Sunday, June 27, 2010

Good Morning Chocolate!
My kids get all the healthies for their weekday mornings: Oatmeal, fruit smoothies, omlettes, zucchini pancakes etc... Sundays, however, I let them pick what they want. This morning was all about the chocolate chip muffins! I admit, when I dumped the chips in, more escaped the bag than planned, but I cut some sugar out, so it's all good! This recipe made 6 giant muffins. Even my 8 year old could only eat one!

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Muffins
2 1/2 cups Pamela's pancake and baking mix
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
2 eggs
2 TBS oil
1 TBS vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate chips (mine may have gotten closer to a cup....)
Pre-heat oven to 350
Spray muffin tins with cooking spray (makes 6 giant muffins or 12 regular size)
Mix all ingredients together
Fill muffin tins 3/4 full
Bake 20-25 min for regular sized muffins or 35-45 minutes for the giant ones

So amazing about 5 minutes after they've been taken out of the oven!
Welcome Baby Girl!


This was one of my favorite cakes I've done. It's whimsical and fun! The bow and ribbons are modeling chocolate and the dots and lettering are fondant.
Happy Birthday Mama!


I think when you become a mom, that's about the time you stop getting birthday cakes, unless it's a milestone birthday. My mom is the most amazing woman ever and I wanted to make her an amazing cake. The roses are white modeling chocolate. They held up great on a really hot day! She cried when she saw it and I cried when I saw her reaction!
Graduation time!

The graduate had received her master's degree in teaching, what a great accomplishment! This was also my first attempt at making my own fondant. I really liked working with it, but it wouldn't dry for anything and it was quite greasy. It was a buttercream fondant, not a traditional fondant. It tasted great! I stacked 2 'books' and created a graduation cap in her school colors. The design on the top book is actually the school logo. I looked at a photo of it and hand piped it with buttercream. The bottom book and cap were chocolate cake, the smaller book was my orange dream cake.


Pre-decoration
It's Fireman Sam to the rescue!!


The birthday boy was turning 4 and he loves the UK cartoon Fireman Sam. His mom told me the theme of the party and told me I could do whatever I wanted with this theme. This is what I came up with. All of the decorations are fondant except the ladder which is hand piped white chocolate.

Fireman Sam!




The kids even got some time in the firetruck and the awesome firemen hooked the hoses up for the kids to spray down cones. How fun!
Happy Birthday Tracy!!


This was an example of disaster gone right! I had removed the chocolate frosted cake from the refrigerator to pipe a paisley design on it in white chocolate. As soon as the chocolate hit the cake, it completely seized up! I ended up piping a maze-like design with none of the chocolate overlapping. It still needed something, so I just drizzled the chocolate all over the cake to give it a little more dimension. The cake was hers alone, so I make cupcakes to serve the guests.



I piped the little rosettes around the base to give it a more finished look.


The famous chocolate espresso cupcakes with fudgy espresso frosting and white chocolate/coconut curls


She really liked it. Her fiance told her not to eat it, they could save it for their wedding cake :)
It's a boy!


This was the first cake I did for someone I didn't know very well. It was very nerve racking, but I'm pretty pleased with the results. She didn't want the cake covered in fondant, so the outside is smoothed buttercream. The rattle, bow and polka dots are all fondant.



The photo's not fabulous, but here's the finished cake.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Ahoy Mateys!


My son has had a pirate obsession for years. This was from his 4th birthday party. It was my first shaped cake. I found a template online regarding how to cut and stack and I used his toy pirate ship as a guide. I just took it out of the fridge here, so the buttercream is sweating a bit. I just used a paper towel to carefully dab the drops away.



I set up two activity tables for the kids to start on while the other children were arriving. There were pirate puzzles and design your own pirate flags. I used thick muslin fabric and hot glued them to long cake dowels to make the flags.


In the pirate ship there are rolled up handmade treasure maps. First mate Madeleine and I came out to the park a few weeks ahead to map out the park and to decide what their treasure hunt route would be. If I can find where I put the extra treasure map I saved and put in that special place I would never forget, I'll post a picture of it, they turned out really great...



First mate Madeleine leading the boys to their booty!


