Cake Theater

Cupcakes are a pain in the …!

August 18, 2009 at 10:57 am (Baby showers, Boiled icing, Cupcakes, Pictures, Recipes, Uncategorized)
Tags: baby shower, Boiled icing, Cupcakes

This past weekend I made 55 cupcakes for a baby shower. Since it was my first time to do cupcakes I thought, “No problem. I’ll bake one night, decorate the next, and the whole thing will be a breeze.” Wrong!! The cupcakes I made are not even that glamorous and they still took over 8 hours + the help of my best friend. I could not believe cupcakes were so much work.

First, the cupcakes were to be filled with chocolate mousse. So I baked king-size cupcakes in order to accomodate filling. I baked the cupcakes, flipped them upside down, cut a hole in the bottom, filled them with the mousse, then put the cake plug back into the hole in order to close them up.

Cupcakes ready to be filledFilling cupcakes

Cupcake plugs

While the cupcakes were chilling, I made boiled icing for the tops. I made the following recipe 3x in order to make enough for the cupcakes. I wasn’t sure if the recipe could be doubled or tripled without messing up, so I just made one batch at a time.

Boiled Icing

In medium pot:

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

1 tablespoon light corn syrup

Boil to 238 degrees

In separate bowl, beat 2 egg whites until stiff; add boiled mixture and mix on high until icing is shiny and fluffy. If icing is too soft, add sifted powder sugar, one teaspoon at a time, until desired consistency. Add food color during the final mix if you want to tint the icing. You can also add your favorite extract if you want to flavor the icing. Boiled icing without extract has very little taste – it is just mildly sweet. The above recipe will cover a small 2-layer cake.

One great thing about boiled is that it is very light and fluffy, easy to spread, dries quickly, and the final product has a nice sheen. I love using boiled icing.

Anyway . . .

While I was doing the baking, my friend went ahead and made the flowers and leaves from gum paste (or fondant?). Not sure which one she used. After they dried, she brushed them colored powders.

Flowers for cupcakes

Before we iced the cupcakes, we put a regular cupcake liner on the bottom of each. Then we put a king-sized liner around that (but trimmed to size). We double lined because we didn’t want the outside paper to look greasy. I should mention at this point that I didn’t bake the cupcakes in the papers for this same reason. I baked the cakes, let them cool, filled them, and then put them in the liners.

Anyway, after they were in the liners, we put a large dollop of boiled on top, white sprinkles on top of that, and then topped off with the flower/leaves.

We finished off by wrapping each cupcake with a length of light pink tulle.

Finished cupcake

Ready to go

I was not sure how much to charge for these cupcakes. I called 3 local bakeries and asked how much they would charge for a large, filled cupcake with a gumpaste flower and tulle ribbon. Two of the three bakeries would not fill a cupcake; the third bakery said they would fill a cupcake but would charge $10 each!! Who would pay $10 for a cupcake?!? I would NOT charge someone $10 for a cupcake. The other two bakeries, the ones that would not fill the cupcakes, said they would charge $4.00/$5.00 respectively for regular size cupcakes with a gumpaste flower. In the end, the customer gave me a $100 — about $1.80 a piece. Considering how much work, time, and cost went into these, there is no way I would do it again. I spent 8 hours of time on the cakes alone, 2 dozen eggs, a gallon of buttermilk, two bolts of tulle, $6.00 of large cupcake liners, 3 hours of oven electricity, 2 pints of fresh whipping cream, several cups of sugar, plus the gas to deliver the cakes, the gas to the store for the ingredients, ran my dishwasher twice, spent an hour cleaning my kitchen, etc. I give a lot of credit to those who make elaborate, beautiful cupcakes. Not only are they talented, but they must be organized as hell to get their cupcakes finished in an efficient manner. Me? Not so much. I’ll stick to cakes.

