Cupcake chemistry

It has been a very long time since I've posted - just over 2 months. I really don't know where the time has gone. I have still been baking but haven't had the time to sort through and edit photos. Is it the responsibilities of having a house now versus the condo? Is it that I've been working hard on my Master's thesis? Perhaps a little of both. 

I made these Breaking Bad themed cupcakes mid-June for a university graduate. The Breaking Bad theme worked well for the graduate's favourite show and an Honours Bachelor of Science degree. 

The 'elements' spell out "Yo, Michael - HBSc. You Cooked It!" Where possible, I used the correct atomic numbers for the elements. For made up elements, I tried to use atomic numbers most closely resembling the letters used.

The round bottom flask and Erlenmeyer flask with funnel are from Walter and Jesse's mobile meth lab. I used petal dust to make them look well used.

The gloves are heavy duty for Breaking Bad meth-making. I don't ever recall using such large gloves for chemistry labs in university. The respirator is representative of the equipment Walter and Jesse used in their fancy 'laundry' lab. 

While the majority of the meth in the show appeared to be consumed via smoking, I believe that when Jesse and his girlfriend were getting high together, they used the above drug paraphernalia. 

For the crystal meth, I originally made some blue candy. It was my first time making hard candy and I was so excited that it actually worked. The next day, I was cleaning my candy thermometer and noticed that the glass thermometer tip was broken. I had not noticed any broken glass anywhere on the kitchen counters and had already washed the pot that I used. I could only assume that the glass somehow ended up in my batch of blue candy. Alas, I had to throw my first candy attempt in the garbage. Not having the time to make another batch of candy, I resorted to using ready made rock candy. It worked quite well as it was super easy to break into little pieces, but unfortunately I don't get bragging rights for actually making the 'meth'. 

What set of Breaking Bad cupcakes would be complete without Walter Whites tighty-whities - the lab attire of choice when you're cooking meth in a mobile home in the desert. 

And last, but certainly not least, Mr. Heisenberg himself, with his signature hat and goatee. I actually really hate that hat. 

While baking is slightly less lucrative than cooking meth, I think the chemistry is much more rewarding. 

These cupcakes were coffee flavoured using quite a generous amount of espresso powder. The frosting was amaretto and contained an also equally generous amount of Disarrono Amaretto Liqueur. 

While I will be taking a bit of a cake-ation for the month of August, I will be trying to catch up on posting some pictures of recent projects as time permits. 

A collage of cupcakes

My husband recently mentioned to me that my life is a little like a sitcom. I say 'yes' to everything and then hope it all comes together. I somehow manage to jump from adventure to adventure and it all works out in the end. This is probably not good for the sanity of myself nor those around me and is generally a flawed philosophy for life. 

I also can't keep things simple. I think 'Fifty cupcakes? A variety of themes? No problem. I'll do a few 3-dimensional decorations and the rest will be simple 2-dimensional decorations. Tah dah!' And then as I start to make things, I think to myself, '2-dimensional is no fun! I want to make cuter things!' And then halfway through the week, I have bags under my eyes, I clutch my decoration to-do list on the subway and revise my plan of attack on my way home from work each day. I think to myself, ' I need a baking break' and then I somehow finish the cupcakes, I am thrilled with them and think 'wow, I should do this again soon!'. This is the story of my life. Actually below is the story of someone else's life - in cupcake form! 

I was told a few things about the guest of honour: He likes a particular business organization, cycling, tools and food. For the business aspect, I did a couple of books titled 'The Art of Business' and a couple of business shirts and ties. I made some simple bicycles for the cycling.

I think I had the most fun making the tools and the food. I had done several of the tools before when making construction-themed cupcakes. This time I also made hand saws, wrench and nuts, and screwdrivers in addition to the drill, measuring tape, square and pencil, and my favourite, the X-acto knife. 

