Archive for Cake Decorating!
My First Fondant Cake!
A midst my packed schedule, I managed to squeeze in my very first class in Fondant last weekend at Gloria’s Cake and Candy Supply in West LA. It was freaking awesome! And, was probably the most relaxing 3 hours ever! Yes, I find cake decorating extremely relaxing- I can get into a zone, forget about everything else on my plate and just enjoy some quiet time. It was exactly what I needed, and I learned so much!
Fondant was easier to work with than I thought and I really loved the medium itself. It’s like working with clay, but without the huge mess and gross dry feeling on your hands. The outcome looks so neat and clean- a look that I generally prefer. I think after one class I learned enough to really start 
experimenting at home- and am actually considering buying a book on it to learn more techniques. But, for those of you that are brave, here are the basics for covering a cake… Give it a try. It’s so worth it!
Step 1: Knead your fondant. This is pretty straight forward- it should be warm and pliable. If it starts sticking to your hand just rub a little Crisco on your hands and keep going.
Step 2: Roll your fondant. Use a french rolling pin, or even a piece of PVC pipe, roll it out till it approx. 1/8 in thick. Use confectioners sugar or corn starch to prevent the fondant from sticking to your mat. 
In addition, you need to do a little math here… if you are covering an round cake, add up the diameter of the cake and 2 times the height. For example, you have an 8 inch round cake that is 4 inches high you’ll want to roll your fondant into a 16 inch circle (8+4+4=16).
Step 3: Cover your cake: Roll your fondant circle onto your rolling pin and the roll it out onto your crumb coated round cake. Use your smoother tool to smooth top and sides. Be careful not to pull the fondant too much, as it is prone to ripping. Trim excess using a pizza cutter around the edge of the cake.
Step 4: Decorate! Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes that can be applied to the cake with just a dab of water. You can color the fondant easily too! Take a ball on fondant and create a small well in the middle it with your finger. Add a couple drops of gel food coloring and twist and knead. Keep going till the color is well distributed. (Tip- unless you want super colorful hands- use latex gloves for this task!) Also, always cover the fondant your not using with plastic wrap to prevent drying.
Step 5: Show off and Eat! You’re friends will be super impressed with your beautifully decorated fondant cake!
No go test this out! I like seriously can’t wait to give this a try again myself! If any of you have given Fondant a try as well, I would love to hear about it!
Happy Baking and Fondant-ing!
-Kristy
An Overwhelming Two Weeks…
The last two weeks have been completely nuts- on top of my 6 day/50 hour work week I’ve had a bunch of cookie and cupcake orders. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful for all the orders! It was just a touch overwhelming! Alas, I came out of it all alive, with orders successfully completed and my wallet filling a bit fuller- which is always a happy thing!
So I have tons to update you on- as well as lots of sleep to catch up on- so today’s post will be short, but sweet of course! I’ve had this picture of this cupcake order from a while back- Easter actually- and have been excited to show it. The order was from one of the doctors I work with, who pretty much lets me have creative reign over all hers orders- which is really exciting. I was looking forward to topping these cupcakes with a gorgeous spring flower that I was in my new Marta Stewart Cupcake book (more to come on how amazing this book is! It’s a MUST buy!) Of course, in my head- mine would look just as perfect as hers…
OMG was I mistaken! They were way more complicated than I thought, my frosting was way to stiff and the flowers looked terrible! After a full day of work, baking all night- around 1 am I gave up on the flowers, scraped all the cupcakes clean and started over. I dug through my cabinets to find some kind of alternate decoration for these Easter Cupcakes. Sprinkles are always a great last minute resort and I always have them well stocked! I mixed some clear sugar sprinkles with colored on a plate, frosted the cupcakes then rolled them in the sprinkles mixture- super easy and super cute! It was nothing spectacular- bit it did the trick. All the cupcakes looked clean, neat and yummy. And the Doc at work was super happy. Yippee for a late night success!
This late night pattern has been a bit of a pattern for me lately! It’s about 8:30 and I am ready for a hot cup of tea and my pj’s! No baking all-nighter for this lady tonight! Stay tuned for more to come!
Happy Baking and Cupcake Decorating!
-Kristy
Great Article
Just wanted to pass along a link to short article from Tallahassee.com on one woman’s version of cake therapy! She’s super talented! And, I lived in Tally while in grad. school and so glad to here she is being recognized by the city!
http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20100315/LIVING04/3150326/Cake-baking-is-therapy-for-Monticello-woman
Happy Baking and Reading!
-Kristy
Another Week Gone… But I Went Shopping!
Yes, it has been yet another week since I have submitted a post and I hope everybody had a lovely Thanksgiving. I am happy to report I am fully recovered from my sushi-sickness, but was burnt out from working 6 days in a row. Today was my first day off and I was completely lazy until I traded my PJ’s for jeans around 2pm. It was utterly delightful! I watched trashy TV, drank too much coffee and had cake for breakfast. Yippee!
