Definitely not called FUN-dant

Baking and decorating has definitely been a learning process for me. more like a learning JOURNEY, truth be told.... a long, long endless journey.

I say that not because I'm not enjoying myself... but more because no matter what I do, I'm finding ways to improve myself, either in skill, recipe/tools, or process. That's a good thing.




frustrating at times, but ultimately good.




A long time ago, I experimented with fondant. I bought the wilton pre-made kind, and I used it to cover my daughter's butterfly shaped cake for her 2nd birthday. It was fairly easy to work with, but bleh. the taste was GROSS. chewy. and bland.


As I took a bite into the cake i had worked so hard on, I immediately felt disappointed that all of my efforts got covered up by a flavorless chew-toy.


Long story short.. that experience has prevented me from really experimenting with fancy-looking cakes because again... I refuse to compromise the taste of a cake. Cake should be EATEN. otherwise.. might as well make a playdoh centerpiece and stick candles in it, knowwhaddahmean?



So I did some asking around for better tasting fondants. I got a few recipes, and decided to go ahead and try this marshmallow fondant to cover my 4 layer white cake that I had filled with a home-made strawberry buttercream.


I'm guessing that I made the fondant a little too dry, because I had a considerable number of cracks.





and ripples.






*sigh*



(I made a larger one and a smaller cake, thinking I could keep the small cake for cutting and picture taking, and donate the larger cake to the bake sale... but since THAT didn't happen.. I kept the larger cake.)



At any rate... This marshmallow fondant certainly tasted better than the store-bought kind. and with a little bit of piping and well placed roses... you could almost say the cakes look nice.






of course.. the proper camera angle does wonders. cause this picture is pretty unforgiving of the cracks and ripples.




Again. learning process. I have a few other recipes I can try, and I sincerely think that the more I work with fondant, the better I will get.


For now, however... I'm going to stick to a well placed camera, and some pretty gum paste flowers to distract the eye.






of course... making a great tasting cake under all of those cracks can certainly help sway any critics from being TOO harsh.

Because "Intense Chocolate" Makes Me Happy

So thank GOODNESS Lent is over! I have missed baking!!!

Mind you, I have NOT missed EATING this week... I am certainly doing my share of indulging on all the things I fasted from the past few weeks.

This weekend, we had some friends over for dinner, and I wanted to try my hand at a recipe I had done a year ago or so.

It's called Intensely Chocolate Mousse Cake, and it's a recipe I found over on the Kraft website.

I had made this recipe before, as I said.. but this time around, I decided to change up the recipe just a little. For example... instead of just pouring the mousse mixture into my spring form pan... I decided to lay down a chocolate-cookie crust first.

I used some of my un-decorated chocolate butter cookies, but if you don't have those? chocolate graham crackers crushed up would work just as well. Just be sure to mix in some melted butter so it pats down nicely.

Another change I made was to use cocoa powder in preparing my spring form pan. Flour works just as well, but leaves a white residue on the finished product. Take it from me.. if you're making a chocolate cake... use the cocoa powder. it'll look THAT much nicer when you're finished.

I also used my favorite chocolate for baking.. the dark chocolate pound-plus bars from Trader Joe's. if you use YOUR favorite chocolate... stick with about 9 ounces.

I served it up with some nice cold whipped cream, and that was a good pairing, since the title is no lie.. it is a VERY intensely chocolate cake.

just.. don't judge me when I tell you that NEXT time I make this??? I'm totally gonna add chocolate CHUNKS to the mousse filling. huminuh huminuh.. now THAT'LL be intense!

Piece of Cake

so I forgot to mention that the cake I made for Danny's party was a three layer cake. I had bought a cutting tool a few weeks ago... the kind that helps you make level layer cuts.

I decided to alternate chocolate cake layers with a vanilla layer, and used a chocolate pudding filling.

While the tool helped to make a very even-looking cake, and the three layers looked really cool when sliced... I have to say the pudding was a little goopy inside, and left the remaining cake and slice a teeny sloppy looking.

perhaps a thicker filling or using a hot knife to make the slice? or having the cake be cold at the time of cutting? maybe it's something that can't be helped... or I just need to learn to cut a slice better. not really sure.. but it's something I certainly don't mind investigating a little further.

Birthday Boy

Yesterday we had a little party for my son. He turned two this week, and while he doesn't use a lot of words, he THOROUGHLY enjoys singing along to a variety of songs.


