A Pink Princess Cake

I am lucky enough to have friends with fanciful little girls who delight in all things princess. This gave me a great opportunity to make a princess cake for a pretty princess party.

This cake was 10" and 6" and frosted in all buttercream. The top tier was quilted using a mat pressed into the smoothed frosting, then small sugar pearls were applied with tweezers to complete the look. Fondant (and fondant/gum paste) was used for the stripes and daisy accents. The tiara was made from royal icing and finished with silver and pink luster dust. It rested on five hand painted fondant hearts. The cake was white almond sour cream with lemon filling.

I was so happy to have helped contribute to this little angel's Princess Birthday. (isn't she just precious?)

Happy Easter

Nothing says spring like the hint of citrus blossoms in the air, unless it's the decadent thud of lemon sour cream pound cake after an Easter dinner.  I have figured out the secret of this fine crumbed, yet heavenly moist undertaking: creaming the living daylights out of it until it begs for mercy in it's fluffiness. (If that sounds a little melodramatic, that may be because I'm still in a food-coma)

We served this one with fresh strawberries sprinkled with sugar and let to chill for a sweet strawberry sauce.  My cousin Katie finished the cake with a lemon glaze and a generous sprinkling of sanding sugar.












"Man Catcher" Sour Cream Pound Cake recipe from All Cakes Considered by Melissa Block

1c butter
3 c sugar
5 lg. eggs
3 c AP flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 c sour cream
1 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp orange (but really who keeps orange extract? i used more vanilla)

The trick really is in the mixing; and this one takes a full 20 minutes on the KA stand mixer to do it right. If anyone is interested, I'll elaborate on that later. Once the digesting has completed.

A Tale of Two Cookies

For a while now, I have been thinking of branching out from the family standard chocolate chip cookie recipe, the Toll House Cookie recipe. But that felt wrong, a little unseemly, to turn my back on a trusted member of the family. But finally I had to dive into that uncharted water once and for all to answer the question: was there something better? or would my cookie cheating be for not?  

To make it a bit more interesting (and a bit less personal), I used the opportunity of a cookie bake off to try a different version of the Toll House recipe that called for more brown sugar and less white than the standard 3/4 cup each of the TH. The main defining point in the test was if the sugar should be creamed until fluffy, or if it should be melted. To make things a bit more fair, I also opted to chill both doughs before baking, and used the same size scoop.

The top photo is of the cookies with the creamed butter and sugars. This recipe felt more like home, and who doesn't love to take a finger of that fluffy whipped sugar concoction right before the eggs are added? And the music of the mixer and the smell of that vanilla...my mouth is watering just thinking of  it. 

Ahhhh...Cookies! But I realized that after they came out that my baking soda was a bit too old and I didn't get the lift as I should have. But they were still chewy, crisp on the edges and delicious. Recipe used was from http://savorysweetlife.com/2009/10/alices-chocolate-chip-cookie-recipe

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Next comes the *NEW* to me recipe involving melting the butter before adding it to the sugars, and then not even turning on the mixer (???) but using a whisk to dissolve the sugars into the butter. This was the America's Test Kitchen website http://www.americastestkitchentv.com/recipe.asp?recipeids=5489&iSeason=10 . 

Also new to me was browning the butter before adding it to the sugars. If you haven't yet tried the magic that happens when butter is allowed to come to a lovely nut brown color when over heat, do it now. It's great on pasta, in sauces and now I know, in cookies. 

I have to say that not using the mixer did leave a bit of yummy taste testing out of the cooking making ritual. But the stirring and waiting, stirring and waiting, stirring and waiting did create a bit of anticipation. 

Finally it was time to gently fold in the flour mixture. Also missing was the feeling of power watching the Kitchen Aid muscle through a whole batch of dough. This was, well much more refined. And I'm not sure how I felt about that.  

I scooped out the balls with an ice cream scoop and chilled them so that both my test batches were starting from the same point. The batter was kinda greasy looking. It didn't look like it longed to be dropped into a bowl of vanilla ice cream. I didn't have high hopes for this. 

Then the moment of truth came, and out of the oven it came with glory.  These have to have been the most 'professional' looking cookies that I've ever made. The taste was amazing as well--that browned butter really raised the complexity of the cookie base. And they stayed chewy and soft on the inside with a nice crisp exterior. 

Unfortunately for the test batches I wasn't able to see how they each lasted over a few days as I used them as thank you gifts for a project at my son's school.  But each bagged up and dressed with a bow looked like a tasty treat for the recipients. 

In the end, I can't say which cookie recipe I'll be turning to next. I know that I really love the browned butter version, but tradition still pulls me to hauling out the KA and creaming that batter into fluffy nostalgic clouds.  But is this really a problem? Can we really have too many cookies? 