Anyways, I have lots to update you on. I baked for almost 6 hours straight last Wednesday Night and will share each of my treats I baked with you over the next few days. But today, I wanted to share with you what I rewarded myself with for having such long work week. I had a $50 gift card to World Market that had been sitting on my night stand for months and today was the perfect day to use it!
Initially my boyfriend and I had discussed using the gift card to go toward a new furniture purchase for our living… but today I thought otherwise. I quickly passed the furniture section not seeing anything all that appealing and headed straight for the kitchen section! To the typical person, these purchases aren’t all that exciting… but they made me very happy!
It all began with a new cookie sheet! Seeing that I bake so many cookies, probably thousands a year, a shiny new cookie sheet is a very exciting thing! The next purchase was a flour sifter. Again, nothing uber thrilling… but I will now have fluffier cakes and smoother frosting! Awesome! On to the cookie cutters… I was hoping to stock up on some awesome holiday cookies cutters, but World Market hadn’t got them in yet, so I got a circle… simple yet versatile! My last purchase in the kitchenware section was an awesome microplane. It’s got a zester, a scoring blade and garnish cutter all in one! I can’t wait to use it!
I meandered from the kitchen center to the expansive wine section of the store (one of the many reasons why I LOVE this store!) I stumbled upon a bottle of wine called “Layer Cake” and this was an instant must buy for me simply because of the name. For an inexpensive red wine, it was quite delightful. The write up on the back of the bottle equates it preparation and taste to eating a luscious layer cake and I surely agree! The flavor was rich yet smooth and yummy! My final purchase was a wine stopper and pourer… a neat little gadget that allows you to fully seal your wine- yet make it easy to pour when you are ready for another glass! A perfect kitchen gadget for this wine drinker!
Today was totally about pampering myself after a long week… with a little AM indulgence and laziness and some afternoon retail therapy, I think I am ready to face another week on the psych. unit! (Good thing its only a 4 day work week!)
Happy Baking and Indulging!
-Kristy
A Delightful Dessert After a Decandant Dinner!
My parents had many requests during their recent visit to LA, and stopping by Lawry’s Prime Rib for a satisfying steak dinner was one of them. And of course, when it comes to food, I had no problems in making this request happen! I made 7:30 reservation and we were in for quite the dinner! It began with a lovely greeting from an adorable waitress, then came a spinning salad, followed by the prime rib cut right at out table, lots a delicious sides and some English Pudding. Dinner, needless to say, was scrumptious… I love a good piece of red meat!
Surprise, surprise, my favorite part of this meal was of course dessert! We decided to split a Berry Trifle. And, despite me being ridiculously full from dinner, I easily gobbled down about half of this! The cake was light and fluffy, the berries super fresh, the whipped cream on top newly whipped. I usually go for much richer and heavier dessert, yet this trifle was light, sweet and refreshing. I didn’t feel like I had over-indulged, yet still had my sugar craving satisfied… It was surprisingly perfect after such a heavy dinner… Mmm… another delightful dessert-ing experience!
Happy Baking and Tasting All!
-Kristy
More Photo’s From Past Pastries!
I had quite a rough day at work today… and have a bottle of wine waiting for me in my fridge… hence this post will be brief, but so worth sharing! When I found the picture of the Sex and the City Cookie, I also found this picture of these amazing Chocolate Cupcakes I made a few month back! I REALLY wish I had one these right now (you know how much I love wine and cupcakes!) I used the Luscious Chocolate Layer Cake Recipe from the Luscious Chocolate Desserts cook book that I have and blogged about last week. It always lends for a great cupcake!
These are simple, and fabulous Chocolate Cupcakes, and I always jazz them up a little with extra drizzled semi-sweet chocolate. The more Chocolate, the better! I love adding simple details to simple treats. The drizzled chocolate took all of two minutes of my time, but I think added extra depth to the flavor of the chocolate frosting, but also made them even more aesthetically appealing to the eye. It totally made the cupcakes look professionally made and will surely impresses whoever you are serving them too. A little extra love and detail goes a long way! What details do you like to add your cupcake ?!?!
My wine is calling!…Big things are coming so stay tuned!
Happy Baking!
-KM
Wine Inspired Cupcakes!
