Wedding cake #2

This is a follow-up post to the sample cake I made for a friend.  She had a lovely outdoor wedding at the beginning of September and this was the final cake the traveled with me from Minneapolis, MN to Eau Claire, WI.

I brought the cake in two pieces and finished tier-ing and decorating at the hotel where we spent the night before the wedding.  It was so much easier to transport than I had anticipated, which was a very nice surprise.  Everyone seemed pleased with how it turned out.  I did find out from my friend that she had a similar cake cutting experience to my own- despite having more than enough cake, the facility cut pieces much smaller than specified to avoid running out.  She said they ended up with the entire sheet cake leftover.

For the most part, making this cake went very smoothly.  It was great to have enough room to spread out all of the decorating tools I needed and have ample space to move around- I love having a house!  The one near-panic moment I had occurred when I realized that my oven is JUST big enough to fit an 18x18 inch.  And by just, I mean I'm not sure my oven actually closed properly. In any case, it did fit, and it baked just fine.  After I got my technique down for smoothing the icing around corners, decorating was a breeze.

In the end a lot went into this cake- all told I ended up making 28 pounds of white buttercream icing, over 200 red buttercream flowers, and almost 40 pounds of cake.

Blueberry Pie with lattice crust

Right around the time the local farmers market started up, Chris and I decided to host a small dinner with a few family and friends.  Everything we made was deliciously fresh and local, including the berries for this pie.

This was new filling recipe to me (from my Betty Crocker wedding book) and paired with the standard pie crust I like best, it came together beautifully.  Before starting, I did a little research into lattice crusts.  I've used lattice crusts in the past, but it's been a very messy process and I end up getting pretty frustrated with torn strips of crust and layers sticking together before I'm done.

After watching a few Youtube videos it became apparent to me that I've been going about the process all wrong.  I had been starting from the center, placing the two longest strips first and building out from there.  It turns out it's easiest if you start from a "corner" and work your way across the pie adding two strips at a time in each direction.  It ended up being a much simpler process and it turned out great! 

Usually I have trouble with blueberry pie setting up, especially when I haven't used a lattice crust.  This one cut perfectly and held together.  We all enjoyed it very much with homemade whipped cream.

Key Lime Pie

This pie was definitely the fruit of hard labor.  Whether it was the summer heat or pregnancy cravings, I decided that key lime pie sounded like a wonderful treat.  And not just a quick and easy recipe, but one made with real key limes (the recipe can be found here).

I learned two major lessons from this: 1) You need A LOT of key limes for any significant amount of key lime juice, and 2) A garlic press will NOT work as a juicer despite what internet resources will tell you.  Other than that, the recipe was super simple.

Before starting this pie, I did a little research and found out that it would take about two bags of key limes to get the 3/4ths cup lime juice called for, so that was not the biggest issue.  The real problem was the garlic press.  I don't own a juicer, and instead of going out and buying one I searched for alternatives.  Several cooking websites (and a commenter on the recipe page for the pie) suggested using a garlic press to squeeze half of a key lime.  Now maybe I just had an inferior press, but the lime definitely won the battle of wills and the press got all bent out of shape over it.  In the end, I got one teaspoon of juice from half a lime and a broken garlic press out of the experience.  Chris and I juiced the rest of the limes by hand, which I will never do again.

After the lime drama was over, the pie was extremely easy to make and turned out fantastic.  I used this recipe several times over the following weekends in various forms.  For a staff meeting I brought a "bar" version of this.  I made it in a 9x9in glass pan and spread a layer of whipped cream on top.  I liked this version because you could easily cut smaller pieces.  I also made this in cupcake tins.  I pressed the crust into cupcake liners and added the filling.  Baking was much faster in such small portions and they were super easy to transport.  I expected to have issues getting them out of the liners, but even the filling didn't really seem to stick to them.

For anyone wondering how the limes got pressed for the other treats, Chris bought me a juicer.

-Beth

Sample Wedding Cake

One of my friends got married in September and I made her wedding cake.  In July I made her a sample cake so we could make sure we were on the same page. For the sample, I used a true buttercream on the bottom tier and a pure-white buttercream on the top tier. The ribbon around the tiers, vines, and leaves are all made from black fondant.  The roses are royal icing Wilton roses. Overall everything went together really well, but making a sample was definitely a good way to make sure we were on the same page idea-wise.

