I’m so far behind!

Is anyone still reading? I’ve been neglecting my sweet side. Blame my camera and its insatiable appetite for power…

This cake is from forever ago. One of my favorite people asked me to bake a cake for her hubby’s birthday. MXQ is a big fan of all things Apple (the brand, not the fruit, though I don’t know where he stands on that one) and adores the movie WALL-E. Come on, who doesn’t? That movie was fantastic.

I hafta say, I was SUPER intimidated by this assignment. I mean, I would be replicating well-known characters. If I screwed this up, everyone would notice and possibly even make fun of me. I won’t lie, I had a little panic attack until my husband told me to shut it and get with the program (okay, he was much nicer about it, but my version is sassier).

I don’t know that I’ll ever perfect buttercream or that I’ll ever give in to the pretty and cover a whole cake in fondant (yummy is so much more important to me), but I do like decorating with fondant. It’s great stress relief and the end result can be very satisfying.

Anyhoodles, PQ took a quick video of the cake before she left that you can see here: wallecake (or just enjoy the following crummy stills from my craptastic camera).

View from the top

The front..."Directive!"

The iconic Buy-n-Large logo and oh-so-critical fire extinguisher

The lightbulb EVE turned on but WALL-E couldn't and, of course, the Apple logo (while it's not horrible, trust me, I know I'm not good at hand-cutting shapes)

The mothership and one of WALL-E's many knick-knacks

The final accent, WALL-E's ratty lunchbox

I again used imitation vanilla as the glue between separate fondant pieces, but also got to play with painting in food color. It was important for WALL-E and some of his knick-knacks to be dirty, so using food coloring and water was a simple and fun solution to achieve the end result.

I also used edible markers for the first time, which made creating WALL-E’s character details much easier. I had so much fun that I decided to include the Rubik’s cube and used the markers on white fondant to create that as well.

My biggest challenge was hand-cutting a few of the pieces (B, L, lightbulb, fire extinguisher, Apple logo, cube). I can’t draw to save my life, my painting skills are at a 10th grade level at best and my husband tries to prevent my use of knives in any capacity as he fears for my appendages. Therefore, I know a few details are less than stellar, but they all came together nicely in the end.

MXQ and everyone at the party loved the cake (white cake with raspberry filling is oh-so-popular) and he was completely surprised when PQ gave it to him. I’m so glad I could contribute to making his birthday a good one!

Since WALL-E, I’ve been sticking to the cupcake end of things…and cupcakes aren’t quite as photogenic…and my camera needs batteries…and I’m failing as a blogger, so I apologize. 

Until my next kitchen adventure, SassyCakes, out! (Working on a new outro, too…Seacrest is sooo two thousand and late.)

My first tryst with fondant

And no, I don’t say “FonDONT” like Buddy does - I’m not a pretentious asshat. It’s freaking FONdant, people. I don’t care what the actual correct pronounciation is - if it tastes like that, it doesn’t need a hoity-toity accent. Yes, fondant-covered cakes are beautiful. However, fondant is nowhere NEAR as tasty as a well-made buttercream, so I’m really trying my best to perfect my buttercream technique. So far, not so good.

But the good news? If I work with fondant regularly, I won’t have to do an upper body workout anymore…coloring it takes a bit of endurance, really. It’s a great stress reliever, too. The next time I have a bad day, I’m going to go home and pound on some fondant until I feel better.

My lovely friend Schneiderdoodle threw a baby shower for her sister this past weekend and asked me to make the cake. She didn’t have a set theme, so she sent me a link to the crib set her sister wanted and I used that as inspiration. You’ll see those images near the cake in my photos.

I took Friday off work because I wanted some time to play with the fondant and allow the decorations to dry in time for application. My only training with fondant came in the form of watching every Food Network Cake Challenge possible over the years, so I was nervous to say the least. Turns out, this time the buttercream was my nemesis and the fondant was nothing to worry about. The coloring went well and everything was even and bright - just like a baby shower cake should be, especially for a little baby girl.

Baking the white cake was easy and I leveled a cake pretty well (that Wilton leveler can suck it - a serrated knife was far more effective)…but the raspberry filling that I’ve made several times acted up a tiny bit and I didn’t fill the cake as thickly as I would have liked. Once the cake was torted and filled, I guess I lost my mind a little.