Over the weekend my boyfriends sister Kate and her husband Kris invited us over for dinner to watch the Emmy’s and have an impromptu celebration for my acceptance to Pastry School (Yippee! I love celebrations!). Of course, I will always accept a dinner invitation, and I always offer to bring dessert and a beverage. Since I had picked up the Cupcake Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc earlier this week (to read post, click here!) and hadn’t yet had a chance to open it, the wine was my first choice to share with them. I also got a bit of inspiration from the wine for the dessert. The wine’s label described it as having citrus lime flavors so I decided to make lemon-lime cupcake with lime butter-cream frosting. This was also the first cake recipe I created on my own and I am quite proud of how it came out! I think I can tweek the recipe a little bit, but I thought it was still good enough to share with all of you. So, here is the recipe
Ingredients For Cake:
1/2 Cup Butter
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 Package Powder Vanilla Pudding Mix (3.5 oz)
2 Eggs
1 tsp. Vanilla
1.tsp Lemon extract
1 3/4 Cups Flour
1/2 Tsp. Baking Powder
1/4 Tsp. Salt
3/4 Cup Sour Cream
Juice of 4 Limes
Instructions: Pre-heat oven to 350. In stand mixer, cream butter and sugar. Add Powdered pudding, mix. Add eggs, vanilla, lemon extract. In separate bowl sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Alternatively add flour mix, sour cream and lime juice to butter and sugar mix. Beat well. Pour batter into cupcake tins and bake for about 20 minutes. Makes 12 cupcakes.
For the Frosting, I used the classic Butter-cream frosting
from Wilton (click here for recipe), with a couple changes. I use only shortening and no butter, substitute in lemon extract for vanilla, and substitute in fresh squeezed lime juice for milk. I piped on the frosting with a #29 tip and of course, topped with sprinkles! Everything is better with Sprinkles!
I really enjoyed both making and eating these cupcakes! The sour cream helped the cupcakes stay SUPER MOIST! That’s just the way I like my cupcakes (I REALLY dislike dry cupcakes!) The citrus flavor in the frosting was subtle yet sweat. It really complimented the more intense lime flavor of the cupcake.
Kate and Kris raved about them too. Kris is another one of my favorite people to bake for as he is always enthusiastic about anything and everything I bring over. He’s another great taste testing in my life. He had one cupcake that night and saved 2 for later in the week! To me, that’s a huge compliment! Oh… and the wine was citrusy with an apple taste to it too. It was a nice combo (then again… any wine and cupcake to me is a good combo!!!)
There were a few extra cupcake so I had my boyfriend bring them into his work today as I had the day off. Not to toot my own horn at all, but one of his co-workers actaully emailed me to tell me how much she liked the cupcakes! Okay… I really can’t help my self… TOOT TOOT BEEP BEEP! My first cake recipe was a success! Yippee!!!
Give the recipe a shot and let me know what you think!
Happy Baking!
-KM
Awesome Online Cake Shop!
So yes, this week’s blogs are heavy in places to shop… I guess I have been in a shopping mood! Anyways, I was recently sent a link to The Layer Cake Shop. Its an online shop devoted to everything cupcake related! So its right up my alley! The Shop was created by two women, Kristen and Gretta with just a few items on Etsy and they expanded this past June to a brand new website of their own! And its Fabulous!
What I like so much about their shop is you can shop by color, theme, kits, baking and decorating. I was just browsing a bit and optd to shop by the color pink. There was so much! Cupcake liners, many different kinds of sprinkles, packaging and lots more. All their supplies were super cute and very reasonable priced. I am sure they will be getting alot of my business!
On top of their store being positively adorable, I am totally about supporting independent business, which is exactly what their store in. They included an little info about their families on the website— I love little personal touches like that!
Keep your eyes peeled for my post tomorrow— it will be post my viewing of Julie and Julia! I’m soo excited!
Happy Baking and Shopping!
-KM
An Aspiring Chef’s Paradise!
I recently discovered a wonderful store, Surfa’s. This store is technically a commercial kitchen supply store, but is very user friendly to the semi-professional baker such as myself. They have EVERTYTHING you can think of! Its where I picked up my fantastic marble rolling pin. The staff are super friendly and really know their stuff! I could seriously spend hours in this store wandering and asking questions.
This is not just a typical supply store. They also have Cafe Surfa’s attached to the store that smells divine every time I walk in. It features breakfast, lunch and AMAZING looking desserts. I haven’t had a chance yet to taste– but don’t you worry I’ll take care of that soon enough!
Lastly, they always offer demo’s, classes and info sessions that feature well known chefs. Surfa’s just released their fall schedule, which features lots of baking and pastry classes… breads, cakes, gourmet cup cakes and cake decorating. The prices vary from free for some demo’s to classes for around $50. Check out the new schedule by clicking here.
Go meander around the store for yourself! Its freaking awesome!
Happy Baking and Shopping!
-KM
Check Out This Cake!
So my friend Camille sent me the link below to this blog. This cake is awesome! Take a look for yourself! http://whisk-kid.blogspot.com/2009/08/say-it-with-cake.htm
This blog is fantastic! The cakes are enormous and the photography is beautiful!
Happy Baking!
-KM
