My first time making fondant, and covering a cake

My sister asked me to make a cake for her step son's 13th birthday. I had never even baked a cake.... ever. However, I agreed to making a 3 tier fondant covered cake. To keep the price low, I decided to make my own marshmallow fondant for the first time. About a week before the party, I made a practice batch of fondant (using this recipe/guide) and a 6 inch chocolate cake to cover. I also made chocolate frosting for the first time and boy was it delicious. I'll post the frosting recipe at the bottom of this post.

Let me say that my first fondant making experience was less than joyful. I don't know why, but for some reason, it never quite met the right constancy, it had no stretch to it at all. What was supposed to take maybe 10 minutes, took my an hour or so until I finally said "F**k it" and tried to use what I had. Trying to dye it was very frustrating as well. It just wasn't happening. I was dying it red, which is one of the hardest colors to obtain, and the fondant wasn't making things any easier. I wound up with this peachy/pink color in the photo by the time I gave up.

I managed to roll it out but not without imperfections (seen in the photo). I couldn't get it perfectly smooth, but it wasn't terrible either. I got it onto the cake, and went ahead and made some quick little decorations to put on it. (Honestly, I only decorated the front...)

It wound up being a very long night. By the time I was done it was 2 something AM. I was tired and didn't want to clean right away so I took an internet break. Of course, next thing I knew, it was coming up on 4 something AM. Once everything was cleaned up, it was 5AM. By boyfriend gets up shortly before 6AM for work, so rather than wake him by going to bed, I hung out on the couch a while longer.

Apparently this was all a huge mistake. Jared woke up in a whirlwind of anger. I couldn't believe it. My staying up all night had made him all kindsa pissed off. Besides the fact that he had to sleep alone, I also didn't' have a job... which factored in there somewhere. Once he left for work, I went to sleep and set an alarm to wake me by noon. I had to prove to him that I wasn't going to "sleep till 4 in the afternoon." Needless to say, by the time I woke up, there was already an apology text in my phone.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

I assure you it's delicious

this made enough to cover and fill a two layer 6 by about 4 inch cake

1 cup butter, softened

4 cups confectioners sugar (adjust as needed)

1 1/4 cup baking cocoa (I used 1 cup)

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup milk (adjust to reach desired consistency)

1. Cream butter

2. Gradually beat in confectioners sugar, cocoa, and vanilla

3. Add enough milk to reach desired spreading consistency

I wound up using much less milk and cocoa, and probably even confectioners sugar. I basically creamed the butter, poured in a cup of cocoa, a cup of sugar, a couple tbsp's of milk, blended, and then continued to add sugar, by the cup, and milk, by the tbsp, until I reached the desired taste and consistency. Blend well after each addition and then taste. Don't be afraid to experiment. If the cocoa taste is too strong, try adding more sugar. If the chocolate taste isn't strong enough, add a little more cocoa until it's perfect. If it's not smooth enough, add a little more milk.

Jared's 24th Birthday Cupcakes... Batman!

My boyfriend Jared had his 24th birthday on September 17th of this year. After months of waiting to get his gift, I was excited to finally search for it. He'd said we should get a dog about a zillion times, and I always had some excuse not to so that I could surprise him with one. I managed to blurt it out by accident on the day I was going to pick her up, but he was still very excited and surprised. Unfortunately, I didn't have any extra money to make cupcakes or anything. Then I remembered I had a box mix in the pantry, and a chunk of left over fondant from the 25th Anniversary Cupcakes. I wound up making vanilla cupcakes with a cinnamon-vanilla buttercream filling, and fondant Batman toppers.

I freehanded one Batman logo, using an Xacto knife, and then used it as a guide to cut the others. I made Jared his own special cupcake (pictured left) by free-handing a batman face. I ran out of fondant near the end and the last cupcake only had a small yellow circle rather than a full size one.

I used Wilton fondant and Wilton food coloring to dye it. When frosting the cupcakes, I cut out the center to fill it, and didn't really put any on top of these. I didn't cover the filling up, and filled it high so that the fondant stuck to it.

25th Wedding Anniversary Cupcakes

In August, I made cupcakes for my brother-in-law's parent's 25th wedding anniversary. What a mouth full. It was my sister who suggested to her sister-in-law that I make the cupcakes. My work was voluntary, but the supplies were paid for. At this point I had only used fondant once, but for some reason, I was confident I could do it. As you can see in the photos, I actual pulled it off rather well for someone with nearly no experience. Not without any snags, however. Let's just say... I'd like to forget, or at least, re-do that day.

