I got my cookies into another store…yippee! The name of the store is Naples Gourmet Grocer and it’s located right near my house in Belmont Shores, CA. They carry high end gourmet products and now they are carrying me too…crazy! Well, I have been doing some more cookie designs for this store and for a wedding trunk show that I did, so here are the cookies!
Oh, and one mini cake too!
The reason for the lack of blogging these past couple of days was because I had the opportunity to go to the Capital Confectioner’s Cake & Sugar Art Show in Austin, Texas. Basically I conned my mom into coming with me for the weekend, and she of course said yes, since she is the best mom in the world! I have to give a big thanks to Kyla who stopped by my blog and let me know about this great convention…without her I definitely wouldn’t of gone. The convention had a competition side and a class side to it. I got to watch Bronwen Weber, Autumn Carpenter, Steven Stellingwerf, Nicholas Lodge, and Earlene Moore do demos for a whole day…I was in heaven, expect for the fact that the day before the trip I came down with a dreadful cold and was sick the whole trip, but nonetheless I learned a lot and got to see a bunch of great cakes. I will hopefully be trying out some of the new techniques that I learned from the trip later this month and sharing them with you, but for now I just want to share all of the cakes I saw with you. Enjoy the photos…there’s a lot of them!
About a month ago I got my hands on the new Martha Stewart Wedding Book that is filled to the brim with gorgeous photos, recipes, and techniques. This book is a definite buy for anyone who is into cakes, party planning, or weddings. I would highly recommend it! One of the photos in the book caught my attention because it was so adorably cute, and yet seemed easy at the same time…it was the mini brownie wedding cakes. Martha did a variety of designs on her brownie wedding cakes, so be sure to check the photos out in the book, but since I have been crunched for time lately I went with my favorite look and called it a day. These would make great wedding favors or a yummy bridal shower dessert…you could even ditch the wedding idea and throw a candle on top and use them as mini birthday cakes; the ideas are endless. Anyways, I hope you try these at home because they really are a ton of fun and are definitely worth the little time and effort you put into them.
I tried out a new brownie recipe (Double Chocolate Mocha Brownies to be exact) that I found from epicurious.com and I actually got really good reviews from my taste testers (aka my family & friends), so I would recommend trying it if you get a chance. My friend said that she loved that there was chocolate chips still in the brownie…just a side note, I used mini chocolate chips instead of regular size ones since I thought they would cut better with my cookie cutters. I also baked the brownies in a slightly large pan than they recommended…a half sheet pan to be exact, although it didn’t really make too much of a difference…they would’ve been thin brownies either way. So the first step is to bake your brownies and let them cool. Once they are cool, you can cut out your desired shapes. As you can see from my photos, my brownies were a little thin, so I stacked two of the same size brownie circles on top of each other and sort of smushed them together. You can play around with the exact size dimensions to make YOUR perfect brownie cake.
Once each round has been formed you need to lightly brush the cut edges with water. Then dip the brownie rounds in sanding sugar. After the rounds have been rolled in sanding sugar you can add a small filling, frosting, or just a tiny dab of plain corn syrup to the center of the rounds so that they stick when you stack them on top of each other. Note: make sure the side that was on the bottom during baking is now on top, since it is much smoother than the other side and will make your brownie cakes look crisp and clean. Now your brownie cake is technically done, but you can add other details to it if you want. I piped on small dots of royal icing and added dragees on top so that they made a monogram, but try anything and have some fun with it!
You can package the mini brownie cakes in these plastic boxes from Garnish and they would be perfect for a gift. I also added a color cupcake liner at the bottom of the box to make the cake look even more cute. Hope you are inspired to try Martha’s idea like I was!
Sorry for the lack of posting! I actually had one post almost ready to publish and then when I went to save it the whole thing got deleted somehow…lets just say after that I was a little discouraged. I got over it though and tried out some new cookie designs for Easter. I am trying to get my cookies in a couple shops down where I live in Belmont Shores, CA and so I thought Easter would be the perfect opportunity to try to get them selling…wish me luck!
Here are some packaging options I tried out. You can get the long white box at Garnish, the clear box at Garnish or Clearbags.com, and the clear bags at your local Michael’s or online at Clearbags.com.
I had some extra dough so I thought I would try out a couple more cookie designs…hope you like them!
If you have any feedback, I would love to hear it!