One song he particularly enjoys is "Old MacDonald". He loves mimicking the animal sounds and the simple "E-I-E-I-O" refrain. Consequently, we decided to go with a barnyard/farm theme for his party. While I have no problems eating meat, I prefer to think of farms as places where animals LIVE, and we harvest vegetables from... so Danny's cake and accompanying cupcakes focused on veggies.




Now, a while back, I had played with some gumpaste in attempt to practice making fruit/veggie cupcake toppers. as cute as they did turn out.. I was overall left a little disappointed. Gumpaste , while edible, isn't exactly TASTY. and it's HARD. like break a child's tooth HARD. Imagine, then, my delight when I read the book Hello, Cupcake. Not only did it feature a garden-party cupcake for me to replicate.. but the authors suggested taking ready made candies and ingredients to make into the vegetables.


The result? amazing. I used starbursts and m&m candies, licorice, cornflakes and graham crackers in conjunction with some home made cake and frosting, a little melted chocolate and color gels... and I managed to produce the following.






Now, I still wouldn't allow my 2 year old birthday boy (or his 4 year old sister) to eat the starbursts-turned-veggies.... but in a few years I could totally see them eating every little bit of the cupcake, and still having teeth left to brush when they were through.






Lessons Learned: heating the starbursts in the oven worked better than the microwave. Also? best tip EVER??? rolling the 'carrots' in cinnamon after I made the decorative growth lines made the carrots look OH-SO real. and LOVED the idea of coating the cornflakes in green frosting. the 'leaves' looked truly authentic.



I'm not saying I'll never use gumpaste again.. but for basic colors and for items for kids? the reshaping of chewy candies is really the way to go!

The Not-so-Perfect Pumpkin Cake

It's really hard for me to resist making pumpkin things when October rolls around. Usually it starts off with me getting a Pumpkin Spice Latte from Bigbucks... then... well.. you saw I caved and made a pumpkin flavored Happy Jane.

Last week I realized that I don't make many cakes. and that's really a shame... cause people.. I love cake. The idea of a PUMPKIN cake was enough to get me to wear my contacts, get dressed up, and bake a cake... totally Stepford Style.

I found this recipe from the Joy of Baking. hook, line, and sinker. and forget about the idea of adding MAPLE to the cream cheese frosting. I was seriously swooning before I even cracked the first egg.

Now.. I did go into a more detailed description of the events that occurred while I was baking this cake on my other blog... but because my narrative involved many curses, I'm going to let you use your imagination here. (sorry.. I try to keep this blog clean, folks.)

Things started off VERY WELL, though. Dare I say I believed I had made some perfect cakes. I'm a bit of an ego-centric... I'll admit that. But I RARELY use the word 'perfect' to describe my culinary attempts. I like to recognize what I do right, but want to always better myself.. so again.. I don't throw around 'perfect' too much.

but these cakes??? I went there. I even said it out loud. which was probably my downfall... but they were sooo beautiful. and the smell!! again.. SWOON, I say!

It all went to pot when I attempted the frosting, though. it was too runny (probably from my over-zealous addition of maple syrup) and I kick myself cause there was a point in the mixing process that I felt I had the right (read THICK) consistency... I forged ahead with the recipe instructions, and added more maple. GAR!


but I'll spare you all of that and just get to the awful evidence.

Despite letting the frosting sit for a few hours (thinking it would thicken or harden..) it was still a gloppy mess.

hence.. my cake became a gloppy mess.

ooey-gooey, yippy drippy MESS.

Now.. fear not.. it didn't stop me from EATING it. and I will say that the taste WAS superb. and moist. oh MY do I love a nice, fresh, moist cake! Really.. this recipe is fantastic for the cake. the icing? I might say to stick with what you know, even if it means buying a canned cream cheese frosting. The maple did add a nice layer to the frosting... but the thin consistency threw me for a loop.

The second cake I made came out a bit nicer looking. maybe because I used the frosting a bit more sparingly... knowing too much would get the gloppy side effect. SO yes.. the second one came out better.. but very far from something I'd call perfect.

The second cake was donated to my husband's work... and supposedly all who had it were very pleased. Hey.. they're computer nerds... maybe they're not as picky?

LESSONS LEARNED: So yeah. one.. NEVER use the word perfect. call me superstitious, but being that bold = murphy's law to happen = far from perfect results.

I will for sure use this recipe again... but next time I will use double the cream cheese, and single or slightly LESS than single proportions of the liquid ingredients. Next time.. I'll be going for a thick frosting. Like ability-to-pipe thick.

