Capital Confectioners' Day of Sharing 2011

Capital Confectioners' Day of Sharing

July 10th, 2011

Round Rock, TX

(in photo: Roxanne Moore, Janet Rosebeary, Ashlee Trotter, Kimberly Chapman, and Ruth Rickey)

The Capital Confectioners have been very busy bees lately!  Last Sunday was our annual "Day of Sharing", featuring demonstrations of some spectacular cake artists.  I don't know what other club's DOS's are like, but if it's anything like ours, you won't want to miss it!

Guest Demonstrators:

• Ashlee Trotter
• jungle cupcake toppers
• Kimberly Chapman
• advanced gummy techniques
• Janet Rosebeary
• bride/groom paper dolls
• Ruth Rickey
• safari sugar babies
• Roxanne Moore
• sexy shoes

The Capital Confectioners dedicated this year's Day of Sharing to Kelley Masters.  If you're a Texan baker, then you know her name.  Heck, even if you're not, you might still know her.  She's the owner of CakeBoss, a successful inventory software application for bakers.  For the past several years she's been spearheading the movement to legalize selling cakes from home under a cottage food law in Texas.   Thanks to her, Texan home bakers will be able to sell their products from their kitchens starting in September.  For more information, please visit her website: http://www.texascottagefoodlaw.com/

The Capital Confectioners, with the help of donations from the caking community, gave her a custom made pendant with the Texas Cottage Food Law movement logo and many of us present signed a big thank you card to her.  During the breaks, she fielded Q&A for the new law.  She was genuinely surprised at our dedication to her and gave us a heartfelt thank you.  We replied with a long standing ovation!

The Day of Sharing had an awesome line up of raffle items and goodies and great vendors, not to mention a killer dessert bar!

:( this Agbay slipped right through my fingers ...

The main dessert attraction was this huge cake made by club members Chris Cantrell and Kimberly Chapman.  Those leaves are made out of gelatin!!!

We had a full day of demonstrations by some wonderful and talented people.  First up was Ashlee Trotter from Ruth's Sweete Justice Bakery.  She showed some adorable jungle animal cupcake toppers.

Next was Kimberly Chapman with some really eye-opening gummy techniques.  I swear when everyone got  home I bet they went straight into their pantries for some Jello boxes ...

After lunch we saw Janet Rosebeary and her daughter demonstrate how to make fondant toppers that looked like paper dolls.

Ruth Rickey demonstrated how to use gumpaste with a silicone mold for baby heads.  Then she showed their versatility by plopping them on safari themed baby costumed bodies!

Last but not least was Roxanne Moore and her sexy stiletto shoes.  THESE ARE MADE OF SUGAR, PEOPLE!  I KID YOU NOT, I WANTED TO WALK OUT WEARING THESE.

I'm here to kick ass and make cake ... and I'm all out of cake.

At the end of the show we surprised Kyla Myers, the club president, with the "Heart of the Club" annual award.  We love Kyla and all she does for the club, as well as the caking community and industry.  Hip hip hooray!

I was exhausted but very pleased with how the event went.  If you were there, I was the poor A/V girl running around to stop the speakers from blaring, crawling around to tape wires down, and craning her neck up for hours as I manned the camera!

(photo courtesy of Cakes by Esther)

Here's all my photos:
Photos

Homemade Gummy Candy

Homemade Gummy Candy

Ready for another "Hey, I can do that!" adventure?  I've jumped on to the homemade gummy candy band wagon!  Kim from http://www.eat-the-evidence.com reassured me that it's super easy.  She'll be demonstrating how to use gelatine in many ways at the Capital Confectioners cake club's Day of Sharing next month.  She will also be teaching some of those techniques for the club's monthly class.  I've used gelatine several times (e.g. fondant, pastillage, gelatine sheets, and of course JELL-O), so I wasn't too intimidated after researching some recipes.  The proportions and ingredients varied, but I eventually settled on the simplest recipe I could find, especially since I actually had all the ingredients on hand.

Stats:

• 1/3 c cold water
• try juice instead for an extra fruit kick
• try sweetened condensed milk for opaque white
• 1 small box (3 oz) of JELL-O (featuring strawberry flavored)
• 2 packets of unflavored gelatine (featuring Knox brand)

Pour the JELL-O and gelatine into the water.  Recipes I found online say "sprinkle" the gelatine into the water, but I don't get how you sprinkle it when the ratio of solid to liquid is practically 1:1.  I guess you want it evenly dispersed.  Otherwise, the gelatine can lump together later on and you'll have to work that out.

Let the gelatine "bloom" ... which means let it sit there and do its thing.  I think I let it sit for 5 minutes while I cleaned up and prepared my tools.

The gelatine will congeal ... it's practically gummy at this point.  Wiggly and very little liquid pouring out.

