Day of Sharing: August 8th

Day of Sharing

August 8th, 2010

Round Rock, TX

http://dos.capitalconfectioners.com

I've recently joined the Capital Confectioners, the greater Austin area cake decorating and sugar artist club.  We're having our "Day of Sharing" on Sunday, August 8th that will feature several cake artists such as Stephen Benison.  Unfortunately I don't have the time or money to sign up for any of the classes available before the show, but I will be there all Sunday to help run things.  I've volunteered to be the A/V girl since I'm somewhat familiar with techie-type shtuff :b  Let's hope I don't screw things up or set something on fire!

Please come and learn with your fellow decorators and enthusiasts!  All skill levels welcome!

Happy 1st Birthday, Malaya!: Completed

Happy 1st Birthday, Malaya!

(+15 skill points => 270 / 400)

 

 

(03/01/2010)  I totally forgot this post was sitting in my edit queue!   Well, this was supposed to be posted a week ago, but my life got completely taken over by the cake competition.  Better late than never!

(originally written 02/20/2010)

This past weekend was my cousin's daughter's first birthday party!  I had the honor of making the cake for the party and Malaya's smash cake.  The cake and I had to resort to plan B many times, but in the end, I think it was a job well done.

Stats:

 3 tier party cake:

• top tier: 6" round Duncan Hines Red Velvet with Cheesecake Mousse
• middle tier: 8" round Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge with Oreo Mousse
• bottom tier: 10" round Duncan Hines Red Velvet with Cheesecake Mousse
• iced with "Vanilla Italian Meringue Buttercream" (new recipe for me)
• Royal Icing ball border
• Michele Foster's Fondant accents

Smash cake:

• single layer 6" round Duncan Hines Red Velvet
• iced with IndyDebi's buttercream
• reverse scroll border
• Michele Foster's fondant accents
• Wilton sprinkles on the side

It was bound to happen.  This cake was my first all-nighter.  That's what I get for procrastinating.  I've been pretty busy at home and at work, so I never really got a head start on this cake except for the baking.  On Friday night, all I had was thawed cake.  I started everything else at 11 pm and stopped Saturday morning at 8 am for a brief 2 hour nap, then back to finish the cake before the party.   It was actually nice to not have any interruptions like a crying baby or going to work.  Also I got a clear picture of how long it takes to make a 3 tiered cake from start to finish.

My previous post described how I decorated the cake drum.

Next up was making fondant.  I tried Michele Foster's fondant recipe from cakecentral.com, and believe me, it's worth all the hassle.  There are pros and cons to this recipe, but it was a great learning experience.

Cons:  The fondant will be off-white because of the butter.  Also, plain gelatin smells like dirty socks.  It doesn't taste as good as MMF, but it's better than Satin Ice and Wilton brands.

Pros: The fondant is super stretchy.  It has the consistency of bubble gum.  I could take a lump and pull it apart with both hands and it will stretch like melted mozzarella with no cracks or breaks.  Here are my loops for the intended bow topper.  I tried to color it to match the cake drum.

Those were set aside to dry.  Next cake leveling, torting, damming, filling, and spackling.  Not many pictures because I was too busy making the darn thing.

 

I made a batch of IndyDebi's buttercream to be used for the spackle and damming.

  

  

All of the cakes were spackled.  I wanted to make sure everything was straight, even, and sturdy.  Nothing was gonna happen to this cake ... not on my watch!

  

My co-worker convinced me to try this IMBC recipe.  He said his kids love it; they like it better than the recipe I've always used.  I had to fight for a long time to get this IMBC stable.  After adding the melted sugar to meringue, I have a bad habit to not let it alone long enough to cool.  I started adding butter and it completely destabilized.  It was so liquidy, it was flinging gunk everywhere.  My shirt and back kitchen wall was covered.  I made a make-shift plastic wrap tent, but eventually stopped trying to add butter.  I stuck it in the fridge for a while.  After a few minutes I tried again, but no luck.  I stuck it in the freezer for a while.  That made it a little better, so I added the rest of the butter.  It was still too cold (it gets looking like cottage cheese at that point), so I set it over a pot of boiling water to warm it up.  Jeez, this stuff is high maintenance!  I eventually got it stabilized.  Unfortunately the color was too yellow for my liking.  Luckily this is for a baby girl, so light yellow is always good.

The tiers were supported with bubble tea straws.  When it came time to place a tier on top of another, I only partially inserted the straws.  Once the tier was placed over them, I let gravity take the rest of it down gradually so I could slip my fingers out from under it.  I left my spatula underneath so I could coast it down and shimmy it in to place.

