Pulled Sugar Masterpiece

July 10, 2014June 17, 2014 / Bakeaholic / Leave a comment

Whenever I get the chance, I take a pastry course to learn something new. They’re always fast-paced, with information overload, but I love multi-tasking and I’m always amazed at what we take home at the end of the day. This class was no exception. It was an introduction to pulled sugar decorating. Here’s the final product:

We started out by making our own rolled fondant to cover a layer cake. It was my second time working with rolled fondant, so I had to pretend I knew what I was doing. Next, we piped a bead border along the bottom. Then we got super fancy by piping royal icing in gravity-defying designs. Honestly, I would’ve been satisfied going home with this technique alone in my back pocket, but it got even better.

Next we made a green sugar base for our decorative arrangement, and twisted a nice simple branch out of pulled sugar that we tinted brown. It was time to work on some pressed leaves and some flower petals. Mine are a little thicker than the pros, but not bad for a first try! Pulling hot sugar repetitively into petals against a steep learning curve can be hard on the fingertips but I was one of the lucky ones that managed to escape without blisters.

Probably the coolest part of the cake is this sugar ribbon. We stacked differently tinted sugar segments in a pattern, and in pairs, pulled and stretched it into a long band that we then formed into ribbon pieces and assembled.

The last element we added was rock sugar. Making it was a pretty crazy process, with high heat and billowing sugar bubbles, but it looks pretty funky and added a nice element to the design.

Here’s the finished product, from above. You could smell this cake a mile away, with its sugary sweet aroma. 100% edible, but the most we could bring ourselves to do was nibble at any royal icing spheres that happened to crack, for fear of disturbing its beauty. I need to invest in a heat lamp and a few extra supplies in order to keep up these skills, but they sure make for a phenomenal presentation. Wedding, anyone?

Birthday Cupcakes

June 26, 2014June 17, 2014 / Bakeaholic / Leave a comment

Ahhh, birthdays… not that I need an excuse to bake. But it does help to justify the extra effort and kid-free time required in the kitchen to decorate. Besides the home-based birthday parties, my children receive a special birthday celebration at snack time at their daycare. This daycare happens to be at my work, so for the most part, I’ve been lucky enough to be able to pop in to join the celebrations.

When my eldest turned 2, we had a bit of a ladybug theme going.

So on her birthday, I surprised her at the daycare with a platter of ladybug cupcakes for her and her playmates. These were super easy, but recognizable to everyone at the table. Some of the kids, however, weren’t so recognizable after tackling their treat.

The next year (age 3), I thought I’d try out these cute owl cupcakes. We were having a monkey cake for my daughter’s party at home for the second year in a row (see Where’s Piglet? (In which 3D cake-making is discovered)), so this was my opportunity to try something different.

Apparently some 3-year-olds dislike Oreo cookies. Hoo-hoo knew? Go ahead, roll your eyes – you’ll fit right in with the owls. 8)

Let’s not forget about my littlest one. She was an early talker, and one of her first words was ‘duck’ so it seemed like an obvious choice for her first taste of cake.

Rather than make a whole cake for her 1st birthday, I opted for these cupcakes. Babies like to just dig right in there and I figured this way, everyone else’s cake could stay intact until it reached their own mouths. In retrospect, a bib might have been wise.

This year, my eldest put in a request for frog cupcakes, to complement the Polkadots, Rainbows and Butterflies on the cake for her home birthday party. These cupcakes were pretty basic, as I knew I’d be putting in a lot of effort for the larger cake. I used my favourite rich chocolate cake recipe, and tried out a new cream cheese icing. I snipped marshmallows into quarters, and mini m&ms adhered to them without complaint to make the eyeballs.

Reports from the daycare indicated they were a big hit: the kids who normally just licked off the icing actually ate the cupcakes with it, and those who didn’t care for icing gobbled it down as well. The best part? She was so excited to share the party this year with her little sister, and made sure her sister had a seat beside the guest of honour, along with her very own cupcake.

Where’s Piglet? (In which 3D cake-making is discovered)

June 17, 2014June 17, 2014 / Bakeaholic / Leave a comment

For my first baby’s first birthday, I decided to attempt my first 3D cake. We settled on Piglet, as I was hoping for an inkling of recognition on her part at the big unveiling. We used to play a game we made up and called ‘Where’s Piglet?’. We would hide her Piglet stuffy, sign and say ‘Where’s Piglet?’, and take parental pride in her bubbling glee as she discovered it, poorly hidden, somewhere in the room.

Back Camera

I made a basic white round cake, and cut, carved and arranged layers and limbs until it bore some resemblance to the doll. There was no science to the process, no calculations, just some freehand hacking – art at its best. For the icing, I chose a star tip to mimic the texture of the stuffy. For the eyes, I used Runts (clearly a choking hazard, which meant for safety’s sake, I was obliged to eat them – what a sacrifice!). I may have run out of icing when it came to the feet…I was too sleep-deprived to make another batch; I’m pretty sure the birthday girl didn’t notice.