Let me back up a bit - before I filled the cake, I made the buttercream…a double batch of the crusting buttercream that I’ve made so many times. This was one of the parts I expected to go smoothly, but alas, I was doomed. I don’t really know what my mistake was here, but the buttercream was chock full of air bubbles - and that’s a nightmare if you want a smoothly iced cake. The air bubbles also changed the consistency of the icing, making it supremely difficult to work with. My technique has really improved, but you can’t tell on this brat of a cake. The only thing I did differently was use water (like the recipe actually calls for) instead of milk, because I wasn’t coloring the icing purple for the first time in recent history.  Bah.

My second mistake? So stupid. I didn’t go around the middle and fill the gap with icing first. I should have, but I was overeager and it slipped my mind.  I think my house needs a dehumidifier as well, because the icing really never crusts as firmly as I would like, so I suspect humidity might be a problem.

Anyhoo, the final product came out really cute, but the buttercream makes me insane. I had thin spots because the icing kept wanting to pull back off the cake, the air bubbles wouldn’t smooth away, etc…ugh.

You can see the ridge where I should have filled...and the inspiration photos.

The front of the cake - I'm a horrible photographer.

The right side, if you're looking at the cake from the front.

The right side/back...again, my photography is horrid. The cake was actually pretty darn level.

The left side of the cake.

The left side/back.

A closer shot of the top. All decorations are fondant except the butterfly trail and the bodies on the two side butterflies.

Schneiderdoodle said everyone loved the cake and it tasted great, so at the end of the day, I’m happy. I just wish the damn buttercream had come out the way it was supposed to. Practice makes perfect, so it looks like my coworkers and friends will be getting lots of cake to eat! Thank you, Red, for letting me make this cake for you!!!

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!

My sister’s surprise party

This weekend was my big sister’s surprise 30th birthday shindig and I did all the baking for it. She loves cookie cake, so I made her one just how she likes it - soft cookie, fewer chocolate chips than usual (I know, she’s a freak, right?). The only problem was that she doesn’t like a lot of icing, so I was only planning on using a frozen buttercream transfer that I designed (okay, modified from an existing piece of artwork) and not icing a design on the edge. Unfortunately, I think my pan was smaller than what the recipe required and it baked over the sides of my disposable pizza pan. I had to trim off the excess, which left a ragged edge that had to be covered. (I started with a specific pattern, but once I saw the Xs weren’t working out, I changed the plan…I’m not thrilled with the edging, but it was okay.)

This was my first attempt at a frozen buttercream transfer. For my first try, I think it came out pretty well. The icing held air pockets, which is normally bad, but I think it added to the sassy skull I was making. It made it more pirate-like, and when you’re dealing with a skull and crossbones, that’s a good thing. My sister thinks girly skulls are cute (so do I), so I was really excited to do this for her. I also had some issues with the icing not smoothing completely, but that will come with practice. Here is the cake:

I know the edge is bad, but isn't she cute?

I also made strawberry daiquiri cupcakes, complete with liquor and all. The cupcakes had diced rum-soaked strawberries and strawberry puree in them, and the buttercream icing had rum and puree. I found the recipe online, made some very minor adjustments to the cake batter and added some food coloring to the icing. I iced and decorated them to look like little cups of frozen daiquiris. They turned out really well. In fact, the cupcakes themselves are hands-down the most perfect cuppies I’ve ever baked. Unfortunately, party-goers thought they were too pretty to eat and I came home with most of them. Come on, people! I don’t spend 8 hours baking and decorating something for you to not eat it! You’re stealing my joy. Punks.

I even used my cupcake tower to display them. I was so proud.

Close up - sorry about the glare.

It took forever to find the right candy to make the lime wedges.

All together - it was a success!

Now that my Wilton class was canceled, I don’t know what’s next. I’ll probably make another layered cake to practice smoothing buttercream and piping decorations. I also want to start playing with gum paste and fondant figures. I can promise that my next post will feature this blog’s first-ever GOOD picture. My friend Pamela is a talented photographer and decided to take some shots of my pink babies while she was over shooting jewelry for my sister’s website. I can’t wait to show off her talents and see my edible art represented in a good picture.

For now, though, it’s SassyCakes, out!

The trouble with German chocolate cake

I’m thinking it was more the recipe than anything, but seriously, this cake was traumatizing. It’s a German chocolate cake, right? So why didn’t I need to use…German chocolate????? Not an ounce. After researching the origins of the cake on Wikipedia, I’m even more baffled - the name of the cake CAME FROM the name of the Baker’s brand chocolate (which used to be German’s chocolate but has since dropped the possessive).

