Recipe Experimenting: Caramel Apple Spice Cake

My latest creation, like the carrot cake, was not as much about the decorating as it was the baking, because I would like to perfect that art as well. I've tried a little experimenting with recipes in the past, but nothing major, as I know it can be very hard to do with baked goods. However, I was recently inspired to just go for it, and see if I'm any good at it.

I had seen this particular recipe on Pinterest that sounded pretty tasty, so I clicked on it and read through it. It seemed interesting, to say the least, but I was still intrigued. Then, as I continued to look through it, I noticed that the ratings were not good (an average of 2 out of 5 stars). So I started reading the reviews, and most people said it turned out really dry or they just didn't care much for some of the flavor combinations. I looked back through the recipe again and I did notice that some of the proportions seemed a little off. That was when I decided to take what I know about cake recipes and modify this one to improve it.

My goal was to make it a kind of cake that I would want to eat, with all the right flavors, and to change the texture to something more moist and fluffy. First I got rid of chocolate chips. They just didn't seem to fit with apple flavor. The mocha sounded like it might taste okay, but a little risky. I opted to replace it with caramel extract, knowing that my main goal for this first round was to fix the texture, just to avoid having too many different variables affecting the outcome.

I then decreased the amount of flour, while increasing the amount of eggs, as the right balance between these two ingredients help create the best height and texture for a cake. I decreased the amount of apples, because fruit adds a lot of water to a cake, and you need the right balance between wet and dry ingredients as well. I also added some butter extract, because I love butter flavor in cakes, but I think oil makes it more moist, which is why I stuck with the oil.

It turned out AMAZING! The cake was so moist, it would just melt in your mouth. The frosting, which I had never made before, was some of the best I had ever had! It was a browned butter frosting, which is basically regular buttercream frosting except you brown the butter on the stove first and then let it solidify again before using it in the recipe. All the flavors were great together.

Finished Apple Cake - already partially devoured!

I decided to call it Caramel Apple Spice Cake. I landed on "spice cake" because of the fact that it has the cinnamon and nutmeg. I think I might try adding some ginger one of these times too. Overall, I'd say it was a pretty successful experiment, especially for my first try!

Despicable Me Minion Birthday Cake

Your nephew turning 4 only happens once! So of course I had to make him an awesome birthday cake that he'd always remember. I happen to love minions too, so I knew this was going to be a fun cake to make!

Deciding to make a minion cake was the easy part. What exactly that was going to entail was more of a work-in-progress. What would the color scheme be? How many minions should I make or how many will fit on the cake without it looking crowded? What should each minion be doing? I obviously didn't want the cake to be too plain, but I didn't want any of the designs to distract from the minions because they were the focus of the cake. Ultimately, I thought that various sized blue and yellow dots around the sides of the cake would be the best complement.

To make things a little easier (especially since the cake had to be ready on a Saturday morning), I made the minions in advance, because if you store them properly they don't go bad, they just might be a little dry. I opted to use the premade fondant this time because right now it's more about learning to work with fondant and getting better at making designs. So I thought it would be best to save myself all the extra time and work to make my own fondant, especially since I don't have that time to spare right now.

I found a tutorial on Pinterest (of which there are many) for making a minion out of fondant. For the eyes, I used candy eyes that I had bought in the cake decorating section of the grocery store, but I turned them around so that the back side was facing outwards. I did this so that the eyes would look flat (because the minions wear goggles, so they look flat) and so that I could put the pupils on myself, and therefore decide which direction the minions' eyes would look (for example, at the little slice of cake).

Fondant minion (in progress)

I can say for certain that making the minions got a lot easier each time I made another one. I was able to get somewhat of a "system" down to make the process go a lot faster too. The hardest part was attaching all of the pieces (clothes, arms, eyes, etc.) and trying not to squish or distort the body while doing so. The biggest part of it is patience because it does take time, and I think the only reason I'm able to be patient is because it's something I love to do. It definitely doesn't mean that I don't get frustrated from time to time though.



Fondant minions and fondant bananas

Fondant minion eyeing a slice of cake

Fondant minion in party hat

My favorite color on the cake was definitely the one for the borders. The picture (see below) doesn't quite do it justice but it's a really neat gray/blue. I was a little worried because I hadn't made that color before and couldn't seem to find anything online about which gel colors to use, but it made sense to me to use black (which would make gray) and the royal blue (because the sky blue would be too light). So that's what I did, and I lucked out and eventually got it to the exact color I had in mind. I will absolutely use that one again.