1 Comment

Sweet 16 cake with vase separator

May 24, 2009 at 3:13 pm (Girly cakes)
Tags: orchids, Sweet 16, vase

DSCF0261

This cake was made for the daughter of one of my colleagues. I was given a picture of this cake design. The picture showed this cake in all white: white fondant, white orchids, white ribbon. But my colleague wanted pink and chocolate brown. She also wanted words of inspiration written around each of the tiers. It was tough to find orchids to match this cake. I found pure white orchids with yellow centers, fuscia petals with yellow centers, or tiger orchids. But none of these were a good match. I finally found these off-white orchids with pink highlights. I thought they were a perfect match and really worked well with the brown ribbon and writing.

Structurally, this cake was a challenge for me. Each tier had to be perfect and appear as if it was “floating,” and not sitting on a plate with a margin. I ended up putting the cakes on boards that were cut about 1″ smaller than the cake. Then I glued those boards to a smooth plastic plate of the same size. I put white ribbon around the outer edge of the cardboard rounds/plastic so it would be neat and clean, just in case someone looked underneath the tier. This was particularly important for the top tier. It had to be very clean. When I covered the cakes with fondant, I tucked about 1″ of fondant underneath the bottom — just enough so it would cover the exposed 1″ of cake underneath. I made sure to press this tucked piece of fondant very, very thin so it would not bulge and show itself.

I used PVC dowels on the bottom tier so the vase would be easily supported. I wanted plenty of support so the vase would not sink into the fondant and cause tearing or ripples.

I used a laser lever to make sure the words were written on the same level. Without it, I would have started writing downhill.

The structure of the cake, despite looking simple, is where I spent most of my time. Overall, I spent about 13 hrs on this cake. This included all baking, filling, icing, fondant, etc. But once the fondant is rolled on, the cake goes very quickly.

The design of this cake is wonderful. It is very simple and modern. The original picture I saw, in pure white, was very elegant. But I think it translated very well into pink/brown. It could be done in black/white or green/white and still be very clean and modern.

Pastillage

March 3, 2009 at 5:10 am (Pastillage)
Tags: Pastillage, recipe

I love to watch the Food Network cake challenges. Several times I have heard the judges and competitors talk about pastillage. I didn’t know much about it and thought I would give it a try. I documented the process so you could see what the dough looked like while being mixed, kneaded, and rolled.

To start, I used a recipe from the Cake Bible (Beranbaum; 1988). You can also find recipes online. Here’s one from Baking911.com:

http://www.baking911.com/recipes/cakes/fondant_sculpting.htm

Mixing the ingredients to form a dough. The dough is somewhat dry and heavy. It is also very white. But it can be tinted in the same way you would color fondant or gum paste.

Kneading the dough. It took a while to get it to smooth out. I sprayed my hands with a tiny bit of cooking spray to keep the dough from sticking.

Dough ball finished. It took at least 10 minutes of kneading to get a smooth, round dough ball.

Rolling out the pastillage. I used a rolling pin and a vinyl mat. The dough dries very quickly and begins to form a light crust. It is important to work quickly.

Cutting the pastillage into shapes. Again, work quickly because the dough starts to dry. I sprayed a tiny bit of cooking spray on the mat so I would be able to remove the cut shapes without sticking. This is necessary because you may want to flip the pastillage piece to allow it to dry on both sides. The first few pieces I left on the mat, without turning, and I noticed that the under side did not dry as thoroughly. So I recommend drying your pieces from all sides.

Pastillage can be rolled very thin and it dries very hard. I can see that pastillage would be useful for creating well-defined, clean cut shapes. There is a lot of versatility. I think the strength of the dried pastillage would depend on how thick it was rolled. I made very thin squares and they were fairly strong. But a couple did crack when I dropped them on the counter so I would think twice about using pastillage as support. It is lightweight and durable so I think it would be best used for decorative elements.

Pastillage must be wrapped tightly and stored in an air tight container. The recipe I used recommended wrapping the dough ball in a clean, dry towel, wrapping plastic around the towel, and then storing the ball in an air tight container. The pastillage can be stored in the refrigerator for a few days.

Gingerbread “house”

December 8, 2008 at 8:40 pm (Gingerbread house, Pictures)
Tags: Gingerbread house

Gingerbread House 2008

My friend and I entered this house into the West Coast Gingerbread Competiton 2008. We were happy (and stunned) to defend our title and take the grand prize. We are very grateful to Cedar Gables Inn for sponsoring the event.

