Festive Cupcakes!

Last weekend, the cousins of my large maternal side of the family all got together for a dinner. Some of these cousins I haven't seen since we were little, and I've looked forward to seeing them since we first began talking about this get-together.

I made three desserts to bring, I knew many of my cousins would be bringing main dishes or sides. So I made magic cookie bars (recipe below), cheesecake dip (also below), and red velvet cupcakes.

I used my standby recipe for red velvet, and overfilled the muffin pan, so the first batch and a half turned out crappy, but I managed to save the best-looking ones and I indulged in a couple of unfilled and unfrosted, and they were sooooo goood. Light and fluffy!! I filled 12 with cream cheese icing, and topped them with vanilla buttercream, and sprinkled crushed candy canes on top. I even managed to send a few in with my husband when he went to work... he came back with none so that is always a good sign :)

Here they are:

 

 

 

So, here are the recipes for the other two things I made:

 

 



Magic Cookie Bars

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup non-hydrogenized margarine, melted
2 tbsp corn syrup
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or other nuts)
3/4 package of milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 can sweetened condensed milk

Preheat oven to 350*F. Line a 9x13 baking dish with parchment paper (I have found that this is the easiest way to remove the bars and cut them without having them stick).

Combine crumbs, margarine and corn syrup in a small bowl until well mixed. Pour and press into lined pan. Top pressed crumb mixture with nuts, chocolate chips, coconut and drizzle entire can of condensed milk on top.

*The original recipe for this actually says to put the milk on top of the crumbs but in my experience, when you cut into the bars, everything fell off, which defeated the whole purpose. So, I tweaked it, as usual :) *

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden and bubbly. Let cool for about 1/2 hour and cut into bars. Delicious when warm and melty :)



Cheesecake Dip

1 box Jell-o No Bake Cheesecake Mix
1 container of frozen whipped cream, thawed
1 can cherry pie filling
1 package of graham squares

Combine cheesecake package with whipped cream until light and fluffy. Refrigerate for 1/2 hour. On a platter, spoon cheesecake mixture into the center, and surround with graham squares. Top cheesecake mixture with cherry pie filling. Enjoy!

*You can save the graham crumbs from the cheesecake mix for your magic cookie bars!*

Found this recipe on Pinterest... and it was truly a hit! I think that the best-tasting recipes require the least amount of ingredients and fuss!

Enjoy, and stay sweet!

Hi-Tech Cake

Hello again!

The next cake is one for a co-worker's son. It's a vanilla slab cake, decorated in fondant to look like the computer. It was the cake I was most afraid of, with all the details, but the easiest one to actually do.

My husband crafted the monitor of the laptop out of cardboard and construction paper while I took on the details of the keys.

Now, as you can see, the keys are not exact, obviously, but my kids were wowed, and that usually means it's passed the vision test... after, of course, asking if it's "for us". Apparently I don't bake enough for them? Ha, what a crock! LOL

So here it is:

 

 

That's it! Very simple, not a whole lot to say about it! :)

 

Stay sweet!

Catching up...

Hello!

It's been busy here... aside from cake orders, I have been trying to clean and decorate my house and do some Christmas baking!

There are a couple of cakes to post about, so I will begin with my anniversary cake! I began with making vanilla cake from scratch... since we were eating it at home, I thought it would be a good opportunity to try out a cake from scratch. It tasted really good, but wasn't as light as it could have been, so I need to practice the recipe and tweak things.

I made four layers of vanilla cake, and froze them. Then I made red velvet cake from scratch and broke it all up. Then I made buttercream frosting using a new recipe including butter, not vegetable shortening. I ended up with a delicious but very rich icing. I would make it again, for sure!

I took two layers, put them together with some icing and carved out the top part of the heart. In retrospect, I should have used a spoon to round it out a bit better, but hey, for a first time, I was pretty proud of myself. Then I took the last two layers, and carved out the bottom of the heart. I filled each cavity with the crushed red velvet cake and froze each half of the cake for about an hour. Then I carefully put the two halves together and did a crumb coat.