I wasn't quite sure how orange letters would look on top of the blue, but I decided to go for it because I really wanted them to stand out, and I wanted to pick something less obvious than yellow. Note: It helps to trace the message on the cake with a toothpick ahead of time, so you can get the size and proportions exactly the way you want them. That way if you mess up you can just smooth the frosting over and write it again.

 I didn't put the fondant pieces on the cake until shortly before we were ready to eat it because I didn't want any of the pieces falling over in transit, or the moisture from the frosting causing the colors in the fondant to bleed. I brought some frosting with me in case any of the hair pieces fell off because they were so fragile I assumed it was inevitable. Surprisingly, the hair stayed put. However, one of the arms broke in half so I did use the frosting to reattach that. You just never know when you're going to have to do some reconstructive surgery.



Finished Despicable Me Minion Cake

In the end this cake was definitely the most intricate and labor-intensive of any that I've made so far, but it was also the most fun. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the look on Wyatt's face when he saw the cake!  It was too cute when he decided he wanted to eat all the little bananas (which I must say were also really fun to make). Everyone said it looked amazing. It was a little funny though when my grandma and sister didn't even want to cut into it because they thought it was too pretty. I'm making another cake this weekend that I think could end up being even more difficult (I won't say too much yet), but hopefully that one turns out just as well!

Carrot Cake: The Art of Trial and Error

My latest cake project was a little less about the decorations and a little more about the actual baking. I had decided to make a carrot cake for a birthday present (since it was this person's favorite kind of cake). As I had never made carrot cake before, I thought I should focus a little more on getting the recipe right because no matter how pretty a cake looks, if it doesn't taste good it's sort of a waste.

The first thing I did was just browse Pinterest for some recipe options. I found a few that sounded good, and one in particular, from Taste of Home, which I've gotten recipes from in the past and have been impressed. The reason this one stood out to me was because it called for brown sugar instead of white sugar, which I thought would create a well-suited flavor for a carrot cake because of the spices in the cake that tend to pair well with brown sugar.

Unfortunately, I can't lie, it didn't turn out too well. However, there were some other factors that could've affected the outcome besides the recipe. When I tasted the cake shortly after it cooled, it was pretty dense, which I expected because brown sugar crystals are more packed than white sugar crystals and therefore don't create as much of a "fluffy" cake. But it was not too dense and the flavor was great.

Anyhow, I was a little pressed for time and was not able to frost the cake that same night, so I tried to cover it the best that I could, but it was late and in my haste to get to bed I did not take into account that some of the bottom half was not completely sealed. I had the cake on some paper towels on top of a cooling rack, but what I forgot was the fact that the paper towels didn't quite cover the whole underneath side of the cake. So, even though I covered the top and sides of the cake with plastic wrap, there was a little bit of the bottom of the cake that was exposed.

In any case, when I tasted it the next day I decided it seemed too dry, and I'm a perfectionist when it comes to things I'm passionate about, so I just could NOT serve it. So I went back to the other recipes I had found, and decided to go with the one from Grocery Budget 101, because it used white sugar instead and even though the brown sugar may not have played a part in the way cake turned out, I didn't want to take any chances.

This one turned out delicious! It was moist yet fluffy, and lots of flavor. The only thing I did differently with this recipe was add a little nutmeg and ginger, because I love how those spices combine with cinnamon and I think they add a little something extra to the aroma of the cake too. I also added a little orange juice to the frosting, which I had thought of because it was one of the frosting ingredients from that previous recipe on Taste of Home. It just seemed like a hint of orange would be a pleasant complement to the carrot cake flavors.

Now of course I did have to add at least some decorations to it, because I like the look of decorated cakes and I wanted the extra practice. I will say that the crushed nuts and sprinkles on the sides of the cake were a bit of an annoyance because of the gigantic mess it made, but at least it looked cool. ;)

Buttercream carrot on top of carrot cake

In the end I definitely liked the way it turned out. Even my boyfriend said it was delicious, and he really isn't a big fan of carrot cake because of the cream cheese frosting. That being said, I think next time I'd like to try half white sugar, half brown sugar, and see how that works, just to try to incorporate some of that rich brown sugar flavor.

