Psychics and spring

Can you tell that I really adore alliteration?

Last night, my sister hosted a psychic party and I provided the dessert. I had to think of something that would be appropriate for the theme but not cheesy. I was also limited on color options because I didn’t have time to go buy more candy melts or colored sugar crystals, so I have to say, this isn’t my proudest cupcake moment ever. I decided on a simple white cake with cream cheese frosting. I intended to add chocolate chips to the whole bunch, but forgot and only mixed them in to the second batch…which I made to take to work and they became generic spring-themed cupcakes.

Anyway, I had a vision, but didn’t have the necessary supplies to carry it out. I wanted to do different icing colors to represent the elements earth, wind, fire and water, but I wanted to accent each with sugar crystals of the same color, and I didn’t have the right colors for that (or even enough clear to get me through) and I didn’t have enough candy melts is contrasting colors, either. The candy melts would be used to make astrological signs. My choices for the candy were green, purple, red or yellow and my sugar options were red, pink, purple, green or orange. I could color the icing just about any way I wanted, but as it seemed I was stuck with green in both other categories, I didn’t want to get too crazy with color so I left the icing white. Boring, I know. Like I said, I’m not thrilled with the result. Anyway, I printed out the astrological signs and melted the candy, made the accents and would up with these:

See the really fat one? My ice cream scoop failed me on that one.

Meh. They’re okay. For a last minute project, I won’t complain TOO much, but I’m definitely not happy with them. Apparently, they tasted really good (I didn’t eat one), so we’ll call it a day.

I haven’t quite figured out the “fill 3/4 full” thing yet - new ice cream scoop, little bit of a learning curve - so I always bake more than I need because there will always be a fatality or two. And that’s what my husband is - eater of crumbling cupcake catastrophes. There weren’t TOO many casualties this time, so I had some left over to take to work and give to my sugar-crazed spouse. I decided to cheer things up a bit and have some fun with sprinkles. I mean, come on. What is more entertaining than putting sprinkles on a cupcake? Or on anything, really. Sprinkles are a slight obsession of mine, so I was completely blissed out after going to town on the remnants. Here’s the star of the show:

Love, indeed. Don't you just want to lick the side where it looks like the icing is melting off? Heaven.

Sigh. No matter how many new techniques I learn, I don’t think anything will ever come close to providing the joy I find in shaking sprinkles on top of a casually iced cuppie. Seriously, I wish I could go home right now and make a million cupcakes just so I can cover them in sprinkles.

But I can’t right now. My next project is a delicious five-flavor pound cake for my hubster’s new boss. Nothing says thank you like a freshly baked cake! Sassycakes, out!

Drinking and decorating

These DO NOT go together well. At all. But it’s lots of fun.

My friend and co-worker/carpool buddy Laura wanted me to make a super chocolatey cake for her sister, featuring the girly skull like I made for my sister’s birthday. Requirements: It had to be a chocolate cake, it had to have chocolate cookie crunch filling, the cake had to be purple and it had to have the skull. Easy peasy.

So then I decided that, since my hubster wasn’t going to be home anyway, it might be fun to have a little decorating soiree with Laura. She showed up with margaritas and we definitely had fun. You can tell by how bad my skills got as the night progressed…

I started with the skull because it had to freeze for a while. I have to say, this one came out even better than the first. I haven’t tried any other frozen buttercream transfers, but this time I used a slightly different buttercream recipe and I think that one’s a winner. Woot! Now I just need to design some other stuff and branch out.

Once the skull was in the freezer, I started on the cake. I baked three layers the night before using a recipe I found online for a rich dark chocolate cake. I didn’t get to taste it, but Laura said it was great. And it was incredibly moist…so moist that I was afraid the icing wouldn’t hold! Anyway, I was going to use all three layers, but Laura’s cake holder wasn’t tall enough and she wanted to have a layer for herself, so we decided to make a two-layer cake and she’d ice the last layer for herself.

I’ve never met a girl with a bigger sweet tooth in my life. Or worse icing skills. Granted, we were several margaritas in by this point, but check out this hot mess:

I started with the sides, but she pushed me off and started slapping icing everywhere.

