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Monday, December 17, 2012

Vampire Diaries

"What`s so special about this Bella girl? Edward`s so whipped."
- Damon Salvatore, Vampire Diaries.
What's with the sudden influx of shows and movies and books about vampires?? Beats me, but I got a request to make Vampire Diaries cupcakes for a birthday girl so I got into the vampire spirit and went for it. After doing a little bit of research, I found out there's a Team Damon and a Team Stefan..and a girl named Elena. Much like Edward/Jacob/Bella from Twilight. The birthday girl was on Team Damon so as you guessed it, the majority of cupcakes were Damon-ized!

She is a fan of red velvet cake so I made about 26 mini cupcakes topped with cream cheese icing swirls. I made cake toppers and attached red plastic toothpicks. This is how they turned out.


Team Damon + Elena

 These toppers were printed on cardstock paper and attached to a red toothpick.

Personalized birthday toppers




Thursday, November 29, 2012

A Fashionista Birthday!

“I don’t do fashion. I am fashion.” -Coco Chanel

I was asked to make cupcakes for two sisters' birthdays. Both are into fashion and name brands so I thought what better than to put those labels right on the cupcake!

I decided to make these cupcakes from a pound cake recipe. I topped each cupcake with white buttercream icing. One of the birthday girl's favorite brands were Fendi, Dolce & Gabbana, Tiffany & Co., Chanel, Michael Kors, and Swarovski. I used fondant to create these logos and placed them ontop of the white buttercream icing.


This is the Tiffany & Co. cupcake.
I used buttercream icing tinted "robin egg blue", and sprinkled a few edible sugar pearls. The white bow was made out of fondant.

This is the Swarovski cupcake.
It was a little more challenging but I decided to go freehand and draw on their signature swan logo with an edible black marker.

This is the Michael Kors cupcake.
I cut out black M & K letters from a strip of fondant and altered them to make the Kors logo.

This is the Chanel cupcake,
I used two Cs cut from a strip of black fondant and layered them to make the logo. I then layered the thin fondant below that to create a contrasting pattern, which you'd see on many Chanel handbags.

This is the Fendi cupcake.
A lot of Fendi handbags and shoes show their logo as a never-ending sea of Fs! So that's what I tried to create for this cupcake. I dusted the underlying fondant with some brown food coloring to give it that true Fendi look.

This is the Dolce & Gabbana cupcake.
Again, I used black fondant to cut out the letters. I decided to imprint the underlying white fondant with a quilted pattern to give it a more elegant look.

The order was for mini cupcakes to spell out happy birthday, as well as six regular-sized custom cupcakes. This is what the end result was.

I really enjoyed doing something different like this. It made me think outside the box as to how to incorporate what the birthday girls liked.
From what I hear, they were a hit :)

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Goblins & Ghouls

These are some cupcakes I made for a few hyperactive kids. I know..sugar probably isn't the best thing in a situation like this..but it was Halloween!!

Mummy cupcakes with chocolate M&Ms as eyes.

Eyeball cupcakes..

Open brain surgery cupcakes...

Spider web cupcakes..

A few other swirl cupcakes...

Overall, a slimey gooey hit with the kids and grown ups!

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Off to Winnipeg we go!

A great friend and colleague is leaving for Winnipeg to continue his post-secondary studies. I was asked to make a cake for him for his going away party. I thought of all the Winnipeg stereotypes (mainly weather-related) in order to find a theme for this cake. Making a snowy/winter cake would've been too depressing for him, especially since winter doesn't start for another few months and he definitely wasn't a fan of cold weather!

I have wanted to try doing a suitcase cake for some time now but the chance never really came up. I started off by making a butter cake..a recipe passed around the family. I didn't want to cover the cake completely in fondant since a lot of people dont like the taste. Instead, I tinted the buttercream icing with a bit of Wilton brown gel coloring and spread it evently. After a few minutes in the fridge to harden, I took a Bounty paper towel (the kind with the quilted pockets) and laid it on top of the cake. Then I took an angled spatula and gently pressed the towel onto the icing, allowing the pattern to form on top of the icing. If you look closely in the pictures below, you can see the quilted pattern. I repeated this throughout the cake, including the sides.

I cut out white fondant letters to spell out our best wishes, rolled out and cut strips of black fondant to create the luggage straps, and molded a handle. I also cut out black fondant to create the sides and edges of the luggage and used silver luster dust to create the "screws" of the luggage.


"Up All Night" with 1D!

No, don't worry I wasn't up all night again baking! This post was a long time coming. Back in June, I was asked to do One Direction themed cupcakes!! This was for a 13-year-old One Direction fan who loves purple and specifically Niall Horan. Her aunt asked for a dozen Oreo cupcakes, with purple frosting and trusted me to come through with a 1D theme.