I had to freeze the cake for a couple of days because this cake was a surprise for my husband, and since he's been on days, it's harder to hide things from him LOL! So, I sent him out with one of his buddies on a weeknight and completed the cake. I used a ribbon technique to decorate the cake, and used colours from our original wedding cake. This is what I ended up with:

 

 

 

Pretty classy, huh? I thought so too! So everything was grand until he asked me who the cake was for. He had found it. I was so disappointed :(  But there was still one aspect I could surprise him with, he didn't know about the inside of the cake! This is what it looked like:

 

 



We ate it for breakfast on our anniversary, and our oldest son wasn't up to taking advantage of the situation, he was trying to tell us to eat a real breakfast first, and have a slice on the side! We nixed that one! LOL!

It was delicious, and massive, it took awhile for us to eat it!

I'll post about the other cakes seperately because it's just too much to scroll through! :) Stay sweet!

Frozen Buttercream Transfers

Back again!

I promised on my Facebook cake page that I would post about doing frozen buttercream transfers.

The invitation below was what I was given as a guide for a bridal shower cake.

 

 

I thought it was very pretty and fitting for fall. So my first thought when I saw this was brush embroidery with royal icing. I was excited about trying out a new technique, but when I sat down three days before the deadline to actually do it, the icing was not cooperating with me. I will win that battle, just not this time around. :)

 

So then I figured I would freehand the flowers using the invitation. No matter what I did, I couldn't get the flowers to look the same, plus there was no guarantee that the flowers would survive the transfer from waxed paper to cake, which is why I did three sheets of random flowers! LOL While they did look cute and were the right colour scheme, it just wasn't cutting it in my eyes.

 

In frustration, I messaged a friend from cake decorating class. Mostly just to vent, I still wasn't sure what the heck I was going to do. I explained the issue and asked if she had come across anything similar. In her reply to me, she mentioned doing a search for frozen buttercream transfers. So I did. I was wowed. Why didn't they teach us this in our classes? I felt kinda dumb to be honest... like the kid who doesn't get told that school is cancelled for the day. There's me, standing at the doors wondering where everyone is! LOL I need to be doing more research clearly!

 

 

So here is how to do it, if you don't already know.

 

 

I scanned the invitation and blew it up. I wanted it to be bigger, to cover the cake and so that it would be easier to pipe overall. Bear in mind, my hand and wrist were still in pain from the royal icing episode. Once I had a printout of the size I liked, I placed in on a flat, edgeless cookie sheet (airbake!), and placed a sheet of waxed paper on top. I had made up a new batch of buttercream, made my orange and brown, and reserved half of it as white.

 

 

WOW! Soooo much easier to trace it! I could have used piping gel, as we were taught in class but I was never a huge fan of that technique. The results were never great.

 

 

I traced all the flowers and leaves in their appropriate colours, filled them in and piped the delicate lines in the leaves (probably the most detailed part of the project). Now if I had listened to the tutorial I had viewed online, I would have tinted the white to match the icing I planned to use on the cake, which was a slight off-white to match the invitation. But I'm clearly a rebel, as you can tell from the photo:

 

 



The next step, after the main design has been piped, is to cover the entire piped area with matching buttercream and spreading it carefully on top, using light pressure to fill in the cracks. This would be the white I used instead of the actual colour I was going to canvas the cake with. I should have used a bit more pressure, but I was afraid of smearing the piped icing below. Lesson learned. Do it anyway!

Leaving the waxed paper with buttercream on the baking sheet, the entire pan went into the freezer overnight. You could freeze it for 45 minutes to an hour if you don't have that kind of time to wait.

The next day, I put the cake together. It was scratch lemon cake with lemon buttercream. The cake would have looked great with just being canvassed and adding brown and orange trim but that wasn't the goal here.

When everything was ready, the transfer came out of the freezer, and some of the edges were trimmed off of the frozen buttercream, to make room for the trim I still had to do around the top. invert the transfer and place it on the cake. Use VERY light pressure, as you don't want to break it if you can help it, gently press into the cake. To be honest, I'm not sure you even need to, because as the buttercream thaws, it should settle.