Vanilla cupcakes, with cinnamon-vanilla buttercream filling, and fondant toppers.

It was certainly a learning experience, but I thought I was in a hell of a hole that I wasn't getting out of. If i remember correctly, I was supposed to make 100 cupcakes, and one small 6 inch cake. In theory I would have had everything done by 5:00pm so I could deliver them around the corner by 5:30pm. In reality, I had maybe 60-70 cupcakes, no 6 inch cake, and I was frantically loading cupcakes into my car at about 6:15pm. I'm glad my boyfriend wasn't home to see the nervous breakdown I was having.

Let's rewind to earlier that day...

Since I needed them done by 5pm, I figured I would start baking at noon, and certainly have them baked and decorated on time. I had just been laid off from my job, so I had plenty of time on previous days to make the silver fondant toppers. All I needed to do was bake, frost, place white fondant circles on the cupcakes, and then stick on the toppers and edible pearls. Piece of cake, right? Heck, the cake itself only needed fondant and perhaps a few little details, as it was requested that I just keep it simple. Boy was I so so wrong... Everything appeared to be going well, and then I realized it really wasn't going quickly enough. Needless to say, the cake took longer to bake than it should have, once it was done it was already after 5, I had run out of frosting and ingredients for frosting, the white fondant circles weren't a perfect fit and were taking longer than expected... I wound up with maybe 30 cupcakes that looked just about perfect. The rest, however, I slapped together in literally 5 minutes or so. I took that circle cookie cutter and made circles as quickly as possible, slapped them on those cuppie cakes, and stuck a topper on each one in seconds. I ran out of the apartment with one box at a time, looking like hell, up and down the stairs.... I had made my own cake stand, and even it broke when I bumped it into the car. I ran and grabbed my hot glue gun, and zoomed out of the parking lot, away from what appeared to be, my tornado stricken apartment.

I was frantically calling my sister because I didn't even know for sure where the damn place was, but she never answered. Luckily I guessed at the location and was right. My heart was in the bottom of my tummy when I had to tell my bro-in-law's sister that I hadn't made the cake. Fortunately the cake topper she bought just fit within the width of a cupcake. Her parents may not have had a cake to cut, but at least she hadn't wasted money on that "25" cake topper. Even more fortunate was that there were enough cupcakes to more than fill the four tier cupcake stand, so it didn't look like I had made much fewer than expected. I managed to get everything set up on time (well... before the couple had arrived), and placed the best looking cupcakes in the front. I heard later from my sister that people loved the cupcakes, and there were even extras to take home. Thank God there were MORE than enough.

Although it was a TERRIBLE experience, I did learn a valuable lesson. Never again will I try to bake and decorate an order that large, all in the same day.

I'm including the recipe I used for the frosting. It's actually a vanilla buttercream recipe, and I added ground cinnamon to taste. However, it did have a salty aftertaste before the cinnamon was added. I tried it without salt and it just tasted funny. With the cinnamon, however, it is delicious. I think it's a good cinnamon frosting that isn't too sweet, but probably won't use it as a plain vanilla buttercream.

Not so Sweet Cinnamon-Vanilla Buttercream

Makes about 2 cups

4 oz unsalted butter

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar (10 oz.)

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 tbsp plus 1 tsp whole milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice

ground cinnamon to taste (I used a lot)

Cream the butter and salt until light and fluffy. Add half the powdered sugar and milk and beat until well combined. Add the rest of the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla, beat again until well combined and fluffy. I usually add the cinnamon at the end so I can just mix, taste, mix, taste.

Let's catch up... Nutter Butter Truffles

Okay, it has been some time since I posted here. I don't get to create little treats often, since I can only afford to for holidays, or when someone else is paying for supplies. I was laid off from work in August, and still have yet to find work. Therefore, I really shouldn't spend ANY money on baking... but I just can't say no ALL of the time. :) Due to that, I figured I'd just leave this blog behind.... like all the others. I already post pictures of my creations on Facebook and Flickr, and I figure no one even sees this blog. In a way, it seems pointless, but then again... maybe... someone is reading this and I'll manage to say something they find useful.

With that in mind, I am here, once again, and plan to play catch up. I'm making a few separate posts, one for each thing I have made in the time I've been absent. Let's get started...

Nutter Butter Truffles

It was my friend's birthday and he LOVES peanut Butter, so I had a perfectly good excuse to finally give these suckers a try.

