Aku tuh suka bingung kalo yang ultah cowok, dihias apaaaa gitu... Kalo cewek kan paling ya bunga, trus kasih glitter2 gitu, yang girly lah, lha kalo yang boyli (huahaha istilah apaan ini) aku suka bingung sendiri, secara aliran hiasannya aliran centil gitu, kekekekk.... Apalagi kalo customer ditanya "mau yang kayak gimana mbak?" jawabnya "wah saya juga bingung ya, kalo menurut mbak yulia gimana?" hahaha, jadi tunjuk2an sama2 gak punya idenya :))

Ini lah hasil kemaren... lumayan lah, moga2 gak terlalu anak2 banget buat anak laki2 umur 4 tahun, hehehe.... Thanks mbak Vellys yaa! :)

I made a whole bunch of shapes, but only bothered to take pictures of my favorite two types. I had some leftover fondant from a cake I previously made, so I thought it would be cool to do a basket-weave over a heart-shaped sugar cookie. It ended up pretty awesome.

I also made these cute pig cookies. I used melted chocolate to draw in the mouth and eyes.

Again, I apologize for the crumby pictures. These were pre-blogging days and I really didn't think I'd do anything with them except for my own reference.

I think cookies were a ton of fun, but I definitely have a lot more to learn. I need a good icing recipe because fondant was ok for molding, but not really that cool glossy effect.

Mailing them was fun. I wrapped each individually in plastic bags and tied it with ribbon. Then stuffed them all in a box with shredded paper. She was completely surprised and l.

View (and read) about the process HERE!

Karna malem dah capek banget, malem cuma menghias cupcake sama cover cake pake fondan aja, paginya cakenya baru dihias, hihihi, untung selesai tepat waktu, diambil kurir jam 8 pagi. Emang kalo lagi capeek banget itu gak ada ide apa2 deh, meskipun nongkrongin kue di depan meja berjam2 ya tetep aja ga ada isnpirasi, makanya pake tidur dulu, kalo udah fresh biasanya muncul ide ini itu.

Aku nggak bisa tuh bikik sketsa desain kue, jadi kalo ditanya customer nanti kuenya modelnya gimana ya aku juga nggak tau, liat nanti deh kalo udah di depan kuenya bakal aku apain, hahahaha...

Ini foto kuenya... Ukurannya 30cm bawah dan 22cm atas...

Ini cupcakesnya...

Last week I made a couple of cakes for a repeat customer - I think the one above looks quite cool from the side (the top just has some piping and a few more flowers on it). And for the other one I made some cute little butterflies - and I heard that the cake was delicious. :-) Which is of course a primary objective...

There had to have been close to forty children there.  Indians know how to throw a party, let me tell you.

All of my pent up wishes for a girl went into these cakes.  I mean, how often does a mom of three boys get to shop for tiaras?  Mr. Wright says never, not over his dead body.  Come on dad, there's nothing wrong with a boy in a tiara! 

My favorite part has to be the magic wands, though.  I made them out of fondant, which means they were edible!   

During the party there were tons of little wide-eyed girls circling the table, whispering to each other about the stars, the wand, the "crown".  And when I started to cut the cake we handed out stars for them to eat while they waited.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching their smiling faces gobble down my cake.

Thanks Payal!  If I can't have girls myself at least I can live vicariously through my friends!

(Excuse the blurry photos, I need to stop being so lazy with my picture taking).

They have a small piece of chocolate cake on the inside, rolled with a black fondant to look like seaweed, topped with white sprinkles for rice. That green and orange for is just pieces of fondant. Mike ate it, and it's a bit sweet and gross. I think I'm going to stop using the fondant for my next couple of cakes because it's not the best tasting stuff on earth. Even marshmallow fondant (which is better) is not really high up there for me. Anyhow.. back to the cake...

I also made those funny looking salmon rolls? What exactly are they? Those things on the top right side, I know that type of sushi exist but don't ask me what it is.

