Wednesday, December 30, 2009

NEW YEARS and Final Cake Class

So last night was the final night of our cake class. Here are the results. I'm quite happy with this cake. My coworkers think its awesome and they even named the baby! Sweet Baby Ray is its name. No one has cut into it yet! So i'll have to let you know how it tastes later but here are the pictues of it.

Also we were working on our sweet pea's (a flower for the cakes) and the instructor came over and said"is there anything artistic you can't do, casie?" My head swelled! I was like eeeeeehehehehehe! Ok Back to work.










Update: Inside of the cake. HOly crap awesome! Yumyum lemon curd. Screw the cake gimmie the curd.





Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Next Projects

I love thinking of strange new projects to do. Crazy cookies, freaky frostings, cooky cupcakes, etc. Well my next to strange projects are as follows:

-Cookie monster cupcakes
- Chocolate Bacon cupcakes with caramel buttercream


neither of them are mine but I might tweek them here and there. we shall see. I will let you know how these turn out.

Love for Lemons

I love lemon flavoring. Period. Lemon Curd, lemon frosting, lemon cake, lemon cookies, lemonade, lemon scented candles and so on and so forth. Lemon Curd is my absolute favorite thing EVER! on cake, on bread, in cereal..plain. YUMMYUMM. I have several different recipes. They range from super simple and very sweet to really difficult and tangy. I love trying new ones! Except the ones that make it more difficult than it really is. like to Grate 15 lemons for 1tsp of lemon zest....um...lemme think about that..yeahno. or squeeze 30 lemons for fresh lemon juice. Again NO WAY! Lemons aren't cheap. *holds up lemon juice bottle* a god send. I only use it to top off my lemon juice. Say i needed a half cup and i had juuuuuust below that, i use the bottled lemon juice to top it off :).

Last night I needed a really sturdy cake filling and in a Martha Stewart video (SHUT IT!!) I saw that she a really nice version that she was putting on a cake. SO i looked it up in her cookbook (again shut up). So I thought, "hey I'll bite." 8 EGG YOLKS! WOOF! But the rest was simple, plus i like just egg whites to eat anyway. Man was it hard. "After thick, stir in salt and butter, once piece at a time". There were 10 pieces of butter, so naturally it got cool before all of the butter dissolved. SO i put it back on the burner on low. It worked. After I put it through the strainer, I HAD to taste test it even before it was chilled (tho it got cool really fast). OMG YUM! It had a very nice balance of sweet and tang which is what youlook for in a lemon curd. Too much sweet and it makes your teeth hurt and it doesnt set up, too much tang and you make a sour face and doesnt make a very good cake filling. SO I put it in the fridge and left it till i was ready for it on the cake.

OFF TOPIC: word to the wise, when making a layer cake DON"T use boxed white cake. Its so light and soft. It will got *CRUMBLE CRUMBLE FALL APART DIE*. So i had to make 2 cakes last night which didnt help my mood because i was fighting a migraine.


Ok i was all set to put the curd on my cake. I put a dam of icing on the corners to keep the curd from squishing out. When i went to stir the curd, it was beautifully thick, creamy and spreadable. Not gross thick but perfect thick. I put as much of it on the cake as I could ( i told you i love this stuff). It stayed perfectly. I had some left over. It took everything in me not to grab a spoon and just eat the rest of it....not that i'm saying I didn't eat some of it :). This stuff was dah bomb. Thats my opinion anyway. We shall see what my co workers think on Wed.



PS For the cake I also made lemon buttercream (just switched out the vanilla extract for lemon extract) and colored it yellow :). its so cute.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Christmas Weekend

Well lets see. I already told you of my cookie escapade this weekend. I have discovered a wonderful new food. Bruchetta. I found the recipe of the one that Julie cooked in Julie and Julia (which btw i found the actual blog! http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/08/25.html) how wicked cool is that. I havent made it yet but I made something similar and OMG...the only thing i changed out is that I didn't use olive oil. I used the Pam Olive Oil SPRAY. It cuts the calories and fats in half even though it elimates the "belly fat blasting" mufa's. Whatever. But yummy. OH I made a everso tastey Pumpkin Bread for my dear friend Rhonda this weekend. I havent tasted the bread but the batter was very tastey and I take that as a good sign.