Finished carrot cake

Recipes for baked goods are usually pretty finicky, but you can't be afraid to test the waters a bit, and put your own spin on them. Especially if you know a little bit about what each of the ingredients does and the affects they have on the finished product. There's nothing wrong with a little trial and error. Even if something doesn't work out, at least you know for next time. :)

Anniversary Cake: Pearls and Rosettes

I've been browsing some more cake decorating tutorials, from Global Sugar Art and Wilton. This of course made me want to make another cake. Luckily my parents anniversary was just around the corner so I thought it would make a nice present for them.

Note: The video from Global Sugar Art on Buttercream Basics: Making a Cake, has some great tips that make a really big difference on the texture and flavor of cakes.

I really enjoyed the chocolate flavor of the last cupcakes I made, so that made me want to try making a chocolate cake. I also love how well the chocolate flavor pairs with the vanilla buttercream frosting.

Thus far I have made a fair amount of cupcakes with the rosettes on top, but none on a cake, and I just love how cool they look on a cake. Additionally, given how pretty they are, I thought they would be a nice decoration on an anniversary cake.

I really like the look of a cake that has different shades of the same color, which I hadn't tried before.
I opted to go with different shades of blue, because it's one of my favorite colors, and I knew it would be a nice complement to the chocolate color of the cake (which you could see when you cut into the cake).

The cake came out very nicely done, with amazing flavor, just like the chocolate cupcakes had. One thing I will say though is that because this was an extremely moist cake, it also wasn't super strong, so I'm not sure how well it would've held up with more than just the two layers or with heavy fondant decorations. I may need to alter the recipe if I ever need to accommodate those situations.

This was the first time I used all shortening in my buttercream frosting. I did add some butter flavored extract to it though, and it tasted fantastic! However, I may have used just a bit too much powdered sugar because the frosting was looking a little dry when I was piping the rosettes.

I won't lie, making the rosettes on a cake was a little harder than on a cupcake, because you have to try to make them all the same size and it's not like you can use the edges of the cake as a guide the way you do for a cupcake. I think it'll get easier the more I do it though.

I had just bought those blue pearl candies that morning at the grocery store when I went to buy more shortening. They're actually Sixlets, and they were in the decorating section at Target (in the baking isle near the shortening, hence why I saw them). They were the perfect color and I thought they would fit in really well with the rosettes.

After I saw how the pearl candies looked on the cake, that's actually what made me decide to make the white buttercream beads to complement that look on the sides of the cake.

The border around the bottom is a simple shell border, which I've don't before, but this time I used a much larger star tip (1M, the same as the one for rosettes). I like the way that turned out, and I didn't think it was too much of a distraction from the rosettes which were the focal point.

My parents (and everyone else who got to try a piece) loved it, they all had multiple slices! Even my mom, who doesn't eat a whole lot of dessert, said it was delicious. I think that's a sign of success! :)

Anniversary cake, with rosettes and pearls

Sweet Edible Nature: Fondant Fruit and Frosting Flowers

For my latest cake decorating creation, I opted to make cupcakes, since it had been a while. I also wanted to make multiple flavors and decorations, something I've always loved about cupcakes. I think that's one of the reasons they're so popular; they can be easily catered to many different individuals.

I ended up settling on a little bit of a nature theme, since the person I was making these cupcakes for likes a lot of things in nature. I chose to make the cupcakes ahead of time in order to space things out a bit so that I wasn't trying to do everything in one day. It helped a lot!

Half of the cupcakes were vanilla, the other half were chocolate. I got both recipes from Pinterest (of course). The vanilla one was from a blog post called The Ultimate Cupcake Guide, in which the author tests different versions of the same recipe (changing only one variable each time) to see what makes the best cupcake. She seemed to really like the one in which she added an extra egg yolk to the recipe, so that's the one I went with. It was good; very flavorful and not overly sweet. However, the texture was a little dense for my taste. I think I will try the traditional recipe next time.

The chocolate recipe was from a blog post called A case of the horrible, no good cupcake day. I was a little nervous about them though, because when I mixed the batter the consistency was really thin, almost the opposite of the yellow cupcake batter, and I was worried they weren't going to bake right. But I triple checked the recipe and I hadn't made any mistakes so I decided to go with it. They turned out amazing! They were super moist, yet light and fluffy, and the chocolate flavor was rich but not too sweet. I will definitely use this again! They also paired really well with the vanilla frosting :)

A lot of these decorations, especially the flowers, were inspired by ones I had seen on Pinterest and really wanted to try. I don't like to replicate things exactly the way I see them though, just to challenge my own creativity.

