the sugar in small increments until completely blended with the butter. Add the remainder of the strawberry puree and the vanilla. If the frosting is still thick, add some champagne! Add chocolate shavings on top of the frosted cupcake for a decadent treat!

Ready for the office!

 These cupcakes were truly decadent. There are a lot of strawberries, but the flavor is mild. The chocolate garnish not only makes the final product pretty, but perfectly compliments the floral tones throughout the cupcake. 

Happy baking!

Red Velvet Cupcakes for Sue

A couple of months ago I had a wedding cake tasting for my friend Sue, and while she enjoyed all the flavors of the cakes she could only pick three of the six for her wedding day. She chose the Spicy Chocolate cake, Ginger cake, and Hazelnut cake (these were all my favorites, too). Even with the three chosen, Sue still had Red Velvet on the mind. Since her colors are a very pretty blue with a hint of red this cake would be a perfect compliment (not to mention completely delicious with the cream cheese frosting!). She decided the cake should be included...at the bridal shower, but in cupcake form! I was more than happy to oblige! Any reason to try a new recipe or perfect something I have already made, and I am game! I agreed to bring the new and improved Red Velvet cupcakes.

For some reason my cake planning process did not go as smoothly as it has before. It all started when I was on the hunt for these little red candy hearts. They were to go on top of each individual cupcake, which is not only precious, but entirely appropriate for the occasion! Alas, they were nowhere to be found. Instead of topping the cupcakes with the hearts I decided to go with an accent color that will be dominant for the wedding -- aqua blue. I had the majority of my supplies, but I still had to go out that morning to finish up (I also strongly recommend gathering ingredients at least the day before you plan on baking...). Once I had everything I started baking!

We recently got a stand mixer (Oh, so fabulous!) and this was my first time using it. I was stoked. I started in mixing the eggs and sugar -- I can go and do something else while this is happening now! The next step calls to mix the red food coloring--2 ounces--with the tiniest amount of chocolate--one teaspoon. These proportions make the final product bright red, not a gorgeous, deep blood red. We're looking for blood red here people. I decided to use only one and half ounces of the coloring, and I threw in another teaspoon of cocoa powder. Meeeeehhhh....still not looking good...dump in a tablespoon. Now we're getting somewhere! It still was not quite up to par, so I threw in another tablespoon. I mean, really, you can never have too much chocolate. This made the color of the cake perfect! This then gets stirred around with the eggs and sugar mixture. Mix in the rest of the ingredients, and distribute them evenly into the cupcake pans. It was only after they were done that we realized a tiny mistake had been made....a minor detail had been left out of the cupcakes. It was only the butter.............

They turned out perfectly!

Satiny cream cheese frosting.

I ended up throwing those ones out -- they turned out really cute, but when I pulled one apart it was like pulling apart a sponge.

Not so cute. Tasted good though! I had to make two more batches of cupcakes (one while mom was on a Weggies run to gather more supplies). The first edible batch turned out nicely, but were a little overfilled. The last batch turned out perfectly, and between the two I had thirty perfectly shaped Red Velvet cupcakes! Then I was done for the night. Whew.

Hi, you're pretty.

Nestled together

 Bright and early the next morning I made the cream cheese frosting, frosted the cupcakes, and sprinkled the blue glitter on top. They turned out perfectly! The red with a hint of blue on top of the pale frosting was gorgeous!

Ready for transport!

I had only a couple of minutes to spare before having to leave for the shower. With the cupcakes all boxed up, I left feeling confident and excited.

 

Suzanne got this beautiful tiered cupcake stand.

 

 

 The staff at the restaurant were so good to me! One of the women came out to my car and helped me unpack, and they were all ready to put the cupcakes in the fridge. I couldn't have asked for better treatment of my precious cupcakes!

I'm in love with this table-scape :)

I set them up, and the final product was gorgeous! I love the way they turned out, and so did Sue. Her guests liked them, too -- they kept telling me how pretty they looked, and then how delicious they were. I was pleased. The wedding party split up the left over cupcakes, and I was sent home with the cupcake stand! I love parting gifts! It was such a pleasure to be able to make these scrumptious treats for my friend's special day!