Now you need to heat it up so all the sugar and gelatine will dissolve and the result will be clear (or at least not cloudy).  Recipes online had it on low heat in a pot on the stove.  I kinda forgot about that and just popped it in the microwave like I usually do when I make fondant.  I did 30 second intervals and stirring in between.  It took about 2 1/2 minutes total to get the consistency I wanted.  30 seconds was apparently too long in the end and the liquid bubbled up and overflowed in the microwave.

YUCK!  When's the last time I cleaned the microwave plate anyway???

Once all the solids have dissolved, you can start pouring into your molds.  I tried pouring directly from my Pyrex measuring glass and also using a baster.  The baster isn't a precise instrument ... it would be neat if I had a smaller version of it.  Hmm ... maybe I should have dug out some of my daughter's medicine droppers.  Dang ... why didn't I think of that earlier?  I set out my new Wilton Fondant & Gumpaste molds as well as some candy molds (hearts and seashells).

UPDATE (2011-07-07)
I recently tried making gummies again and used the Wilton Squeeze Bottles (for chocolate candy making) to pour into molds.  It worked great!  My gummy mixture was about 175 degrees.  I didn't damage the bottle, but I did have to hold it wrapped with a towel.

LFMF (Learn From My Fail)!  If you get bright red liquid on your kitchen table, clean it up immediately!  It might not exactly stain, but it'll be a nice reminder for next time.

This is a messy adventure.  You might have to re-warm up the liquid as it starts to gum up on you.  Here is the chopstick I used to stir with.

The seashells turned out the worst.  The liquid was very bubbly at this point, so there was a little foam on the top.  I recall some recipes using gelatine suggest to filter off the foam.  I can see why.

Let these puppies set in the fridge for 10-15 minutes.  The candy mold gummies took the longest to set because they were so deep.

The Wilton mold gummies turned out the best.  The candy caught all the details of the mold beautifully!  The silicone gave it a matte finish too, where as the plastic candy mold trays made the gummies look glossy.

Here's a big bubble that had formed on the back that I didn't reconcile.

 

 LFMF!  Don't put the gummies on a ceramic plate!  It stuck immediately.  Afterward, the gummies went straight to my silicone mat.  It's pretty hot and humid right now, so the gummies are spending the night in the fridge.  Otherwise, I'd bet there'd be a puddle of red goo on the counter in the morning.

The gummies released from the silicone molds nicely, but not so much from the candy molds.  Recipes said you didn't have to prepare the molds in any way.  It was tough to pull out the hearts, but you can be pretty firm with the candy without damaging it.

 Cute as a button!  Really!

Matte vs. Glossy

Not sure what I'm going to do with all these!  I've already got a bit of a tummy ache from sampling them (for quality assurance, mind you).  They taste just like firm JELL-O (big surprise).  Hope my co-workers are peckish.

Gelatine Bow

Gelatine Bow

This is my first time working with gelatine like this!  I've jumped on the band wagon and am sold.  Finally, I read the cakecentral.com article: How To Make Gelatin Flowers and Bows.  Is it gelatin or gelatine?  Spell check says it's gelatin but the dang box says gelatine ...

Before trying this, it might be useful to read this very long thread from the cakecentral forums.  Watch this awesome video for flowers here: http://www.cakeconnection.com/gelatin_art.php.

Stats:

• 2 packets of unflavored gelatine (1/4 oz each pack)
• 1 oz + 3 tsp water (I think...)
• blue liquid food coloring

Turns out I would have preferred a much deeper color than this.

This is the scum off the top after letting it sit for 7 minutes.

If you work on a silicon mat, put something white underneath (e.g. freezer paper or a towel) so you can see what you're doing. 

Here's me not knowing what I'm doing.

 
What I also did not know was that I wasn't keeping the mixture hot enough.  After reading the forum thread, I should have microwaved it longer at first, and then maybe again during application.  It lumped up while I was brushing so I didn't really get an even coat.  I got holes in some areas.

I tried it on freezer paper too.  Much easier to see what was going on.

After ~18 hours.

You can see it curls and pulls away from the surface that it was on.

It's like working with thin sheets of plastic film or acetate.  I cut several strips and glued them together with piping gel.  The better glue would be to use left over gelatine, but I had already dumped it in the drain.  NEXT TIME I should let it set until firm, then put it in a plastic bag and store in the fridge until I need it.  It can be re-heated back to liquid form.

Clothespins helped hold the loops while the glue set.

It quickly separated soon after this pic, but meh, next time I'll do it right.

FAILs:

• mixture not hot enough
• not enough coloring
• improper glue
• general ignorance for how to make a bow!

I WILL try again.  These would be awesome cake toppers for Christmas!