Nature-themed cupcakes





Purple rosette

Blue drop flowers

Small pink rosettes

Pink layered flower

Fondant bluebird with fondant raspberry

The apple one, the cherry one and the pink rose one were my favorite ones to make. The apple cupcake was fun because I knew I was going to have to figure out how to shape the frosting so it looked like an apple, and I really liked texture and appearance from the red glitter and sprinkles. I also filled the center of that one with apple butter, which turned out really well.



Apple cupcake

 The cherry one was a little difficult, because I was trying to make the shape as realistic as possible. I like the way that whole cupcake turned out though. I like the simplicity of the design, and that it still looks visually appealing.



Fondant cherry topped cupcake

 

I like the pink rose one because it was a design that I just threw together, without ever having tried it before. I think it turned out really pretty, and a little old-fashioned, which I like sometimes.



Pink rose with purple border

The one with the little flowers on the grass was actually a little more difficult to make than I anticipated. I think the problem was that I should have changed the consistency of the frosting for that particular frosting tip (Wilton grass tip 233). I had to apply too much pressure in order to get the frosting to come out and therefore wasn't able to hold it as steady. So the pieces of grass are not all the same width from top to bottom. I should have added a little water or milk to thin it out.

 

Pink star flowers on grass.

I think in the future I will do more than one of the same cupcake, versus all different cupcakes. The reason I didn't do that this time is because I was so anxious to try different designs and I need the practice, but there were just too many different tips required, combined with too many different colors. It made for a big hassle and a lot of clean-up! I still had a lot of fun making them though, and it was worth it because I know more about what to do - and what not to do - for next time.

Polka Dot Fondant Cake

As much fun as I've been having learning cake decorating techniques on my own, I thought it might be smart to see what options are out there for actual classes. I didn't want to sign up for any in-person classes because I wanted my schedule to remain flexible, and to be honest I like the idea of learning without an audience (other classmates). So I did a Google search for online cake decorating classes, and was able to find quite a few options on this site called Craftsy. Their classes are all within a pretty reasonable price range and they also have a lot of random sales so I love that!

One of the classes I ended up purchasing was called The Wilton Method: Decorating with Fondant. It shows you all the material you are going to need, even before you purchase the class, so you know ahead of time if there are going to be a lot of additional costs. I also have access to the videos and class materials indefinitely, which is awesome in case I ever need to refresh my memory on any of the tutorials.

I didn't have quite all the materials it called for, so I ended up ordering some. Unfortunately it was taking too long for my order to arrive, so I ended up starting the class anyway. I figured if I had at least the essentials, the tutorials and tips would still be beneficial, even if I made a slightly different cake.

So the first thing I did after my cake was baked, is ice it, so the fondant has something to adhere to. Obviously it doesn't matter how pretty the frosting looks in this case because it's going to be covered anyway. I did opt to try my new Wilton cake icing tip though. I had seen it on a video from Global Sugar Art. It basically allows you to frost a cake in bigger sections at one time because it pipes out a large flat line of icing.

Then I rolled out my fondant to the necessary size so it would cover the whole cake (which you can determine very easily by taking measurements). I must say, the whole thing was not as simple as Beth Somers (the instructor) made it seem. Transferring the fondant to the cake was a hassle because a piece of fondant that big gets pretty heavy. I like her suggestion of rolling one end back on the roller and then picking it up, so the fondant is kind of hanging over the roller. That makes it a little easier to carry, but it's still pretty heavy so you have to do it quickly yet carefully at the same time, so that the fondant doesn't stretch out in any particular place.

Once you get it on the cake I think the worst is over. However, smoothing it down is not quite as easy as it looks either. You have to be really patient, going around the cake and smoothing it out at the bottom (since that's where it bunches up) little by little, making sure there are no ruffles or air bubbles between the fondant and the cake. And you can't achieve this by just folding over the ruffles and then trying to smooth them out, so I had to resist the temptation to try this, because it's a natural instinct.