Tonight I have to make buttercream. I always get in trouble with butter cream because frosting is my weakness.

ALlow me to introduce the newest member of my family: Baxter Donte!



I love him. So It's not a kitchenaide like I said but it gives me something to work for. Ok I better go get some work done. Another workweek has started!!!

Here's some pics of other treats I've made this week if I haven't posted them already









Friday, December 25, 2009

Christmas Cookies...oh My

So as you all know tis the season for cookies. So for the past 5 days I've done nothing but bake and decorate. my mother and I have collectivally decorated about 7 dozen butter cookies and I decorated about 2 dozen sugar cookies. We then decorated a dozen cupcakes for class which were adorable. But on top of that I've made a 2 dozen snickerdoodles, 3 doezen chocolate chip, 4 dozen butterschotch (for my dad) and 2 dozen vanilla wafters (which were awesome). I also made 3 dozen white choclate w/crush candy cane covered prezles which were droolworthy. The buttercookies were the best!!! It's from an old recipe from my grandmother. Those things went SO FAST at work that i had people from other departments asking me "got anymore of those cookies?" I'll post that recipe on here later too! I left it at work and my mom has the original. She also has a recipe for these chocolate crinkles that i could eat all day and never get sick of. I will post both of those later.

Seriously if there is any cookie, cake, or pie recipe on this blog that you want to see or try please let me know!! I will post it asap!!!

I think that's it but whew!!! Oh yeah I also made my brothers dog bbq basted dog biscuits, which set of my smoke alarm a million times. oh and my cookie bouquet at work didnt work oh well. they ate the cookies. THey enjoyed the sugar cookies. IT was a great recipe. It was from better home and gardens Homemade Cookies cookbook.
i think i'm done with cookies for now. Pictures will come in a little bit when i get them from my online album. Not today though.

Buty that's what ive been up to for the last week. Sorry I've taken so long to blog about it.

Next Tuesday is my last cake class with mom. I'm making a new years cake with a baby, party hat, wine, confetti, etc. So wish me luck. Any ideas on what kind of cak to make? I'm thinking a strawberry filling. Maybe lemon. OH NO chocolate..yeah boy! Any suggestions?

I was watching Julie and Julia last night and thought about doing something like that myself. What do you think? Anyone? Anyone even read this? meh oh well.

well I'm whooped its nap time..even though i've done nothing but eat cookies and turkey all day. BUt its christmas so who cares?! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

OH Yeah seriously if there is anyt

PS I GOT A NEW MIXER AND ITS A STANDING MIXER WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! AND A COOKIE PRESS! My dad was so funny: "Wtf kind of cookies does this make? They'll have holes in them!" Nerd

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Other cakes

Here are the other cakes I have made. They are birthday cakes. And yes the bear is a cake :). and yes that is a kitty litter cake. IT WAS SOO GOOD. the dead man on was a cookies and cream cake. The filling was just like eating an oreo cream filling. The man is made of fondant. If you want to know more about any of the cakes like a recipe or what not let me know.





PIE!! GOTTA LOVE PIE

Here are some pictures of a couple pies i've made. Pumpkin, double chocolate cream and Bar harbour Cranberry pie.




COOKIE SEASON

Ok So I've been on a cookie baking spree during the holiday season. So far I have made butter cookies w/buttercream icing(DROOOOOL), dark and milk chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, and white chocolate covered pretzels w/ crushed candy canes(EVIL! So addicting). My mom also made Sandies and chocolate crinkles which are equally evilly yummmy. Here are some of the decorated cookies, etc.






