Rain, Rain, Go Away

If you haven't noticed from browsing my Instagram page, I've been on a sugar flower kick lately. I'm not sure what exactly inspired it, except that I really wanted to decorate something, and I had all these cutters that I never use. So, sugar flowers it is! (Plus I'm kind of procrastinating on that competition cake I need to do for September. I'm terrible about that sort of thing!)

Here we have pictured is the cymbidium orchid, which I still have trouble spelling. It's probably my favorite flower that I've done so far.

I always like to take photos of my flowers outside on my balcony/porch/lanai/patio, because natural sunlight makes for the best photos (and I am shooting on a two-year-old cell phone camera, so I need all the help I can get!!) but the problem is, IT WON'T STOP RAINING.

Do you know how hard it is to snap an Instagram-worthy pic when you're dodging raindrops the whole time?? The roof of my balcony leaks, so I was seriously standing out there trying to find the one spot on my table that wasn't in the path of raindrops.

Luckily, my delicate little sugar flower avoided any catastrophe, and I was able to get him back inside to safety. In case you didn't know, sugar flowers basically start dissolving in water (You've seen that episode of the Magic School Bus, right?), and I didn't want all my hard work to go to waste like that! (I've wasted enough petals accidentally snapping them in half; I don't need mother natures' help!)

But I think if my biggest struggle with these sugar flowers is the rain, then I'm doing a pretty good job with them. Plus, I've got a nice little indoor garden going on right now, which is pretty cheery even when it's so gloomy outside!

Mom & Dad's Cake

I'll preface this by saying that I'm really bad at surprises. Mostly because by the time I come up with an awesome idea, I never leave myself enough time execute the plan in secret. Like my dad's Father's Day cake. The whole cake was supposed to be a surprise, and I was going to create it while he was at work, but I didn't leave myself enough time, and I ended up having to tell him I was making a cake and that he couldn't see it yet so he wasn't allowed to go in the kitchen until I finished. So the design was still a surprise, just not the cake.

This time, I wanted to make a super special cake to celebrate my parents' 25th wedding anniversary. 25 years is kinda a big deal, ya know?

Though I think I pulled off the "surprise" aspect of it better than I expected.

I've got quite a few cake projects scattered throughout my house: gumpaste flowers, a competition cake I was unable to enter and still haven't finished, boxes of supplies I keep meaning to organize but haven't...

So I guess they thought this cake was just another one of my mini projects. (It probably helped that I baked, frosted, and covered the cake somewhere else.) I don't think they knew it was for them until I put the 25 topper on and told them I finished their cake! 

The cake had to be chocolate AND vanilla, because my dad basically only eats chocolate and my mom is not a big fan. As far as the icing goes, it's a vanilla butternut flavored IMBC with a chocolate cream cheese filling. (Don't judge me; I used canned cream cheese icing mixed with melted chocolate chips, that stuff was delicious)

Aren't they cute? Here's to another 25 years! I can't wait to see what last minute design I come up with for their 50th anniversary! ;)

Fun New Toys Courtesy of eBay!

After I took my last Wilton class, I was in a bit of a cake decorating fervor. I wanted all of the shiny new toys that make cake decorating easier and more fun: the gumpaste shoe molds, the cake ball roller, the hundreds of petal dusts, flower cutters, and veiners required to make uber-life-like sugar flowers. (I realize that gumpaste flowers is probably the most preferred term that I've heard, but I like the sound of sugar flowers better: it sounds prettier, more elegant...tastier.)

Turns out, I'm an underemployeed recent college grad who just bought a new car and is literally living in her parents' basement, so  I can't actually afford any of that.

But what can I afford? eBay! I found tons of discounted supplies there, and bought myself lots of pretty new toys to play with. I'm most excited (for the moment) about the hydrangea cutters, because I can't get my Wilton hydrangeas to look pretty! :( I guess I'm not impressing them correctly, but they just look flat and un-life-like. (Not literally flat, since I hung them upside down to try and they are curved nicely...but they just don't have a lot of dimension to them otherwise.) I've yet to dust them, so maybe that will help.

Back to the new cutters! They are plunger cutters, which means they impress a pattern (in this case, the veins in the petals) on the gumpaste after they've been cut out. Excellent! It saves me a whole step in the process. Back when I was making Ben and Crystal's wedding cake, I used the rose leave cutters and they turned out fabulously.

The other cutters I bought were ivy leaves, snowflakes, and butterflies. I was just trying to go for a variety of cutters that I think I'll use frequently, or that I've needed in the past.