Our theme is “Twas the night before Christmas.” The idea is that the clock is just about to strike midnight and the person reading at the table has just stepped away. There is a book in the front that is handpainted with the poem, sugarplum garlands and, in the case of this house, the mice are stirring.

Detail of gingerbread house

Competition rules stated that everything had to be edible, with the exception of the base. We used gingerbread, fondant, gumpaste, marzipan, boiled sugar, angel hair pasta, breadsticks, piping gel, edible dusts, and royal icing.

The “house” is inside the clock. A mouse family lives inside and they are the caretakers of the clock house.

Right side detail of mouse house (main room)

Mouse detail

Detail sugarplum garland and candlestick

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Tree hugger baby shower cake

November 8, 2008 at 11:25 pm (Debbie Brown)
Tags: animals, apples, baby shower, bird, Debbie Brown, Gum paste, hedge hogs, Moist cake, nest, rabbit, squirrel, sugar water, tree, tree hugger

: Baby tree hugger shower cake

This is a baby shower cake I made for a close friend. My friend is very environmentally conscious so the theme for her shower was ‘Go Green.’ I used Debbie Brown’s book, ‘Enchanted Cakes for Children’, as inspiration (p. 46) but I added a baby embracing the tree. This picture doesn’t show it, but there is a peace sign painted on the back of the baby’s top.

This cake gave me a huge headache so I’m going to take a nap. More later.

Update 11/10/08: Ok, so the headache thing was a really negative thing to say. But this cake was much more time consuming than I originally thought it would be. I had to troubleshoot a couple of problems and I was really nervous that I was going to mess up the whole thing. I kept picturing myself at the local bakery at 7am the next morning, begging for a last minute baby shower cake . . . and then trying to explain to the mama-to-be why she ended up with a sheet cake that has a Power Ranger on it . . .

Here is how I thought (!) it would go: Make tree, leaves, apples, baby, and animals three days ahead of time. Bake cakes, fill cakes, skin coat, and prepare boards two days ahead of time. Night before party cover cakes with fondant, royal the animals and trees to top tier, add simple decoration on tiers. Finish in two hours, curl up the couch and see if I could find a Food Network Challenge rerun on tv.

Here’s what actually happened. Made tree, leaves, apples, baby, and animals ahead of time. Baked and filled cakes ahead of time. Night before . . . covered tiers with fondant, simple decoration on tiers, FOUR hours on animals, baby, and tree. Going to bed at 1:15am and leaving a really messy kitchen. I really under estimated how much time it would take me to put the 3-d decoration on the top tier. It took me a really long time to royal the individual leaves to the tree. I also wanted to pipe some of the leaves and that took me a while. I also had trouble with the gum paste and I had to redo the squirrel and the baby — which added to the time.

Oh, on top of all of this, a friend and I are making a gingerbread house for an upcoming competition. So I had gingerbread stuff all over and the next morning my gingerbread friend was coming at 7am to work on the house. Yeah, real smart planning on my part. It’s just that my gingerbread friend lives an hour away, has two young children, and a full time job. It is really hard for her to find time to work on the house so we will fit it in whenever there is a chance. btw, I’ll post gingerbread pictures later. We’re still working on it and none of the parts are assembled. We won the competition last year (we’re STILL in shock over that one)so we feel pressure to at least make a decent showing. The competition is December 6 but I’ll try to get some ‘in progress’ pictures posted.

Back to the gum paste story. I really enjoy using gum paste because it takes color and dusts very well, it is pliable, and it dries to shape fairly quickly — but not so quickly that you don’t have time to correct mistakes. But I’m still learning how to use it properly and I’m still slow when I’m trying to make a detailed figure. As a result, it becomes a bit sticky in my hands so I add a sprinkle of corn starch to control the stickiness. But I added so much corn starch that by the time the squirrel and baby dried overnight, they had become overly dry from the addition of too much corn starch. The surface of both the squirrel and the baby began too develop tiny cracks. I didn’t know how to fix them. I tried putting a little shortening on my finger and rubbing it into the surface. This worked to some degree, but the pressure I was using to rub the shortening into the surface caused little dents. So, I had dry, dented figures. I decided I should start over and remake the squirrel and baby. What I learned from this experience is very important:

1.) If I am working slowly with gum paste ( a piece with a lot of detail or modelling), I add a TINY, TINY, TINY bit of shortening to the dough. But really a small amount — just a fingerprint worth. This keeps the gum paste from getting too sticky, which means I don’t have to add corn starch, which means the figures won’t crack later. The night before the party I remade the squirrel and the baby with this new technique and it worked really well.

