Party Girl Birthday Cake

This is the fourth post in one week aka let's see if I can use absolutely every cake decorating tool I have in the span of a week. It is officially birthday cake season. It appears that 70% of my family has a birthday that occurs between March and May (mostly May). Among those cakes are a few non-family-related cakes here and there. This was one of them. This party girl cake was for a 40th birthday party. The request was for a cake topped with an inebriated party girl surrounded by champagne bottles.

There are so many options out there for party dresses. For inspiration I browsed the Nordstrom website and picked a design that I felt I could successfully make. I decided to make a ruffly party dress with a ruched waistband. As I was making an orange bow for the border of the cake (the birthday girl's favourite colour), I made the dress in a fuchsia pink as I thought the colours would go nicely together. 

All of the decorations are made of modelling paste with details painted on using petal dust mixed with vodka. The spilled champagne is piping gel tinted with a tiny bit of yellow gel paste.

The cake is a 10" devil's food cake filled with chocolate swiss meringue buttercream. I crumb coated and masked the cake in vanilla buttercream since I was covering the cake in white fondant (I do roll my fondant fairly thick but didn't want to take any chances).
The orange bow is made with gum paste and the message is piped on the cake board using royal icing.

Stay tuned for many more birthday cakes in the next month!

Spring and Easter Cupcakes - Take Two

Last week I wrote a post about Spring and Easter themed cupcakes and cookies that I had made for a bake sale at work. I got to do a bit of a reprise this weekend as I was asked to make some Easter themed red velvet cupcakes for an Orthodox Easter gathering. 

As this was for a family gathering, I wanted to make sure that I had some very kid-oriented designs as well as some more elegant designs for the adults. I did a couple of repeat characters from last week (I loved the little bees and ladybugs) with a little bit of a design change and decided to try out some different flowers and animals. As cream cheese frosting is a bit too soft to pipe flowers with, I made all of the decorations from modelling paste. 

This little bumblebee made the cut from last time. I decided to make them a little bigger so that the smiley face was more noticeable. I used small blossom cutters for the flowers and piped the centres with royal icing. 

I also made the ladybug bigger and indented the back more noticeably to give the illusion of the wings. Rather than piping grass I decided to make it clean and simple and piped a little leaf using royal icing. 

And what is Easter without bunnies? These little guys were very simple to make. I forgot to take a picture of the back, but I made a little fuzzy tail by attaching a ball of modelling paste and then snipping it with a pair of scissors to make it look fur-like.

As with bunnies, eggs and chicks are also often associated with Easter. I found these adorable and easy to make chicks on a blog called Learn2Cook where you can find other really cute and simple Easter-themed fondant figures.

I only made two of these little lambs which appear in the book Cake Art. I find that I have a lot of patience when it comes to figure modelling and attention to detail. I have to admit, I was going a little crazy by the second one while covering the whole body in little modelling paste balls. Maybe I was just tired. I had to wonder whether they actually took the time to cover the back of the lamb for the photo in the book. Just for the record, I did.

I did two types of the flowers. The first flower is a pink poppy-like flower. The second is a buttercup type flower.

And finally, one last group shot. Happy Easter to all of those celebrating this weekend!

A Toopy and Binoo birthday!

When I was asked to make a Toopy and Binoo cake, I must admit that I had to Google the characters to find out what they were. When I discovered how cute they were, I eagerly accepted the challenge. 

This birthday cake was for a 3 year old boy. I was given a few pictures as ideas but I was also told to put my own spin on it for an original creation. I wanted the cake to be fun and colourful like the show. I did some research by watching clips on YouTube. I saw a jungle theme, clouds, bubbles, island themes, you name it, but I could not find anything that would inspire a birthday cake. I then came across a DVD cover for an episode called Binoo's birthday. Perfect! It was colourful, there were streamers and bubbles and stars.

The characters are made from modelling paste made with fondant and tylose. Details are painted on with petal dust (powder food colouring) either dry or mixed with a little vodka. I also use edible marker for some of the details.

I was asked to make a cake with Toopy and Binoo on it but as I was making it, I felt that it wouldn't be complete without also including Patchy Patch (Binoo's plush doll companion).

I made the streamers using gumpaste. The number '3' is made from modelling paste. I find that it is easier to work with to create a nice number (the gumpaste dries too fast). You just have to ensure that you leave  enough time for the number to set.

Both the twisted rope border and bubble border are made with modelling paste. For the bubbles, I tinted the paste with a hint of blue colouring and also finished them with lustre dust for a bit of sheen.

The cake is chocolate filled with chocolate swiss meringue buttercream and crumb coated and masked in vanilla. This cake took quite a few hours to make and along the way I did have my doubts as to whether the colours would go well together, especially after I had covered the cakes in their respective colours and they were sitting side by side without any decoration. It all came together in the end and I was really happy with the finished product. It was bright, colourful and fun just as I had hoped it would be. 

Spring is in the air!

Spring is finally in the air, and in my kitchen! As much as I enjoyed many of the winter-themed treats I made in the last few months (my favourite being the penguin cake), it's nice to bake something light (I don't mean calorie-wise), fresh and pretty. 

These spring-themed cookies and cupcakes were for a bake sale at work. Now, when I decide to make something, I rarely take the most simple route. When making a fair quantity of baked goods for such things as bake sales, it makes most sense to focus on one type of treat. My problem is that I like variety. This does not pertain only to sweets. It permeates my love of food, shoes, purses, you name it. 