For the smash cake, I only had a little bit of IndyDebi buttercream.  I thinned it down with some milk.  Unfortunately that made it too unwieldy to smooth well.  In desperation I grabbed a bottle of huge Wilton confetti sprinkles and lined them up all along the side.  Good save, if I may say!

 

I didn't even attempt to pipe "Happy Birthday, Malaya".  I knew my piping still sucks and was not willing to mess anything up.  The smash cake got topped with some pretty ribbon roses and a cut-out 1.  The leaves were free-hand cut because I couldn't find my leaf cutters (which I later discovered were practically right in front of me).

Reverse shells make everything look better!

Unfortunately the mousse requires refrigeration, which called for some creative organization between our main and mini fridge.

The bead borders around the main tiers were royal icing with a dollop of corn syrup.  This made it look shinier and kept it soft.

I had to ditch the bow topper idea.  I didn't make nearly enough loops, the ones I had weren't dry enough, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to arrange them in a non-stupid manner.  Ribbon roses to the rescue!!!  This was my first try at ribbon roses ... they are so simple and cute! 

I had a wonderful time making this cake and was so proud to share it with my family.  The birthday girl was a little too tired to smash the smash cake, but everyone else enjoyed.  I received several compliments on the look and taste of the cake.  The top 2 tiers were devoured quickly!

Happy Birthday, Malaya!

 

I've had a couple weeks break to think about my past cakes.  Here are my conclusions:

FAILs:

• I don't prefer this IMBC recipe.
• My end result was too yellow; not the color I was shooting for but still ok, I guess.  This probably wouldn't be acceptable if it were an adult's birthday cake.
• Waaay too much butter.  It didn't taste bad at all, but I'm just not comfortable putting so many sticks of butter into one thing.  I'm not big on butter in cooking or eating either.
• IMBC was too finicky.  First it was too hot, then it was too cold.  Jeez!  I don't need this in my life!
• Not enough time.  
• It's been an unbelievably busy month for me.  I didn't have any time to prepare much in advance except for the baked cake.  The all-nighter was unavoidable.  
• I would really have liked to have more time to get the buttercream flawless.  No one really notices all the flaws, but I know I could have gotten it smoother.  Boy, your "icing" arm can really get tired after doing 3 tiers in one shot!
• I don't know how to make a bow!
• I really need to follow directions and/or practice making a loopy bow.

FTWs:

• covered cake drum badge earned!
• ribbon rose badge earned!
• smash cake badge earned!
• Sprinkles saved the smash cake.  I originally bought those huge confetti sprinkles for another cake, but decided to go in a different direction.  It was pure luck that they happened to be the same colors I was using and in a great size and shape.
• Tasted fantastic! 
• Costco Mousse is the way to go for great tasting filling.  It was nice and stable.  It didn't effect the cake that was in direct contact with it.
• I received several compliments on how "the cake was so good!"
• It's really nice to have a cake that looks and tastes good.  Either way is such a treat, but to have both ... that's what awesome is made of.

Wedding Cake Prototype: Completed

Wedding Cake Prototype

Preparation for Cake Contest

(+15 skill points => 250/400)

Woot!  15 more skill points!  What a weekend.  I'd like to thank my husband and daughter for letting me do this.  What you see here is my first 3-tier cake.  It is a generic wedding cake, serving as a prototype to help me practice for the cake contest.

Stats:

• 6", 8", and 10" rounds (each about 3.5", total cake is almost 1' tall)
• top 2 tiers are Duncan Hines Red Velvet
• bottom tier is Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge
• iced with buttercream icing (top 2 are a nod to Sharon Zambito's recipe, bottom tier is from IndyDebi)
• filled with tub cream cheese icing (I forget if it's Pillsbury or what)
• shell borders at the bottom of each tier
• rosettes top the bottom tier
• reverse shells top the top tier
• swirlie thingies on bottom tier with dots
• quilt impression on middle tier
• dots on top tier
• fondant roses on tippy top

I learned sooo much from this cake.  I'm a little shaken though.  I'm definitely not where I want to be for competition, but this is definitely a step forward for me.  Here's the scoop.

Two words: cake spackle.  See my previous post for more info.  It's awesome.  Try it if you haven't.  I put the cake scraps I had into my little food processor.  When I had ground up a bowlful, I sifted through it with my fingers to see if there were any chunks that got by.  Man.  In my version of heaven, that's what the clouds would be made of.  Bits of cake.  It was so soft and fluffy, I'll dream about it later.  Anywho, my cakes did not bake up well.  I tried shooting for 2" layers, which means less batter into the pans than I'm used to.  The cake pulled away from the sides, making a slant.