I filled in some areas I had missed and applied thin piped buttercream to the outer edges to secure it to the cake better. Then I applied the top trim and applied some drop flowers on the trim.

I am so thankful to Pauline for suggesting this method... I have learned something valuable and even though my first attempt was not perfect, I will definitely be doing this technique again.

You can see where I should have spread more white icing... I ran out of icing! I filled it in with the off-white a bit but it didn't camouflage anything! LOL

Overall, I am happy with the cake and it was a terrific learning experience! The next one will be better!

Until next time, stay sweet!

Sugar 'n' spice...

Hey my sweets, what's happening?

It's been quieter in my little cake corner lately but it's been a good thing, as we've been going through some transition as a family unit. It's definitely a positive thing, but it's taking some time to get our groove, know what I mean?

My amazing husband has been working overnight shifts for close to six years, to be at home during the day with our youngest son, Caleb. We've never liked the thought of putting our kids in day care, for several reasons I won't get into, so he made the sacrifice and since Caleb has begun grade one this fall, he has been able to switch to day shifts. Bonus for us! Our oldest son, Tyler has just been amazing. He is growing up to be quite a responsible kid and helps out sooo much. Without him, we wouldn't be able to make this whole thing work, as he helps Caleb get ready for school if my husband has to go in before they leave for school.

But getting back to cakes, it's just been good that there has been some free time for us to adjust. However, now the season is upon us and the orders are coming in... it's exciting, seeing what's on the horizon :)

So this is the most recent big cake I've made:

 

 

The cake itself was simple. The bottom was white cake with vanilla buttercream, and the top was chocolate with chocolate buttercream. Nothing fancy there. The fanciness was in the decorating.

 

This cake was for a young lady turning 16... and I haven't seen her since she was about 5, so imagine how old I felt taking this order lol! She has a love for music and girly things. I browsed several pictures and sent some to the client, who was arranging the party for this young lady. This one was the winner, and I was excited to recreate it.

 

I will quite openly admit, I am definitely my own worst critic. I know where all of the imperfections are and I just hate that point when I'm putting things together and it's "done" but I don't feel it's truly DONE... but there comes a point where you just can't do anything more, and time runs out and the client is coming to pick it up.

 

This cake was deceptively heavy... as are most fondant cakes. My biggest fear with tiered cakes like this is that the top cake will sink and the bottom tier will collapse. I was so worried about this cake, I checked it again the morning it was being picked up, before work just to make sure it hadn't collapsed. And of course again upon returning home from work lol. I used three pieces of wooden dowel to help support it and I realized that I need to do this to all my tiered cakes, there is just no support without it, and you can't get away from needing that support.

 

All in all, I am proud of it, and it scored me two more cake orders! Speaking of which, I need to finish up an order for tonight :)

 

Take care all, stay sweet!



Bittersweet August

Autumn is bittersweet for us.. in it is our final vacation week, and while we look forward to it all year long, and the countdown begins in March... it's over in the blink of an eye and before you know it, the kids are back in school and we're in our regular routines once again.

We go camping in Algonquin Park every August. The kids are beside themselves with excitement.. well, okay... not our 12 year old anymore, but he looks forward to it a lot. Our 6 year old though... wow, a couple of weeks ago we brought peanuts home from our grocery trip, and he went ballistic! "We're really going camping!!!" he exclaimed. Yes buddy... did you think we were faking it all these months? LOL

August means get the last of your summer activities done because fall is on the way. I'm a total summer person... I can't stand getting bundled up to go outside in the slush and the snow and the ice. Hate it. But I have another reason to look forward to it, since I've begun decorating cakes... it's finally cool enough to turn the oven on (yes, I've mentioned this before, I'm sure, but with no central air, you can see why this would be an issue in my home lol) The fondant won't warp, the icing won't melt and I don't need to rush to complete a cake because of the temperature in the house.