Life has been quite hectic these past couple of days with Valentine’s Day orders…lots of fun, but little sleep. I thought I would share with you some of the photos of the final products I did for a couple clients. Hope you enjoy them! These first photos are some new cookie designs I tried out and brought to my hair dresser as an early Valentine’s Day present. I love this packaging from Garnish and so did she! I really think that cute packaging makes all the difference when you are selling a product or giving a gift…first impressions really do count. Garnish also liked my idea and blogged about it again…yippee!
Here a few more cookies & cupcakes that I did.
Here is a Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie I did for a client…yummy! It has an oreo crust, peanut butter mousse-like filling and chocolate ganache on top. I also personalized it for him so that it would be extra special!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
I have had a couple viewers ask about the type of buttercream that I mainly use, so I thought that I would share it with you. I had many buttercream woes leading up to this fantastic find of a buttercream. Either the buttercream was too sweet, too artifical tasting, grainy looking, not thick enough to pipe with, or had some other quality that led me to turn my nose up to it, but once I tried Elizabeth Falkner’s vanilla buttercream from her book Demolition Desserts my buttercream nightmares were over. This, in my opinion, is the perfect buttercream to use on everything from cakes to cupcakes. I love her addition of salt to the recipe, which I think takes away that overly sugary taste, which I am not a fan of. Also her addition of lemon juice aides in this as well. However, I don’t add quite as much lemon juice to my buttercream as she does. This is not the recipe that I use for buttercream roses though, so please don’t try it, instead go to my posting on “A Dozen Rose Cupcakes” and click on the link for Martha Stewart’s swiss meringue buttercream recipe. Anyways, I hope that you enjoy this recipe as much as I have and let me know if you try it and what your opinion is.
Vanilla Buttercream
as adapted from Demolition Desserts
Ingredients:
4 oz. unsalted softened butter
2 1/2 c. or 10 oz. powdered sugar
1/2 t. kosher salt
1 T. plus 1 t. whole milk
1 t. pure vanilla extract
1 t. fresh lemon juice (I put 1/2 t.)
Directions:
In a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter & salt for about 30 seconds and then add half of the powdered sugar and the milk to the butter and beat again until combined. Scrape down the bowl. Add the rest of the powdered sugar, the vanilla, and the lemon juice and beat until combined. Scrape down the bowl again. Beat on high speed for 5-6 minutes or until the frosting is fluffy. She says that she prefers to use it the same day, but that it can keep in the refrigerator for 3 days if tightly wrapped. I have also left it out at room temperature overnight (if I was going to use it in the morning) and it was just fine. Make sure and stir the buttercream well though before using to get the air bubbles out of the frosting.
This was such a fun project to do! One of my best friends is getting married in May and I am doing her wedding cake, cookies, and being a bridesmaid…lets just say it is going to be a whirl-wind of an experience, but I am so excited! She is such a talented graphic designer and of course did all of her announcements and invitations, which had the silhouette of her and her fiance on them. As you can see by her invitations, her colors are gray, green, and white, which is not your typical wedding colors, but it works out fabulously here! I added some other color designs, like the pink girl, just so I could see how other color combos worked. These cookie cutters were custom made to match their silhouettes by the Victor Trading Company. They are quite large cutters, around 4-5″ in height and cost around $35 each. The quality of the cutters are amazing and the precision of the cutter is flawless…highly recommended. Well, in this posting I am going to try to show you how I make my decorated sugar cookies. Since photos and words can’t always show you the whole process I am working on trying to do video postings, which would hopefully be a better visual for you.
Here is the actual wedding invitation! You can also check out more of her designs at her blog Karrie Pyke Designs.
The first thing you need to do is make your sugar cookie dough. Here is a link to one of Martha Stewart’s sugar cookie recipes. She also has some great technique tips and helpful hints for sugar cookies and royal icing. Once your dough is made and thoroughly chilled then you need to lightly flour your working table and the dough itself, so that the dough doesn’t stick to the table or rolling pin.
Next you need to roll out the dough to about 1/4″ thick. I like my cookies to be thick, so that they will hold shape well when packaged and also so the customer knows they are getting a good size cookie for their money. Once the dough is rolled out, use your cookie cutters to cut out the shapes, trying to get as many shapes out as you can. You can put the scraps together and gently knead them into a ball and roll out again, but be careful because the more times you do this, the tougher the cookies will be. Place the shapes onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat. Place the cookie sheet into the freezer or refrigerator until the cookies become thoroughly chilled again; this will help with the cookie keeping its shape. When the cookies are chilled, bake them as instructed. After baking let them cool on the pan and then transfer them to cookie racks so they can cool completely.
