Happy Birthday, Zoey!

Happy Birthday, Zoey!

My little girl's birthday isn't until Friday, but we've already celebrated her birthday 3 times with various family members on different days.  Still not sure if I'll make yet another cake later this week!  The first cake is when we doubled her birthday with my nephew and celebrated with my side of the family.  The second is when we celebrated with my hubby's family.

Stats:

• 8" square yellow cake
• filled and frosted with chocolate icing
• frozen buttercream transfer of Spongebob and Patrick
• sides coated with "sand" (crushed graham crackers and brown sugar)
• 8" round chocolate buttermilk cake
• filled and frosted with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream
• topped wiith "dirt" (cake crumbs)
• piped almond bark dinosaur bones
• piped shell borders

It's been a while since I've done a frozen buttercream transfer.  Last time I did one, the parchment paper I had piped on to seemed to crinkle while freezing.  This time I used some nice acetate, but it still managed to warp slightly as the buttercream contracted.  Maybe next time I'll tape the acetate down firmly to my small cutting board.

Instead of piping all the colors, I used a paint brush for some of the smaller areas.  I dabbed the colored icing into the proper spots instead of wasting icing bags and time for less than a square inch of coloring.  It turned out well, especially for having done it in the middle of the night.  The next day I plopped on the frozen slab and threw crumbs on the side of the cake right as our guests were walking in.

My daughter's one request for her birthday was dinosaurs.  For this cake, I put the leveled cake tops into the food processor to make crumbs.  After filling and icing the cake, I sprinkled the crumbs to cover the top to look like soil.  With melted almond bark in a squeeze bottle, I piped some dinosaur bones.  She thoroughly enjoyed picking out the bones and eating them.

Happy Birthday, kid!

Critter Crunch

Critter Crunch

A Critter Crunch birthday cake was requested of me from a friend of my hubby.  Critter Crunch is a puzzle game available on the PlayStation Network.  Hubby and I played the demo and really liked the adorable creatures and beautiful artwork in the game.  I was not thrilled to discover that I wasn't very good at the game, though!  

Stats:

• carved 8"x3" chocolate cake (I can't remember which cake mix box)
• iced with vanilla Italian Meringue Buttercream 
• filled with vanilla whipped pudding
• covered in marshmallow fondant
• "Happy Birthday" in blue Royal Icing
• eye glossed with 50/50 corn syrup/Everclear

In the last cake class I volunteered at, the instructor mentioned that she no longer uses any cake release spray or mixture to prepare her pans.  Instead she lines the bottom with parchment paper and then, when done baking and cooling, she runs a knife down along the sides of the pan.  She believes letting the cake stick to the sides while baking will help prevent shrinking.  I lined the bottom of my pans with parchment paper and wrapped baking strips on the sides.

They baked up pretty well and came out of the pan nicely.  I think I'll do this from now on! 

Over time I've learned that having a base board (cardboard or foam core) in the final shape of the cake is extremely helpful.  Here is the rough shape, a slight teardrop cut out of a cake board.  I used a steak knife to carve the cake into shape.  The cake had been in the freezer overnight so it was easy to carve without mutilating it.

My cake wasn't originally as high as I wanted the final product to be.  That meant I needed to build up some with icing.  I also trimmed the sides to be within 1/4" of the cake board.  I wanted the icing to be flush with the board when I covered it with fondant. 

Luckily I've watched enough cake TV shows to know that I should carve first, then torte and fill.  Otherwise, there'd be a huge mess of filling squishing out the sides and cake tearing and crumbling.

As always, my dam made from cake spackle.

Crumb coat.

First layer.

My critter has some facial features and expressions.  This was achieved by putting fondant on top of the buttercream but under the final fondant coat.  I made some fondant snakes for the mouth and eyebrows.  With icing I built up one side of the mouth snake so it would have a gradual rise.  The other side was to be indented to give the illusion of his 2-tone body.

As suggested by Mike McCarey's Cakenology video (demonstrating how to carve a cake into the shape of a car), I used my hands and soft buttercream to smooth out the final layers of icing.  After giving my critter a good belly rub, he was the smoothest cake I've ever made!  I did about 3 passes, putting the cake in the freezer for a few minutes so the buttercream would firm up, then applying more room temperature buttercream on top.

Before belly rubs.

After!

Marshmallow fondant colored with Wilton Golden Yellow and Lemon Yellow gel.

I actually think this is the best fondant job I've done on a cake!  The fondant went on even and smooth; only 2 air bubbles to pop.  It stuck to the buttercream without me having to wet it.  Hurray!  His feet are 2 chunks of extra fondant roughly shaped into triangles.  I glued him down to the gold rectangular board with some piping gel.

This cake reminded me that I seriously need to purchase some clay tools.  Gumpaste tools are nice (I have Wilton's set), but really, a good set of cheap wooden clay tools can go a long way.  I only have a few clay tools left over from my high school days, but they were invaluable for bringing out the fondant ridges and lines. 

