Captain of Surprise

This is Captain Rex. I have no idea who he is, actually. He's the Star Wars dude on Adam's lunchbox, but my knowledge of Star Wars doesn't extend much past Princess Leia's cool hair and how much fun it is to have Light Saber duels. (I know, kinda tragic, but I'm more of a Harry Potter geek myself, and I only have enough time to dedicate to one epic pop culture phenomenon, so...)

That's LEGO Rex. He doesn't really pertain to the story except that I think he's kinda cool. LEGO is awesome, hands down. One day, I'm gonna make a LEGO cake. But I'm getting sidetracked...

Speaking of cake!

Adam wants a Captain Rex cake for his birthday (it won't look like this one). I wish I could do a 3D standing up version of the cap'n, instead of the flat, sheet cake version he requested. For a 7th birthday, I think that would totally rock his world. (Just picture that action figure guy in cake form. Your world would be rocked too.)

Unfortunately, I've never made a 3D person-standing-up cake, and I don't have all the pipes and wires and plywood that other fancy bakeries do. All I know is that Rex's blaster is supposed to be pointed down like a 7 (because Adam's turning 7! Get it?! The kid's a genius).

The best part, though, is not the cake. Adam doesn't know it yet, but his birthday conveniently falls during a school break, so my whole family is driving down to Florida to visit me that week!

Adam still thinks I'm going to FedEx his cake to him, but he'll get it in person next weekend!

I Feel Famous!

I was Googling "nerdy cupcakes"-- just for ideas, ya know? I'm a nerd, I love cupcakes (oooooh! More about geeky baking later!!!) and I figured other people did too.

The top result I got was on Geekpadshow.com, which has apparently moved to Geek Culture, but whatever their website is called, they have an article about 20 Nerdy Cupcakes.

And out of nowhere, this picture shows up, with a link to this website (which then finally links here), and I jump up and shout "THOSE ARE MY CUPCAKES!"

Seriously. That just made my day. I know it's kind of random and obscure, but I love my Harry Potter cupcakes, and I love that someone else out there (I'm talking to you, Geoffrey Golden!) loves them too.


So this post is to all those nerds out there with a sweet tooth. I promise you more nerdicious baked good soon!

How Do Fortunes Get Inside of Fortune Cookies?

I have no idea, but look what I made this week! ;)

This is me, holding a tray of delicious cookies. Just a Betty Crocker mix, but obviously with homemade icing (recipe at the bottom). And I didn't have any cookie cutters! =(

Sarah got me a triple stacked cooling rack for my birthday. It's amazing. Everything I've ever wanted in a cookie rack and more (yes, I called it a cookie rack. Cookie/cooling, whatever. It all works, right?). Also note my awesome yard-sale knife set on the right. That's come in handy, fo sho.

And this is Joy, holding the wonderful baked goods that she sprinkle-fied.

And here we have a close up. I have a bunch of colored sprinkles and we just had fun making colorful cookies.

For our final picture is the close up on tray #2, with some cake balls peeking out on the left and Joy's awesome nail polish on the right. Oh, and you wanted my icing recipe, didn't you?

Well here it is!

Ingredients

• 4 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 5 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• food coloring

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream together the confectioners' sugar and shortening until smooth. Gradually mix in the milk and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth and stiff, about 5 minutes. Color with food coloring if desired.

Recipe is from Allrecipes.com, thanks to Kathy Brandt. The only problem I had with the icing (and this might be due to user error) is that it didn't harden up enough for me to stack them. I also halved the recipe since I didn't have that many cookies.

Cake Ballz

My roommate Joy and I made cake balls last night. I'm sure they're delicious (I haven't tried them yet but I saw Joy sneak a few) but they are really, really cute. Plus, they're red velvet, so how can they not be amazing??

Recognize those sprinkles? They're from the confetti cake I made last March. My other sprinkles could not compete.

Except the snowflakes, buuuuut, it's August, so that might be jumping the gun a little bit.

The colors really popped too, which you can't really see in the picture with my old school 4-years-old camera, but just trust me. :-)

Next up is sugar cookies, and then we're going to box them up and deliver them to our new neighbors (all fellow SLU students) and other people whom we like and/or want to get on their good side. ;)

Hello From Florida!

Just a quick update to say that I haven't died or anything, but I DID have a broken wireless connection in my snazzy new apartment, so it felt like I had died because I couldn't get on Facebook or Blogger or even my school e-mail account.

But I'm here now and my roomie and I totally have plans to make sugar cookies and cake balls later this week to share with all our new neighbors. I gotta say, college is WAY better when you have an apartment with a fully stocked kitchen.