Oh, Lord. The crumbs! The mess! *Sigh*

And here's the final product. That's the rest of the cookie filling, with an extra glob of icing for good measure. See what I mean about the sweet tooth?

Oh, my. It was highly entertaining, but somewhat painful, to watch. But who really cares? She had fun and loved eating the cake, and that’s all that even matters. I think I burned a few calories laughing, too.

But I can’t make fun too much. Between the margaritas, the humidity in my house and the warm kitchen lights, even the Viva method couldn’t save the real cake. I even refrigerated the cake for a while, but the icing stayed too soft. It crusted, but was overly sensitive to pressure. Laura told me to stop worrying about it because her sister would look at it for 3 seconds and then dive in…plus, my inner perfectionist was rather inebriated at this point.

So, ignore the uneven sides and imperfections. Drinking or not, I still love how cute this cake is. The color is so striking (remember, if you’re trying to color buttercream with violet and you don’t want it overly blue, you have to use milk instead of water as the liquid in your icing - so it has to be refrigerated to stay good for a few days). The skull came out pretty darn well, and even though my piping was clearly done under the influence, I still really like it. Oh, her sister plays for the Stunt Devils roller derby team, so that’s what the side decor is all about.

Usually, the dimension of the transfer would bother me, but it made this cake cooler for some reason. I didn't bother edging it or anything.

You can see how humid my house was, although my buttercream always comes out with a sheen. I don't know why.

The transfer isn't perfect yet, but it's getting better. I'm in love with the skull, but I'll move on eventually.

So there you have it, kids. Don’t drink and decorate. Or do, if you’re prepared for the results. SassyCakes, out!

Vampire cookies, anyone?

I originally got this idea from a link my friend sent me. We had a Twilight DVD party and wanted some themed goodies to enjoy, so vampire cookies seemed like the perfect treat. I had some issues with the original recipe (i.e., it dough wasn’t rollable, thus not cuttable, thus not usable for this endeavor), so I ended up modifying a basic cookie-cutter sugar cookie recipe from one of my favorite baking books.

The original recipe called for round cookie cutters and two puncture holes on each cookie, but any good Twilight fan knows that these vamps don’t have fangs. A good fan also knows that, unlike in the movie, Bella actually gets bitten on her hand (not her wrist). My bucket of 101 cookie cutters just so happened to have a hand-shaped cutter, so I thought I was on to something good.

However, due to the raspberry filling (to look like blood - a basic homemade jelly is really easy to make and so yummy), the hands looked way too swollen…as did my sad attempt at making an Edward and Bella. They both looked pregnant, and let’s face it - not even Bella is pregnant in Twilight. I was disappointed. After these batches came out, I decided to stick with circles like the original idea (but with the half-moon shaped bite mark)…and also incorporated some hearts. Hey, it’s a love story, peeps!

I didn’t get any great pictures of the cookies, buy my friend Schneiderdoodle did, so I apologize you don’t get to see more detail, but we’re lucky to have any picture at all.

See the sad little vamps on the side? Crushing defeat.

As you can tell, the dough started to dry out towards the end so the hearts are cracked a bit. That’s why I stuck to the traditional vamp bites on those. Okay, fine, that and I was getting lazy and running out of time. The first batch of dough that didn’t turn out chilled for an hour before I discovered it wasn’t going to work. You can also see that I left some of the hands in the oven a wee bit too long, but they were still delicious. They took forever (each cookie needed two cutouts, and I’m terrible at rolling dough, plus adding the filling, sealing the cookies, poking the holes and then adding more jam to the bite marks post-baking to make them look fresh…) but they were definitely worth it!

And, for the record, I baked up the failed dough last night. For regular sugar cookies, they tasted pretty good. Too bad the consistency wasn’t right for rolling. I think it’s because I used the Kitchen Aid. I mixed the flour into the second batch by hand and that worked perfectly. Another lesson learned!

I’m not sure what’s up next, but probably some spring cupcakes. For now, though, it’s SassyCakes, out!