Anyhow, the 'soy sauce' is chocolate sauce. You'll notice that I tried to do a wooden board type thing for the cake base, I found this idea from googling different cakes online. It's very common to do for a sushi cake, but I was confused on how to make it look woody.

I ended up coloring corn syrup brown and doing a sort of glaze. It worked out ok. I doubt I'd do it again, it was a bit sticky and took forever to dry.

One thing that I learned from this cake, is that you cannot use too soft of cake when working with fondant. You can see on the sides that it's beginning to droop. Even after being frozen overnight, the cake would be out for a minute and would begin to mold or crumble because it was such a soft and delicate recipe.

As for Mike... he loved it!

This was a chocolate cheesecake.  I used cookie cutters to cut out the shapes for my husband on our anniversary.  The cheesecake was a lot thicker than my cutters, which had a ridge, so I ended up using a knife to finish cutting the cheesecake.  It worked OK, but the edges came out crumbly.  Next time I'll have to try a different method.

I opted to make beehive cupcakes because nothing is more friendly and welcoming then yellow and bees! First though was the army of bees though.

The bees are made of fondant and the wings are slices of almonds. You can tell some of the bees are a little sloppy, clearly I was getting tired.

I made the cupcakes out of chocolate cake and they were fabulous.

I love the way My Sweet and Saucy's cupcakes come out with the high-top icing. Even though I am not a fan of too much icing, I used her recommended cream cheese icing which I figured would mask all the sugar used. It was a great success, I made so many (only like 1/4 of them are shown) that I took them to work that Monday. Everyone raved about them too, maybe if they're nice to me I'll make them some cupcakes next week ;)

For the last class, we were supposed to bring in a cake to decorate. And the cake was supposed to be on a board that we had already covered in fondant in a previous class. I used my cake board for the island cake, and Penny was on vacation for that class. Add in the fact that I was leaving the day after the last class for two consecutive business trips and Penny had no place to take a full cake, and you get the two us decorating a Styrofoam "cake" that Penny built.

Because no one was ever going to eat the cake, we didn't care about colors and played around. Still, it turned out pretty good. The colors were a lot brighter than what's showing up on my monitor right now. We took turns making pieces of the decorations and putting them on the faux-cake.

The pink box on the top is made out of fondant and gumpaste. I like the box idea and may end up using it on future cakes.

So, for now, our cake tutorage is over. Now it's up to us to figure out what to do with everything we learned. I'll miss the cake classes, but I'm glad to have my Monday nights back.

http://amosfly.blogspot.com/

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

Pour 4 personnes (prep. 30 min, cuis. 25min)

-150 grs de chocolat noir

-4 oeufs

-100 grs de sucre

-125 grs de beurre

-140 grs de noix de coco râpée

-2 cuillères à soupe de rhum ambré

-1/2 cuillère à café de canelle

-1/2 cuillère à café de vanille liquide (ou les grains d'une gousse)

-1 zeste de citron vert

-1 cuillère à soupe de Maïzena

1) Faire fondre le chocolat + le beurre à bain-marie doux.

2) Casser les œufs en séparant le blanc des jaunes. Réserver les blancs au réfrigérateur.

3) Ajouter le sucre aux jaunes d'œufs et fouetter au batteur jusqu'à ce que le mélange blanchisse.

4) Ajouter à ce mélange le beurre + le chocolat + la noix de coco + la canelle + le rhum + la vanille + le zeste de citron vert (prélevé à l'aide d'une râpe). Bien mélanger le tout.

5) Ajouter la maïzena.

6) Battre les blancs en neige ferme avec une pincée de sel et les incorporer délicatement à la préparation.

7) Beurrer et fariner un moule rond d'environ 22 cm de diamètre, carré (environ 20*20 cm) ou des ramequins individuels et y verser la préparation.