Monday, December 21, 2009

Birthday Cake etc.

GAAAAAAAAH! I'm so behind!!! Pictures first. Here is the birthday cake from last week! With First buttercream rose.

This is my Birthday cake for a lady I work with. She smokes and drinks and loves both. She also ADORES oranges.SO she got a white, orange marmalade filled cake with chocolate orange buttercream frosting. IT was delish. well so I'm told. I got sick of looking at how lopsided it was so i didnt eat any. She loved it! Here are some pics of it. The rose is my very first wilton rose! I did it all myself. *is very proud* If you really want the recipe let me know. its mostly premade stuff except for the frosting.




Monday, December 14, 2009

Evil Teachers Crumb Coat

I am NEVER using my instructors crumb coat frosting again. Not only did it nearly destroy my cake but it is now lopsided because it tore some of it. Luckily it was abl to hide with my buttercream. but i could still see part of the coat under my buttercream. it was horrible!!! This is a BIRTHDAY CAKE FOR SOMEONE! Damnit, here i am trying to sell my cakes and what happens i keep destroying them! hopefully i can hide the lopsided ness with decorations. Stupid! grrrrrrrrrrrrr. ON the plus sidethe filling jelled rather nicely. Live and learn i suppose. well my next will be brillent im sure.

Recipe Love

I love recipe hunting. I haven't gotten to the point of cake baking where i can whip something up on the fly with my own ideas. I have to use a recipe. If I tweak it here and there so be it.

Also if i don't know how to do something, say make a certain filling, I search and search until I find something I'm sure will work. So in my search to find a decent orange filling for a cake I have coming up for a birthday day i found this interesting piece of information!

"Heat the whole jar (lid off, of course) in the microwave for just about 30 seconds to warm and liquefy the jam, then I stir in a small box of dry Jello in the same flavor as the jam.

I use sugar-free for those that don't want the added sugar, or regular for the rest. It intensifies the color and flavor of the jam but, best of all, once I spread it on a layer and let it sit before adding the second layer, it jells beautifully and won't slide or soak the cake. It does help to refrigerate the layer if it will fit in your fridge. I have even put my larger layers in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes to allow the jam to set-up

It is as good as buttercream for "gluing" the layers together and it does not squish out the sides, even without the butter cream "dam." I like the taste better as it has a more authentic fruit flavor and not the over-sweetness that off-the-shelf jams can sometimes have."--Peggy Weaver

How cool is that? I'm going to try it! Considering I have to make a orange marmalade filled cake :). Woohoo. I have my first crumb frosting test today too. so wish me luck.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Buttercream...

Ok I have officially decided that wilton buttercream is kinda...yuck. I don't like it very much. I just made like....3 batches of it for my Decorating Class at Michaels. One is pretty good because I played with it a lot more. Its a chocolate orange buttercream. THe orange isnt overpowering. Its just barely in the background which is pretty cool. I've eaten too much icing. It's my weakness. I LOVE icing. I expect to get fat off of it. but now I'm kind of sick to my stomach.

I wish I could give you the recipe for the chocolate orange but I just kept adding different amounts. All I can tell you is that it has about 1/2 C. cocoa powder, 2 tbsp. orange juice, 1 tsp orange zest and 2 tsp orange extract. *shrug* these are approximate additions. the icing is about a thin consistency. Perfect for icing cakes. Which was my goal. I'm making a White cake with orange curd filling and chocolate orange icing for someones birthday. Pictures will of course follow the completed piece.

A New Beginning

Greetings and salutations. I have decided to start blogging about my beginnings into the world of cake decorating and other pastry arts. This includes cookies, cupcakes, pies, and other desserts. I have already created a few cakes and will post the pictures later. I have been doing this for less than a year and truely enjoy it. I plan to go to school for it later. I would like to eventually work in a bakery. Not necessarily own one but maybe a partnership in one. With every creation there will be a post. I can't wait to begin!