The actual assignment called for covering the cake in all black fondant, and then covering it with little daisy cut-outs. I covered mine in white fondant, because that's what I had on hand and I didn't want to take the time to dye it black (which is a very difficult color to achieve), and I decided to cover it in turquoise polka dots, with some randomly dispersed brown fondant beads in between. I really like how brown and turquoise look together.

Note: It is not a good idea to do ALL of the decorating in one sitting. Take some breaks when you can or you will get really tired, or end up with a headache like I did.

I also learned that attaching pieces of fondant to other fondant is as easy as dabbing it with a little water. I wish I had known this earlier when I was making some of my other designs, like the Minecraft and Mario cupcakes, haha.

It definitely was a long process from start to finish, but I was pretty happy with the way it turned out, especially considering it was my first time covering a cake with fondant.

Polka Dot Fondant Cake

I really wanted to do a fancier border since I had just learned a bunch of new ones, but I decided those borders are probably better suited for a non-fondant covered cake. I also didn't want the frosting to distract from the main focus which was the fondant decorations.

In the end I really enjoyed my first fondant lesson. I had a lot of fun with the first assignment, and putting my own twist on it, and I'm only slightly worse for wear ;) I'm looking forward to the next lesson with fondant, or maybe even starting the Wilton buttercream class that I bought!

Crossing New Borders

I recently decided it was time to cross over into new borders. As I said in my last post, I had been watching some videos and reading some instructions for making flowers and borders. The borders weren't quite as fun to practice as the flowers, but I now have more options for the next time I make a cake.

The first border I tried was made up of little rosettes, side by side. It was fairly simple, because it was the same motion as a regular size rosette, you just have to keep the shape a lot tighter, and you only make one loop around the center.

Then I tried a rope border, which I really liked, but I think it would take a lot of frosting to go around a whole cake. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. You just start with the bag at a 45 degree angle, apply a little pressure, and at the same time start moving the tip in a circle in the air, so it looks like a bunch of rings stacked up next to each other.

Little rosettes border (left), rope border (right).

The video I watched to create the rope border is a little different than the Wilton instructions, so I think I will try that one next time and see which one is easier.

The next day I was practicing leaves, and had the idea to use the leaf tip to try a rope border, to see how that would look.

Rope border with a leaf tip

I really liked the way it turned out. Hopefully it will make a nice complement to one of my future cakes. 

The next border I tried was the reverse shell. Basically you start with the bag at 45 degree angle, and you make a bit of a question mark shape. Then you start at the end of the question mark shape, and you do make the opposite shape, almost like a "c" with a tail.

Reverse shell border

After that I decided to try some garlands that I saw in a YouTube video from Global Sugar Art. You use a rose petal tip, and start with the bag at a 45 degree angle and the thin end of the tip closest to you. Then you apply a little pressure, and move the tip up and down, not changing the angle, and as you move the tip up and down, make a wide "u" shape. Then I added a rope border on top of the ruffles. You actually pipe these around the sides of a cake, right next to each other, so it's more of a decoration than a border.

Ruffled garland (top), ruffled garland with rope border on top of it (bottom)

Of all of these borders, I had the most fun making the ruffles with the rope border, because I liked how much dimension and color it had. Unfortunately I'm not as big of a fan of how it looks on a cake. It's a little too frilly for me. Maybe I can come up with something similar, that I can use as an actual border, instead of side decorations. Either way it was worth the effort to venture across these new borders, and I look forward to putting my creativity skills to use and coming up with my own unique designs.

Fun Frosting Flowers

I recently bought another book to add to my cake decorating collection, and I think it's probably THE BEST one I have found so far! It's called The Complete Photo Guide to Cake Decorating. I'm sure you can guess why I find it such a great reference: because of all the pictures! This book does a really good job of breaking things down step by step, and including a picture for each step. 

One thing this book also includes, that others I found have not, is tutorials for creating different types of borders for cakes. At this point I've used a lot of the same borders for my cakes so I thought it would be a good idea to learn some more. I had also been watching some video tutorials on YouTube for piping different types of flowers. After all that I really wanted to try practicing those flowers and borders to see if it was really as easy as they made it seem.

I find that it's a bit of a pain to have to color frosting, especially if I'm just practicing. But, I really hate seeing all my work in just a plain white color, so, as my mom would say, I put my big girl panties on and deal with it! ;) However, you'll see that the leaves and violets I was practicing were not green and purple, they were in fact orange. They were the last things I made, and by that time, no, I did not want to make two more colors. Keep in mind I was doing this during a power outage, believe it or not, so that in and of itself made this whole process a little more of a hassle. But that's what happens when you're obsessed with learning cake decorating.