8) Mettre au four préchauffé à 180° C pendant 20-25 min. Attention il faut bien surveiller la cuisson. Dès que la lame d'un couteau plantée dans le gâteau resort presque sèche il faut sortir le gâteau du four.

9) Démouler dès la sortie du four et placer au réfrigérateur pendant au moins 1h. Ce gâteau est meilleur servi bien froid.

Vous pouvez garnir le gâteau dès sa sortie du four avec un glaçage au chocolat, et le parsemer de noix de coco et de zeste de citron vert. On peut le servir avec une crème anglaise ou de la glace.

Source: Marmiton.

When you watch the video, you'll see why I've been hesitant to try the marshmallow fondant.  It looks icky sticky.  I really don't make that many cakes, so I thought I would just look around and put up some links to go back and refer to later.

This looks like a good standard recipe.

http://www.recipezaar.com/255227

Many people have a recipe it seems.

Rose's Recipes

Wilton Forum Recipe

Meal's Matter Recipe

Epicurius Chocolate Marshmallow Recipes

s

Here's one that's a little more detailed and adds flavoring.

http://cakecreator.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/my-marshmallow-fondant-recipe/

AHA! A woman after my own heart...why get your hands sticky when you have a Kitchenaid (or some mixer like that!).

http://afridgefulloffood.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/05/day_1_the_cake_.html

Marshmallow Fondant on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/santos/1244830367/

Wow!  Look at all the pretty cakes at this URL.

http://www.thepieceofcake.com/Birthday/index.html

I like this one for getting a smooth surface on your cake.  It's not fondant, but you have to put a crumb coat on your cake before laying the fondant.  It's a little long, but she is good.  Now I want to buy a Lazy Susan.

Isn't it amazing?!?!

Supplies:
Yellow cake mix
Devil's food cake
9" round pans
Large glass bowl
Fondant (I used the marshmallow recipe)
Frosting
Shortening for greasing pans and working with fondant
Food coloring
Green fruit roll up

Bake the yellow cake mix for the buns. Put less than half the batter in the 9" round and the rest of the batter in the large glass bowl. I tried to do it so that the diameter of the bottom of the top "bun" is also 9" in diameter. Grease the pans and bowl with a lot of shortening to ensure the cakes come out. You can also use parchment paper for the bottom of the pan, just cut out a circle to fit the pan.

Make the fondant by nuking the marshmallows with some water, grease your hands and surface then mix in the powdered sugar a bit at a time until it stretches nice and smooth. I only made 1/2 the recipe and I worked on a cookie sheet so cleanup is easier. Color some green for lettuce and some red for tomatoes, yellow for cheese, and leave some white for the onions. Make some pickles out of some microwaved green fruit roll up. Make some sesame seeds out of white fondant.

Build burger: bottom bun, cream cheese frosting "mayo", cheese, chocolate cake "meat", red dyed frosting "ketchup", fondant "lettuce", "tomatoes", "onions", fruit roll up "pickles", then the top bun. We didn't want too much sugar so all the fondant pieces are only around the edges and not in the middle of the cake. Stick sesame seeds onto bun with frosting.

So if you have been keeping track, there's still a half a chocolate cake left. With that I made these super sweet and super cute cupcake pops. Original recipe from bakerella! If you haven't seen her site yet, go visit her site! It's great. She was even on the Martha Stewart show.

Basically crumble the cake and mix in 1/2 a tub of frosting. I used cream cheese frosting. Don't add too much! Mine was very moist. Mash that all together. Put in freezer to make it cold. When cold, roll into balls. It's really messy. >.< Put them all on wax paper on a cookie sheet and freeze again. When cold, mush into molds for the cupcake look. I just used my fingers. Freeze again and melt the chocolate for the bottom of the cupcakes. Let the chocolate cool a bit so it's not runny. Dip the cold brown lumps bottom side down into the chocolate, place bottom side up back onto the pan and stick in the candy stick. Freeze again and melt the top chocolate color. Repeat dipping but this time dip the top of the cupcakes. Sprinkle on sprinkles and stick them into a chunk of styrofoam or floral foam. Chill until chocolate coat hardens. Enjoy!

sugar comaaaaa

I had my first cake decorating class yesterday.  I took a Fun with Fondant class at The Decorette Shop in Tigard.  We didn't cover a cake in the class.   The instructor, Mary, did demonstrate covering a cake with fondant.  She also showed some tools and techniques for fondant decorations.  We were given a handful of fondant to play with and a couple recipe sheets. 