I tried to make a variety of foods to go on the cupcakes. These toppers involved a lot of different colours and a lot of small details which meant a lot of work for my finger muscles! On a couple of mornings, I was convinced that I was developing arthritis in my hands. 

No birthday would be complete without cake (or I suppose cupcakes in this case) and I couldn't resist putting a piece of a cake on top of cake. I have an appreciation for redundancy. My husband would call it recursion. Geek. 

Following along with sweet foods, I made a few little donuts with sprinkles. Who doesn't love desserts with sprinkles? Doesn't it make you feel happy, young and carefree? I felt slightly carefree while making these donuts, and then I looked at my decorating to do list and it brought me back to reality. 

I made quite a few fast food items including hot dogs, hamburger and fries, pizza and fish and chips. The fish and chips was one of my favourites and I included the peas in a ramekin (as they do at our favourite pub) which I usually push to the side because I hate peas. I've really tried to like them. I even have a t-shirt that says 'Give peas a chance'. I'll stick with the fondant ones, thank you. 

I was also happy with how the hamburger turned out. This one had lettuce, cheddar cheese and tomato slices. I also made little fondant sesame seeds. 

I included some stereotypical 'guy' foods like barbecue stuff and steak. I included peas with the steak. I don't know if that's a real thing. I suppose the healthcare professional side of me was thinking, 'That's a really big piece of meat. It needs some vegetables and fries don't count!'

My other favourite food (in true form and fondant form) is sushi and maki. This maki is made with fondant cucumber, crab, avocado and rice. Each rice grain was rolled by hand to taper the ends (because I have an abundance of extra time OCD). 

Group shot! Although there were a few distinct themes for this cupcake collage, overall they worked well together. The cupcake flavours were vanilla/vanilla, vanilla/chocolate, chocolate/chocolate, chocolate/vanilla and red velvet with cream cheese frosting. 

Okay, one more group shot. I couldn't decide which photo I liked better.

Next cake project will be something simple but delicious! We'll see if it's blog worthy and if I'm able to get photos before it's gobbled up.

Bright baby shower cupcakes

My baking projects and subsequently my blog posts are becoming a tad few and far between. As much as I would like to spend more time on baking and blogging, I am learning the importance of finding balance in my life. Baking is my hobby - 'an activity done in one's leisure time for pleasure'. I have realized that when it no longer fits into 'leisure time', the 'pleasure' aspect of it can become diminished. I am always happy with the outcome of the projects I choose and never have regrets for taking on a project at the end, however sometimes the process in itself may not be so fun and that defeats the purpose of Sweet-D Cakes. 

These cupcakes were an example of a nice light, bright and fun project. People frequently ask me if cupcakes are easier or less time consuming than putting together a fondant-covered cake. I can't say that they are less time consuming because it can take hours to put together many toppers each containing small details that are in themselves time consuming. The benefits over doing a full cake are they tend to be less messy - no cake crumbs from trimming, levelling or torting cakes and I typically use frosting rather than swiss meringue buttercream for my cupcakes which is faster to make and makes yummier leftovers to eat with a spoon later on. The cons of cupcakes is that often they can be more time consuming due to a large number of small details versus fewer cake topper components that can be made up to 2 weeks in advance. Also, you cannot really bake the cupcakes ahead of time and maintain good quality control as they will dry out much quicker than a cake as there is more surface area and with a cake and you can seal in moisture when you cover it with buttercream and fondant.

For these cupcakes, I wanted a little more oomph than the typical pastel colours associated with babies, so I used a hint of electric/bright coloured gel pastes: fuschia + electric pink, lime green, turquoise and egg yellow (okay, egg yellow is not that bright but I didn't want them to be blindingly bright). I think that I could have used a bit more lime green in the scalloped circles as the green is not very discernable from the yellow.

All of the decorations are made from a mixture of fondant and gum paste in about a 3:2 ratio.
The little booties were very simple to make and very cute. As they were simple and plain, I added a couple tiny little flowers to each set.