I have my own section for my baking supplies, so they're not all crammed into my bedroom closet like at home. And I brought my baby (the kitchenaid stand mixer) and my fondant and gumpaste supplies and extracts and flour... it's great.

Seriously, though, I'll have pictures of delicious baked goods and awesome apartment pics to share later. I got homework to do!

xoxo

Baked in Atlanta

I work at Bliss, a wonderful new (is 6 months old still considered new?) bakery located in the suburbs of Atlanta. But Bliss isn't the only bakery out there, and I have a goal to visit all of these other cupcakery/bakery places in my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. It was something I wanted to do this summer, but alas, summer's over and I didn't make it to a single one. Next summer, however, is a different story.

Thanks to a list on Cupcakes Take the Cake and my own searching on Google (plus some of Bakerella's posts), I have compiled this list of places to visit. And one day, one day soon, I'll be able to add my own personal bakery to the list, and it will be glorious.

• Atlanta Cupcake Factory
• BakeShop
• Belly
• CamiCakes
• Chocolate Pink
• Gigi's Cupcakes
• Highland Bakery
• Holly's Cupcakes
• Lenox Cupcakes
• Little Cake Bakery
• Matty Cakes
• Piece of Cake
• Sweet Pockets Cupcakes
• West Egg Cafe

Expect reviews of these places next year. In the meantime, what do you think makes a bakery or cupcake shop awesome and memorable?

Cool New Products

If you didn't already know, I'm always on the look out for awesome new baking products, whether it's something cute or useful or just plain new and exciting.

I think the following items fall under all those categories.

First off, we have the M-Cups, which are adorable nesting measuring cups. Go ahead and squeal all girly-like over how cute these are, because that's exactly what I did.

Next up is the Teacupcakes silicone molds. Again, waaaaay too cute. The only problem is that you only get four to a box. :/

Finally, the Cakewich. I love this pan because 1.) the name is clever (I'm a sucker for that kinda thing), and 2.) Sandwiches are awesome, cake is awesome, so it begs to be said that a Cakewich is awesome².

I found all these products at Bake It Pretty, which also has designer cupcake liners (!!!!) and other products which I'm sure you'll love as much as I do.

And for my final note, it's not really a new product as much as a new concept. Someone recently told me that they tried a mint red velvet cake with chocolate icing. He told me it was really good, but I was just floored that this particular combination of flavors never occurred to me before. So anyone ever make mint red velvet before? Or for that matter, ever make red velvet with a non cream cheese icing?? I clearly need to start thinking outside the box when it comes to cake flavors!

What to pack?

Not too much baking this week. I'm more focused on packing up my things (unfortunately) to take down to Florida.  And since I'm staying in an apartment this year, there's 124085092358904235 times more stuff to pack.

Not only do I need the basic dorm room decor, but there's a whole other aspect to pack for: the kitchen. I plan on doing lots of baking this year, but I would also like to get back into cooking more. Which should be an interesting experience on my limited budget.

So far I've got my favorite baking pans, all my tips, gel pastes, sprinkles, cupcake liners, and fondant tools, some spatulas, my stand mixer, cookbooks, cooling racks, aprons, my rolling pin, a mini whisk, and an old knife set of my parents that probably came from a yard sale, if the mismatched knives are any indication.

I don't have pots, pans, oven mitts, and a number of other important kitchen items. Some of the items my roommates will be getting, and some things we'll buy down there (like plates and forks).

But I'm curious, fellow foodies who've done the whole college thing, what do I need in my new apartment kitchen? And what don't I need (because, seriously, overpacking is a problem for me)? And the final question, since I'm a broke college student (who doesn't want to blow her summer savings on lame practical stuff as opposed to really cool stuff), where can I go to get the cheapest kitchen items, and by cheapest I mean "good quality at a low price that will last at least two years?"

Feel free to ignore my massive run-on sentences and instead take a moment to leave me suggestions in that thar comment section!

XOXO

Recipes and Reviews

From left to right: Cookies & Cream; Mint Chocolate; Cookies & Cream again :)

Just wanted to share the delicious recipes that I made for my birthday cake.

Both recipes came from the blog, How To Eat A Cupcake, which is a pretty adorable blog, who's author (Cassie) is opening a bakery. So her other blog, Flour Child Bakery, is a favorite of mine to read too!

Back to the recipes though. First is the Mint Chocolate Chip. I added waaay more Andes chips (instead of chocolate chips) than Cassie's recipe called for. I used a cup, not 1/2 cup. And I didn't have chocolate milk either, so I used 2%. Whole would've been better, but I was working with what I had. And I only got  16 cupcakes out of the recipe.

I made a mint buttercream icing as well. I sub'd the vanilla & almond extracts in my recipe for peppermint extract. The icing tasted like those buttery after dinner mints, if you know what I'm talking about. Not too minty, but just enough that it was delicious.