I sculpted a few things with my fondant.  On my way out I decided to check out the prepared fondant.  It's pretty spendy.  I decided to pick up some of the ingredients I would need to make fondant.  I don't normally keep glucose, food grade glycerin, Tylose powder and clear vanilla in my pantry!  Here's the recipe she gave us.

Rolled Fondant Recipe

• 2 lbs powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup glucose
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 tsp lemon flavor ( I used butter flavor)
• 2 Tbsp. white shortening
• 1 Tbsp. unflavored gelatin
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. glycerin
• 1/2 tsp. Tylose powder (optional)

Place about 1/2 of the sugar in a large bowl and make a well in the center.  Mix cold water and gelatin in a small bowl or pan until hydrolyzed (gelatin absorbs water).  Place over low heat or hot water and stir until gelatin is completely dissolved.   Remove from heat and add shortening, glycerin, glucose (easiest if glucose is warm) and Tylose, if used, and mix well.  Pour hot mixture into well of powdered sugar and mix well.  Let stand until cool.  Knead thoroughly on counter with remained powdered sugar.  Place in a clean container and cover tightly.

Here's some hints.  I mixed the Tylose with the dry ingredients and I mixed in the flavorings (vanilla and butter) at the end.  I warmed the gelatin and water in the microwave for a few seconds being careful to just warm the gelatin not cook it.  I also warmed the glucose in the microwave before measuring it.  I  used my Kitchen Aid Mixer for with the kneading arm to do most of the mixing.  I did do some final kneading by hand.  The mix of the wet ingredients looks like a big mess, but the recipe works out fine and the final product does feel, smell and taste like a really good fondant.

I looked at the marshmallow recipe online, but I decided to go ahead and try the regular recipe.  It looked like about the same amount of work.

I added some yellow gel dye to my fondant and kneaded it in.  I didn't knead it in well enough so I have a bit of marbling...not bad for a first try.  I placed my cake on a board the same size as my cake and put the whole thing on a turned over bucket with a smaller diameter than my cake.  I rolled out my fondant in a circle.  You need a circle that is big enough to drape over the entire cake (equation: diameter of cake + 2xheight of cake). 

Note:  You have to put a smooth crumb coat on your cake before you put the fondant on.  I used a buttercream icing as my crumb coat.

I draped the fondant over the cake and started smoothing the fondant from the middle of the cake, over the sides and down the sides.  I was careful to smooth the fondant from top to bottom, not side to side.  I cut off the excess fondant on the bottom.  I did some very simple buttercream frosting decorations on the bottom rim and the top of the cake.  I added green leaves and little purple flowers.

I'm learning gum paste flowers in my next class.  Next time I'll have to go all out!

휴~~드뎌 완성했습니다..흐흐흐

이번주말에 competition 이 있거덩여...^^

저번 주말부터 이거 하느라...꼼지락 꼼지락...집에서도 학교에서도

오늘 다 만들고..내일은 시카고로 놀러갑니다...휘리릭~~~

Both of our girl's took a flower making class at The Decorette Shop in Tigard, Oregon.  They made wild roses, regular roses, sunflowers, and drop flowers with buttercream icing.  I went to class with them and watched, but I didn't really participate much.  I did try some fondant when they made fondant roses.

A's Flowers

The first flower they made was a wild rose on wax paper attached with frosting to the flower nail.  They used the #104 tip to make the petals.  The second was a regular rose using the same tip.  They made the rose on the rose stick.