Another thing I need to mention is how proud I am of our son, Tyler. He's our oldest, and he has floored me this summer... truly. He has shown such responsibility this summer (for the majority of the time, he needs to let loose and goof around at times too). He has babysat his younger brother for the first "real" time while my husband and I have gone out for the evening. We've trusted him for short periods of time and he's been keeping an eye on Caleb while my husband sleeps during the day (working nights sucks!), but this really impressed me. Not only were there no problems, he thought he had to stay up to wait for us! That melted my heart! He has also stepped up and helped Caleb out with his reading with flash cards I bought. Caleb has shown vast improvement over the last two weeks, and that's only from working on it for about 15-20 minutes a day! My sons rock!

Okay, so here's the recent cakes I've made...

The yellow and pink cake (chocolate raspberry truffle with raspberry mousse filling) was for an engagement/birthday and the bottom one(white cake with whipped cream filling) was for a 4th birthday :)

I look forward to the business fall will bring... I already have clients ordering for Christmas and near Valentines Day :)

Have a special occasion coming up? Want to surprise someone special with a sweet treat? Let's talk!

Until then, stay sweet!

D



A picture is worth a thousand words...

Helloooooo! How are things with you?? I've been busy, busy!

If you're reading this, you've seen this cake on my cake page or as a reshare on Facebook. This was a lot of work, not gonna lie, but at the same time, it was a ton of fun!

The bottom is a ten inch chocolate raspberry truffle cake, which is technically a rich chocolate cake with a generous amount of raspberry jam thrown into the batter. The center is filled with raspberry mousse and it's lightly iced with chocolate buttercream.

The top tier is a simple chocolate-vanilla marble eight inch two layer cake, filled with whipped cream and iced with vanilla buttercream.

I did this cake during some extreme heat, and I have zero air-conditioning, and while that doesn't exactly earn me a medal by any means, there is something to be said for keeping everything from melting or warping. Fondant and heat do not do well together.

This cake was done up for a friend at work, for her daughter's birthday. I saw this cake almost two years ago and sooo wanted to do it... I bought a lot of the supplies for it because a client was interested in having this cake made for her daughter. Plans fell through, but I vowed that someday, I would get to make this cake.

My co-worker purchased the real Mermaid Barbie but gave me the Barbie portion of the doll, kept the tail for after the cake was eaten. She also purchased  plastic sea creatures for me at the dollar store, and bought seashell chocolates.

Once the cakes were baked, filled and iced, I put it all together the day before the event. I covered each tier in blue fondant. The tricky parts were trying to decide if I should decorate the tiers seperately, or after they were put together... I decided on the former. I did the bottom first. I made four balls of various colours of fondant, and made sea "greens" and sea sponge, rocks, seashells and flowers out of pink and purple... per the little girl's preferences. Then I added some of the plastic creatures and chocolates and added golden brown sugar for sand. Into the refrigerator it went.

Then I completed the top, but this time I didn't have to worry about the sand, and could decorate the top. I had a hard time trying to decide whether to put the doll partially IN the cake, which was the original plan, but ended up sitting her on top of the cake. I wrapped a piece of fondant around her legs (took a few tries and a cuss word or two because it fell apart and stretched). I really am thankful for my husband's input and help. These big cakes definitely need two heads!!! I managed to get the tail on right but then I wasn't sure how to get the design onto it. My wonderful husband was messing around with a fondant cutter for flowers and developed a nice scaly pattern on her tail. I finished it off.

After everything was in place on both cakes, I dusted all the fondant accents and plastic sea creatures in pearl dust to make them stand out just that little bit.

Once again, I needed my husband's help in trying to place the small tier on top of the bottom one. We managed, and then the tail tip fell off. GREAT! So I pieced it back on, fixed the pattern and added a couple of fondant flowers to it.

It had to be picked up right away because we had just done groceries and had no room in the fridge! the cake was a hit, I was very happy to make this little girl's wishes come true :)

Even though I have boys, they were quite impressed to see the detail work on the cake :)

That's all for me! Stay Sweet!
D