Even with baking strips and a flower nail, my 10" round domed.  After leveling, I wound up with 1 1/2" cake layers to work with.  But it's ok, because cake spackle is FTW.

I've been watching Sharon Zambito's Perfecting the Art of Buttercream DVD.  I tried to apply her techniques and had some fails and some successes.  I did not have good like with a similar recipe for her buttercream.  I'm going to stick with IndyDebi's.

Stacking tiers ... ya ... that's a challenge.  It's not so bad when they're covered in fondant, but I can't tell you how many times I cursed very loudly when I smudged and/or almost dropped a tier.  The middle tier wasn't placed well, so I had to wedge my spatula underneath it and shimmy it over.  You can see the indentation on the right side there:

 Holy crap, I made a mess of my kitchen!

 

The top has some fondant roses that I made the other day.  I learned this in my Wilton Course 3 class.

Well, I could go on and on about this cake, but I'll just sum it up for you.

Things I learned:

• When icing a tier, it needs to be elevated on a surface smaller than the cake.  Otherwise, it's difficult to lift up the cake/cake board without damaging the bottom of the cake.  I eventually put all my tiers on  upside-down bowls while icing them.
• When placing a tier, hold it underneath with a hand and a spatula.  Your hand will guide it to approximately the spot it needs to be.  Set it down and let the spatula park it in to place.  Otherwise your fingers will damage the bottom of the tier you're holding as well as the top of the tier you're placing it on.
• When applying the quilting mat, be sure to have a the cake on a flat surface so the mat can rest against it.  If you do it freestyle (my tier was still elevated on a bowl), the impression can become uneven.  And my glasses kept slipping as I tilted my head to the side.
• Cut all supports evenly.  Dowel through the center evenly.  My cake is leaning :(
• Give yourself LOTS of time to do all this.  You can't rush this.  My "rushing" lasted over 5 hours.  And that was just the decorating part.
• For the competition, I'm going to use 6" and 8" dummies as my top 2 tiers.  This cake was heavy.  I should've weighed it.  I took this cake to work which consisted of: taking the cake out of my trunk, going down 3 flights of stairs in the parking garage, crossing the street to my building, elevator ride up to the third floor, then a few paces to our break room.  It took a half hour afterward for my arms to stop trembling.  No way am I doing that the Friday before competition with 4 entries.
  

What a relief to have this done.  I'm beginning to dread the week before the competition!

Holidays 2009

Happy Birthday, Ashley!

Happy New Years!

Hook 'em, Horns!

(+10 skill points -> 235/400)

What a week.  You know, I'm gonna have to take a break from caking!  The holidays almost killed me!  My kitchen looks like hell.  Unfortunately, I was so busy making the sweets pictured above, I didn't have much time to stop and take photos of the process.  Here's the play-by-play, though.

Stats (Happy Birthday, Ashley):

• 8" round
• Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge cake mix
• filled and iced with semi-sweet chocolate ganache
• covered in MMF
• quilt pattern with impression mat and quilting wheel
  
• borders and script in royal icing (shell bottom border and reverse shell top border)

My husband got me a couple of impression mats for the quilted effect.  I tried the 1 1/4" version first.  The cakecentral forums suggested to roll the fondant a little thick so the indentations could make it look like the fondant "pillows" out more.  I pressed the mat to the fondant and gently rocked it back and forth.  The lines were not very visible ... I complained to my husband of the poor lighting in the kitchen that didn't help.  My husband, bless him, also bought me the 10-piece gum paste tool set.  Following the indentations, I rolled the quilting wheel also gently back and forth.  It was an ok first-try and definitely worth mastering in the future.

The royal icing was mixed with Americolor burgundy.  I must have a different idea of what "burgundy" is ... but I probably just am thinking of maroon.  The color came out lovely, just not what I expected.  Unfortunately royal icing dries so hard ... it chipped and broke off, somewhat flying, as Ashley cut the cake.

I guess my fondant was too dry.  You can see the cracks near the top of the cake.  When it came time to eat it, it was a little hard :(  Back to buttercream, me thinks.

 FAILs:

• fondant was too dry
• royal icing was too hard

FTWs:

• earned quilting badge

 NEXT!