Now it’s time to make the royal icing. You can also find a recipe for royal icing at the same Martha Stewart link I gave earlier. Your royal icing consistency needs to be medium-stiff so that you can pipe the outline of your cookie. Place the royal icing in a pastry bag that has a #2 tip in it. Now carefully trace the outline of the cookie, while trying to be as accurate as possible. Make sure and hold your pastry tip above the cookie, not directly touching it while you pipe, so that the frosting flows out easily and neatly as it follows the guidance of your hand. The mistake that most people make is to hold the piping tip so close to the cookie that it creates uneven lines and bumps of frosting instead of one continuous line of straight frosting. Practice makes perfect though.
After the outline frosting has dried (about 5 minutes) you can now fill the center with the flooded frosting. Take your leftover royal icing frosting and continue adding small amount of water (1 teaspoon) until the consistency is like a thick milkshake. Another visual sign is that when you pour a spoonful of frosting into the bowl that the lines disappear within 5 seconds. You want the frosting to be thick enough to not spill over the frosting outline, but thin enough that the frosting will dissolve into one solid finish. Place this frosting in another pastry bag and either snip off a little of the tip of the bag or put a slightly larger tip than the #2 in it. Now fill the cookie with the frosting, while using your tip to direct the frosting to the places you want it to go. You can also use a toothpick to direct the frosting, like it says in the Martha Stewart article. Once you have finished filling in all of the cookie, let it sit out uncovered overnight so that it can fully set.
When the frosting is completely set you can add the final touches. On one cookie, I piped on small dots of medium/stiff royal icing onto the bun of the bride and then placed pink dragees on top. On the other cookies I tied little bows and attached them to the girl’s hair with a dot of royal icing. Be creative and the possibilities are endless!
These cookies will keep for up to 1 1/2 weeks in a tightly sealed container. Well, I hope I inspired you to make your own silhouette cookies and if you do, I would love for you to send me a picture so I see how great they turn out!
Well, here is my 2nd cake from my trip to Chicago where I attended Bronwen Weber’s class at the French Pastry School. Bronwen first made this cake for a chef’s conference…it was a chef’s head on a plate! This cake was quite tricky since almost all of the face design is done by using your hands to sculpt the fondant covered cake into a realistic face before the fondant dries on you. I hope you enjoy seeing the photos from the class and realize just how much of a cake genius Bronwen really is!
The cake is started by stacking layer upon layer of cake & buttercream and then attempting to carve out the basic features of the face.
These are the two carved heads…the first one is Bronwen’s & the second is mine.
Next you cover the head in buttercream.
After covering it in buttercream, you cover the whole cake in fondant and quickly, but carefully, shape the face with your hands. Detail is added with gum paste tools.
Here is my head after I finished the face sculpting part…then it was onto the details, like hair, eyebrows, sideburns, etc. The hair accents were made out of modeling chocolate and the tie and jacket were made out of fondant. Sadly, we ran out of time and didn’t get to make the chef’s hat, but it was an interesting technique. Since the hat was made out of rice paper, it was completely edible (not that I would want to eat it!)
And here is me with my chef’s head!
Here is the chocolate devil’s food cupcake recipe that I used in a lot of my photos. These cupcakes are not only delicious, but they bake up perfectly every time, which is a pastry chef’s dream come true. This is Michael Recchiuti’s recipe from his book, Chocolate Obsession. This book is a definite buy for the chocolate lover because not only are the recipes great, but the photos in the book are mouth-watering themselves! Well, I hope you all take a chance making this recipe, because it surely won’t disappoint you.
Devil’s Food Cupcakes
Cupcake Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups granulated sugar
2 extra large egg
1 cup whole milk
½ cup flavorless vegetable oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 Tablespoon espresso powder dissolved in 1 cup boiling water
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line cupcake pans with 24 cupcake liners.
Sift flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and sugar together into a medium bowl.
Combine the egg, milk, oil, vanilla, and dissolved espresso powder in a medium bowl and whisk by hand until well mixed. Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk to combine.
Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups, filling them about half full.
Bake for about 15-20 minutes, until the cupcakes are puffed and feel springy. Let cool completely in the pan on a wire rack.
Hi everyone…I just wanted to let you know that Fancy Flours is giving FREE SHIPPING for the next couple of days! The deal is good until February 8th, so jump on it! Hope everyone is finding the inspiration to make fabulous Valentine’s Day cupcakes! Remember, if you ever have a question or want something covered on this blog let me know and I will do my best!