Anyway, that alone should have been sign enough for me to find a new recipe. Then, I notice that the “frosting” is definitely not a frosting - it’s a ganache plus corn syrup. Sure, the corn syrup was supposed to be a thickening agent, but a whole lot of thickening needs to happen to take ganache to icing, much less frosting. But, the recipe image showed successful piping, so I figured it had to be right. Should have gone with my gut. It was NOT right. Yummy, yes. Attractive, not so much.

Add to that the fact that I’ve never made a custard, and never toasted coconut or pecans before, and you’ve got one unsure baker on your hands. In the end, however, the cake was super tasty and my mom was thrilled with it. She even took it to work today and her coworkers loved it, too.

No making fun of me! Here are the pictures:

See where I dropped some chocolate?

The chocolate was so thin, I couldn't use my edger

The custard filling turned out pretty well

The rum syrup on each layer, under the filling, made it so moist

Ultimately, I’m really happy I experimented with such a complex recipe (cake, filling, syrup and *ahem* “frosting”). New techniques are always good to learn, and now I know what to look for in the next German chocolate cake recipe I find - and how to change it to make it even better. I need an icing, not a ganache. Maybe I could just chill the ganache and it would become thick enough for this. Or add more corn syrup? Definitely going to use German chocolate next time, and add more chocolate chunks to decorate the top - maybe even maraschino cherries. Yep, I’ve got a game plan. But next on the list isn’t GCC Take 2…it’s cookies ‘n cream cupcakes!

I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself when I bake something that’s not for me or my friends! Must.eat.cake.

SassyCakes, out! (BTW - this is me making fun of Ryan Seacrest. I hate that guy.)

Tada! The cake…

Before I post the pictures, allow me to preface them with a few comments.

First, I have never attempted to smooth buttercream icing on a cake before. All prior cakes I have done have used only the star method - dotting icing onto the cake with the star tip. So, although it’s not perfectly smooth and the edges are not crisp how I would like them, I’m not completely unhappy with my first attempt.

Second, I have never hand-piped a cake before. Ever. The scroll work is messy for sure and I was not thrilled with it at all.

Third, I had made several store runs already and was too tired to run out for cake boards, so it’s on a silver platter, which is sitting on plywood that I eventually wrapped in paper to make it look nice. Also, I don’t have a turntable yet, so my brilliant husband cut a hole in the plywood so we could put our microwave turntable on it. How ingenious is that? Love him.

So, without further ado, the cake:

Homemade buttercream icing, tinted purple

With hand-piped scroll work, which was a lighter shade of purple

What kind of cake was it, you ask? Well, it was white butter cake with a raspberry filling, all made from scratch, and it was DEEELISH! Don’t you want a bite?

I'm no scrooge when it comes to filling!

I also made cake balls, which went really fast! I got a picture of them before anyone laid a hand on them, although it’s a bit blurry. Like I said, I had to act fast.

A tray of chocolatey goodness

The brownies were also a success, but I didn’t bother with pictures. Everyone really seemed to love the desserts, and that made the late nights worth it. Up next, my first attempt at german chocolate cake!

SassyCakes, out!

Busy, busy!

Wow, what a busy week! It’s my stepmom’s surprise 50th birthday party tomorrow, and I am doing all the desserts. I have planned quite a few yummy treats, but I’m most nervous about the cake. I’m doing a white cake with raspberry filling - 10″ round, 4 (thin) layers - and will be frosting it with purple buttercream and then decorating it with white scroll work (which I have never done before and hope I can pull off!). All of this is from scratch, so I hope it turns out well! Even if it doesn’t, I’ll post pictures.

I am also doing this wonderful brownie/cookie recipe with chocolate ganache. I’m using a brownie mix (oh, for shame!), but doing homemade chocolate chip cookie dough and ganache. I’m going to double the batter and make extra cookies, too.

Then I’m doing cake balls. I made a boxed devil’s food cake last night and homemade cream cheese icing. The richness of the icing really masks the cake, and it was a time saver, so I don’t feel bad about using a box for this one. I rolled all the balls last night (teehee), wrapped them really well with plastic wrap and put them in the fridge. When I get home, I’ll pop them in the freezer for a few to get them nice and firm (teehee again), and then dip them in melted dark chocolate candy melts. While that sets, I’ll melt purple candy melts and decorate the tops.

Whew, I’m going to have a long evening, but it will be SOOOO worth it. I can’t wait to see the final results! It’s weird to not be doing cupcakes, but that’s a good thing. I hope. Wish me luck.

Oh, and then I have my mom’s birthday on Tuesday and my sister’s surprise 30th birthday party on the 7th - which is the first day of my Wilton cake decorating class! I love it!

SassyCakes, out!