I did learn that no amount of mixing reds will create true red for me.  Several suggestions from my Wilton books and around the web suggest mixing "true red" and "Christmas red" gels in equal amounts, however I still ended up with something just shy of what I would call "red".  

Fortunately my friends was very happy with the sample, despite what I considered flaws in color, smoothing, and the way the fondant blended together and it was a great opportunity to practice new techniques.

-Beth

"Blue Ribbon" Cupcakes

No blue ribbon awards here, just pretty blue ribbons on cupcakes.  I'm not sure why I was in the mood for cupcakes earlier this summer, but these came very shortly after my tie-dye cupcakes.  My aunt hosted a BBQ back in July and these were my contribution.

Using the same cake recipe and icing technique as before, I topped them with fondant ribbons and sugar crystals. 

The ribbons were very easy to make.  I rolled baby-blue fondant to 1/16th inch thick, cut very thin strips, and then wrapped small pieces around a thin dowel.  I put them on the cupcakes after letting them dry for a short time.

Overall I thought they turned out really well.  They looked super cute and I think they would have been great for a baby shower.  The only downside was that the fondant softened sitting on the icing, so you either had to be ok with gummy fondant or with picking the ribbons off before eating the cupcake.

-Beth

Tie-Die Cupcakes

These cupcakes turned out sooooo well!  I'm honestly kind of in love with them and I would love another reason to make them again.  They were so simple, quick, and tasty. 

To make 2 dozen cupcakes I needed:

1 full White Almond Sour Cream Cake recipe

2 batches of white  Wilton buttercream icing

Variety of sprinkles

3M Wilton decorating tip with bag

Gel food colors

I divided the cake batter into four bowls and colored them generously with green, blue, pink, and purple.  When I filled the cupcake tins, I made sure to put in a spoonful of each color in random order.  Sometimes it ended up being just one glop of each color and sometimes there was room for more.

While they were baking and cooling, I made the batches of buttercream, and like the cake batter, divided it into four parts and colored it green, blue, pink, and purple. To ice the cupcakes, I filled my icing bag with all four colors by using a spatula to put each color in a quarter of the bag (working in a circle, I thought of each "quarter" like a quarter of an hour on a clock) and made a quick swirl on top of each cupcake. Icing the cupcakes took me all of 10 minutes, sprinkles and all.

There were several things that I learned through these cupcakes.  First, icing with the decorating tip made the process about 4 times faster than it would have been by hand, and looked professional.  Second, buttercream is not a friend of direct sun, even if it's in an air-conditioned vehicle.  I brought these to a family gathering for my little sister's birthday.  We ran into a gas station for 5 minutes, and by the time we got back, the icing was melting off of two cupcakes that happened to  be in the sun.  Finally, you can buy plastic cupcake carriers at Cub Foods.  They will give you strange looks when you ask, but they will sell them to you for about $1.00.

There really wasn't anything I would change about these cupcakes.  They are probably my favorite project so far, and everyone thought they were fantastic.

Triple Chocolate Cake

I made this chocolate cake with whipped ganache filling and chocolate buttercream icing for my mom's birthday in June. 

I've made this cake before, with the exception being that last time I used a box cake recipe for the cake.  This time I used the White Almond Sour Cream Cake recipe that I always reference, with chocolate cake instead of the base white.

For the whipped ganache, I used a basic ganache recipe, chilled it well, and then whipped it until it was light and fluffy.  I've used this technique several times and it always turns out well.  It does mean that the cake needs to stay chilled though, just a caution against using it when you're not going to be able to keep it in the fridge.

I was really happy with how smooth I was able to get the icing this time.  Still not perfect, but it's encouraging to see improvement as I go along. I also enjoyed the opportunity to use up a few left over supplies- the flowers I used were from various previous projects and the pearls were leftover from my wedding cake.  Since this was made shortly before we moved from our apartment to a house, it was nice to find a purpose for a few things that likely would have been thrown out. 