The funny part of this story is that my parents didn't know that I had ordered all these cutters on the internet, so when the packages started rolling in, my mom was a little concerned about why a package with "mold" in it had arrived on our front door. Oh, Mom, not that kind of mold! :)

Gumpaste Flowers Galore

I finally finished taking the last Wilton class (finally), and my tentative plan is to try and teach the classes after I finish taking them all. So hopefully I'll stop procrastinating and put my application in to be a Wilton Method Instructor!

I love taking cake classes. I wish they weren't so darn expensive (the class + supplies + gas money, etc) but I understand that education ain't cheap. When I was in Florida, I drove all over the state to take classes, and they were all worth it. I still wish I had a chance to go to the mini classes at ICES in Orlando a few months back, to take Kathleen Lange's Lambeth bootcamp, but hopefully I'll still get another chance one day. Anyway, back to the class I'm in now! The advanced gumpaste flowers class is really helpful, especially when it comes to wiring the flowers. That part is such a pain, but I learned so much that I didn't know before, so hopefully that will help with all my future flowers.


The dusting part is really fun, too, which makes me think that I might enjoy taking some painting classes after I've finished all the Wilton ones... (dusting is just like painting, right??)
But you've got to have some serious patience with these flowers. Especially when they break. I'm not saying that I hotglued one of the petals back onto my briar rose after it broke, but... ;)

If you're interested in taking the gumpaste class, the class information is on Wilton's website, and so is their supply list. Just make sure when you sign up that you're getting course four because at first, the cashier at Michaels tried to sign me up for course three, which is Gumpaste and Fondant, not Advanced Gumpaste Flowers. Although that was a fun class too...just a bit different!

And final sidenote about the supplies: if you opt not to get the course 4 kit (like I did) because you already had the big box of gumpaste flowers, just know that you'll have to buy other stuff, like the sweet pea cutter, and floral wire/tape, and the purple foam (I just used the pink, to be honest, and it worked fine), and there's no briar rose cutter, so I just used the small rose cutter and cut out the five petals individually from there. Also I didn't have the yellow stamens to use for the briar rose, so I just used white. It didn't look as cute, but it was do-able in a pinch. If you find the yellow stamens anywhere, though, let me know! :)

New Toys!

So like I said yesterday, I bought an airbrush machine. And today I went back to Michael's and bought the new Wilton gumpaste flower kit (I have the old one already). While it's not as awesome as some of the gumpaste cutters I've used in the past (you know, like the awesome--and expensive--metal cutters) I'm still pleasantly surprised with what I got. Plus, I used a 40% off coupon, so it was a deal, and that makes me happy. I also bought the impression mat (and some cupcake boxes that were on clearance; no comment on my spending habits, please).

Anyway, I used the rose cutters first, just because I've had the most practice with roses and I've already done that whole learning curve thing. I need to learn how to make lilies (preferably before this weekend) but they don't look too difficult, so I'll save that for tomorrow or Wednesday.

But the real reason I played around with gumpaste flowers tonight (other than practicing for a wedding cakes this weekend) was so that I could finally try out my airbrush machine!

I bought some pearlized stuff (these are all technical terms, obviously) since I couldn't pick one color and all that (note to self: buy Americolor airbrush color 12 pack) but the pearl looks so gorgeous when I sprayed in on the flowers.

See what I mean?

Gorgeous! Not the best picture, I know, but can you see what I'm getting at? Anyway, it's way better than the time I tried to paint luster dust on flowers. And just think about how cool my snitch cake balls would've looked with gold airbrushed all over them?

More Fall Cakes

Here's another faux cake I made at Betty Cakes. Anyone in the eastern part of Pasco County who's looking for some tasty cakes, check this little bakery out.  They have amazing desserts and hire talented employees like me ;)

In other news, I found a recipe for Nutella flavored cake balls, which I really want to try, and 2 new cupcake recipes: cinnamon toast crunch and margarita, both of which I'm going to have to try out on my friends/coworkers/roommates. Not sure when I'll have time, but I'll try!

Can't believe midterms are already coming up in the next couple of weeks. My senior year of college is 1/4 of the way done! =O And who knows what kind of crazy confectionary adventures I'll get into after graduation?

Betty Cakes

I love decorating cakes. I could do it all day long, and in fact, some days, I do decorate them all day long. Or at least as soon as I get out of class until the bakery I work at (it's called Betty Cakes, if the post title didn't clue you in ;)) closes. Mostly I make "counter cakes" which are the standard cakes that are sold to the general public, and occasionally birthday cakes. I did make a 2-tier wedding cake a couple weeks into starting the job, but nothing too crazy.

That's where the faux cakes come in. Decorators pretty much have creative freedom to do whatever they want with the styrofoam cake dummies (as long as it's awesome, of course), and since the shop is decorated for autumn, I made an autumn-themed wedding cake, complete with gold basket weave, roses, and fondant acorns. It's so pretty... :)

I love my job!

