My Sweet and Saucy

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! I wanted to share with you more photos of treats I made this last weekend. The cupcakes were for my friend’s bridal shower (they go with the bridal shower cookies I posted earlier). The cupcake flavors were (1) Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream, (2) Buttermilk cupcakes with lemon cream filling, vanilla buttercream frosting, and a raspberry and white chocolate stick on top, and (3) Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter filling and cream cheese frosting. I also had a bridal shower to go to for one of my best friends, Karrie Pyke, who I’m doing the Silhouette Bride & Groom Cookies this May for her wedding. Her bridal shower theme was “shades of blue” so I made blue lingerie cookies for the shower. I wrote their initials on some of the cookies for a personal touch. And lastly, one of my other best friend’s parents had their 30th anniversary this past week and she wanted me to make them a cake for their celebration. The wanted me to make them the “Crazy Monkey Cake” that I had made for them a while ago, so I that’s what I did. It had banana buttermilk cake, peanut butter filling, and chocolate ganache frosting…yummy yummy! I wish I could’ve snuck a slice!

I had an order for bridal shower cookies from an old friend of mine from elementary school…we actually ended up going to school together all the way through high school!  I was so happy when she contacted me for the order and was pleased with how the cookies came out.  I did wedding dress cookies for her with pink and sage green accents and she wanted “Alanna Loves Kyle” on the cookie, so I squeezed it in on the bottom.  While I was at it I thought I would try out a couple more cookie designs so that I have more photos for my official website.  My husband is working on re-doing it right now and I am soooo excited to see the finished product!  Well, here come the cookies!!!

I made this cake about a month ago for the mother of a dear friend of mine. She was celebrating three other of her friend’s birthdays along with her own, so I did a simple, yet elegant birthday cake for all four of them. I wrote all of their names along the cake board using royal icing and made the bow on top with fondant. Hopefully in the near future I can do a tutorial on making fondant bows for you! The cake had two different flavors: the top tier was chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and raspberries and the bottom tier was buttermilk cake with lemon cream and raspberries. I covered the cake in swiss meringue buttercream and then colored a portion of the buttercream and piped on small dots for the border.

So sorry about the lack of posting this past week…right now I feel like I am writing to a long lost friend who I haven’t talked to in a while…but when holidays come, so do my orders and therefore my time for blogging is sadly cut short. The good news is that Blue Windows, one of the stores I got my cookies into, sold out of their first order of 2 dozen Easter sugar cookies in 1 1/2 days! I was so excited when I got the call and she wanted to order 6 dozen more!!! My hand wanted to kill me after the order, but I was just so happy that they sold well that I didn’t care at all. Well enough about cookies, this post is about cupcakes…chocolate peanut butter cupcakes to be exact. I brought these cupcakes along with a dozen Coconut Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting to one of my church’s outreaches this past Saturday. Baking for people is my passion and I find so much fulfillment in being able to put smiles on people’s faces and a good memory in their hearts and minds. To jazz these cupcakes up I used chocolate transfer sheet designs and cut mini Easter eggs out of them for the top of the cupcakes.

This chocolate cupcake recipe can be found at Chockylit’s Cupcake Bakeshop, which is probably one of my favorite blogs out there. She is absolutely blows me away with the great combinations she comes up with and all of the creativity that flows out of each posting. The particular recipe is one of the best chocolate cupcake recipes out there and I have used it countless times…once you try it you will be a convert too!

I decided to fill the cupcakes with leftover chocolate ganache I had from another day and think it worked out pretty well. Chocolate ganache is simply a combo of 50% heavy cream to 50% chocolate. You just heat your cream until is it about to boil and then pour it over your chopped chocolate (my favorite is bittersweet) and let it sit for a couple minutes before you whisk it till it’s thoroughly combined. You can also add a tablespoon of butter and corn syrup to the mixture when it’s still hot to give it a better flavor and more shine. If you are going to use it for a filling you need to let it cool completely until it is a thick spoonable consistency. Then just add your ganache to a pastry bag fitted with a medium size pastry tip and insert your tip into the cupcake and squeeze the filling out until you feel your cupcake expanding and the ganache comes up to the top.