OK, so I mentioned that I used Debbie Brown’s book, ‘Enchanted Cakes for Children’ (p. 46), as the inspiration. I don’t want to reproduce that pg. here because I don’t want to infringe copyright law, but you can go to this web site and see a picture: www.sugarcraft.com/catalog/books/wbooks.htm. Scroll down the page until you see Debbie Brown’s name. The first book title under her name is ‘Enchanted Cakes for Children.’ Click on the book jacket and you will see her tree cake. It is amazing! Her entire cake is a large tree trunk and she created a face on the tree. All the animals are surrounding the tree and she has a little bee sitting on the “nose” of the tree’s face. It is really animated and absolutely perfect. I could stare at her cakes for hours and never find a crumb out of place. It is really astonishing. I wanted to make the tree with tall branches and leaves, so I used Debbie’s tree trunk as a starting point but I added the branches and leaves. I also chose not to make a face on the tree. I tried my best to copy her rabbits, squirrels, and hedgehogs. I used a shredded wheat biscuit for my bird’s nest — instead of gum paste – because I was only making one little bird and it is really easy to dampen a shredded mini wheat and then model it into a nest. I also added a little gum paste baby to hug the tree.

Here are some pics of the cake in progress. You can see how the orange squirrel’s body (top of picture) is dried out:

Gum paste animals under construction

Tree hugger cake under construction

Overall, the effort put into this cake was worth it. I really wanted a special cake for my friend’s shower and she seemed really happy with it. It’s funny that I spend so much time freaking out over the decoration that I actually forget that at some point people are going to eat the cake. When the time came to cut the cake at the shower, I had a moment of panic (What is the cake is dry, crumbly, too flour-y, burnt on the edges? What if the filling is too runny or too sweet or too gooey?)

Since this cake was baked two days ahead of time, I added a sprinkle of warm sugar water to the freshly baked cake. I put a couple of tablespoons of baker’s sugar into a clean salt shaker, filled it to the top with warm water, and then lightly sprinkled it onto the surface of the cake. After this step, I wrapped the cakes in wax paper, covered with plastic wrap, placed in an insulated bag, and froze until I was ready to work with them. The sugar water really keeps the cakes moist. The only time I don’t use sugar water is when I bake banana cake. Banana cake seems to be moist no matter what and the sugar water isn’t really necessary.

So as of today, I am going to take a short break from decorated cakes and focus my attention on our gingerbread house. My friend and I are building things separately and then bringing them together and praying that they fit together. I still have a long ‘to do’ list for the gingerbread house so my kitchen will be wrecked for another few days.

5 Comments

Tiffany’s box cake

November 3, 2008 at 4:24 am (Girly cakes)
Tags: ribbons, square cake, Tiffany's box

: Tiffany’s box with candles

: Tiffany’s box

: Tiffany

I made this Tiffany’s box cake for my daughter’s 21st birthday. My husband and I gave her a Tiffany’s silver charm bracelet as a gift, so I wanted the cake to match the box.

The main box was made entirely of cake, but I cut the lid out of foam board and fit it to the main box. The trick with the lid is to measure it to the main box AFTER the main box is covered with fondant and tied with the white ribbon. The fondant and ribbon add extra width that needs to be accounted for. I know this for sure . . . because I had to make the lid twice.

I made the bows the night before so they would have time to set up. I kept wads of wax paper inside the loops so they would maintain their shape. After the bows were completely dried, I brushed them with white pearl dust so they would have a little shimmer.

This was the first time I covered a square cake with fondant. I used two fondant smoothers, at the same time, to sharpen the corners and make sure they were straight up and down. I put a smoother in each hand and pushed them together so they would meet at the corner and sharpen the line. I would have preferred sharper corners but I think it is a matter of more practice.