First I made a couple of roses, because they're one of my favorites and I wanted to start with something I know. For one of the roses, I decided to try one of my bigger rose petal tips, just to see what that would look like.



Pink rose with bigger petal tip (left), rose with regular size tip (right)

Then I wanted to try some star flowers and drop flowers when I realized I had the wrong tip (I blame the lack of good light on that one). I took advantage of the mistake though, and practiced making a few stars.

Pink stars

Then I got the correct tip to make the flowers. So for the star flower, you just hold the bag at a 90 degree angle with the tip touching the surface, apply a little pressure until you get the flower to your desired size and then release. For the drop flower the only difference is you twist your wrist a little bit to give the petals that curved-up appearance. So you start with your knuckles at 9 o'clock and then once you start applying pressure you twist them clockwise, and stop when you reach 12 o'clock. Then to finish each of these flowers, you use a round tip piece, and pipe some frosting in the center.

Note: It's really helpful when making flowers (and other designs) to gently place your non-dominant index finger on the other side of the bag from your dominant hand, to just help guide the bag and keep your hand steady.



Pink and orange star flowers

 

Pink and orange drop flowers

I actually practiced those again the next day because I thought they looked so cool. I tried it with blue and green which I really liked.



Blue and green star flowers and drop flowers

After that I decided to try my hand at some more violets, just because they are still the hardest flower I've made so far. It helped being able to make them on the flower nail, because then you can spin the nail, which is a lot easier on your wrist. My biggest problem is trying to get the first petal to be the right size, and then spacing out the rest evenly, because I almost always had barely enough room for the fifth and final petal. However, the more times I did it, the better I got.

Violet

For the leaves, I wanted to try to achieve two different types of "looks," from a YouTube video I had watched. One was a leaf with a smooth appearance, the other had a bit more of a ruffled appearance. For the smooth appearance you start with the bag at a 45 degree angle, apply a little bit of pressure, until you get the desired width for the leaf. Then you start easing up on pressure as you pull the bag back, then stop and release. For the ruffled leaf you do the same thing, but as you're pulling the bag back, you just move it up and down slightly to create a bit of a ripple in the frosting.

Note: You might have noticed in the first picture, I went back and added some leaves to one of the roses just to see how they look on a flower.



Smooth leaves

Ruffled leaves

I actually liked the way the orange leaves looked with the pink roses. I think next time I'd like to see what blue roses would look like. I'm definitely a fan of making things in non-traditional colors. :)

Stay tuned for my next post and I'll tell you about the different borders I tried!

Awesomely Geeky Cupcakes

My boyfriend's birthday was coming up soon, so of course I planned to make him some kind of cake or cupcakes. Now, he is a little bit of a geek (as am I), so originally I thought I should make him a Minecraft cake, because he loves that game (and has gotten pretty good too I might add). But then it occurred to me that it would only be one thing that he loves, and I really wanted to the chance to incorporate a bunch of things he loves. So, I decided to make him some cupcakes, each one with a different geek-related theme. :)

Because I was going to make 6 completely different cupcakes toppers, and would need a fair amount of fondant in many different colors, I opted to try out Wilton's ready-to-use fondant. It definitely saved me some time because I didn't have to make it and it freed me from the hassle of having to make all those different colors.

Unfortunately, it was not as easy to work with as the marshmallow fondant. It was stickier, believe it or not, and it dried out really fast. The colors were very vibrant, but that being said, the taste of the colored ones was NOT good. The taste of the white fondant wasn't too bad. In the end I think you just have to weigh the pros and cons and figure out what the best option is, and that might change sometimes, depending on what you're making and what your time constraints are.

For the Batman cupcake, I was able to take the same approach as I did with the corgi; I traced the picture on to parchment paper and then used that to trace it on to the fondant and cut it out (this was just the black piece of course). Then I cut out an oval shape in yellow fondant and placed the batman symbol on top.

Fondant Batman symbol

Everything else was freehand (other than the Mario star, for which I used a cut-out).

