25 Days of Baking

Have you ever watched a movie that had cooking through out the whole movie? Well I recently watched Julie and Julia, and I even went to the library and checked out like 3 of her cookbooks. In the movie they talk alot about Aspic: jello like mold that you put your meat and veggie in and eat it.. yuck! I like to cook more than I like to bake. I know that sounds funny coming from someone who has a whole blog about cakes. but decorating cakes and baking desserts are two totally seperate things. So after the Julia Child aspiration failed, the Christmas season has dropped in my lap. So my next idea was to have a dessert made, everyday until Christmas. What am I doing with all the desserts you may ask. Well they are going directly to my and daves place of work. I started December 1st and I will just label them day 1,day 2 - only because It is hard to bake on Friday and Saturday unless I plan to go drop them off somewhere. and I will judt double up 2 desserts during the week so I can make it to 25! Off we go....

Day 1: Christmas Bark - Oreo's/Mint cookies/White chocolate & Andes morsels.
Day 2: Chunky Chocolate chip and Pecan cookies.

Day 3: Forgotten cookies - egg whites and sugar??? who would have thought.

Day 4: Oatmeal cake - warm oatmeal with cinnamon...yumm

Day 5: White Chocolate and macadamia cookies.

Day 6: Chocolate -reese's, oreo, hazlenut, and white chocolate cookies

Day 7: Fudge walnut brownies

RED - food coloring

Inspiration for this birthday cake was from Buffy the Vampire.
and we added a few sugar cookie stakes to go along with it.
For this cake the RED icing was my base color , so after it was on the cake I let it
dry out a little before adding the black.

So I get a little nervous when a cake order comes through and the color listed is RED. I would like to say RED is probably the most difficult color to work with. Not enough RED and you get the color Rose. The wrong shade of Red and you might get a hint of orange. I have now found 2 different RED's that I like.
1.Wilton's- food coloring "red red" - you use the whole container to get a darker true red.
2. Adams Extract- food coloring "red" -this works well on a stiff icing. If you icing is already too thin. you will see the sugars separate.

I have come to understand two things with RED icing. #1 Rule is after mixing the color in, LET THE ICING SIT. the color will get darker and it gives it more time to settle as a mixture. and the 2nd Rule of thumb is to make sure ALL other icing you are putting on as decorations near your RED have dried out and almost hardened or the RED will bleed into the other colors. If possible start with your Red first, and let it dry before moving on to a different color.

"FAMOUS" I'm not sure if I have ever seen this brand in a store. But I guess I'm a few years late on this one. Cut outs in shapes like this start in either a round or square pan and I free hand the cut of a picture or logo. For this cake the RED food coloring was added last. I let the black and white slightly dry so the RED would not bleed.

Super Mario, MickeyMouse

My 6 yr old Payton loves all things Mario right now, So naturally for his 6th birthday

I themed everything around Super Mario especially the cake. Now I do have to say

that the only store I could find anything Mario was at www.birthdayexpress.com .

I have ordered many times from this website and have never been disappointed

plus they carry more themes than your average super party store here in town.

For the fondant I used Wilton's pre-packed 4 count that you can get either at

Michael's or Hobby Lobby ,and I molded everything freehand. The 2 small

figurines and the 10in. next to the cupcakes all came from Toys R' Us. This

was a easy cake... I've come to the conclusion that my boys watch me

decorate cakes all the time so for their birthdays I gotta step it up a notch

when it comes to their's.

This MickeyMouse cake was for my nephew Bishop who turned 1 this year.

I almost went for a Mickey Mouse clubhouse cake but, mom said she would like to

see Mickey's face , and I just happen to have a molded pan of Mickey

on my shelf. Though these types of pans require millions of the same little

dots of icing. there is no thought process because the design is already there.

And who could forget the personal cake needed for a 1 yr. old to stick his fingers

into before mom says "that's enough" so for the small cake I just did a black profile

of Mickey's head and a bowtie.

sports ball

I like doing the half sports ball, as if it is a real ball bursting
through the court or soccer field.


My family is too big for just making the ball by it's self anyways.
So you make a big cake and add a touch of creativity, and this is what you get!