I tried a new frosting this time…peanut butter frosting! This frosting from Ina Garten’s show, Barefoot Contessa, got rave reviews online at the Food Network, so I thought I would give it a try. I was definitely not disappointed! This is a delicious and extremely easy frosting to make and makes a wonderful pairing with chocolate cupcakes. I piped on the frosting using a pastry bag and a #8 tip.

I found these great new chocolate transfer sheet designs at Fancy Flours. To see how you make chocolate transfer sheet cut out’s check out my posting on Valentine’s Day Cupcakes. These kind of adornments are very impressive looking to people and yet pretty easy to make in my opinion, so I would highly recommend that you try it out!

Well, here are some more fun photos I took of the cupcakes and a photo of the Coconut Cream Cheese Cupcakes that I made for the event too! Thanks for looking!

This past weekend was definitely a crazy one for me! I had a cooking class for 16 people at my church Rockharbor on Thursday night, an order for 135 Monogram wedding cake cookies on Saturday morning and a wine party for 20 people that I catered and did the cake for on Saturday night. Lets just say I got about 4 1/2 hours sleep Friday night… Anyways, everything turned out great for the most part, but unfortunately I didn’t get as many pictures of my food as I wanted to. The one thing I did get some pictures of was the Mona Vie Wine Bottle Cake I did for the dinner party. Mona Vie isn’t really wine, but rather a health/energy drink that the clients I did the party for sell. The juice comes in a wine bottle though, so I thought it would be fun to do an actual “Mona Vie” cake for them. The cake was a chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and raspberries and have a chocolate buttercream frosting. As you can see, I stacked the cake in rectangles pretty high and then carved a wine bottle shape into the first layer of cake. I then covered the cake in buttercream and covered the wine bottle with fondant. The sides of the cake were made with modeling chocolate, so that the cake looked like it was sitting in a wine crate. The packaging was made out of white chocolate shavings. Overall, I was pretty happy with my first wine bottle cake and am excited to get another chance to make one. Hope you enjoy the photos!

Here are some photos of the beginning.

Here are two more photos of the finished product.

Thanks so much for Arfi @ Homemades blog for hosting this cupcake round-up! This was a lot of fun and I can’t wait to see all the entries!

I made these for a cupcake class that I taught last night and once I tried them I new they were a winner. I tried out a new coconut cake recipe from Epicurious.com and it turned out fantastic! And for the coconut cream cheese frosting I used the same recipe that I just tried out last week from Melissa Murphy’s Baking Book. This is definitely a knock out cupcake combo and I highly recommend that you try it! I made the birdie, little eggs, and worm from fondant and just played around with the shapes till I liked them. I originally just had the birdie, but then people in the class started experimenting and making little eggs and worms, so I did the same! I rolled the eggs and worm in Oreo cookie crumbs to give a dirt effect. And for the eyes I used edible food markers to color them on. Lastly, to make sure the birdie stayed up I stuck a toothpick up his cute little bum and secured him into the cupcake. Hope you enjoy these for your Easter holiday!

I was so excited last week when I received an email from Melissa Murphy’s marketing agent asking me if I’d want to review her book, The Sweet Melissa Baking Book…of course my response was a quick “Yes!” I have been a huge fan of Melissa’s for a while now. I found her Zagat rated patisserie, which is located in Brooklyn, New York, online and fell in love with the photos on her website. I was then able to watch videos and get recipes from her MySpace page and have been hooked from then on. Melissa’s pies and tarts have been rated #1 by the Zagat Marketplace which is an unbelievable accomplishment if you ask me. Many of you have probably also seen her work her wonders on the Food Network Challenge: Edible Ornaments. She is such an inspiration to me and really proves that your dreams can come true.

Well once the book arrived at my doorstep I tore the box open and devoured the book page by page. My book is pretty pathetic looking now that I have marked over half the book’s pages with sticky notes…and these were just the recipes I considered baking for the blog! I have to say that this is an amazing book which will keep you baking all year long. I could name every recipe for you, but I wouldn’t want to torture you any more…my suggestion is to just go and get the book and enjoy yourself to the fullest as you ohh and ahh over every delectable recipe.