Geek-themed cupcakes

The Yoshi egg was surprisingly the most difficult shape to make. Trying to get the bottom half to slope out, so it truly looked like an egg, was a little frustrating. Pinching the top portion obviously created an uneven appearance because it leaves fingerprint indents. What I found worked the best was actually turning it on its side (after making it into an even oval shape), placing one finger on the upper 1/3, and rolling it back and forth while putting just a small amount of pressure on it, so that it starts to get a little skinnier at that end.

Fondant Mario icons

For the Minecraft character (the Creeper), and the Lego blocks, I realized this a little too late, but I think it would have worked better to use a fondant smoother to get a more even shape of each square or rectangular piece. I used my hand to try to flatten each side, which worked well enough, but hands obviously are not completely flat.

Fondant Minecraft Creeper

Fondant Lego blocks

For the McDonald's French fries, I drew them on a piece of paper first, just to get an idea of how it might work, which really helped. Then when I cut it out of the fondant by hand, I actually planned to place the red box on top of the just bottom portion of the fries (going for more of a 2D image) but when I did this it looked a little odd, because the box stuck out a lot further than the fries. So I cut out a back piece for the box, placed that behind it, and cut out two side pieces to connect the front and back ones, creating more of a 3D object.

Note: When you're working with all these different pieces, and there's some time between when you create one piece and when actually finish the entire product, it's really important to put some shortening on whatever surface you're storing the pieces on until you use them again. This way when you go to pick them up again, they will not have adhered to the surface already.

Fondant French fries

I had a lot of fun making every one of these cupcakes - and I think Steve definitely enjoyed eating them ;) But if I had to pick just one, the Mario mushroom was most certainly my favorite! It turned out so well, and it's the most recognizable Mario symbol, and I grew up playing quite a few of the Mario games.

Corgi Cake

It didn't take long after Memorial Day weekend for me to find another good excuse to make a cake for someone. My boyfriends sister was nice enough to watch our dog for us while we were at my parents cabin for Memorial Day, so as part of our thank-you to her, I thought I should make her a cake.

I wanted the theme of the cake to appeal to her, so I figured I should make her either a cake with a corgi, because she loves corgis, or a Gus cake, because Gus is her kitty, who she named after the mouse on Cinderella. Love it! :)

In the end I decided to go with the corgi, because it seemed fitting given that I was making her the cake for watching our dog.

I of course started by searching on Pinterest for dog cakes and corgi cakes. I found one corgi cake in particular that I thought was pretty cute, and resembled an actual corgi quite well. So I ended up using that picture, and tracing the dog onto parchment paper.

Then, after I rolled out the fondant, I put the piece of parchment paper on top, and used one of my fondant tools (see picture below) to trace the outline of the dog, pressing just hard enough to make an indented outline in the fondant. I used the outline to then actually cut out the whole piece.

I did this with the main body, the front legs, and the white patch of fur along the forehead/nose. I cut out the inner ear and tongue pieces by hand. Then I just used chocolate frosting for the nose and the eyes. The first time I did that was simply because I was only practicing and I mainly wanted to see if my idea would work, and I was more concerned about making the main parts of the body versus the nose and ears. But when I practiced it the second time I make those pieces out of fondant as well, and it turned out that I actually preferred the look of the nose and ears as frosting instead.

I also did not have the time to make brown fondant the first time I practiced the corgi. But like I said I was more concerned about making sure this whole tracing concept would work. However, I did still want to see how the different body parts lined up, thus I did not want to have every piece be white. So I figured the easiest thing to do would be to use some of the Wilton Color Mist ;)



Blue fondant corgi

I was happily surprised at how cute it still looked, even in blue.

I ended up making the final corgi (for the actual cake) a day in advance, which you can do as long as you keep it in a tightly sealed container and store it in a dark place. This made it a lot easier to get everything else done the next day.

For the main color of the cake I opted to go with teal, and then purple for the border. I had never done those colors together before but I really liked the way it turned out.

Finished corgi cake

I figured that little brown dog bones and paw prints scattered around the corgi would be a nice complement.

Hopefully my next puppy themed cake (whenever that may be) turns out this well!

Memorial Day Cupcakes

When Memorial Day weekend came along, and I knew I'd be up at my parents' cabin with all of my family, I wasted no time using that as an excuse to make some fancy treats for everybody. Plus I had already seen some really cute ideas for Memorial Day themed cupcakes.

I thought because I had some practice with both frosting and fondant at this point, that I should try to incorporate both.