J's Flowers

They changed to the #352 tip and made sunflowers.  They held the tip so you couldn't see the V and made several petals.  This same tip was used to make leaves.  They used tip #129 to make the drop flowers.  I think they are pansies.

The buttercream frosting takes a couple days to dry.  We took all the flowers home to let them dry.

We had a lot of frosting left over, so J and I decided to make some flowers at home.   I tried my hand at the wild roses and regular roses.  I think J is much better at making them.   I redid my fondant rose and made a rose bud with the leftovers.  I did a lot of experimenting.

It was a great class.  The time went by fast.  A great time was had by all.

HUGS!

When I was uploading the flower photos, I found this photo my husband had taken of the kittens, Oscar and Luna.  It's so nice to have two kitties that get along so well.

Today I made a cake inspired by my son's bath towel:

I had some cupcakes in the freezer so I used the remaining icing to decorate them too.  They turned out pretty well, I wish the stripes on the cake were a little narrower, but I didn't have a good way to cut them handy.  When I made the buttercream, I substituted lemon juice for the vanilla.  The hint of lemon is so slight that if I try it again, I'll use lemon juice for all the liquid.

No, really I am not talking about the Breakfast Club today but the Bakeanista Club, not really a club but it fits with the prose!!! I am however going to refer to a ruckus! And guess who it was that caused said ruckus?? You got it, Moi!!!!!

The Bakeanistas are just a group of folks that get together once every month or perhaps two to chat online and bake. This month we had a a guest visiting with us, just to see what we were about and how this chatty bakey thing worked...Halley it was such an honor to have you want to join in. Now I am not going to explain why Halley wanted to sit in but if things work out I am sure there will be much interest in the future.

So back to this ruckus. We had a few choices of what we were going to bake, we voted and we ended up with Cassata alia Sicilia. Apparently, there are two versions of this cake, one hails from Napoli, the other Sicily. The one from Napoli has a whipped cream frosting while the one from Sicily is typically much more elaborate with Fondant, candied fruit and marzipan fruit decoration. Well it seems I was the only one headed to Sicily on this one, I mentioned fondant in one of the emails back and forth and the ruckus rolled!!!

"Fondant? This cake has fondant?" "I hate fondant!" "Oh no, fondant!" and on it went. Well, in defense of fondant I have found a recipe that is tasty, that is easy and that more often than not is eaten as opposed to being peeled off the cake and discarded. Try it, you are gonna like it!!!!!

For me baking day was a little hectic, as I had guests coming that evening and I had a ton of work to do. I didn't get to spend the time with the Bakeanistas that I would have liked....I missed a ton of fun, I am sure!!! But I was back and forth and caught snippets of the typical Bakeanista behavior!!!!

So let me give ya a quick low down on this cake.... it consists of

• Pan di Spagna-an italian sponge cake
• Ricotta filling-think cannoli
• Whipped cream frosting or a powdered sugar glaze on top
• Decoration of Fondant (Sicily) or nuts and fruit (Napoli)

This is not an overly sweet and decadent tasting cake but a very satisfying old world style concoction. For me it brought back many memories of days gone by and I am very pleased to have had the opportunity to make it (it will be made again). It is not a cake to eat huge slabs of and it will serve quite a few people (12-16) easily.

Unlike the in school detention of the Breakfast Club, this was a much more fun and enjoyable time. Although, like in the movie after all was said and done we all walked off into the afternoon sun to our own different worlds. Now I won't go through and name the brain, the nerd, the jock and so on, like in the movie but because of my ruckus causing tendencies I think I may be labeled the Rebel. But for your viewing pleasure here are the Bakeanistas who baked

• Ben
• Chris
• Lisa
• Helen
• Stephanie
• Ivonne
• Kelly
• Marce

Now that isn't the entire posse, some for various reasons weren't able to bake or join in on the chat but check them out nonetheless, there are some very talented folks in this bunch!!!