Me with my masterpiece!

Night Two of Cake Decorating

For our second night of spectacular cake decorating we had to actually make a cake to bring to class. Since I love trying new things, mom and I decided to make a Mocha Dream cake. The batter smelled so good! The coffee! The chocolate! It doesn't get a whole lot better than those two scents mingling together. Mm! All went well until mom realized that she had not used these fancy strips that go around the pan while the cakes are baking. You dip them in cold water, ring it out, and then stick them around the pan. This emits magic powers, and your cake will turn out smooth on top -- no mound! It makes it bake evenly through. When the edges are baking faster than the center the batter pushes up creating a mound on top of the cake. Well, this way mom and I could practice the technique to chop off this mound in case the strips are not used. 

Mocha Dream cake is being assembled!

Since I take things literally, which I often shouldn't, the cakes were kept in the freezer until it was time to leave (she said the colder the better when it comes to decorating!). Mom wanted to take them out, but I said no! She said cold! Well. Even knives have a hard time sawing through boulders. Not only did we have to cut off the mound on top of the cake, but we also had to cut our cakes in half -- length wise. I bought this fancy cake slicer thing, and even with two of us sawing together it took a good ten minutes to get our cakes apart. And they looked a hot mess. Mine had a hole in the bottom, and mom's cut went from horizontal to straight into the board. It was kind of funny once we thought about it. I chuckle now when thinking back. Lesson learned! The fridge will suffice when it comes to products being cold! Anyway, once that was all done we have to fill our lovely cakes with the most wonderfully fragrant raspberry filling. The smell was intoxicating! So I made my well of frosting and filled it in with raspberry deliciousness. Next we had to put the tops back on, and then pipe the frosting on the top and then on the sides. I learned great techniques on how to frost without getting speckles of cake in the frosting. You just throw a giant amount of frosting on, and do not let your spatula touch the cake, or lift the spatula with frosting attached to it. Just keep smearing it around until you can safely lift off. Frosting the sides is about the same. I learned how to control my pressure to make the frosting even and fancy. Then! Once the frosting is dry you put a piece of parchment paper over the cake and gently smooth it out with your hands. This takes away all spatula marks. Genius! (This technique will come in handy when I am making Sue's wedding cakes!)

Once the cake is properly set and looks completely professional (they really did!), we learned a new decorating technique. The kit came with an outline of a cupcake. We traced this cupcake with piping gel and put the image on the cake. Then all you have to do is fill in the outline....and it looks like you put in painstaking hours to make it look so perfect. It was easy. Except that my filling ended up looking a bit like intestines instead of fluffy cupcake frosting. Next time they will look stellar, I'm sure.

Mom working hard on her cupcake

Her final product. Pretty good!

My cupcake!

This class was a lot of fun, and I anticipate next class will be even better. We learn how to make flowers and leaves from frosting. This should be interesting. :)

Mom and her cake!

When we got home I dove into the cake. The flavors were quite interesting! We had made two different kinds of frosting, mom wanted almond and I wanted vanilla. Our frosting was too thick, so we ended up thinning out one of the batches, and left the other thick. This meant we mixed and matched the frostings.... I have to say that all those flavors mixing together was kind of gross...in the sickly sweet sense. It doesn't help that the frosting we are supposed to make is made with crisco instead of butter (WHHAAAA??!!!!) Crisco-cream is gross. Butter-cream will always be my frosting of choice even if it makes the frosting a touch more yellow. It's definitely worth it, I tell you!

Me and mine!

This really hasn't stopped me from eating the cake though :)

It was really pretty when I cut into the cake..so many colors! Easy on the eyes, but a bit busy for the taste buds. I am definitely going to try making this cake again without all the extra flavors. I bet it's extraordinary.

It's so pretty!

