Yay! Craft Store!

I finally got to go to Michael's! Not sure how I convinced Mom to take me shopping the day after Christmas, but as I needed things that she deemed appropriate to be needed, she agreed to drive me out to the big, humongous shopping center that really should be closer to home. Wow. Long sentence.

Back to the topic at hand: I got to go to Michael's! And I got to spend $10 of my own money. Figures. I bought a 4 set of couplers (I needed those; I'm always loosing them when I need them most), burgundy icing paste (yay!), and 350 mini cupcake liners. When we got to Target, I found out the Christmas liners were on clearance and were cheaper. Oh, well; you win some, you lose some.

I did not get any cake pans (I got two 9" pans from my grandparents for Christmas), nor did I buy the gumpaste kit or the castle set from Wilton. I'll save that for when I have a coupon or something.

I'm quite proud of my shopping experience. Sure, there were items that I wanted to buy and weren't there (lily flower nail), or I forgot (meringue powder), or were too expensive (gumpaste kit, castle set), but I feel like I really accomplished something. And I was able to satisfy my shopping addiction.

That being said, Happy Boxing Day and/or St. Stephen's Day everyone!

The Gingerbread House

This house was a lot of fun to make. First of all, my sister really baked it and did most of the prep work, I was just there to help her along. I had to watch "Elmo's Christmas Countdown" of course! She did a fantastic job, by the way.

We did all of the decorating together. If you're wondering why some of the house looks a little... odd, that's because five kids ranging from four to sixteen years old all got together and threw candy and icing on gingerbread. (Literally. There was some sprinkle throwing going on... and not from the four-year-old.

Not only was this house fun to make, but also to eat! As we used a homemade recipe, the cookie house was delicious!

Oh, and in my house, they're called Kissies, not Kissables. Don't know why, that's just what Adam calls them. =)

Recipes

I love to bake. But I'm not really big on the whole experimentation thing. (Too many bad memories of school science fairs, I guess.) So when I make cakes, I don't experiment with any of my own recipes. The same with icing. I do some searching on the internet and find some (easy) recipes that get rave reviews. And for the most part, the recipes are really good (and easy) and tasty.

Here are some of the most common (or most recent) recipes that I use:

Wilton's Yellow Cake
Dark Chocolate Cake from chocomama on Cakecentral.com
Gingerbread

Marshmallow Fondant
Wilton's Extra Special Buttercream (made with 1 stick of butter and 3/4 c. Crisco)
Buttercream Icing II from Peggy Weaver
Royal Icing

...And I've been known to use cake mixes from a box, too, although I'm getting away from that with my last two batches of cake goodies.

Christmas Cupcakes, Part II

Guess what? I did do more pre-Christmas baking! But don't worry, this won't be a long-winded post, I promise, because I have a lot of pictures to show you. I made mini cupcakes (76!!) for Christmas and three mini cakes, in order to try a new recipe (delicious!) and my new mini cupcake pan and to use up all my extra icing that's been in the freezer from the past 3 months or so.











He's supposed to be snowman, but I didn't have any white buttercream, and the whole point of the cupcakes was to use up leftover icing. So he's orange. But Dad thought he was tasty, so that's good enough for me!

The "losers;" I dropped the green one on the table and the design was smushed =(

And that's what I did the weekend before Christmas! =]

I finished!

I am so proud of this cake! Of course, it did not come without hard work, not to mention a harrowing trip to Wal-Mart.

I'll start at the beginning: Wally World.
Mom needed to run some errands, and I need to buy toothpicks, seran wrap, burgundy icing paste, and a cake box for delivery.

Well, Wal-Mart doesn't have cake boxes, and the icing paste came in a box with 11 other colors... and they were the half-size container too! Since I didn't want to pay $10 for one color I need and 11 that I don't need/already have, I decided to skip that.

I did get the seran wrap (red!) and toothpicks, though. And I got lost.

On a side note: Wal-Mart is very crowded 5 days before Christmas!