Stats (2010 Cake):

• 8" round
• Duncan Hines Butter Pecan cake mix
• filled and iced with white chocolate ganache
• covered in Satin Ice black fondant
• white dots are MMF

This was my first time making ganache from white chocolate.  A 12 oz. bag of Nestle White Chocolate Morsels was added to simmering 4 oz. of heavy whipping cream.  Ok ... after it was all mixed in and melted well ... it looked like snot.  It was yellowy and too thin.  What was interesting was that it gummed up as I was spreading it on to the cake.  At first I thought it was going to slip right off the cake, but after I got it on, it started to "set" ... the ganache turned sticky / gooey.  I'm going to research this more before I attempt it again.

I wanted to do a New Year's cake for my husband's extended family party, but I wasn't sure about the design.  At the last minute it came down to "cover it with black and throw on some dots".  There's a border of dots on the bottom of the cake that's hard to see.  These were made with my smallest circle cutter and left over MMF.  Satin Ice fondant was lovely to work with, but I still had some cracks on the corners.  It was neat to use my heavy marble rolling pin, which is super smooth.  It took out a lot of work that is usually required to roll out fondant thinly.  Unfortunately I didn't have time to figure out how to get rid of the dusty cornstarch.  I was too hesitant to try spraying and brushing on PAM (suggested by many on cakecentral.com) and I don't have a steamer (like what Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes show them using).  The black fondant looked gray and dirty :(

The cake tasted lovely but I'm still not crazy about the Satin Ice fondant.  I much prefer the taste of MMF.  One little girl ate all the dots underlining "2010" while the rest of us were in the living room unwrapping presents!

FAILs:

• again, ditching fondant and going back to buttercream
• black fondant turned our mouths blue
• white chocolate ganache was weird
• fondant was dusty looking
  

FTWs:

• white chocolate and Butter Pecan cake was so yummy
• earned badge for covering cake with Satin Ice fondant

NEXT!

Stats (Longhorn cookies):

• NFSC
• using Longhorn cookie cutter
  
• iced with MMF

My husband's extended family party included a White Elephant gift exchange.  Because everyone is a little tight in these economic times, we were supposed to re-gift items that we already had but didn't want.  I wanted to get rid of some of our extra pyrex mixing bowls.  My brother-in-law's girlfriend suggested to me earlier to make cookies.  In celebrating of the University of Texas Longhorns going to the Rose Bowl this coming week, I made Longhorn cookies placed in a bowl with a rose on top!

I decided to try making the cookie dough and rolling it out without chilling it first.  After filling a cookie pan, I put them in the refrigerator to firm up while I rolled and cut more cookies.  Half of my intentions were fulfilled.  Chilling them on the pan helped the dough not spread while baking.  Unfortunately the dough was so soft to work with, there were many smudges during cutting and placement.

I cut and baked these right after 3 dozen round cookies for more of my "Texas Snowmen".  What I didn't realize was that the Longhorn cookies would take less time to bake up because they're so narrow.  Several of my horns got too burnt to serve :(

Cakecentral.com had many forum posts about getting the UT "burnt orange" color just right.  Most suggested making the icing bright orange and then adding a small amounts of brown.  It took FOREVER to get it to the color I settled for in the MMF.  I had to add more brown than I expected.   It looks close enough, right?

I used the cutter to also cut out the fondant.  Brushing the backside with water helped it stick to the cookie well.  Impressive, eh?

FAILs:

• narrow cookies need less time and/or less heat to bake correctly
• can't skip chilling the dough

FTWs:

• dough did not spread
• fondant cut-outs fit well
• earned "burnt orange" color badge

I should have taken a picture at the end :(  They were so cute individually wrapped and tied with ribbon.  No one "got" the whole play on words with the Longhorns in the rose + bowl, so my husband and I had to relay the message.  Oh well.  Hook 'em, Horns!

Like I said ... I may take a little break from all this for a while ;)  Happy New Year, everyone.

Penguin Christmas: Completed

Penguin Christmas

Merry Christmas, Hang and Sandi!

(+5 skill points -> 225/400)

Oh, what a fun cake!  This is for my co-worker and his wife for their family Christmas.  I'm glad it's done, though ... I've been working on it for a week.  It turned out even cuter than I planned.

Stats:

• 8" round
• Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge cake mix
• iced and filled with semi-sweet + milk chocolate ganache
• covered in white MMF
• border with royal icing
• fondant accents

This was my first chance to work with Satin Ice (brand of manufactured fondant).  I ordered red, green, and black 2 lb. tubs from www.fondantsource.com.  The price, including shipping, was the cheapest I could find.  It shipped quickly and arrived on my doorstep last Thursday.  I was so excited I started making the bodies for the penguins right away.