The first step of making the Oreo cupcakes was simple..as usual, I added half an Oreo cookie (logo side down) into the cupcake wrapper and then topped it with cake batter. I then chopped up some cookies and put chunks on top. While in the oven, these chunks will move to the middle of the cupcake. When the cupcakes are finished you can see the Oreo logo on the bottom. I then topped each with a swirl of purple buttercream icing.




The second step is decorating! To keep with the One Direction theme, I first thought to create 2" round labels on lollypop sticks that could be pushed into the top of each cupcake. But this was my opportunity to try something new and different..something I haven't done before. So I thought to try edible cake toppers! I edited and cropped the bandmate's faces onto a Word document until I was satisfied, then went to a local grocery store and had the document printed on edible paper. I had no idea if the colors would bleed, or if the images would rip before I got them on the cupcake! 

I cut out 2" round fondant circles using a scalloped cookie cutter. While these were off to a side drying, I carefully peeled away the edible paper from its backing and used kitchen scissors to cut out each image. Then with a small dab of gumpaste glue, I attached each edible image to the fondant circles and let them dry. Too much gumpaste glue would have made teh colors bleed together so I was careful to use just a dab.


I let these dry for about an hour before trying to move them. The last thing I wanted were for these to flop down around each cupcake, distorting the image. After carefully placing them on top of the cakes and seeing the final product, I thought the decision to go this route was the right one!




The birthday girl and her aunt loved these, so that makes me happy! The Oreo cucpakes are always a hit! 
I had still made labels as cupcake toppers and took a few pictures to show you what the cupcakes would've looked like had I stuck to the original plan. You be the judge..which one do you like better? I might use this kind of topper in the future..the possibilities are endless!



Friday, July 13, 2012

Ah sugar, sugar!

I made these sugar-free bluberry cupcakes for a friend's birthday recently. The recipe called for the usual ingredients as well as the sugar substitute, Splenda. The mixing process was pretty much the same as any other except instead of beating butter & sugar together, you beat the butter & splenda. I coated the blueberries in flour before stirring them into the cake batter so that they wouldn't fall to the bottom while baking. That method worked really well.
When they came out of the oven, they were more scone/biscuit-like instead of regular cupcakes which was just fine with me because it looked just like the picture from the recipe and tasted great too. To keep with sugar-free theme, I topped each cupcake with a dallop of fat-free yogurt and a blueberry. I will try this recipe again using other fruit and maybe less Splenda.

Graduation

A friend requested a few mini cupcakes to celebrate his girlfriend's graduation from law school. I had wanted to do a graduation-themed cucpake for a while now and thought this would be a good opportunity. I wanted to create graduation caps out of mini-reese cups with a thin layer of chocolate on top, like these by Bakerella, but then thought it wouldn't go well on such a small cupcake. My friend had wanted to spell out the words "Congratulations, Nooreen!" so I figured I should stick to that. I made red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing, and added fondant letters on top. The color theme was pink and white. I tried to give the pink fondant a marble-effect. You can somewhat see that in the picture below.


I wanted to do something different with these cupcakes and make it more law-related. I randomly found this blog called A Baked Creation and it shows you how to make books out of fondant. I thought it was the coolest little cupcake toppers and of course law students have a ton of reading to do! I was told that the graduate's favorite courses were Torts and Contracts. I couldn't fit such a big words onto the small cover using my measly edible black marker so I just managed to write "Law" on it. If I ever make a larger book, I want to use fondant letters to make the spine and cover even better and more realistic. I also decided to do an open book and created some "scribbles" with the edible marker.


I tried to make the iconic judge's wooden gavel by mixing brown fondant. As you can tell, its pretty small compared to the size of the mini cupcake.

These are pictures of the cupcakes finished and ready to be picked up.

Eggless Chocolate Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for a family of vegetarians. I didn't even have to bring out the mixer for this one, which made for an easy clean up. The recipe asked for me to stir the ingredients together with a fork. Some eggless recipes use condensed milk while others used baking soda and vinegar. I went with the latter and found a recipe on Cooks.com since it sounded less sweet.
It came out fluffy and moist and was a hit, even with the kids! I used white buttercream icing and topped it with purple sugar sprinkles. I will definitely make these again in the future.


Tuesday, June 19, 2012

It's A Red Kind Of Day

Did you know that red velvet cake gets its color from the chemical reaction between highly-acidic ingredients (like vinegar and buttermilk) with cocoa that causes the red pigments to be revealed?
That was then...now people opt for the easy-to-use red food coloring!
Red velvet was the project of the week, to celebrate a friend's 26th birthday. I've made red velvet once or twice before in small batches for nobody in particular, but this had to be good! I tried Cake Boss's recipe and didn't like it too much..maybe I rushed through it too quickly but it turned out to be a culinary disappointment. So instead I went with America's Test Kitchen recipe. Like the receipe states, I added the cocoa powder to the red food coloring and made a paste..which looked like mashed beets. I was reluctant to use so much food coloring because surely back in the day, they didn't work with coloring but instead really did count on that chemical reaction to create the deep red color. Nonetheless, it mixed really well with the rest of the batter and I got a nice red color. Unfortunately, the cocoa separated from the rest of the ingredients in the oven and stayed at the bottom of the cupcake! I'll have to perfect this recipe in the future to avoid that, perhaps by using less cocoa.