What do we find here??


A treasure chest (that clearly I should have spent more time on, but what with those darned treasure maps and all, somethings had to be put off 'till last minute)
In the chest, the kids each found a burlap sack holding a bandana, an eye patch, Hershey's "treasures", gold coins, colored beads and skull and crossbone pencils.


Getting into their pirate gear.


Arrrrrrrrrrrg!

Is it cake time yet??

I
The cannons are on fire, quick, blow 'em out!


Happy Birthday!!
A Fairy Princess!


A friend's daughter was turning 2 and she is an absolute girlie-girl. She can rock a high heel better than me! Being the princess she is, of course she needed her own cake! And being a girlie-girl, she wanted it all chocolate! The frosting is cream cheese, so it doesn't smooth out like a buttercream does.


Pink, sparkly cupcakes for her loyal subjects.



The princess herself! She wouldn't let anyone else near that cake and she refused to open her presents if it meant moving away from the cake. What a compliment!
We Scream for Ice Cream!


Sometimes it's fun to find alternatives to cake for birthday parties. For my daughter's 8th birthday with her friends (we do a family party separately-see the petit four disaster below) she wanted to have ice cream sundaes instead of more cake. The girls each picked out a topping or two and I layed it all out on the table for them to assemble....

This is what it looked like after it was all pretty on the table :)

Fondant fun!


I co-hosted a shower for my friend Stephanie's first baby a few years ago. This was my first time ever working with fondant. I had such a great time, even though these cakes took many, many hours to complete... I was pretty happy with the results and almost cried when it was time to cut the cake and the fondant was just peeled off and tossed in the trash!
Giddy-up!


This horsey cake was done for the 2nd birthday of my girlfriend's little girl. The cake was chocolate with a chocolate buttercream. The bridal was made from laffy-taffy.


I had to melt the taffy in the microwave for a few seconds until it was pliable. I used a cookie cutter to cut these flowers. Fondant would have been a much better idea because it was a warm August day and the taffy ran into the chocolate a bit. The flavors didn't mesh well...

Party Time!
I've been asked for gourmet cupcakes, cupcakes to match a cake, ice cream parties, and individual petit fours instead of cake. Here are a few samples.

Gourmet chocolate espresso cupcakes with espresso ganasche, white and chocolate curls top them off.


Done for a baby shower, the mommy-to-be wanted cupcakes and she loved the polka-dot theme. I melted white chocolate and used gel coloring* to color the chocolate her specific purple and green. I put the chocolate into piping bags with a large round tip and carefully piped nickle sized circles onto parchment. In a matter of minutes you have homemade kisses! I carefully placed them bottom side out on top of the buttercream.
*Do not use liquid food coloring, your chocolate will seize and you will have to throw it out!


Madeleine wanted pink and blue petit fours instead of a cake for her 8th birthday. It was a distaster! I have a very nice (and expensive!!) petit four pan that was supposed to create these beautiful ornately shaped cakes, and wouldn't you know, NONE of them came out of the pan, and I couldn't have greased the pan more! I ended up baking more cake, in 9x13 pans filled shallow, cut them and dipped them into melted buttercream. I hope she doesn't want them again this year!


Days like this make being a perfectionist a bit difficult!
Halloween!


I am petrified of spiders, but I would swear to you that this guy comes back to us every year and keeps house on the outside of the same window! He's our inspiration for some of the following...



Halloween pancakes are always a hit! I poured the batter into a squeeze bottle to make it easier to create shapes.


Boo! Vegetarian shepherd's pie with mashed potato ghosts (cookie cutter)


Mommy's "spider"


Madeleine's "ghost"


Max's "monster"


This year I made caramel from scratch for the first time. A good portion of my knuckle was washed down the drain because of this hot stuff :(



They sure tasted good though!

Friday, June 25, 2010

Christmas Cookies!


I used a lot of different techniques with these cookies. Royal icing outlines, run sugar inside, piping over the top of dried run sugar, muliple colors of run sugar together.... I think we spent all day on these creations, but we were snowed in for 5 days, so what else were we supposed to do!

Kids' creations...


Some more...



Who'd like a little cookie with their frosting?


This took days to dry!