For the second recipe, I used this Cookies & Cream, and I pretty much followed the recipe exactly, except that instead of 24 cupcakes, I made 12 cupcakes, and then a 2 layer 6" cake. And instead of reserving some Oreos for the buttercream, I put them all in the batter.

And for the review part, I just want to say that Duff's fondant (or should I say Fondarific?) is amazing. Yeah, it's really expensive, but it smells great, it rolls out nicely, it doesn't tear, and it covers cake beautifully. Oh, and it tastes good too. :) So my only complaint is the price. Go out and buy some.

I got a bunch of awesome baking stuff as gifts, including Duff texture tiles & cake graffiti. I'm sooo looking forward to using them. Reviews of that coming later, but I can already tell they're products I'll love!

19 Years and Counting

Happy birthday to me!

Yup, it's official, guys. I'm 19. (even though I've totally been telling people I'm 19 for weeks, it's just true now!)

And to celebrate, I made myself a cake. Well, a cake and cupcakes.

But I have this weird quirk that I had to overcome first: I hate starting a cake. Once I get going, I'm fine, but the beginning is rough. Which is probably why I end up decorating cakes at four in the morning the day before they're due. I am a true procrastinator, and it's an awful trait, but at least I have a good answer when job interviewers ask, "What's one of your weaknesses?" (Because "Tayor Lautner" probably isn't a very professional answer.)

Right. So it's 5:00pm Sunday and I still haven't started yet. Instead I'm half-heartedly looking through photos on Flickr trying to figure out how I'm going to tie my black/white/pink/girly/swirly/flower themed cupcakes into the cake topper, instead of making buttercream and covering my cake in delicious Duff fondant.

But fast-forward a few hours, and I have a fondant-covered cake (that smells amazing), and a handful of fondant daisies. And finally around midnight, I've finished the cake.... well, except for the 19 on top. That was done last-minute as party guests started arriving. And instead of the gumpaste 19 I wanted to do, it's made of fondant & cardboard & toothpicks & electrical tape. And it didn't fall apart until after we served the cake!

So this post is getting extremely long. I guess with age comes a verboseness I wasn't expecting. So how 'bout another picture?

It's not a perfect cake. I'm spoiled because at Bliss there's a fondant sheeter and ribbon cutters that I can use. I had to improvise here. :) I also couldn't get the pink buttercream quite the right color, so I did end up at Bliss this afternoon & bought some Fuschia Americolor gel. But really, other than that, the decorating and construction went smoothly. I was going to put a 3D daisy on top (next to the 19) but it didn't look as good as I thought it would, so Sarah ate it. :)

And the two flavors-- cookies and cream (the pink cupcakes & the top cake), and the mint chocolate (white cupcakes; the b/c was mint too!) tasted amazing! I'm so proud of this cake!

Now that the party's over, I'm going to enjoy the rest of my birthday by watching A Very Potter Sequel and recovering from my sugar-induced coma (which is a metaphor and not an actual diabetes-related medical issue, so no worries there!)

Icing Smiles

My Facebook and Twitter followers have probably already heard about the charity Icing Smiles, but I want to dedicate a little more space to it than 140 characters can provide.

I love the idea of making cakes for charity. For years, I've thought about ways that I could incorporate my love of baking with my desire to help other people. And providing critically ill children with beautiful and spectacular cakes is a brilliant idea for bakers to donate their time and talents. You can read about why Tracey Quisenberry founded Icing Smiles on her website. It's really an inspiring story.

I'm not currently signed up to donate cakes through their service right now, because I'm so busy with school and everything. I want to be able to devote all my energy to it, and I just can't afford to do that right now (and I certainly don't want to make a rushed-for-time subpar cake when someone else is able to make something amazing). But I'm keeping them in the back of my mind and in my prayers, and just the other day, I saw on another blog that Icing Smiles is in the running for a $25,000 grant. If you go to this website and vote for them, it brings them one step closer to winning (Or you can just click on the widget at the bottom of this post & on the side of my blog). And that money is going to be used to expand and bring more cakes and more smiles to kids and their families who need them most.

So if you're looking to help out a worthy cause, and can spare a few seconds of your day, please help Icing Smiles!

Yes, I DO Make My Own Birthday Cakes

Flashback time!

People are always surprised when I say that I make my own birthday cakes. My mother gets annoyed, though, because she thinks that, the way I tell it, it sounds like she just quit making my cakes and left me stranded in the kitchen.

When that is sooo not how it happened.