After reading the book I knew that I had to immediately try her recipe for Fluffy Coconut Cake with Passion Fruit Filling. Ever since pastry school I have had an unhealthy addiction to passion fruits. If you have never had the chance to taste one you are definitely missing out. The flavor of passion fruit is so intense and tasty that I knew I had to try her recipe for passion fruit filling. This cake turned out beautifully and left me licking my spoon over and over again as I dipped it back into the bowl of passion fruit filling. The coconut cream cheese frosting does give the filling a run for it’s money though…it is equally dream like. Well, I could go on and on about it, but I will stop and just share this delicious recipe excerpt with you…enjoy!

FLUFFY COCONUT CAKE WITH PASSION FRUIT FILLING

This is one of the most incredible layer cakes; the passion fruit curd in the center is such a delicious surprise! Your guests may not know what it is, but they will love it! Passion fruit juice is becoming more widely available in major cities, especially in specialty food stores and in the ethnic section of the supermarket. Instead of the passion fruit juice you can substitute lemon juice (just use 3/4 cup fresh lemon juice as is, without reducing), and create another great classic combination—lemon and coconut! Yummy.

There are three components to this cake, as there are in most of my split layer cakes: the filling, the cake, and the frosting. If you have some time, you can spread out making these elements over a few days and make the whole process seem almost effortless.

Note: The fluffy white cake in this recipe is a phenomenal white cake. It is astonishing how delicious and moist it is; the texture is sublime! The trick to this cake is to efficiently incorporate the ingredients as thoroughly and quickly as possible, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and to not overbeat the batter before you fold in the meringue. Your careful attention to these details will be well rewarded.

Makes one 9-inch cake

FOR THE CAKE
20 tablespoons (2 1/2) sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 1/2 cups sugar
4 3/4 cups sifted cake flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 3/4 cups whole milk
1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
9 large egg whites, at room temperature

FOR THE PASSION FRUIT FILLING
1 1/2 cups passion fruit juice
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
7 large egg yolks
2 large eggs
¾ cup sugar

FOR THE COCONUT CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
8 ounces (1 package) cream cheese, softened
2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ cup sweetened cream of coconut
3 cups sweetened coconut flakes

BEFORE YOU START

Place a rack in the center of your oven. Preheat the oven to 350°F Butter and flour two 9 x 2-inch round cake pans. Line each with a 9-inch round of parchment paper.

TO MAKE THE CAKE

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes.

2. In separate large bowl, whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt.

3. In a separate bowl, combine the milk and vanilla.

4. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in three batches, alternating with the milk, starting and ending with the flour mixture. Mix well after each addition but be careful not to overmix. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Mix on medium-high speed for 10 seconds. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl.

5. In the very clean bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the very clean whip attachment, beat the egg whites on medium-high speed until they hold medium stiff peaks.

6. Using a rubber spatula, briskly fold one-third of the meringue mixture into the batter to lighten it. Gently fold in the remaining meringue until just combined.

7. Divide the batter equally between the two prepared cake pans. Use a spatula to level the batter. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the cake springs back when touched with your finger, and a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove to a rack to cool for 30 minutes before turning out onto the rack to cool completely.

The baked layers may be stored tightly wrapped in plastic wrap at room temperature for 2 days. For longer storage, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 4 days, or freeze wrapped in plastic wrap and then aluminum foil for up to 2 weeks. Do not unwrap before thawing.

TO MAKE THE FRUIT FILLING

1. In a medium skillet, bring the passion fruit juice to a boil. Turn down the heat to simmer, and reduce the fruit juice by half, about 10 minutes. (You will have 3/4 cup passion fruit concentrate.) Allow to cool. Stir in the lemon juice.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, eggs, and sugar until well combined. Whisk the passion fruit concentrate into the egg mixture.

3. Set the bowl over a pot of simmering, not boiling, water. Be sure it is not touching the water. Cook, stirring, until nappante (thick enough to coat the back of a spoon) or
185°F on a candy thermometer, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from the heat.

