Friday, February 29, 2008

Fondant Cake #3



Here's a cake I made for Molly's bf's birthday. I originally planned to have a person face down on the cake with a beer can in his hand, but felt it was out of reach for what I can do...so here's the result! Ducks represent!

Cupcakes again!

I have had cupcake fever lately - and there's only more to come!
The rest of this term is devoted to round one of cupcakes, seeing what works and
seeing what doesn't. Here are three recipes I've tried so far:





The recipe was called "White chocolate-filled chocolate cupcakes". There wasn't even half enough filling to frost the top, so I whipped up some buttercream really quick, but it overpowered the cupcake. I enjoyed the chocolate buttercream, but next time I plan to make more filling and just put a little on top.


Cupcake #2: Hi-Hats!





I really wanted to make these because they looked a. delicious and b. like chocolate-dipped cones from mcdonald's - my favorite! These are chocolate cupcakes made with sour cream (moist!) and a marshmallow buttercream (the first buttercream I've liked) with a semi-sweet chocolate coating. The original recipe called for a meringue topping, but I don't like the taste so I changed it to marshmallow. I LOVED THESE! They are almost too rich, so next time I'll use a milk chocolate coating and they should be perfect!


Cupcake #3: Pink Lemonadies!






I was really excited to make this cupcake, and it turned out pretty well. They didn't rise as much as I thought they would, so next time I'll fill the cup more so the cake/frosting ratio is even. The pink lemonade buttercream was really good, but a little too sweet. Next time - less sugar! The tang from the lemon's I decided to squeeze in at the last minute worked well, and provided a nice tang to offset the sweetness of the frosting. I topped them with candied lemon zest - yum!


One thing I know is I need to work on my buttercream! More pictures to come soon!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yay for holidays that give us excuses to bake!  I spent the whole night baking, and have to work (i.e. bake) in 5 hours - no rest for the weary :(  I'm making gift treats for family and friends, and here is what I have completed so far:



Here is a cookie I got off of cakecentral.com.  They called them Gooey Butter Cookies, but I prefer "Cake Batter Cookie" because it tastes like cake batter - yum!  I added red, pink and white nonpareils for V-Day in the cracks of the cookie which added a cool look to it.  These are delicious!



Here are some classic sugar cookies with pink and white royal icing.  I don't know how people can get such tiny details on their cookies, or make a good icing consistency for writing.  These were hard to do!  But practice makes perfect...I'll keep trying.  

I also made cake balls and Oreo truffles, but I'll post pictures for that later...au revoir for now!

Thursday, February 7, 2008

So soon?

Another update!  I've been working on a few things and thought I'd share them before they got lost in my photo files forever.  I was reading Bakerella's blog and saw these adorable, little cupcakes - so I attempted to recreate them at work.  They turned out great!  The center is cake and cream cheese frosting mixed together, and they're covered in chocolate icing on the bottom and colored, melted white chocolate chips on top with nonpareils.  I was afraid they were going to be soggy because even after setting up in the fridge and freezer overnight, they were still soft.  But the taste was a dense, moist and gooey creation!  Kudos to me!  Next time I make these, the green will be flavored with mint extract and the pink with either peppermint or strawberry extract.  Enjoy!




Look at the cute little baby cake - oohzy oohzy goo goo baby.  lol that's my baby talk

Monday, February 4, 2008

Cakes cakes cakes!

Sorry I haven't updated in awhile - I've been really busy!  BUT I have done a lot of baking and such.  My new job is great, I'm getting sooooo much experience.  And at my job on campus, my boss has given me free rein to bake whatever I want!  Not to mention a fatty raise too :)  I made tiger butter brownies last week (brownies with a peanut butter topping) and this week I'm making mini cupcakes (I'll post pictures).  Here are a few things I have done since the last post:



This is a cake that Tom thought up.  He originally wanted to have a diamond pattern of mangos covering the sides, 
but I got lazy and just settled on plain, old white.  This is a butter cake with a cinnamon/mango filling, and coconut buttercream frosting.  The top is covered with kiwis (obviously), 
and here's what the middle looks like:



It was really yummy!  The cinnamon was almost strange with the rest of the cake, but it still worked.  I will definitely be making this again.  My next cake I made this last weekend for Parisa - she got into OHSU's medical school!  It's my second fondant cake, and it turned out okay-looking:



I wanted to do a red fondant cake with white flowers, but I cannot for the life of me make the fondant red.  I guess an airbrush would work, but I am not going to shell out 300 bucks for one!  Here is a close-up of the flowers (that turned out thanks to Carla and William's tip contribution!):



The actual cake however, did not turn out so well.  I tried to do a vanilla cake with layers of strawberry and chocolate, but I rushed it and it looked like someone threw up inside the cake lol  I'll try better next time.



Yuck!