Pretty Royal Flowers

In this week's Wilton class, we made flowers! The apple blossoms and the the primroses were really pretty, but it was the rosebud that really got my attention. I couldn't figure out how to make those darn things for the longest time, but it turns out they're really easy! I just needed to see someone do it in person and then have them watch me to it. Such a pretty effect, too!

Next week we're making daffodils and roses, I think, which I am also excited about. This class is turning out to be a lot more fun than the fondant one. :)

Oh, and, shout out to my instructor, Mary! :-D

Flowers & Cake Design (Part 1)

Well, I started my final Wilton class this past Monday. I'm a quarter of the way done with flowers & cake design and I'm actually really excited for this class. There's a lot of flowers that we'll be doing out of buttercream (or royal icing), and I never really got the hang of the piped flowers when I tried to teach myself. Hopefully I'll be a faster learner with an instructor who's going over the step by step instructions with me.

 This is the pansy that we made. I think this is actually upside down, but I don't really know. I like pansies a lot in real life (my grandma always plants tons of them) but I'm kind of iffy about this gumpaste one. First of all, the gumpaste started to harden and crack before I finished ruffling the petals, so that was a total buzzkill. I also feel like the sizing of the flower is off.

My biggest complaint about this class is that there is a lot of redundancy when you take the Flowers class and the Fondant class (weren't they supposed to fix that?). You even get a lot of the same tools. I'm quite miffed about that; I'd rather get some new tools that Wilton suggests you buy, but they don't actually put in your kit, like the 9" rolling pin or the tapered spatula.

You also have to re-learn a lot of the same skills: how to tint gumpaste, how to make gum-glue, etc. So totally boring if you've taken the gumpaste class already.

And the button flower? I've got mixed feelings about this guy. First of all: SUPER CUTE. I can't wait to use it with this mold for a cake I've been wanting to make for Katie for a couple of years now. But the way the flower cutter is set up is SUCH A PAIN. Also, I don't understand why you don't make this flower in the fondant/gumpaste class either. If anyone can figure that out for met, let me know!

Anyone else taken this class? Did you like it? Was it hard to make the "Wilton rose?" (I really hope I can finally master that elusive flower!)

Mums & Dasies

Kind of a weird picture of my hand at a weird angle, but here is some photographic evidence of the gumpaste flowers I made in the Wilton class.

Let me give you my personal opinion on these flowers, which you may or may not agree on...

The mum? It looks weird. I had no ideas what real mums looked like until my own mom showed me some in our front yard. They are weird looking (although tiny) flowers. I'm still convinced my mum looks like a pink artichoke.

Has anyone ever had a cake with mums on it, or made someone else a mum cake? Can anyone please give me some helpful hints to make this flower look better? Or maybe I should just write it off as one of those things I'll never be able to create.

The daisy was cute. I like how it has yellow sprinkles on it for the center, but I'm not a big fan of the Wilton daisy cutter. It doesn't give very clean lines. (I do like this other one, though.) The flower formers were nice, though!

So, out of all the flowers we made in the gumpaste class, the roses were my favorite, followed by the calla lily. The next flower I'd like to tackle is the tulip, which I have no idea how to do, so if you happen to stumble upon a tulip tutorial on youtube or something, send it to me!! They're my favorite flower, and I'd love to put them on a cake! :)

Also, Wilton is phasing out their old flower set for this new (and more expensive) one. I've got the old one, which I've really only used once, and I'm wondering if the new one is worth the extra tools. It's got dogwood and hydrangea and tiger lily cutters, all of which seems different and fun (but no daffodil or tulip cutters...not that I could figure out how to use then anyway, but still...). Then again, maybe I should just save up to get the higher quality (and also more expensive) metal cutters. Thoughts?

I wish they sold some (or all) of those cutters individually. For example, the large rose cutter. I'd like to get that one, because the cutter I got in my class kit only makes small roses. Then again, I could always buy the larger rose cutter at work. I'll probably end up doing that, and since I've worked with that one before, I know what I'm getting myself into!

Pretty Little Flowers

So yesterday's Wilton class was awesome. I mean, just look at this gorgeous rose that I made! Having someone help me walk through all the steps was definitely a big help (especially compared with the roses I tried making on my own) and I remembered a lot of the advice Shelley gave during one of her demos last summer.

The key to realistic looking flowers, it turns out, is super thin gumpaste...

Maybe don't look at the carnation. The example our instructor showed us was much prettier/more life like. Mine just looks like wadded up tissues...

I just need more practice!

But the calla lilly is cute!