4. Strain the mixture into a bowl set in an ice bath (see Note).

5. Lay a sheet of plastic wrap flush against the surface of the filling (to prevent a skin from forming). Refrigerate until cold before using.

The fruit filling keeps in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

TO MAKE THE FROSTING

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar on low speed, about 1 minute. Increase the speed to medium high and beat until fluffy and smooth, 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

2. Add the butter and mix on medium speed until just combined, stopping once to scrape down the sides of the bowl, 1 to 2 minutes. Do not overbeat. Decrease the speed to low and add the vanilla and cream of coconut and mix until just combined.

Use immediately or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Let the frosting come to room temperature and beat in the mixer slightly before using.

TO COMPLETE THE CAKE

1. See How to Assemble a Layer Cake (page 91) for instructions on how to fill and frost a split layer cake.

2. After the cake is frosted, use your hands to help pat the coconut onto the sides and the top of the cake.

Once completed, the layer cake may be stored in a cake saver in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.

Note: An ice bath is a large bowl filled with two quarts of ice and two cups of water. A smaller bowl containing a hot liquid is set inside the bath in order to help cool down the liquid quickly.
Add more ice as needed.

PRO TIP: When you mix the ingredients for the frosting, start on the mixer’s lowest speed and quickly turn on and off a few times so the confectioners’ sugar doesn’t fly everywhere. When the ingredients come together, increase the speed to medium high.

The foregoing is excerpted from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Melissa Murphy. All rights reserved. Copyright © Melissa Murphy, 2008.

Here are a couple photos to help you visualize some techniques for assembling layered cakes. First you need to level off the dome of the cake once it has cooled. Always use a serrated bread knife when cutting cakes.

For this particular cake you also need to split the two cake layers in half, so that you end up with four thin layers of cake. Normally this is done when you have a looser filling like a cream or curd filling.

When assembling layer cakes you always put one of the flat sides on the bottom of the cake and then reserve the other flat side for the top of the cake. When adding filling to cakes you need to create a dam effect so that the filling won’t spill out onto your frosting. Place a small amount of your frosting in a piping bag and pipe a border around the outside of the cake. Then add your filling to the cake. With every layer do this same technique. When you go to frost your cake always start off with a good amount of frosting and then use a offset spatula to spread the frosting over the top of the cake so that it starts to spill over to the sides. Then continue adding frosting to the sides of the cake until you have completely covered it. Note: This frosting doesn’t have to be perfect on the sides since you are adding coconut there.

Now you just press the coconut shavings along the side of the cake and enjoy! I added robin’s eggs on top for an Easter look.

Now since I am a cupcake lover I decided to bake the cake in a smaller size pan and then use the leftover batter to make some yummy cupcakes. I filled the cupcakes with the passion fruit filling using a pastry bag fitted with a medium tip. Just stick you pastry bag into the cupcake and gently size the filling out until the cupcake expands slightly and filling comes to the top. I boxed a couple of the cupcakes up in clear boxes with Easter M & M’s and shredded paper filling.

I thought doing an Easter egg cake for clients would be fun, so I made a sample cake this past week to test it out. I used Wilton’s 3-D Easter Egg pan. The directions for baking the cake are all on the pamphlet that comes with the cake. I covered my cake in purple fondant and did yellow and white accents.

I frosted the cake in buttercream and then smoothed over the fondant. I then cut out dots with small circle cutters and cut the yellow ribbons with a pastry wheel crimper. I adhered the fondant with a dab of water. After all the fondant accents were on I brushed the whole cake with pearl luster dust. I then piped on a buttercream border with a #802 tip. Lastly I wrote “Happy Easter” with purple colored buttercream using a #2 tip.

I have been doing more cakes lately, so I thought I would share some more photos and tips with you. One cake I did was for my uncle’s mother’s 80th birthday party. She has had a passion for music all her life so we decided to go with a musical note theme. Although the outside of the cake wasn’t as elaborate as some of my other designs the cake inside was absolutely delicious…I was wishing that I was invited to the party! The bottom tier was chocolate cake (one of the best I have tried lately…don’t worry I will post the recipes tomorrow) with white chocolate whipped cream and fresh strawberries. The top tier was my favorite buttermilk cake with lemon cream and fresh raspberries….one of my all-time favorite combo’s. Both cakes were covered in vanilla buttercream.