There really wasn't much I would have changed about this cake.  I loved how the pearl effect turned out and with the improvements in my writing and smoothing abilities I was very happy with it appearance-wise.  Taste wise it was great- I'm not sure how you can go wrong with chocolate!

Graduation Cake

I made this cake mid-June for my sister's graduation party.  This is the first time I've used a sheet cake pan and I was surprised how nicely it baked.

I had half-expected the corners to be very dry and overdone by the time the center set, but it actually turned out great without baking strips or a heating core.

This was also the first time that I (semi) successfully used the "viva method" for smoothing buttercream.  The idea is to let the buttercream set and then use a viva (or other unpatterned) paper towel to smooth out the icing by placing a sheet over the cake and rubbing it smooth over the towel.  It worked relatively well here, but I think I  should have let it set outside of the fridge, since some ridges were nearly impossible to move after being fridge-set (it was just too stiff at that point).

I liked the way this cake turned out because of all the different techniques used.  I was able to use piping gel transfers, stars, round tips, shells, gel filling, and flowers.

I should mention that I purchased the black and red icing from Cub's bakery.  My attempts at red and black in the past have failed miserably so I opted to go the safe route with these since, Coon Rapids High School's colors are red and black.  The only real issue I had was that the icing was too soft for roses, but after adding more powdered sugar and meringue powder, it ended up working just fine.

-Beth

Rhubarb Pie

Now that summer is officially underway I've been trying to be a bit more seasonal.  With berries, peaches, and a dozen other goodies finally ripe and readily available I'm excited to branch out a bit. 

One of my co-workers was recently kind enough to offer me rhubarb from his garden.  I love rhubarb, but I've never attempted to make anything with it myself. I had to do a little research just know what was good to eat and what was not, but the baking the pie itself was relatively trouble-free.

I decided to try a new way to flute my crust, since I've always had issues with the sides pulling in or over-baking.  This time I tried pressing the crusts

together vertically instead of pressing them down into one another as I usually do.  There are a few resources online that suggest this leads to less pulling-in since you're not as likely to stretch the dough. I made this particular pattern by shaping the dough around the knuckle of my bent index finger.

I thought the crust turned out great.  The edges weren't overdone and nothing pulled in.

I also washed the top crust in a milk, followed by a sprinkling of sugar.  I think the wash really helped achieve a nice golden crust.  

I personally thought the pie turned out pretty tart, but most of the people I talked to at work thought it was fine.  Knowing that, I probably wouldn't add any more than the 1.5 cups of sugar called for, although some of the recipes I saw called for up to 3 cups of sugar.  It's all a matter of personal taste I guess.

One person mentioned that it was weird to have rhubarb pie without strawberries.  I can't say that I've ever had it that way, but it sounds good!

-Beth

White Chocolate Raspberry Muffins

I had both white chocolate chips and raspberries left over from making the latest cheesecake, and so I decided to put them to good use when I found myself wanting muffins one morning.  Basically I used a blueberry muffin recipe, substituted the berries, and added the chips.

These muffins tasted great!  We tried them both fresh out of the oven and cold over the following few days.  Not the healthiest breakfast choice, but definitely delicious.

The only thing that slightly turned me off about them was the color the raspberries took on while baking- a deep purple-green bruised hue.  I'm not sure if it was because I used frozen berries or if it was simply because they weren't loaded with preservatives, but either way it's not going to stop me from trying these again.

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

A friend of mine recommended this recipe from allrecipes.com (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/white-chocolate-raspberry-cheesecake/detail.aspx) and I have to say it was hands down the best cheesecake I've ever made, and very possibly the best I've ever tasted.

 The cheesecake was smooth and creamy and the raspberries added just a touch of tartness.  I followed the suggestions in the comments section for letting it cool and it turned out great- no cracks to cover up, no dried-out edges.

I used a standard graham crust and that held up nicely as well.  Something I found interesting about the process was that the white chocolate gets melted and mixed in with the other filling ingredients.  I was skeptical at first because I wasn't sure how it would affect the baking process, but it turned out great!

Baby Shower Cake

I recently had the opportunity to make a baby-shower cake for a co-worker to bring to a family party.  And by recently I mean back in March since I've been truly terrible at publishing updates in a timely manner (in my defense my husband and I have been busy house-hunting and preparing for our baby!).  I'm finding more and more that I do actually like decorating cakes.  I used to think that if I ever owned a bakery, it would be the one thing I had someone else do exclusively, but I may be changing my mind on that.