Tricks and Treats

SO clearly I'm all about the treats on this site. I DO love me some treats!


a good friend of mine, whom I have already named to be my executive talent scout should I ever get too big for my britches. (and by that I DO mean money wise.. not pants sizes. if I LITERALLY get too big for my britches, then said friend will be the one duct-taping my mouth shut and putting my rear back on weight watchers. Cause she and I know I have to look good for that day when our kids get married. Just sayin'. )

ANYWAYS! Susie, in many ways, is my eyes and ears. She finds the coolest stuff, and that definitely includes recipes and fun ways of doing or presenting everyday stuff. A few months ago.. Suser passed on a link to a Martha special featuring a treat called Cake Pops.

I was immediately enthralled.. but I'm ashamed to admit I did not even ATTEMPT those little bad boys until this past bake sale. I was GOING TO... just... life took over for a little.



I thought it would be fun to make some cake pops in a ghoulish theme... I was thinking ghosts and goblins. or at least ghosts and pumpkins.



that's where the 'trick' part came in



On the original site of the cake pops creator... she was coating her pops in candy melts for the round pops... and the 'cupcake' shapes were 'dipped' on 2 different occasions.

I used white chocolate, and it was NOT EASY to work with. it was very gloppy and thick. I found that my ghosts looked a bit more like round and fat mummies. oh, and my food writing markers?? did not work so well on the white chocolate. I ended up using my Wilton dye gels for the eyes.



Look at these poor things... it's like they're BEGGING for someone to help them look better.





and lo and behold.. my 'grand' ideas of doing pumpkin balls got SQUASHED because I didn't have a good way of letting the balls 'dry' without setting them up-side-down. (thus giving them a Frankenstein-esque flat head.)



Thinking fast I dunked the orange 'balls' in theme-colored sprinkles, and chalked it up to inexperience.






All in all I think the treats turned out cute enough, and they tasted fine. (though ENTIRELY too sweet in my opinion. My 4 yr old daughter didn't seem to mind, though.) They seemed to be as dense/fudgy as a brownie coated in a too-thick layer of white chocolate.... just not as rich and heavy as a brownie would be.







I'm in no hurry to try these again, but that's not to say I won't. I think that like anything, practice would make me more proficient at making them... and perhaps using a thinner consistency outer shell (such as candy melts or adding paraffin!!! again with the paraffin!) would make this project a little easier.



or having a stand of some sorts so the pops could harden upright?




overall... I'll give it a "boo!" rating. Really... not my best work. Try me again next year?

The Ten Dollar Cake

So we had another bake sale for church. It was good to get back in the swing of things, as I missed last month for family obligations, they had taken the summer 'off', and I was in NJ for the June sale.

One of the items I made was a peanut-butter chocolate layer cake. yeah. sounds good if you like that stuff!

I had some leftover peanut butter filling from a new flavor of Happy Janes. (a post about them is coming, I promise!) And since I was making some chocolate cake for my own version of cake-pops.... I decided to make a small round cake.

SO after the cake was cooled, I smoothed some 'filling', and layered the other half of the cake on top.

Made some chocolate icing, and frosted the cake.

At that point, I decided to 'purty' it up and piped some edging around the base and the top.

It occurred to me that I do not have much practice with icing cakes, so this was a good exercise. I was happy to see that it sold at the bake sale for $10 dollars. not sure *I* would have paid that much.. but it was a fundraiser, and sure enough.. I was there to see a couple buy it. Felt good to see the guy pick it up and pay for it.. as it did to see his girlfriend or wife walk away with a very coy smile. like she KNEW they were gonna knock that bad boy out with a jug of milk that afternoon. (or so I imagined...)

lessons learned... I need to invest in some flat off-set spatulas for a smoother finish. and maybe a leveler.. as the cake looked a teeny bit lop-sided. but overall, the cake was relatively simple to make, and decorate. I may just make some more next time I'm invited somewhere for dinner or coffee. The size was just right, in my opinion. (assuming it's to feed a group of six or less) small enough to be eaten before it starts to get stale.

Luau Birthday

For Rhena's birthday, I made a beach-themed cake to go with her Luau-themed birthday party. to compliment the cake (and to make serving easier) I made several cupcakes, covered in 'sand' (cookie crumbs) that each had a decorated surfboard stuck in it.

I was proud of the concept and how the theme flowed into every aspect of the party. the cake? tasted great, but I have a feeling I'll look back at it and be artisticly embarrassed. like maybe next week?

oh well. Rhena loved it, and it held up the label of 'cute' well enough.