When I got home, I immediately made the icing. In the process, I missplaced my cell phone (in the car), spilled whipping cream (cleaned it up), and tea (cleaned it up). I dropped icing all over the table, countertop, and floor. I stained my hands red with the icing paste. I forgot and reheated my hot tea three times (and just now remembered that I still haven't drank it!)

I iced the cake and smoothed it out.

Next comes the coloring for the red and green decorations. This took a while. The green was OK, because green isn't such a dark, deep color. I saved the red for last. I read on a website that using a bit of burgundy icing paste with the red paste would create a deeper, more Christmas-y red that just using the red paste.

After all of that red, I decorated the cake. Green icing with #3 tip for the dots and the "Merry Christmas." I used different star tips for the red boarders. Then Katie accidentally stuck her finer in the top right hand corner of the cake, and I had to smooth that out.

Tsk Tsk

Delivery went very well. I carried the cake to my 5th period class, which was my first exam of the day (on a side note, I recieved a 100% on that test- with extra credit of course). The girl that I made the cake for loved it, and I hope she got it home safely. I hope it tastes good, too.

I hope this post isn't too long, but there was a lot that went into this cake. Thank you for taking time to read all of these crazy words that I've strung together, and I hope my cake chronicles aren't too boring.

As I don't expect to make any more goodies in the next four days, let me say this now:

Merry Christmas!

I regret to inform you...

I'm afraid that our oven my have finally stopped working.

For months now, Oven has randomly displayed an -F2- warning, and he shuts off and beeps like crazy. We've just turned everything back on and kept baking.

Then Mom discovered the manuel for the oven, which advises oven owners who experience an -F2- warning to shut off the oven, allow it to cool, an call customer service. Mom finally decided what the "F" in -F2- stands for. (Failure, right?)

Today, -F2- was absolutely insane. With about 10 minutes left to go on the cake, the over displayed this evil message of doom. So I turned the over back on and walked back to the computer to study some more for my Biology final. Guess what? -F2- reappears. So I leave the oven off, and crack open the door to allow some heat to escape. Maybe Over is just having hot flashes? Alas! -F2- appears AGAIN! And the oven is off!

After a few more dealings with -F2-, I gave the oven a good whack with my foot, said "I hate you," and walked off. It's been about 10 minutes, so I'm going to try to finish baking this cake. Wish me luck. I hope Oven hasn't died for good this time...

Update!
So after letting Oven cool for a few minutes, I turned him back on and put the cake back in for another 7 minutes. 7 minutes later... the oven beeped. But! This was the good your-cake-is-ready-to-take-out-of-the-oven-now kind of beep. Success!

Now all I have to do is bake the other half of the cake. (Yes, unfortunately, I only have 1 square cake pan, so for a two layer cake, I have to bake them one layer at a time.)

So far so good. But I won't count all of my chickens before they hatch...

Excitement

So I have this friend. And he has this other friend. Who has parents. Who own a bakery. That's local. And I've been there. They have really good chocolate chip muffins. That I went to with my grandparents. And I might be able to get a job there during the summer.

Wouldn't that just be sweet?!

Until then, though, somebody asked me to make them a Christmas cake for Friday, which works out, because I have 5th period with her. I have an exam in 5th period on Friday, so I'll get to see her. The cake is baking right now; I'll decorate it tomorrow. I'm pretty excited about this cake... I've only make cakes for family before, so this is something new for me. I have no problem with making cakes for friends; I'm actually really glad that I get the opportunity to practice more and spread that sugary, confectionery goodness that I'm always talking about. :)

Of course, I'll be sure to post a picture of the completed cake Thursday evening. The design isn't mine; but she drew a cute picture of what she wants it to look like. I have a feeling that her design will look nice on the cake.

Until tomorrow,
Kelsie

Royal Icing Roses

So with the excess royal icing from the gingerbread cookies, I made royal icing. I had to stiffen the icing up a lot with corn starch and powdered sugar. Not my best, but they look pretty decent. Took about 3 days to dry completely; I've heard they last indefinitely if stored correctly.












I apologize for the fuzzy photos. I'm not the best photographer, but I'm sure you could tell. Some of them turned out really well, though.