The theme for this cake was supposed to be "Jungle" for a baby-boy.

There were a couple of things that I really enjoyed about this cake and somethings I will never do again.

First, I loved using fondant and cookie cutters!  All of the animals are fondant cut-outs with details added with more fondant and/or edible markers.  It was super easy to do and all by animals turned out super cute.

Next, I really enjoyed making the waterfall/pond with icing gel. It had a really cool effect that stood out from the rest of the cake.  I'm sure those few slices were pretty goopy with frosting though.

Another thing I enjoyed were the tropical trees and vines.  For me, it was a way to add fun things to what would usually be considered the "back" of the cake.  Nothing extravagant- the trees were very quick and easy- but it kept with the theme of the cake.  I also liked the off-center stacking.  I felt like it gave me a platform to build a scene on.

There are two things I've learned from this that I will avoid in the future.  First, I will never again try to make my own black fondant.  It was a mess.  No matter how much black gel I added, the fondant remained a pearly purplish-gray.  My hands were black and remained filthy looking for a few days.  I ended up using Wilton's pre-colored fondant and it worked great. 

The second thing I will be avoiding in the future is a little marvel called a "sugar sheet". I have heard tons of people just rave about them, but I had a horrible experience.  I bought a zebra print sheet (they are literally sheets about the weight of paper made out of sugar) to cut out the "Congratulations" on top of the cake.  Despite trying several different methods, the letter cut-outs I had would not cleanly cut through the sheet.  I ended up going around each stamp with a paring knife and I still ended up with jagged edges on some letters. I'll admit it was a pretty cool effect, but not worth the time and frustration involved.

-Beth

Cinnamon Sugar Bagels

After my recent trial with donuts I felt it was necessary to try another, healthier, breakfast item.  This time I tried bagels (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/homemade-bagels/detail.aspx) and they turned out great!! There wasn't anything about the process or basic recipe that I needed to change.

I used a small round cookie cutter to cut the centers out- a few comments on the page noted that the holes were likely to close when you used the recipe method since the original hole was so small.  It seemed to work just fine. 

I was sort of confused by the boiling part of this process (you boil the bagels, and then bake them).  The directions said to put them into boiling water and remove them when they floated. My floated as soon as they were in the pot, so I gave them a minute on each side before removing them.

I ended up dipping the tops in cinnamon sugar, which was not part of the recipe.  They were delicious, but next time I will be adding the cinnamon sugar after they are baked so it doesn't turn to syrup and then crust during the baking process.

Apple Dumplings

For our wedding we received the "Wedding Edition" of the "Big Red Cook Book", which we are slowly working our way through.  I recently tried the recipe for apple dumplings.  While I've generally been impressed by the other recipes I've tried from the book, this once seemed to require an extraordinary amount of tweaking to make it work, although in the end it was delicious all the same. 

My first issue was with the wrapping dough recipe. It was very simple to make, but made about 1/3 of what it was supposed to (maybe 2 or 3 dumplings, not 6-8).  The directions said to roll the dough very thin and cut it into 4inch by 7inch pieces. I was able to cut two, re-roll the dough and get a third.  I ended up making a second batch and cutting additional pieces. 

The second problem I ran into was with the apple size.  The directions called for 1/6th of a medium apple, peeled and cored (the picture showed the slice that you get when you used an apple corer/slicer).  Either my medium apples were far too large, I mis-measured the dough, or the recipe was wrong, but it was nearly impossible to fit an apple slice comfortably in one dough square. I tried with a few and then ended up cubing the apples and using whatever would fit.

The recipe included a sugar and spice filling and a sweet syrup to use, and I also included walnuts in the dumplings.  They turned out great when baked the recommended time.  The finished product was very much like a mini-apple pie and they were great served with whipped cream.  I will definitely be making these again, but hopefully with fewer issues now that I worked some things out.