I wanted to make about 20 mini red velvets to spell out "Happy Birthday". I cut out rolled red fondant circles using the end of the 1M Wilton tip, then cut out the letters using Wilton's metal letter cutters. This is what it looked like put together with some gumpaste glue. 

 

The tricky part to this order was making the requested automaker logos, BMW and Audi. Usually I would turn to fondant as I did with the above letters, but the birthday boy follows Islamic practices and if the fondant contained gelatin, that would go against his beliefs. I wasn't sure if the fondant had gelatin so to be on the safe side, I decided to look for other ways.
I came upon a technique a few months ago called "Frozen Buttercream Transfer" or FBCT for short which essentially means you place wax paper on top of a horizontally flipped image, and outline the image with black decorating icing. You can see below how I started filling in the BMW logo.

I then filled in the rest of it in using colored buttercream icing. It was a bit tricky to get the icing into all the corners and making sure it was packed in nicely. You don't want any spaces or bubbles to show when you're done! After this step, I covered the entire pattern in white buttercream icing and placed it in the freezer for about two hours.

While waiting for the transfers to freeze, I put together the mini cupcakes. They are topped with a dollop of cream cheese icing (Buddy Valastro's recipe, although any cream cheese icing recipe will do). They stacked up pretty nicely and were a sweet bite-sized hit!


And now time for the great reveal! After the BMW & Audi logos were fully frozen, I cut the wax paper and carefully flipped the logo onto each cupcake. Then I slowly peeled back the wax paper and voila! A flat, colored-in buttercream logo! I brushed a but of silver pearl dust onto certain areas to make it look more like the real thing. As they come to room temperature, the logos soften and take the shape of the cupcake without falling apart. Here are what the BMW and Audi logos looked like up close.



Red velvet cupcakes topped with cream cheese icing, ready to go!


And thats the story of how red velvet, the hottest cake flavour out there, was brought to my kitchen!!

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Bumblebees & Birthdays

Got an order for a 1st birthday party. The party was going to be a bumblebee theme..black and yellow and a hint of white. These cupcakes were topped with yellow buttercream icing and black sprinkles.


I had been practicing my cakepop skills for a few weekends now, leading up to this order. They weren't going to be regular cake pops...no sir! These were going to be bumblebee-shaped, with wings, and antenna, and stripes! I had tried a few methods before settling for this variety. The difficult part was shaping them without them cracking. On my first couple tries, they kept cracking before I could dip them, and the crack would show through the chocolate as a clear dent. I found out the cracks were happening because the cake would expand as it went from a cold area (fridge) to warm area (my counter). So I realized I needed to put them into the fridge for just 2 minutes and then let them come back to room temperature before dipping them. Another issue was that the cakepop would fall off the stick and into the melted chocoalte (more truffles for me!). So it's always good to make a few extras!

The white wings are made out of fondant. The antenna are black sprinkles. The stripes and face were drawn on with an edible marker. As you can tell, quite time consuming!

The above was a test run done a few weeks ago - you can tell some of them had expanded and cracked right through the chocolate. You can also see I experimented with wing shapes. But my brother said the folded wings looked like mouse ears and that the flat ones were more animated and child-like. These were a pale yellow - I blame this on the candy melts I got from the local bulk store. Adding yellow coloring didn't help. I then tried the Wilton melts, they have a more prominent yellow color..

The following were the cakepops I made for the birthday party. As you can see, they all survived. None of them cracked, they all stayed on their sticks, and they're a brighter yellow!



The cake was fun to do. The top tier was 6", two layers of chocolate. The bottom tier was 9" and a sandwich of chocolate-vanilla-chocolate. I tried a new buttercream recipe - that of the cake boss himself, Buddy Valastro! A mix of shortening and butter. I found it to be very smooth and tasty, and easy to spread and decorate with.
In the past, I've had trouble getting nice dark colors. They usually turned out to be pastel-like. This time, I mixed the yellow fondant ahead of time and found it got darker the longer I let it sit. Black fondant is another story. I was mixing the fondant for a good 20 minutes. Then went to rinse my hands and found it had dyed my hands RED! In the end it stayed a dark grey and couldn't get it to be jet black, so I opted for Wilton's black fondant for the dots and ribbon border. I then piped a few white dots just because white was also part of the color theme. This was the end result:


The whole lot, ready to be devoured!

By the way, my hands are back to their normal color..took a lot of scrubbing!! :]