Graduation

Whether it's Kindergarten , High School, or College,
every graduate needs recognition that their hard work is acknowledged
and that they are supported for whatever life may throw them next.

Graduates this is for you!

Chocolate cake with chocolate chocolate icing...ummm!!

This was for my little sister Samantha.

She was the last of six kids to graduate for High School.

With the icing being chocolate, I tried to make the

decorations look like an heirloom.

The below cake was my first full sheet cake

it was 2 layered, so it probably would feed

100-120 people if the cuts are right.

marbled half and half;

half white and strawberry, and the other half

was marbled white and chocolate

Not everyone goes for a traditional look.

some designs are based on one's personality, others

are based on a hobby or an interest.

It's your cake, eat it up!

Cupcakes

I even found Spongebob muffin cups to match.

Pool side parties are the best for Cupcakes! Looks like a cake, but minus needing forks, plates and a knife to cut it.

Below I bought the Elmo and Cookie Monster toppers, but the sea creatures I made from candy molds.

Cupcakes are now starting to grow on me a little more than cakes.
A swirl of icing and sprinkles and hands are reaching into the box. You can't go wrong with cupcakes and especially for kid parties, cupcakes are grab and go no fork or plate needed. Unless of course you are serving a scoop of Blue Bell with it.

CUPCAKES

The beach cupcakes have been my favorite ones so far. The sand was made from graham crackers, and I molded balls,whales,crabs,sun,octopus,pail and shovels using Wilton's pre-made colored fondant. I colored white candy melts into a sea shell molding kit of mine and thus giving me all the shells.

I used 3 different shades of icing to get the wave / water effect for these fish. 1/2 were made of fondant, and the other I used my Butter Cream Icing. Now this was for a Birthday party for a one year old, so a small personal cake was needed just for him!

The below was a test to see how a cupcake cake would look. Once again no cutting and serving needed just grab one. Now I used just a store bought icing (chocolate fudge) for these and that was my only problem I had.

Your going to have holes as a cake because the cupcakes are not square, they don't fit together. So the icing was sinking into each hole, not giving you a flat smooth top. It was for my family so I just went with it, but for future cupcake cakes I will definitely use butter cream for a more stiffer stabilizer.

Now these little babies were easy, cute and did not take much time at all, especially since they were on a stand with fudge and chocolate chip cookies. This was for my sisters baby shower and the entire cupcake I used butter cream with a few sprinkles. The bouquet cupcakes (purple ones) were just as simple, using a single icing tip for each flower and dotting the center.

Handy Manny

This cake was for a 2 year old birthday party at a local pizza/game/prizes venue. The idea of having their favorite cartoon character on their cake settles all decisions for the party, and everything else falls into place after that considering this is the only piece of decoration to personalize your childs cake at one of these venues.

Now I personally like the cakes for kids that have the miniatures, because whats the first thing they do after the candles are blown out..... they lick the icing off the bottom of each piece - wax and all.

It's great!

Now the only "so called problem" about these cakes are finding the miniatures. If you could find it at your local Wal-Mart, Target, or Toys R' Us that would be ok. But I find myself grabbing them from AMAZON.COM, And this leads to shipping charges. You may find cheaper prices but the shipping gets you in the end.

Houston TX. is one of the largest cities nationwide and the only cake supply store I have found is MAKE-A-CAKE. Its a relatively small store but they carry larger sizes and pans that I cannot always find at my local Hobby Lobby or Michael's which also carries cake supplies. Me being located North of Houston is the biggest problem. They are located in Southwest Houston.

All-in-all I can normally find exactly what I'm looking for whether it's on-line or across town.

As a hobby I have gotten into cake decorating.
Everything is done from my home and from my little bitty single oven. I make my
butter cream icing, yet I don't like to eat cake with icing on it. I of my
knacks for doing cakes is that the cake batter is moist. My theory is that you
could have the prettiest cake with handmade roses and rolled fondant, but when
you take a bite of a cake and its dry...that's probably the only bite your going
to take. So I have taken it apon myself to create a good tasting
cake.

Man Cakes

And what would we do without our "Man Cakes"....