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Severed arm cake for Halloween

October 31, 2008 at 6:19 am (Halloween)
Tags: anatomy, arm, Halloween, hand, severed arm

Severed arm cake for Halloween

This is the cake I made for our Halloween staff party.

I made two small roll cakes with dark chocolate/red velvet marble. I wanted the two colors so the inside of the cake would have the colors of human tissue and coagulated blood. I covered each roll cake with flesh colored fondant and then pushed them together. The join ended up being the elbow.

I made a fondant skeleton of a hand and let it dry. Then I went back and added fondant veins and filled it in with “flesh” (aka chocolate cake. I covered the hand with fondant and used a dental tool to make the wrinkles. I pinched the fingers to make the joints.

I sprayed the cake with flesh/pink/brown color and then added the fingernails. I put red gel around the nails so they would look gross and bloody. I also made a humerus bone out of gum paste and then shoved it into the upper arm. The broken bone is protruding from the end of the upper arm. A bonus to inserting the humerus bone was that it filled out the shape of the upper arm. This really helped the overall shape of the cake. I would tell anyone who wants to make this cake to put a “bone” in the upper arm. It really does improve the shape and bulk of the arm.

I am not good with proportions and I have never done an anatomy cake. Looking at the finished cake, I should have worked more carefully on the proportions. I also wish I had put more detail into the underlying bone structure — a more prominent wrist bone and elbow.

I also planned to make the board look like asphalt. But I ran out of fondant and it was too late at night to make liquid royal. I thought about covering the board with green fabric — to look like the draping used in hospitals — but I didn’t have any scraps that were that same drab green cloth. If I had that fabric, I probably would have made a couple of surgical instruments out of gum paste/silver dust. Maybe next Halloween I’ll try a torso?!? or a human head undergoing surgery?!?

Detail severed arm cake

1 Comment

Sweet 16 Cake

October 5, 2008 at 7:56 pm (Girly cakes)
Tags: Sweet 16 cake, zebra stripes

Sweet 16 birthday cake

Yesterday I made a Sweet 16 cake for a friend’s daughter. She was having a black/pink color theme so it was really fun to just go crazy. I covered all three tiers in fondant then used a pizza cutter and black fondant for the zebra stripes. I added the tiara on top but it looked plain so I added the hot pink maribou to fill it out.

I delivered the cake to the restaurant about an hour before the party started. The room was all decorated and the cake matched really well. I set it on a nest of black tulle and I laid a sparkley scepter across the bottom board. I forgot my camera so I don’t have a picture of the final set up.

15 Comments

Frog Prince Cake

July 27, 2008 at 5:55 pm (Summer designs)
Tags: dragonflies, frog prince, Frogs, lily pads

This is a Frog Prince cake I made this weekend. I used a 1/2 sheet for the bottom and then stacked 3 layers of 8″ and 2 layers of 7″. The fondant on this cake was really easy. I just draped it over the top and let if fall. I only used a fondant smoother on the domed top (which I shaped from the 7″layers). I also cut a long strip of fondant for the sides of the 1/2 sheet. The only tier I had to be more careful with was the 8″ bottom tier. But most of that tier is hidden, so I didn’t have to worry too much about folds or seams.

I made the frogs with gum paste. This was my first time to make frogs so I was sort of guessing. They look a little crazy! I rolled out teal-colored fondant for the lily pads. I didn’t use a cutter, I just used a pizza cutter and went for it. I used the tip of a knife to score lines into the lily pad and to cut the split.

I used a daisy cutter to make the lily/lotus flowers. I shaded them with some dry petal dust.

The last thing I did was pipe 4 dragonflies on the cake. I just used regular icing for the dragonflies. If I made dragonflies again, I would use royal and then coat the wings with luster dust. Tip for next time.

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Cake Theater

Cupcakes are a pain in the …!

Sweet 16 cake with vase separator

Pastillage

Gingerbread “house”

Tree hugger baby shower cake

Tiffany’s box cake

Severed arm cake for Halloween

Sweet 16 Cake

Frog Prince Cake

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