For the baby faces, I rounded the edge of each fondant circle, added a hat with a little pom-pom and created a ribbed knit effect using a quilting tool. I dusted the cheeks with a bit of petal dust to add a bit of baby rosiness.



The cupcakes were red velvet with cream cheese frosting piped on with a large star tip. I used brown cupcake paper rather than white so that the red did not obviously clash with the cupcake toppers.
The result was a neutral base for bright and cheerful baby-themed decorations.

Constructing 'thank you' cupcakes

I have been wanting to make these cupcakes for a while as a thank you for our contractor (Cornerbrook Construction) but just didn't have the time. Once we got settled in the house, I had a few cake projects on the go, then Christmas and school work. We were due for our final inspection by the city for our renovation, so I thought it would be the perfect time to make these construction-themed treats.

It was fun selecting which tools I thought would make good cupcake toppers. The first one I made was a 'DEWALT'-like drill because I think I've seen that brand a lot in places that sell tools. I am in the market for a drill because we still haven't put up curtains on the main floor or any pictures, but I think I'll start off with something a little less fancy. This one is my kind of drill - it's edible!

The next tool was a hammer. I used a bit of shimmer to make it look a little metallic and used brown gel paste and vodka to make a wood-like handle. I'm not sure if I even noticed any hammers lying around during the renovation though. They had fancy things like nail-guns which I didn't think would make as cute of a cupcake decoration.

The measuring tape is one of my favourite toppers and something that was very handy in planning our renovations and furniture placement.

There was lots of painting to be done! To save a bit of money, we decided to paint the upper floor ourselves. I remember frantically doing the second coat in the Master bedroom just before the moving truck arrived with our furniture. There is still a small portion of unpainted walls in the upstairs hallway. I haven't quite recovered enough to tackle that yet.

I don't think I ever saw a square hanging round but it seems like a very important tool. Maybe it wasn't used for our renovation. I have no idea. That's why we hired a contractor.

The X-Acto knife if my favourite of the cupcake toppers. This is an invaluable tool for renovating and moving because you are forever dealing with boxes and cardboard. 

In retrospect, I should have made a broom or a shopVac as the part I remember most about the renovation (aside from how much I love our house now) was dust, dust and more dust! 

While very stressful taking on a the purchase of an old house, the renovation and moving all in a very tight timeline (I'm not even going to talk about selling our condo), it was a neat process - walking into an open house and thinking 'this house requires too much work!', to buying that house, planning the renovation and seeing what you pictured for the house become a reality. Cornerbrook Construction was great, especially considering how OCD detail-oriented I am. 

Monkey Martini Cupcakes

Each year we have a year-end potluck for our interns and each year I try to create a new cupcake flavour combination, usually containing a bit of alcohol. In previous years, I have made Guinness chocolate cupcakes with Bailey's frosting, 'Cream-sicle' cupcakes containing Cointreau and Godiva white chocolate liqueur, and cookies and cream with Oreos and again, Godiva liqueur.

This year, as we are in the midst of moving, my husband has packed away quite a bit of our liquor cabinet. Apparently there was no rhyme or reason to what he packed away, with the exception of his bottles of scotch. Gone was my bottle of Bailey's and my bottle of Godiva liqueur. What I did find was a bottle of creme de banane, so I got the idea to make chocolate cupcakes with a creme de banane frosting.

A Monkey Martini is typically made with vodka, creme de cacao, and creme de banane. I have seen variations with the inclusion of Bailey's, however since that was packed away, it didn't make it into the cupcake. Creme de cacao is a colourless chocolate liqueur with a hint of vanilla. I did not have any of this but wanted to capture the flavour in the cupcake. I decided to make a white chocolate ganache to fill the chocolate cupcakes. The ganache filling was made with cream, Callebaut white chocolate callets, and a little vodka.

The frosting was flavoured with vanilla and creme de banane. It tasted like a banana popsicle. Yum!
I garnished each cupcake with a banana chip dipped in Callebaut bittersweet chocolate.