It has been quite some time since I've done decorated sugar cookies. Decorated cookies were kind of my starting point for my love of baking and decorating. Several years ago, I made cookie bouquets as the favours for my sister's bridal shower. It was not without its challenges. I remember taking the cookies out of the oven and the parchment paper slipped off of the pan. The cookies fell to the bottom of the oven, the paper hit the element and caught fire and while putting the fire out, my family's labradoodle took the opportunity to lick the side of the cake that I had been writing a celebratory message on.

I am happy to say that I only had one cookie casualty with these ones. In the past I've used the Wilton roll-out cookie recipe. The flavour is nice and you don't need to refrigerate the dough. The cookies do turn out less sturdy than regular sugar cookies though, and since I was transporting and packaging these cookies for a bake sale, I decided that a traditional sugar cookie recipe would be better. I used the Martha Stewart sugar cookie recipe. I found the dough was easy to work with. I rolled my cookies out 1/4" thick rather than 1/8" in because I think the thicker cookies look nicer when decorated. I used royal icing to outline and flood the cookies. 

For the cupcakes, I did four designs using various colours of frosting: a robin's egg nest filled with mini eggs, a chocolate-frosting covered vanilla cupcake with a fondant ladybug, a pink vanilla 'rose' (i.e. backwards swirl) topped with a fondant bumblebee, and a yellow vanilla zinnia. It has been at least a year or two since I've piped flowers. I originally wanted to pipe roses but I had made my frosting too soft for distinguished petals, so I made the zinnia's instead. The frosting was still too soft for these but the petals are smaller with less weight so I thought they still turned out alright. 

Happy spring everyone!

French Toast Cupcakes with Maple Frosting

The idea for these cupcakes arose from the fact that my husband wanted to make homemade cinnamon extract and I wanted to find an excuse to try it out. I thought about a cupcake flavour where I would want just a hint of cinnamon - French toast cupcakes! French toast is my favourite brunch food. If I make it at home, I usually add vanilla extract, and a little ground cinnamon to the egg mixture. I typically use a non-stick pan but I still coat the pan with a little butter for flavour.

For these cupcakes, I used my favourite vanilla cake recipe but I reduced the vanilla extract and added butter flavouring. For the cinnamon flavour, I used 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon extract (for a batch of 12 cupcakes). After tasting the batter, I found that it wasn't quite enough cinnamon. Aesthetics-wise, I think that I also like the speckled nature of ground cinnamon in a batter, therefore I also added about 1/8 teaspoon of ground cinnamon.

For the frosting, I made a basic confectioner's sugar-based frosting with vanilla extract and added maple syrup and maple extract to taste. I have found in the past that I don't quite like the flavour of maple extract in icing versus using real maple syrup, however this has been for maple swiss meringue buttercream. With a sugary frosting, it is so sweet that you can get a stronger maple flavour without adding even more sweetness by using an extract. The syrup almost gets lost in all of the confectioner's sugar. For swiss meringue buttercream, I would go all maple syrup.

The cupcakes are garnished with a toast-shaped cookie crouton made from sugar cookies coated in a melted butter, sugar and cinnamon mixture. I used a basic sugar cookie recipe from Martha Stewart. The dough was quite easy to work with. I used half of the dough and placed the other half in the freezer for later use. I cut out little toast shapes from the dough and baked them as directed. I ended up with quite a lot of little 'toasts' which ended up being very good because I couldn't stop snacking on them! It got even worse once I 'croutonized' them. To make them into little french toast cookie croutons, I melted 2 tablespoons of butter of low heat, added 2 heaping teaspoons of sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon. I whisked this mixture over low heat until it was well combined and poured it into a small glass bowl. I threw in the cooled toast-shaped sugar cookies (what was left of them) and tossed them until well coated. I spread these on a baking pan lined with parchment paper and put them in the oven (300°F) for 15 minutes until crisp.

My overall review of this French toast cupcake experiment is that I would pair the cupcake with a maple swiss meringue buttercream instead of frosting. I feel that the maple gets lost in the sugary nature of frosting. I love the cookie croutons. Those are definitely a keeper. I've posted the recipes below for your own French toast experimentation.

French Toast Cupcakes with Maple Frosting

Yield: 12 standard cupcakes

Ingredients:
French Toast Cupcakes (adapted from Magnolia Bakery's Vanilla Cupcakes):
3/4 cup self-rising flour
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon butter flavouring
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon extract (or increase the ground cinnamon above to 1/4 teaspoon)

Maple Frosting (adapted from Wilton's Vanilla Frosting):
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup shortening
2 cups icing sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon maple extract
1 tablespoon maple syrup (or increase maple extract to taste)
1 tablespoon water (can add more depending on desired consistency)

Method:
Cupcakes:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line one 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake liners. 
2. In a small bowl, combine flours and cinnamon and set aside.
3. In a large bowl or in the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add sugar gradually and beat until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each egg. 
4. With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients alternating with the milk, vanilla, butter flavouring and cinnamon extract (if using) beginning and ending with flour until just combined. Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed. 
5. Fill the cupcake liners about 3/4 full. Bake for 17-20 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the centre of the cupcake comes out clean. 

Frosting:

1. In a medium bowl and using an electric mixer, beat butter and shortening together until fluffy. 
2. Add vanilla and maple extracts and mix until combined.
3. Add the icing sugar gradually and mix on low speed until smooth.
4. Add maple syrup (if using) and mix on low until combined.
5. Add water to thin to desired consistency.
6. Pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes or spread onto cupcakes with a small offset spatula.