For her 2nd birthday, we opted for a monkey theme. She was quite attached to her monkey lovey (aptly named ‘Monkey’) – so much so that we wisely bought Backup Monkey(s) for instances in which it got lost, left behind or required a tumble in the washing machine. I’ll never forget the look on her face when she toddled into her room, Monkey in hand, only to discover Backup Monkey on her bed, which we’d neglected to tuck away in his secret drawer. Luckily, short-term memory is not a strength of the under-two crowd and we managed to restore order in the universe with a brief distraction.

Photo courtesy Melody Chan Photography (http://melodychan.ca)

Chocolate Monkey Cake was super chocolately and delicious. The birthday girl had her fill, but for some reason was frightened of the banana. Not a problem, there were other takers.

For birthday #3, she had the opportunity to make a request – any flavour and shape of her choosing. I was becoming a bit more confident in my 3D cake making and decorating and was ready for a new challenge. I had my spatula at the ready, to tackle whatever animal, vegetable or mineral she might request. Guess what she picked?

A monkey. Well, at least I had the opportunity to refine my technique a little. At this stage, purple and pink had emerged as strong favourites in her colour palate, and she made it clear that the cake was to be no exception.

Birthday #4 was all about Polkadots, Rainbows and Butterflies, and is addressed in another blog post.

And that is the history of my surrender to the world of 3D cake-making – a story worth savouring. Right, big sister?

Never too old for crocodile cake

May 22, 2014June 17, 2014 / Bakeaholic / Leave a comment

I’d just completed my first 3D cake (see Where’s Piglet?), and was on a baker’s high. Any excuse to try out a new design was good enough for me, including my husband’s birthday. He didn’t ask for anything special, and so he was quite surprised to walk into the kitchen to find this fierce creature swimming in a sea of blue.

I didn’t get fancy with the cake batter (simple white cupcakes), because I knew I’d be piping up a storm of green icing. I had to search everywhere for square-shaped cookies that weren’t boring biscuits without much flavour or flare. My first rule of baking is that it has to taste good. I found these ones at Safeway, and had to deal with a fair amount of breakage during the prep phase, which I didn’t mind, since they happened to be covered in dark chocolate (my favourite).

Marshmallow eyes and teeth may look fierce but they’re not all that functional as a defence against hungry folks. And our old standby, Runts, rounded out the final details for claws and nostrils.

This cake still gets mentioned as a basis for comparison when the topic of my husband’s next birthday cake comes up. Wish me luck this summer! Hopefully inspiration will strike soon…

Polkadots, Rainbows and Butterflies

May 21, 2014May 21, 2014 / Bakeaholic / Leave a comment

This is the birthday cake I made for my daughter on the occasion of her 4th birthday. I made the mistake of taking her onto Pinterest with me, to get some ideas for what I thought would be a butterfly-shaped cake with rainbow-coloured icing. We obviously got a little more elaborate than that. This is the post that inspired us: http://blog.hwtm.com/2013/02/playful-rainbow-butterfly-princess-party/

Yes, she convinced me that rainbow layers were the way to go. It wasn’t hard, I was up for the challenge. And heck, it was a long weekend. TONS of time, right? My birthday helper was keen to scoop out and level all our dry ingredients, stir in the colour, and of course lick the bowls (all 6), which made cleanup a snap. I opted for 6 layers instead of 8 – with only 2 cake pans of any given size it would’ve been a bit ridiculous otherwise. You might want to bookmark this page for ideas when my birthday comes around… But back to the cake.

I chose an 8″ cake pan so our layers would be a little thicker, and I’d have enough real estate to level them off. We also tried to go as easy on the colour as the squeeze bottles would allow. Here’s the crumb coat: Next came the polkadots. I picked up some candy dots from Michaels in rainbow colours that happened to match our layers. Lucky! Saved me from messing with 6 colours of icing or melting chocolate. Plus this way, little hands could help. Next came a bit of free styling – a bead border along the base, and a few drop flowers, to attract the butterflies, of course! I used an Italian buttercream, so the texture was nice and smooth. The cake turned out fairly sweet, so it was a good balance, too.

And finally, the butterflies. I piped the borders of each wing with dark chocolate, then filled them in with coloured melting candies, blending with the swirl of a toothpick here and there. Once they were dry, I piped the body, and assembled them by propping one wing up with the attachment pieces of a fancy fondant cutting roller I own but will probably never use for its intended purpose. But now I have used it, so totally not a waste of money, right? Tell my husband, would you?

The butterflies were probably the biggest hit. Thankfully I made one more than there were guests. The chef deserves a little extra reward, no?

I’m somewhat fearful of the expectations I’ve set here for subsequent birthdays, but at the rate my birthday girl is going, she’ll be insisting on making her own cakes before long. Enjoy it while it lasts, right?

This is the photo I’ll cherish the most, though: a very happy little person who was so pleased with both the cake, and her contributions to the process of making it, that she insisted on wearing her rainbow dress in celebration. Happy birthday my not-so-little one!

music to your mouth

Sweet treats that sing to you