Sugar cookies with two-tone icing

 Chris and I volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters and a few weekends ago we decided to make sugar cookies as one of our activities.  This was the same recipe that I used when I made champagne iced sugar cookies (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/the-best-rolled-sugar-cookies/detail.aspx) and this time we used Wilton's basic butter cream.

I learned two things while helping my "little sister" make these cookies: 1) Not all kids find making cookies as exciting as I remembered 2) I really like the effect of two toned icing and it's much easier to do than I expected.

Number one aside (we won't be doing any more baking together), the cookies turned out great.  Putting two colors of icing in one bag was messy, but in the end pretty simple.  I was surprised by how little mixing happened, despite the fact that I have hot hands when I decorate and the icing was pretty thin. 

The easiest way for me to make the flower designs was to start in the center of the cookie and overlay the "petals" in one continues motion.  I also tried a few other variations that used the same motion with smaller circles to fill space. 

Overall theses were very easy and as far as time spent decorating goes, one of the quicker ways I've come up with to make nice looking treats.

Cake Doughnuts

I have had the urge to make doughnuts numerous times, but I've always been turned off by the need for a deep fryer or a vague set of directions  When I was in Target trying to find the right mix of heinous amounts of candy for various valentines, I came across a special seasonal baking section.  And they had a doughnut pan!!

It just so happened that this pan had very simple-sounding directions for baked cake doughnuts. So I bought it.

The doughnuts were exactly what the recipe said they would be- cake doughnuts. They were perfectly fine, but I must admit they were nothing special. Now that I have a pan, I feel more comfortable trying out other recipes or changing this one up.  For some reason not having a pan was the sticking point for me- I just couldn't shape the dough into doughnuts like the recipes all directed because cake doughnut dough is like cake batter; I'm not sure how you shape something with that consistency.

The nice thing about these doughnuts was that  they were very quick to make (5 min per batch) and the icing recipe was fantastic.

-Beth

Wedding Cake

After months of practicing and planning, I finally got make my cake a reality.  A picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a few:

I used over 16lbs of sugar start to finish.

1 gallon of butter cream

2 of the 4 fondant batches I had on hand

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There definitely wasn't much room left for anything else.

The cake topper was used on my grandmother's cake, as well as my mom's and my aunt's.

Turtle Bars

This was a shower recipe I received from Jessica Mattson.  I will edit the post to include the recipe when I'm posting from my home computer.

At first glance, these bars were not much to look at, but there is much more to them than what meets the eye!  You see a rather tan looking bar with maybe some chocolate it it, but you are really getting a chocolatey, nutty, crunchy caramel bar that's so loaded with butter and other diet-forbidden ingredients that you can't help but give in and have a few squares.

I brought these to work at the office and they were DEVOURED in a very short time.  Several unnamed people took several.  These even sparked one of our departments professors to not only write a thank you note for bringing them in, but to stop by and only half-jokingly suggest that I start a department-funded treat of the week to boost morale.

I would highly recommend these for any occasion.  Thanks to Jessica for sending me the recipe (to be posted soon)!

-Beth

Turtle Cheesecake

As I may have mentioned before, one of my bridal showers was baking-themed.  One of the really neat things that was incorporated into it, was the use of recipe cards as part of the RSVPs.  The result is that I have some 40-50 recipes from a large variety of people.

One of the recipes was for a Turtle Cheesecake.  I was skeptical at first because it calls for pecans or walnuts to be mixed into the cheese cake batter, but I would make this again in a heart beat!  The crust was crush Oreos, I used pecans as my nut of choice, marbled with caramel, and added more caramel to top after it was baked.  It was delicious! The nuts added such a nice texture an otherwise standard cheesecake.

It was one of the best-received baked goods I had ever brought to share at work (when I worked the grade school a few months ago).  It was gone well before lunch.

Over the next year or so, I plan to explore the recipes I received from my shower.  Where I can get the go-ahead, I plan to post the recipe and who it was by, so be on the look out!

-Beth

Rolled Suagr Christmas Cookies

For as long as I can remember my mom has been making this rolled sugar cookie recipe for Christmas.  It has always been one of my favorite things about Christmas, in no small part due to the fact that we always enjoy them with family and friends, but they do represent themselves with their own merit as well.

When my new office co-workers decided to have a cookie exchange, these were the first thing I thought of.