Free-hand cut out some white fondant as his belly with a craft knife.  Notice the shaggy cuts to emulate fur!

Do you know what's a complete waste of time and money?  The Wilton Alphabet Cutters!  I tried and tried to get a decent P.  After a few attempt, I settled for what I got.  Then came a B.  There is NO FREAKING WAY anyone can get fondant out of the B shape.  I don't even have a tool narrow enough to force the fondant out from the other end.  Perhaps a bamboo skewer would have worked, but at that point I practically threw the fondant across the room.

I piped "Happy Birthday" with Royal Icing instead.  Tip is Wilton #4.

I made some eyes with white and blue fondant, cut with a small round Christmas ornament cookie cutter.  The gloss was 50/50 corn syrup/Everclear brushed on to it.

I am very pleased with how this little guy came out.  I do wish I could have figured out how to give him little ears, but oh well.  Also couldn't get a decent photo of him.  Most of my caking is done at night with little ambient light.

Photo Gallery

Whipped Ganache: Attempted

Whipped Ganache: Attempted

Happy Birthday, Lonnie!
(+5 skill points => 340/400)

Happy Birthday to my co-worker and cake-buddy Lonnie.  He asked me the other day if I've found us a good chocolate icing yet.  I told him I think it'll be whipped ganache.  Well, that didn't quite work out like I expected.  Instead I used my runny mess as a crumb coat and then made chocolate IMBC with it.  After one slice of cake, I felt like I ate a whole chocolate bar.

Stats:

• 8" round Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge cake mix
• base coat in milk chocolate whipped ganache
• filled with Oreo mousse
• iced with chocolate IMBC
• shell and rosette borders with tip #22

I got a 24 oz bag of Nestle Milk Chocolate morsels and melted it with 10 oz of heavy whipping cream.

It took a lot of stirring and re-heating in the microwave to get everything melted.  I let it rest on the counter overnight before trying to whip it.

Cakecentral.com members told me to use the whisk attachment so it could incorporate air into the ganache.

Um.  I don't think it worked.  I might have used too much cream?  Maybe I should have used semi-sweet chocolate instead?  It was way too runny to ice a cake with it.  Bah!

Defeated, I quickly whipped up a batch of IMBC and added some ganache to it for some chocolate icing instead.  Then I had the idea to use the left over runny stuff as a crumb coat to give the cake another chocolate boost.  I still have yet to really take the time to smooth out the sides of a non-crusting iced cake.  It's hard!

I've been wanting to branch out on some piping skills.  I used IMBC with a thicker tube to make the message first, then I used tip #2 with ganache to pipe on top.  It looked kinda neat and different.

Shells and rosettes.  I need to learn some different borders!!!

FAILs:

• runny ganache
• still trying to smooth and IMBC cake
• was too chocolatey with the ganache + cake + filling + icing ... made my stomach ache a little!  I hope no one else's did!

FTWs:

• was nice to try different message piping
• ganache makes a good crumb coat

Happy 1st Birthday, Zoey!

Happy 1st Birthday, Zoey!

(+5 skill points => 325/400)

Last weekend we celebrated my little girl's very first birthday.  What stinks is that my husband and I have both been busy working overtime and didn't have much time to prepare for her party.  I'm sad that I didn't get to go all out for her cake, but it still turned out cute and she eventually dug into her smash cake.

Stats

"Watermelon" Party Cake:

• 8" round Duncan Hines Red Velvet box cake
• filled with whipped cream cheese pudding
• iced with pink and green IMBC
• dark chocolate chips (as seeds)

"Watermelon Slice" Smash Cake:

• 6" round Duncan Hines French Vanilla box cake, cut to resemble a slice of watermelon
• iced with pink and green IMBC
• dark chocolate chips (as seeds)

I must apologize first.  We were so busy and strapped for time before the party, I didn't have a chance to stop and take pictures of the process.  But here's what I did.

There were so many great "watermelon cakes" on cakecentral.com's gallery.  One in particular had me wondering how she got the red icing in such a clean and precise circle.  I decided to try the frozen buttercream transfer technique.  I traced a 7 1/2" circle on to parchment paper.  My pink icing got piped into that circle to about 1/2" thick.  Using a butter knife I tried to smooch the icing together.  It sat in the freezer while I torted, filled, and crumb coated the cake.  My disc-o-icing was pretty firm by then and I was able to peel the paper off and place it on top of the cake.  You could see the "worms" of icing that I had piped on that didn't get smooched down.  I used some room-temperature icing and glided it along the surface to seal in all those imperfections.  It looked so flat and smooth!  I may just have to do this with my normal cakes!

I had JUST enough icing to do both the party cake and the smash cake.  When it came to sing happy birthday, little Zoey wasn't sure what to do.  I stuck her hand into the cake.  Once she realized it was food, she gradually began to chow down!

Happy Birthday, Zoey!