To make the red pearl border I used a technique that I learned from Earlene Moore at the Capital Confectioner’s cake & Sugar Art Show that I went to last month. First you roll out your fondant to your desired thickness (the larger the thickness the larger the pearls) and then you cut out circles with either the top of a large pipping tip or a small circle cookie cutter (again, depending on what size you want the pearls). Next you roll the fondant in your hands to make little pearls and then add them to a plastic jar. Put a little luster dust (whatever color you prefer) in with jar with the pearls and then put the lid on. Shake the pearls in the jar until they are evenly coated with the luster dust.

To make the musical notes I used a cookie cutter that I found at a local store and then cut it out of black fondant. To make the other type of note I just cut the side part off of it and then I had two types of notes. For the sharp sign I cut fondant strips and adhered them with water. To make the symbols on top I rolled black fondant by hand and formed them into the symbols. I brushed everything with black luster dust before I added it to the cake.

I adhered the notes to the buttercream cake and then piped on “Happy 80th Birthday Mom” with leftover buttercream that I colored red. I also added little dots with the red buttercream. Thanks for looking!

My beautiful niece Melody (yes, we have the same name) turned 5 years old yesterday and I had the privilege of making her birthday cake.  She is definitely a girly girl so I thought I would do pink, purple, and green for the colors and do a flower/princess theme for the cake.  I really haven’t done many fondant cakes before, since I am not a huge fan of the taste, but I wanted the cake to look a certain way and so I thought that fondant would be the best choice for it.  The birthday girl loved the cake and so my mission was accomplished!  

I am going to share a couple techniques that I used to get some of the details of the cake…hopefully they help you out.  First, I think that covering the cake board that the cake sits on top of looks so much better when it is covered in fondant, so that it matches the rest of the cake.  I taped two cake boards on top of each other so the base would be more stable and then put a little glucose on the board to make sure the fondant stuck well (you can also use cornsyrup).  You can roll your fondant quite thin to cover the board and then you just cut off the excess with a knife.  I then added ribbon to the edge of the board to give it a cleaner look.  Simply rub your glue stick on the ribbon and adhere.

I then covered my cakes in buttercream and rolled the fondant out to about 1/8″-1/4″ thick.  I covered the cakes in three different colors of fondant to give it a fun look, but you could cover it all in the same color if you wanted.  I placed the bottom cake layer on the board and then inserted cake dowels into the cake and cut them to match the same height as the cake.  (Note: all the cakes have a cardboard cake circle under them) I then stacked the middle layer on top and doweled that too.   

I used the leftover fondant to make various sizes of flowers and then adhered them with a dab of water.  Next I made large pearls to go around the bottom.  To make the pearls you need to roll your fondant out to about 1/4″-1/2″ and then cut out circles with a small circle cutter.  You can play around with the size of the pearls depending on the thickness of your fondant and the size of your cutters.

To make the tiara I rolled out fondant to about 1/8″ thick and then stamped it with a swirly design stamp.  Next, I cut out the shape with my crown/tiara cookie cutter and trimmed the bottom so that it was straight across.  Next, I placed the tiara on a cup with a small width and let it dry for a couple hours until it was stable.  I adhered the tiara to the top of the cake with a dab of water or you can use tylose glue. I also added small dragees to the top of the tiara with a dab of buttercream to adhere.  In some of the photos you can see that later on I added a small “M” on the tiara for “Melody”.  I made this by forming fondant into the shape I wanted. 

I was going to leave the cake like this, but then I decided to add some funky leaves and dots in green and I’m really glad I did because I think it made it “pop” a lot more.

To make the leaves and dots I just colored some of my leftover buttercream green and added it to a pastry bag with a #2 tip.  Here are a couple of close up photos of the designs so you can see how I did them.

I also forgot to mention that before I piped the leaves and dots I brushed the whole cake with pearl luster dust to give it that extra shimmer and shine.  Hopefully these tips help you out next time you make a cake!