• Mary -Because of a bad back, our dear Bread Chick chatted but didn't bake
  
• Sara
• Tanna
• Laura

Marsha Judd's:
3 cups sugar
1 cup cream
¼ cup milk
dash salt
1 Tbsp. White corn syrup
2 tsp. vanilla
2 Tbsp. Butter

Mona's:
4 cups sugar
1 cup cream
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp. White corn syrup
dash salt
Vanilla or other flavoring
Butter

Melissa Wilson's and Janie's:
4 cups sugar
1 ½ cup cream
2 Tbsp. White corn syrup
dash salt
flavoring

Butter sides of pan. Put in sugar, cream, milk, salt and corn syrup. Stir over low heat until all sugar is dissolved. Wash down the sides of pot with hot water and a pastry brush every few minutes to insure that there are no sugar crystals. When all the sugar is dissolved wash the wooden spoon as well. Make sure sides of pan are clean and sugar completely dissolved before the mixture begins to boil. Stir occasionally until the mixture comes to about 225. Wash sides of pan down one more time. Cook, stirring constantly, to 230-234 F. Remove from heat immediately.

Pour onto a marble or granite slab. Have butter and vanilla in the center of the slab. Using a flat wooden paddle, stir constantly pushing fondant to the middle with small circular motions. It should set up within about 5 minutes. When the fondant becomes too stiff to stir, gather the fondant into a ball and knead with your hands until it becomes very smooth.

Wrap in plastic wrap and cool on counter. Double wrap and freeze over night. Thaw when ready to use.

Knead on a surface that has been sprinkle with powdered sugar until smooth and creamy. You may need to refrigerate for a few minutes to make it stiff enough to roll. Butter a tray or plate of sprinkle powdered sugar on a wax paper lined tray. Cut fondant and roll. Dust hands with powdered sugar or cornstarch so fondant doesn't stick while rolling. Make sure there are no cracks. When slightly crusty, dip in chocolate.

This basic fondant recipe is used for all butter cream chocolates with variations of flavor. When desiring a different flavor, add that flavor with the butter when pouring onto the slab. The liquid flavors are added during the initial stirring and kneading process for the convenience of handl8ing. Dry additives, such as nuts, coconut, cherries or orange zest are added after you thaw the frozen fondant and are ready to knead and roll.

Cherry Fondant - same as Vanilla except add 1 Tsp. Cherry flavoring, ½ tsp. Almond flavoring, less than 1/8 tsp. Citric acid, and 4 drops of red coloring-making a nice pink color. Omit the vanilla flavoring.

Strawberry, Orange, Lemon, Raspberry, Pineapple, and other Flavorings make wonderful centers for chocolate. Use flavoring accordingly, citric acid and food coloring.

Chocolate fondant- Fudge recipe using cream instead of milk

Penuche Fondant use basic recipe except 2 cups white sugar and 1 cup brown sugar.

Recept för 4 personer.

Förvärm ugnen till 175°

• 2 äggulor
• 2 äggvitor
• 1 dl strösocker
• 1 ½ msk kakao
• 1 tsk vaniljsocker
• 30 g smält smör
• ¾ dl vetemjöl
• En nypa salt
• 4 smorda och sockrade kokotter

Gör så här:

Ta bort 1 msk av sockret, vipa gulorna poröst med resten av sockret.

Tillsätt kakaon och vaniljsockret, blanda väl.

Vispa vitorna med saltet tills det att mjuka toppar kan bildas.

Tillsätt msk med socker och vispa till hårt skum.

Toppa den porösa smeten med ¼ av vitorna och sikta över lika mycket av mjölet.

Vänd ner allt försiktigt och upprepa tills allt mjöl och vita andvänts.

Tillsätt hälften av smöret rör i det försiktigt, vänd ner resten av smöret och fördela jämnt i kokotterna. Grädda i 13 minuter i mitten av ugnen (använd undervärme).

Pudra med florsocker och servera.