Lorie & Joe's Wedding Cake

I believe in wedding cake. The symbolic act of sharing a sweet bite of the same creation with your betrothed, along with your friends and family. (You just can't get that kind of togetherness from a cupcake.) This is why to me, making a wedding cake is such an honor.  And I was especially honored that Lorie (yes, the universe has put two 'ie' Lories in the same circle) asked me to make a wedding cake to be shared at the party to celebrate their elopement to Las Vegas the weekend prior.

The flavors for the cake were White Almond Sour Cream with almond buttercream and raspberry filling (this was the top and the third tiers) and Dark Chocolate Sour Cream with whipped New Mexican Red Chile ganache filling (this was the second and bottom tiers). I covered the entire cake in marshmallow fondant. The base was 12", then 10", 8", with a 6" top that was saved from serving for the first anniversary. 

The decoration and color of the cake was inspired by the invitations that Lorie and Joe chose for their reception. The base color was an antique ivory with Aztez gold luster dust buffed on with a brush to create the parchment effect reminiscent of the invitation. The floral and scroll stenciling was applied in royal icing, and buttercream was used to finish the borders.  Lorie opted for not having a cake topper, so I just repeated the flower from the stencil over the hole where the center dowel was inserted. 

Now for some 'in progress' photos: 

Earlier in the week, I started making the marshmallow fondant. This involves melting marshmallows and kneading in eight cups of sifted power sugar along with flavoring and then color.  Store bought fondant is definitely easier, but has a plastic aftertaste (and has given fondant a bad name). This is super sweet, but at least tastes like a big marshmallow. 

The hardest part of working with fondant (especially home made marshmallow because it is a bit softer) is getting your cakes perfectly smooth underneath.  This is difficult to do with buttercream without having large refrigerators to hold the cakes and give them a nice firm texture. I decided to try using ganache as a cake cover and was amazed by how clean and smooth i could get the sides of the cake. And it firmed up beautifully with no spring to the sides, holding the filling between the layers in place perfectly (no bulge! Yippie!). I will be using chocolate or white chocolate ganache under all fondant cakes from now on. It performs just beautifully. 

This is a food grade stencil from Designer Cake Stencil ordered from Global Sugar Arts.  The pattern matched Lorie's invitation theme great, and I want to use it again for a western themed cake (doesn't it look like the tooling on a saddle? Entz rose?) This technique is completely nerve-wracking because once the royal sugar goes on the cake, there isn't much that can be do erase the color on the light fondant. I did  have a couple of areas where it scooted under the stencil, so I used a tool to re-carve the leaf and scroll patters. 

Because of the weight of the cake, I had to use a wood board as the base of the cake. A blessing in disguise was that my Home Depot didn't cut masonite into circles, and I had to go with a precut, pine table top from the lumbar department.  It was presanded and easy to cover with the matching fondant. 

Stacking a tiered cake is always a challenge. I think now that with any distance to travel with a tiered cake that I will take the layers separate and stack and finish the design on site. Even though the cake boards say that dowels and a center rod through the whole cake will hold, two hours on I-10, cattle guards and banked off ramps (and the near drop putting it on the high serving bar) cause some compression and a bit of a tilt. In all the cake weighed around 75 lbs. 

After stacking, I applied a quick border of buttercream piped in small shells to complement the delicate scrolls and flowers. Then overdusted the stencils with a bit more antique gold luster dust for depth and a bit more glitz. 

Also part of the baking was a side order of White Almond Sour Cream cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and gold sanding sugar finish.  The kids really liked these. 

Happy Birthday in Red Velvet

A deliciously sweet way to say Happy Birthday: luscious red velvet with Swiss Meringue Buttercream frosting. I hope Nana had a wonderful day.

Valentine's Day Gifts for my Friends

This year at the suggestion of a friend, I decided to box up some of my yummy cake truffles in the spirit of Valentine's Day.  It was so nice to see them all lined up and ready to make someone's day a little sweeter. I think I'll be doing another batch of cake truffles for my 'friends' around Easter time.  Now to think of the perfect springtime flavors... any suggestions?

Arizona Sugar Arts Show, Feb 6, 2010

A month ago I decided to check out the world of competitive sugar arts (yes, it really does exist, but I know that with cable cake show you probably knew that).  It was the Arizona show in Glendale.  While I didn't place in my division, I did receive some very high marks on my cakes (98/100 with one judge).  It's obvious that these decorators spend weeks creating their sugar sculptures (no real cake here, folks. Mostly all dummies under that frosting), so if i decide to try again I'll know to start much earlier to create the level of detail that is needed to bring home a medal. 

I did two cakes. A tiered and a single layer. This tiered cake was covered in fondant and had gumpaste picados and flowers. I sculpted the bride and groom from gumpaste and fondant, painting with color. 

The single layer cake was very lovely, but just not intricate enough for competition. 

Who knows if I'll do it again, but the experience was fun.