My slice

Night One of Cake Decorating

This past weekend mom and I signed up for a cake decorating class that is on Thursday nights for two hours during the month of April. Last night we had our first class, and it was simply amazing! Mom and I were the second pair to arrive, and the class consisted of only five of us. We established a rapport with everyone rather quickly -- we were all so excited to learn more about decorating cakes! After brief introductions, what is your name and why do you want to take this class, the instructor demonstrated how to properly prepare a cake: cut off the mound, cut it through the center to give two separate layers, how to fill the cake, and frost it. This was just your basic cake preparation and frosting, and we learned such valuable information! Bottom side is always up because it is flat. When filling a cake make a dam with frosting around the outside so the filling (strawberry for her) doesn't ooze out the sides. Then when the top is put back on you fill in the middle with more frosting so that when you frost the sides there are not any gaps between the two layers of cake. Then we learned how to frost quickly with different utensils. Her cake turned out so nicely, and she did it really fast! I can't wait to try out my own cake (I'll get to do it next Thursday!).

After learning about how to assemble a cake, we used our tools to create stars. The kit we had to buy has these great practice boards and examples that you can put under plastic so you can practice. Here's what I came up with!

I was a little nervous about making these stars at first -- they don't seem hard, and they really weren't, but I had never done them before. Turns out, I'm not so bad at it! :) I had a lot of fun trying to make the perfect little stars. It was relatively simple right up until the point where you have to stick all the stars together so that there is no cake showing. This is done for character cakes. Mine are pretty spacey. It was fun anyway.

This is the first cookie I decorated after our practice session. I need to work on spacing, but the stars are pretty! And it's a lot of fun. I could make little stars all day long.

Hard at work getting those stars right! The others were all busy making all kinds of shapes -- lopsided hearts and stars, snowflakes. I stuck to just getting them out there and practicing the technique. It was a blast. And then everyone would ask to see your work, and then they would show you what they did. It was a lot of fun. Here's what mom was working on: 

She tried all the fancy-pants patterns, and they turned out really well! When we got home that night mom and I went back to work finishing the rest of the cookies she had made earlier in the day. Here are a few that we made:

I made a spider!

And a heart.

Mom made smiley faces and swirls.

And she made a really good star!

The class was so much fun! Both mom and I can't wait to get back there next Thursday to replicate the cake putting-together process! She made it seem so easy, and I wonder if it will be so.... Next week shall tell!

Today I ate of the delicious cookies that mom made. It was heavenly!

My First Attempt at Artisan Bread

I got this amazing artisan bread cookbook for Christmas, and I have been wanting to make something from it ever since I got my hands on my new treasure! A couple of weeks ago I finally decided to make the Focaccia bread that looked sooo incredibly delicious. The recipe was much more involved than anything I had made before (bread-wise), but it looked like fun and a challenge I was ready to take on! So one Saturday evening I made a poolish for the first time ever. I got the flour, water, and pinch of yeast together and let it ferment overnight (the recipe called for 16 hours). I was so excited when I checked in on it the next morning! It was a big, juicy, bubbly, goo-like substance -- and the smell was strong!

Poolish!

It's actually a recipe for Ciabatta dough.

I added the rest of the ingredients to the poolish, which happened to just be more of what I had put in the night before. Then I had to stir it for approximately one hundred hours. Well, that's not entirely true. The recipe called to put it in a mixer and let it go for 6 minutes on medium speed. Well, the only mixer I have is my own arm power. And when my fingers are cramping up, the speed is slow. Anyone who thinks six minutes flies by should go grab a spoon and stir an almost solid flour mixture for that much time. One minute can seem like five hours! Well, I did it, and promptly did no more (which is what the recipe called for). Thank god. 

Ready to sit

 Then you let it ferment for thirty minutes, fold it in all sorts of directions (the book came with a video on how to properly do this! It was fantastic), and repeat the process three more times. Once it's all done you spread it out on a baking sheet and act like you're playing the piano whilst dimpling the dough. Let it sit some more. Add whatever your heart desires to the surface of the dough. Mine desired onion and garlic powder, basil and parsley, sauteed onions and garlic, and later on it was topped with feta.

Folding was fun!

 

Piano fingers

 

I love the bubbles!

Baking away...

It was soo good! The bread was incredible. Not only was it delicious, but it was so pretty with all the holes and seasonings on top! Will definitely make this bread again.

The Finished Product!