Typically, my mom contents herself with simply frosting them with a sugar icing, but since I don't have 8 children demanding my time and attention, I decided to dress them up just a little bit. 

All in all, these are very simple to make, but you do have to plan ahead.  Most rolled sugar cookie recipes require you to refrigerate the dough over night, as mine did.  For me, the decorating wasn't planned so much as it was an opportunity to use the odds and ends I have around my kitchen.

The snowmen ended up being my favorite.  I used brown cake sprinkles for the eyes, mouth, and buttons and an orange pumpkin sprinkle for the noses (why yes, these were Halloween sprinkles...).  When I brought them to work, I noticed that they were not being eaten.  When I encouraged a friend to have one, she replied "Oh no, they are too pretty to eat".  Whether or not that was what was keeping people from eating them, my family had no such hold on their appetites.  I brought approximately 4 dozen cookies to my family Christmas party that weekend and they vanished in 4 hours.

While you can't really beat an old favorite, I would like to try these with butter cream frosting instead of sugar icing sometime.  I feel that I would have a much easier time decorating with the stiffer texture butter cream has.

-Beth

Clover buns

This recipe was a variation of a plain white bread recipe I've made many times.  Instead of a loaf pan, I used muffin tins and placed three small balls of dough in each well. 

I made these to go with a pot roast, so I wanted them more savory than sweet.  I cut the sugar in half, brushed the tops with olive oil, and sprinkled with sea salt. 

These were amazing warm- I could stop eating them.  I really hadn't thought to put salt on bread before, but it really ended up adding something great. 

They pulled apart nicely at the "seams", which made them very easy to butter and enjoy.  The next time someone asks me to bring dinner rolls or buns, I am going to make these instead of the sandwich style buns I've made in the past.  There really wasn't anything I would have changed about these.

-Beth

Fondant covered cake bites (Petits fours glacés if you will)

Somewhere in the middle of starting a new job and planning a wedding, I decided it would be a good time to use the cake tops sitting in my freezer (to make room for the ones that would come from my wedding cake was the reasoning, I believe). I had left-over fondant from making the practice wedding cakes that I wanted to use as well.

I made the same cake-icing mixture that I discussed when I made cake pops, but instead of putting them on a stick, I rolled it out onto wax paper and used a shot class to cut out circles.

Using a cookie cutter, I cut the rolled fondant into larger circles and wrapped each cake bite individually.  Other than being a bit time consuming, it was a very easy process.  To wrap, I put each bite onto a flower nail, placed the fondant circle on top, and wrapped the edges under.

At that point, I figured I might as well make them pretty, so I whipped up some butter cream and made drop flowers.  If I did this again, I would probably use less icing in the cake mixture so that they weren't quite so sticky and squish-able.  In the end though, I was very happy with how they turned out.  They looked cute and tasted very good.  I will definitely be experimenting with these in the future.

-Beth

Guinness Bread

Oh man, I have so very much to update.  In the flurry of wedding preparations, I have definitely lacked the time to blog, but since baking is cathartic, I have been making time for that.  I will be posting several updates from the past few weeks- and then very soon I will post on my wedding cake!  Chris and I were married on 01-21-12 and I just received the cake photos!

So, here I will back up to the Christmas holidays.  Chris and I spent Christmas with my family, but a few weeks beforehand we spent some time with his parents down in Rochester, MN.  When we visited, I brought with a trial from my "100 Great Bread Recipes" bread bible. 

This particular loaf is made with Guinness.  I chose to make it in mini-loaf pans since we were traveling with them.  The bread was very heavy and had a salty, yeasty flavor.  I thought it was good with butter, and then we paired it with a spinach cream-cheese dip and it was excellent. 

As far as my bread baking experiences have gone, I feel this was the closest I've gotten to a store-bought bread texture.  It was dense, smooth, and almost spongy.  I've been trying to find a recipe that will have those qualities in a white or wheat bread with varying success. 

All in all, it was a good snacking bread that turned out great, but I probably will not be making it to be consumed on a regular basis.  There is no question that it contains a fair amount of beer, and not being a huge beer fan, that was a turn off for me.  That being said, nobody seemed to dislike it.

-Beth