See, I wanted to make my own birthday cakes. I still do. I wanted to pour through Family Fun magazine, and make a Teddy Grahm pool cake, or stick my pink Power Rangers Barbie doll in a tiered cake and cover it in sprinkles and call it a "dress." I think my mom had a pretty hard time getting me out of the kitchen when she was baking. And as the years went on, I pretty much kicked her out.

So when I proudly say that I make my own birthday cakes (and yes, I write "Happy Birthday Kelsie" on them, because why would I write "Happy Birthday Me" anyway?!), it is not because my mom has subpar baking skills or hated making her children's birthday cakes, because neither of those are true. It's because I love to bake. I always have, and I always will!

Two more days until I'm 19!

I Geeked Out at Barnes and Noble

I always gravitate toward the cookbook section in bookstores. Sure, I check out the fiction novels, the Spanish books, the mystery novels, the teen section...but eventually, I'm always sitting cross-legged on the floor with a nicely illustrated cookbook in my lap.

The other day I found Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food, and Shirley Corriher's BakeWise (which was $40 at B&N. I checked it out from the library but I really need my own copy), as well as Toba Garrett's Wedding Cake Art and Design, which was $50 but gorgeous. I didn't put that on my birthday list because I didn't know about it...but the designs are amazing! I was definitely inspired.

My friends dragged me out of the store before I had time to latch myself to another book, but I'm seriously going to buy myself BakeWise if no one gets it for my birthday. (Just a note to my relatives who read my blog: tell my mom that I really want this book. She still doesn't know what to get me. Also, shout out to Aunt Elsie! Thanks for visiting me at Publix on Sunday!)

In Which I Buy Stuff at Bliss for my Birthday

My birthday is on Monday, and I gotta make a cake. Or do I? What if I made cupcakes?

What if I made both?

I'm going to use this handy-dandy cupcake display (sorry for the terrible quality picture. My webcam really let me down this time. Tsk, tsk) in order to display cupcakes. And a 6" cake on the top. 

And I'm going to use these handy-dandy supplies to do it (among other things which I already own, like white sprinkles, fondant, and pink buttercream. Er, I don't own the pink buttercream. Yet.).

I got a sunflower/daisy cutter set--which I LOVE--and pink luster dust (for the aforementioned daisies), and black sprinkles.

Still need ribbon to go around the cupcake stand (that was Shelley's idea--brilliant!) and cupcake liners. I'm thinking silver, unless I can find 4 dozen of these liners.

I'm not sure which flavors to do yet. Definitely chocolate, but I wanted one or two other flavors. Something like, one flavor for each cupcake design, and then a third flavor for the cake on top.

So leave your flavor suggestions in the comment box below or on my Facebook page!

Oh, Crumbs

My first ever Harry Potter cake. (This is the second. And these are the cupcakes.) I've taken it out of the secret vault of Kelsie's Cakes of the Past to share with you all today. But after this, it's going back into the vault. Because this cake was... crumby.

I think it's also my first carved cake too. With canned icing, dyed "Golden Snitch yellow" with...liquid food coloring. I know, I know. But I've said it before (and you're probably really tired of me saying this): I've come a long way.

This box mix chocolate cake did not have the luxury of a crumb coat of decorator's buttercream, and there was no gold luster (lustre?) dust on wings. Heck, I didn't even know such a thing existed when I was 14! But if I were to make this cake today, it would probably be a three-dimensional orb with gumpaste golden wings.

Oh, that's my sister Maggie by the way. I keep talking about her because her birthday was Sunday. But this is the last Maggie-centric post for a while, because MY birthday is next week. Then you get to hear me talk about myself for a few days. Won't that be fun?! :P

EZ Cracker

It's not that hard to crack an egg!

Just saw an infomercial for EZ Cracker, and I gotta rant for a bit. Maybe I have mad egg cracking skills and it's just everyone else thinks that you need some crazy plastic contraption to do a common kitchen task, but seriously, this just seems like an unnecessary unitasker to me.

But that bonus Bacon Wave has caught my eye... and it's freeeee...

Roses for Maggie

Flashback time!

Today is my youngest sister's 15th birthday. Last weekend was her birthday party, when I made that Sword in the Stone cake.

Three years ago, I made this little number. Nothing too fancy; it's got three pretty hot pink roses (I. Hate. Roses. But these look so nice! How did I do that? And why can't I do that now??) and a classy basketweave border (an old favorite of mine). I remember when I made it, my dad wanted me to go around to all the bakeries in town and see who wanted to hire me. But considering that I was 15 at the time, I was too timid.

Seriously, though, this is a cute little cake. And you can see underneath it is the ever-present green tray that I use for pretty much everything. We still have it, and I'm pretty sure it's one of those things that we'll have forever. Not that I'm complaining. It's cute AND a good way to transport cupcakes!

Happy Birthday, Maggie! I love you!