Faster than the Gingerbread Man

So, I made gingerbread cookies... 34 of them, all with their own adorable personalities. So, here they are...


















I learned a lot making these gingerbread guys. Like, how much my quality suffers after about half an hour. I should definitely take breaks more often next time, to keep the cookies looking good and professional. And I also learned that the icing needs to be thin. I need more couplers and round tips (like #2 and #3).

Overall, I learned that cookies are fun! Re-learned, actually. I already knew that! =D

Christmas Cupcakes

I was not able to make poinsettias (again!) with these cupcakes, so I'm really going to put those pretty flowers on hold for a while. Maybe when I make some more butter cream, I'll attempt poinsettias for the first time.

This time, I admit, I went with the simplest course of action: sprinkles. I know, I know, not terribly creative, but I was tired last night and didn't want to mix up some more icing. And everyone said they were adorable, not to mention tasty. Grandma said she loved the icing.

I really don't have much to add, because, like I said, these were really simple to make. I do have a close up of the cupcakes, though:

Cupcake Babies!

Grandma was kind enough to buy me a new muffin pan that holds 24 mini muffins (or cupcakes).

Isn't that great? Now I can make cupcake babies for the Beta club bake sale on Wednesday!

And the pan is really cool because it's silicone and is flexible and dishwasher- freezer- and oven-safe! Plus, it's red. =)

A regular sized muffin pan...
still fun but not quite as cute!

A New Idea

I really want to try the poinsettias, remember?

As I was not able to incorporate these festive flowers into my last cake, I set my eyes on making cupcakes this weekend for the Christmas party with my grandparents.

I'd like to test out the whipped icing some more: try out coloring the icing, and see how well the icing holds up to piping designs. And if the piping holds up, then the butter cream + whipped icing dilemma is solved!

And there will be a bake sale on Wednesday next at school; I could also make cupcakes, or sugar cookies, for that.

Oh! I need to find a use for that all-too-yummy marshmallow fondant too...

Happy Liturgical New Year!

Today, the first Sunday of Advent, marks the start of the new year for the Catholic Church. So, as in all celebrations, I baked a cake!

I tried out some new skills when I made this cake. Alas, no poinsettias! Perhaps cupcakes later in the season...

The first new skill I used was the "Frozen Butter Cream Transfer." It was unnecessary, since the design was basic enough, but I thought now was a good enough time to try out a new skill.

The next new skill I tried was a whipped icing recipe. That was fun to make, and the resulting icing was very tasty. The down side was the lack of sugar, so next time I made whipped icing, I will added double the sugar. =) (Sorry Mom, I know you don't like all that extra sweet goodness!)

While it is unfortunate that I did not get to make poinsettas, or even try out my new MM fondant, I really liked making-- and eating-- this cake. I look forward to making more whipped icing, and experimenting with taste, and also practicing the transfer so that I can eventually do more complicated pictures.

So far, the new year has gone off to a great start!



One last note: the butter cream does not store so well with the whipped icing, because the moisture is too high... so next time I'll try the piping with the whipped icing.

Cake Ideas like Crazy

Lately, I've really had the creative juices flowing. Just this past week, I've had two cake ideas.


The first is the advent cake. When I first dreamed up this cake, it involved some fancy fondant footwork. However, I've kind of ditched that idea because I made some fondant that won't work. For starters, I think it's too soft. And then, it's too good to eat. I made my own fondant using marshmallows and it's really tasty, so I don't want to use it on decorations like the leprechaun and tiara I've made in the past.


So I think I'm going to decorate the cake like normal, and pipe the design on it, 2-D, not 3-D. I need to find out how to incorporate poinsettias into the cake, because they are easy to make and look pretty.


The next cake idea I had was for the Potter party. I want to use the Romantic Castle cake set from Wilton and make Hogwarts castle. Yeah, I know, I'm crazy. I couldn't make the cake nearly as detailed as in the picture above, but I would try!

That is what has come out of my brain this week. I greatly look forward to what next week brings...