These penguins were inspired by this etsy page: http://www.etsy.com/shop/fliepsiebieps?section_id=5990881.  The entire body is fondant except for the eyes and arms.  I was able to pipe on those using the royal icing I had made for decorating cookies.  I made the creases for the toes with the edge of an old clay tool.  The nostrils indentations were made with a toothpick.  These little guys ring out with personality that I didn't expect.

I also started the Christmas trees early.  The large Christmas tree got scrapped because I ended up making it look ugly and figured it was too heavy for the cake anyway.

I used scissors to snipe the branches ... it looked much better when I watched Buddy do it on Cake Boss.  Mine came out dry and rough looking.  Oh well.  I hope the decorations detract from that.

The cake baked up so nice ... this is the highest rising cake mix I've ever used.  I tried making ganache with 12 oz of semi-sweet morsels plus a handful of milk chocolate morsels.  When it came to icing the cake, I could see that the milk chocolate morsels didn't get incorporated into the rest of the chocolate.  They were still soft and spreadable, but it looked like light brown splotches all over the cake.  I let it chill in the fridge over night to set.  When I rolled the fondant on to it, I noticed the ganache might have been too hard.  I could smooth out a lot of the roughness.  You can see it along the edges in the picture below.

 

Otherwise, icing and covering the cake went really well.  I'm really getting the hang of eye-balling how I need my stuff to be.  I'm not even measuring the sugar when I make fondant or royal icing.

Typical bead border on the bottom.  But the fun part was the top.  All my little guys first got skewered with a toothpick.  This cake was making a 3 hour car drive, and I wanted to make sure there were no casualties.  Each got secured with some royal icing.  You can see it peaking out underneath them.

My previous cake proved I could make an icy/drippy border, which was perfect!  Again, using icing I had made for decorating my sugar cookies ...

This whole cake came together really well, and I was super-pleased.  It feels pretty good to be proud of a cake.  Oh and this was cool:  I was worried about the cake for the 3 hour drive.  I put it in a cake box with the top cut off (because the Christmas trees were too tall).  Then I put that box into this little wooden crate that I took from work.  The building management for our office had bought us a gift basket full of candy, nuts, etc.  They came in this simple wooden box/crate things.  The 10" cake box fit inside it PERFECTLY.  The cake was now snug, safe, and very portable.  I only have one more crate left ... I wonder if I can order them ...

FAILs:

• I need to figure out how to mix semi-sweet and milk chocolate for ganache
• ganache set too hard ... or maybe that wouldn't have been a problem if I iced it smooth to begin with
• you know what?  Satin Ice doesn't taste awesome all by itself ... it tastes chemically ... I may have to try coloring my own MMF with Americolor gel paste to get a rich red, green, or black without sacrificing taste ... I hope no one eats a penguin
  

FTWs:

• figures turned out super cute
• Satin Ice fondant was very easy to work with
• I really love that drippy snow border!!!
• wooden crate held the cake box safe and snug
  

Merry Christmas, Hang and Sandi!

Now for more pics!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Texas Snowmen Cookies: Completed

Texas Snowmen Sugar Cookies

It's my first year addicted to cakecentral.com ... and I've learned at Christmas time, everyone makes "melted snowmen" sugar cookies.  They're all over the galleries ... grinning despite the horror of their predicament.  I've decided to make my own version ... and they have to be called Texas Snowmen!  Hahaha ... just kidding ... we don't get enough snow to make snowmen ...

Stats:

• No Fail Sugar Cookies (NFSC)
• half-sphere of marshmallow fondant (MMF) for the partially melted head
• MMF carrots
• everything else is royal icing

 After rolling out the sugar cookie dough, I used my large biscuit cutter to make circles.  These cookies baked easily, and afterward I put them in the freezer until I was ready to decorate them (a few days later).  I had also made half-spheres of MMF days in advance.  The cookies thawed for an hour before this party got started.

My royal icing was made with All Whites pasteurized egg whites, some vanilla, and enough powdered sugar until it was the consistency I wanted.  On the top of each cookie, I piped an outline of the puddle with some medium consistency icing (tip #2).  A half-sphere of MMF was placed inside the puddle to represent the partially melted head (glued one with a wad of royal icing).  Then the interior and all over the head was flooded with thin consistency icing (tip #4).  The carrot was orange MMF with little score marks by my xacto blade.  I piped on black coals and brown branches out of more royal icing.

These were super fun to make.  They've been a hit on cakecentral.com and my facebook post.  I'll be making more of these over the Christmas break!