I made them back in June and only took a couple of photos using my phone. I followed Bakerella's recipe exactly. Making these was a much better experience than my first one, with the red velvet cupcake bites. I've found that the chocolate bark works very well with dipping by spoon, while the wilton candy melts are only good when making "pops" and dipping with a stick. When I try to dip into the candy melts with a spoon, I don't get a nice smooth ball when I'm done. I even made something last night, and tried thinning it, but still wound up having to make them into pops. These however, came out perfect and where so easy to dip in the melted chocolate bark. I placed them on waxed paper and used a toothpick to push away the excess chocolate at the bottom. Once they had cooled, I drizzled some with more chocolate bark, and sprinkled nutter butter crumbs on the others (of course, the crumbs were sprinkled BEFORE the chocolate had hardened). They were delicious, and everyone raved about their taste and appearance.

I stored these in a plastic container at room temperature, for about a week or so, until they were all eaten.

Dr Pepper Cupcakes for Dad's Birthday

My dad's birthday was May 26th, and I couldn't let a birthday pass without making some kind of cupcake, or cake. I had been dwelling on ideas for over a month, but had yet to settle on anything. For one, I knew the guestlist would likely only consist of myself, Dad, Dad's girlfriend, and my boyfriend. That pretty much put a halt on anything too elaborate. The themes I had considered were bowling, NASCAR, and Dr. Pepper. Finally I came up with a cool cake design involving the Dr. Pepper logo. Of course, this was before Memorial Day weekend came about with it's late night drinking and dancing to Van Halen. Needless to say, I spent all of Monday, May 25th, recovering. Tuesday I worked from 9 to 5, and then rushed to and through Walmart, gathing supplies for the enchilada/taco dinner I would be making for my Dad and us. I couldn't bare not having something cake related. I had read much praise regarding the moistness of cupcakes made with soda, so I grabbed a fudge chocolate cake mix, a 12 oz Dr Pepper, and a pint of Turtle Fudge (or something of the sort) Blue Bell ice cream. I still had to clean the apartment, and knew that cupcakes would be quick and easy. I substituted 1 1/3 cups of water with 2 cups of Dr Pepper. The amount of soda varies across the internet from 1 cup to 12 oz or more. I let 12 cupcakes bake for about 20 minutes (longer than usual). I discarded the remaining batter, because I didn't need 12 cupcakes, much less 24 or so. They turned out so perfectly moist. I would still like to try something more elaborate, but even with just a cake mix, these were very good. I couldn't actually taste any Dr. Pepper, but didn't expect to either. After our delicious dinner, I paired the cupcakes with a scoop of the ice cream, and drzzled some melted peanut butter on top. MMMmmm!! It wasn't exactly my best work, but it tasted great and was an overall success.

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Cupcake Bites

Next time I make cupcake bites, I'll probably prepare the cake balls the evening before, and then decorate them the next day. I did these at my mom's house on Mother's Day weekend, and we wound up only doing half the first night. By the time we baked the cake, let it cool, added the cream cheese, let it harden a bit in the freezer, rolled 50 or so cake balls, let those harden in the freezer, holy cow it was already 1:30am by the time they were ready to decorate. Not to mention we each had had a few pina coladas and a beer by that point. I had also put alot of work into kicking the butts of my mom, aunt, and uncle at both air hockey and pool. Needless to say, I was simply ready to get it all over with and hit th

e hay. At the very least, many a joke was made at the expensive of the "balls." Oh what it is to be a "grown up" with people whom, not long ago, would have never said such things in my presence. 

Mom and I rolling the cake balls.

The only real problem I had was with the chocolate not wanting to let up on the cake ball. I tried to keep it well melted, but it still had quite a hold. The second half, which I did the next day, had better results. It was also much more enjoyable. I'll assume that it's due to those cake balls having been in the freezer overnight. By then I had some practice, and being able to just yank them from the freezer, and decorate, was much better than spending hours preparing them beforehand. The second batch turned out much nicer, but I only have a photo of some from the first batch. 

The final result: Batch #1

The recipe I used was, of course, Bakerella's red velvet cake ball recipe. Click her name for a link to the recipe on her blog. I couldn't find regular chocolate bark at Walmart or Michael's, so I just used the the dark cocoa candy melts, and purple and white candy melts as well. I also based mine off of these cupcake bites by Bakerella. I didn't want to do purple, since hers are so well known, but my Mom's favorite color is purple. *sigh*

Overall, I have to say these turned out pretty neat and I'll definitely make them again. Everyone thought they were delicious, as well as pretty. A number of people didn't realize they were homemade until I mentioned making them. 

(something happened to my text at the bottom here.... so i just shrunk it since it wouldn't stay "normal" like the rest of the font.)