I of course went with red, white and blue colors for the frosting. As for the fondant, I wanted to do more than just stars (the most obvious Memorial Day shape), so that I could have some more practice making shapes. So I came up with a bunch of other things that come to my mind when I think of Memorial Day weekend.

In the end I decided to go with a sail boat, a flower and an ice cream cone. The sail boat is because a lot of people partake in water-related activities for Memorial Day. The flower is because Memorial Day is nearing summer, when there are a lot of fresh flowers popping up, and the ice cream cone is because a lot of people indulge in summer treats that weekend.

Memorial Day themed cupcakes

The stars and the flower itself were both cut-outs. The stem of the flower I did by hand, as well as the cone and the sails of the sail boat. For the ice cream, I actually used one of the frosting tips, the bottom side, to make the big circle, and one of the candy eyes that I used to make the minion character a couple weeks earlier. For the bottom of the sail boat, I used the top of one of my gel food coloring containers, and then just cut that circle in half. You'd be surprised at the random things you can find to cut shapes out of your fondant.

Fondant sail boat

For the bottom of the sail boat, the red star and the cherry on the ice cream, I painted on the gel food coloring. I wanted that really deep red, so I hardly added any water to the food coloring. I also painted on the green for the stem of the flower and yellow center. But for the flower itself, the blue sails, the ice cream, the blue stars and the one silver star, I used the Wilton Color Mist.

Note: When using the color mist, make sure the fondant isn't too wet (from shortening) or too dry, or you will get some patches of white spots because the color won't stick after it dries.

Fondant ice cream cone

Blue fondant star

On some of the cupcakes, the frosting was just too pretty to be covered up with fondant, so I left those alone. I really liked the way the red rosettes turned out. I even added red sprinkles to some of them for a little sparkle. I also added a star in the middle to one of them, just to see what that would look like. I don't mind it, but I'm partial to just the rosette by itself.

Red rosette

Red rosette with star on top and red sprinkles

My nephew really liked one of the blue ones, because it "looks like hair" (the one at the bottom of the picture below), and immediately claimed it as the first one he would eat :) There wasn't a specific "look" I was trying to achieve with that cupcake, just trying something new.

The other blue ones I made pretty much the same way I made the red rosettes, but using a smaller tip instead.

In the end I was pretty happy with the way they all turned out. I look forward to finding my next excuse to make more treats! :)

Practice Makes Perfect

As anxious as I am to keep to learn new things, I also know the importance of practicing what I have already learned. So this time I decided to go back to roses, violets and of course some rosettes.

The roses I am getting pretty good at.

White rose

 
One thing I did learn from this round was that it's not a good idea to fill the pastry bag really full. If there's too much frosting in the bag it makes it a lot harder to squeeze it out, especially since you're only using one hand because the other hand is holding the flower nail.

The violets are a lot harder than I anticipated, and I'm still having a little trouble with them. Part of it is also that I'm a perfectionist when it comes to things I'm really passionate about and I want it to look exactly like the pictures on Wilton's website, haha :)

White violet

One thing I think that would help, is to practice them on a cake turntable, so I can turn the table as I'm piping each petal, and not having to try to turn my wrist to achieve the desired shape. Luckily, I have already ordered one from Amazon (360 Degree Revolving Cake Stand) and its arrival is expected any day now! I chose that one because the price was awesome, and it will serve as both a turntable to prepare the cakes, and a nice looking cake stand, so I won't have to transfer the cake to a different stand.

As far as the rosettes go, my plan was at some point to be decorating some cupcakes with them, because I like that look. That being said, I wanted to get some practice piping them onto something with that shape, without having to make cupcakes.

So, it might seem a bit unorthodox, but I decided to pipe them on to the bottom of a cup (similar shape, right?). I'm happy to say it actually worked out quite well. And it was super easy to just wipe the frosting off so I could re-pipe another rosette, without having to dirty too many cups.

Blue rosettes

Blue rosette (top view)

I had recently got some royal blue gel coloring, as I knew I was going to need a darker blue for some of my upcoming decorating ideas, so I decided to try that out for the rosettes. I really like that deep blue color, I think it turned out pretty nice.

These practice sessions are obviously not as exciting as learning something new, especially for someone like me who gets ahead of herself and wants to tackle everything at once. But at least they seem to be helping. :)