Happy Birthday, Hang!

Happy Birthday, Hang!

Dark Chocolate Oreo Cake

(+5 skill points => 310 / 400)

Earlier this evening, my husband, baby, and I went to a BBQ dinner at the Salt Lick in Driftwood, TX to celebrate our friend/co-worker's birthday.  His wife was planning this to be a surprise birthday, then we'd all go out for dinner.  Last Wednesday I asked Sandi if she'd like me to whip up a cake or cuppies to bring ... since her baking something might raise suspicion.  She said yes, but something small since everyone would be full from the all-you-can-eat BBQ.  Here is my version of a small Oreo cake.

Stats:

• Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge cake mix
• dark and white chocolate IMBC
• Oreo mousse filling
• two-tone icing on side
• bead border on bottom
• stenciled icing on top
• piped lines over edge

This is the first cake I've decorated with the help of my new Cricut Expression!  There are many fabulous Oreo cakes out there.  After some research, I found that some lovely soul posted an SVG of the Oreo cookie face:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oreo_Face.svg

I modified it by removing the outer ring of lines and the "OREO" middle.

In my "craft closet" are a couple rolls of 20 gauge clear vinyl.  I cut out a 12" square and fed that to my Cricut.  It cut beautifully!  I *think* it was set to medium pressure with blade depth 6.  Afterward several of those little pieces that were still barely attached had to be popped out.  Here it is after being washed (hopefully the water beads help it show on camera).

SCAL and the font "Action Man" helped make the middle to be the birthday boy's name instead of "OREO".

Now let's talk about icing.  The Cake Love recipe has really been working for me.  This is where I've whipped up Wilton's Meringue Powder and added the sugar syrup.

Adding 4 sticks of butter deflates it somewhat.  I use Walmart's Great Value unsalted butter.

This is ganache made with 4 oz. of Hershey's "Special Dark" morsels melted with 2 oz. of heavy whipping cream.

The ganache didn't quite make the icing batch very "dark", color and taste-wise.  After ~3 Tb. of Hershey's Dark Cocoa powder and a bunch of Americolor Super Black coloring gel ... I achieved gray.

It's frustrating to not get a deep, rich color, but I had no time to spare.  This cake was made from start to finish (minus the Cricut part) in the ~5 hours before we had to leave for the dinner.  After torting and filling, the cake got a nice spackle layer.

What seems like ages ago, I did a gift box cake for my parents' birthdays using a technique from http://www.make-fabulous-cakes.com/gift-box-cake-tutorial.html.  The side of the cake was iced with a thin layer of white chocolate IMBC.  

My cake was 6 cm high, so the design was to have two 2 cm "cookie" layers with a 2 cm "filling" layer in between.  My paper trimmer helped me cut several 2 cm strips of parchment paper.  After the cake firmed up in the freeze for a few minutes, the strips were pressed/stuck to the side of the cake.  FYI, scotch tape does NOT stick to parchment paper!

Once the strips covered the center, I iced the rest of the cake in the dark chocolate IMBC.  After another pass of firming up in the freezer, the center strips were carefully removed ... peeling away and leaving nice, straight edges.  Thankfully I achieved the look I wanted without having to make different sized cakes!

This time around, the cake stayed in the freezer a bit longer.  I wanted the top nice and firm before I started messing with the stencil on top of it.  The cut vinyl was centered on the top and a thin layer of icing was smoothed over it.  Carefully, I peeled the stencil away, leaving the "raised" shapes that you see on an Oreo cookie.  What I SHOULD have done was put it in the freezer again before removing the vinyl (like I did with the side parchment strips).  Many shapes were too soft and were nudged while the vinyl was removed, so it didn't yield clean edges.  The "G" got a little messed up :(  Oh well, next time.

Remember the edge lines that I removed from the original SVG?  Instead I piped those lines in with Wilton round tip #4.  It was hard to pipe all the way to the middle "filling" without getting some gray on the white.  In the end I tried to lift the tip upward at the end of my line.

I'm pretty pleased with how the cake turned out.  It looked and tasted fine.  Hang and Sandi were very pleased. 

I was concerned about getting the cake to the dinner safely.  It got to mid-80s today and the waiting area for dinner seating at the Salt Lick is outside.  Playing it safe, I aimed to keep my Oreo as cool as it could be.  At Walmart I picked up a large styrofoam cooler (~$7) that my 12" cake drum fit securely in.  My cake got packed up inside along with candles, a lighter, a knife, and 2 mini ice-packs.  It traveled well and was still cool as we dug in.  I'm going to label this my "Dessert Bin" ... with Cricut cut-out cardstock!!!

FAILs:

• couldn't get a dark color in my IMBC to match an Oreo cookie
• should have waited before removing stencil
• everyone's mouths were temporarily stained dark blue :(

FTWs:

• stenciling badge earned
• Cricut + cake badge earned
• I think it really did look like an Oreo!