I love these flowers because they're so unusual :)

So that's what I did last night. I also talked myself out of buying a $130 airbrush machine that Duff offers... I'll wait until I have a 50% off coupon! Has anyone else bought this particular version before? Or even used an airbrush machine? I'd like to play around with the one at work, but I currently have zero experience airbrushing cakes. Any suggestions/anecdotes are welcome! :)

Ribbon Roses

Something Youtube was never able to teach me: Ribbon roses

I finished my cake decorating course!

And you know what? I did learn something from it.

I learned how to make roses.

And ok, not the 'traditional' buttercream roses that you see everywhere, and the kind that I've been trying to master for 4 or 5 years. But they're still roses none-the-less. And I still made them! :)

And yes, my co-workers did tease me a lot for spending money on the class. (Thank you, Mom & Dad!!!) And yes, they can (and have) teach me so much more about decorating (and the cool thing is that I get paid to learn it and I'm having fun and I work with amazing and talented people and I'm basically just living the dream right now...) I'm just trying to diversify my portfolio of skills, and sometimes you have to take a refresher course before you can learn the advanced stuff. I have a feeling I won't be so good at the fondant/gumpaste class I'm taking next.

So, overall, I'd say the Wilton class was fun. Kind of a pain to get all the icing and tips and everything ready before class. But once I was there, it was a good way to spend 2 hours a week.

Am I crazy for voluntarily decorating cakes after spending 40 hours a week doing that as my job? Probably.

But no one said following your passion would keep you sane. ;)

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!)

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!

Happy Birthday to me!

I turned 18 a week ago! :D

For some reason, though, I always have trouble figuring out how to decorate my own cake.  When it comes to an idea for someone else, I'm usually quick to find inspiration, but for some reason, I'm more picky about my own cake.  Last year, I came up with an adorable idea, but this year I was struggling.

Eventually, though, the purple/silver theme took hold, and I decided to run with it.  Since doing the margarita cake, I really like the idea of ribbon roses, so I made a bunch of those, in purple and gray, and painted them with the trusty pearl dust/extract mixture to make them shiny.

The squiggles and swirls are also shiny because of the aforementioned pearl dust.  The candles, however, are not shiny, as they are old and left over.  After the fact, my mom told me she could've bought new candles for me.  Oh, well.

Also, did you see the bulge around the side of the cake?  I still can't get rid of that and it's infuriating.  I think that (I hope, really) that if I ever cover a cake totally in fondant, that should take care of the bulging problem, but I'm not entirely sure.  And I was going to attempt to cover this cake, but I didn't have enough store bought fondant (which I used for the flowers, etc.) and the homemade fondant was all crumbly, which happens to me every time I make it (or at least, the only 3 times that I've made it so far).  So, I figure I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

And I'd like to give a shout out to Chris and Sarah who arrived before I finished decorating and helped make the squiggles and swirls with me.  That was fun! :D

I leave for college at the end of this week, and unfortunately, I don't know how much baking I'll be doing since there's no kitchen in my dorm room.  However, I'm going to try to get a job working in the cafeteria, and I'll be sure to keep you informed of how that's going.  I'm really not sure how much baking and blogging I'll be doing between classes and work and all that other college stuff, but I'm not going to stop baking if I can help it.  It's still my biggest dream to open my own bakery in the future, and college will hopefully  be a step in that direction.  If you don't hear from me in a while, though, don't worry, I promise I will return!

Baby Shower Cake

I have never made a baby shower cake before, but I'm happy to say that now I have.

This cute little cake was made for a friend of mine, her mom's baby shower is today.

The cake is lemon with lemon buttercream  (it smelled amazing, and the cake scraps were yummy).  I got the cake recipe from Elisa Strauss' book, Confetti Cakes for Kids .

The blocks are made of rice krispie treats, covered in a double layer of fondant and decorated with more fondant.  Of course, after I spent a good 2 or 3 hours on them, I found out that there does indeed exist an easier method .  Oh well, maybe for next time.

The flowers, borders, and letters are all buttercream.  Because I fail at making flowers sideways, I piped them onto wax paper, froze them (they need to be in there a good twenty minutes to solidify), then stuck them on the cake with a dab more buttercream.  Add some little leaves, and viola!

I'm off to make my sister's birthday cake now.  All the cool kids have birthdays in August. :-)

More Cupcake Cuteness

I had a few leftover cupcakes from Harry Potter in the freezer, still undecorated and in need of some love.

There's not much to say here, I just cut out some little flowers out of fondant and sprinkled them on the cupcakes.  But the pictures speak a thousand words.  Aren't they cute?!

Felicidades!

 

This is the fastest rush job I've ever done.  From start to finish, the cake only took an hour.  OK, so it wasn't from the very beginning, but after I baked and iced the cake, creating the "blank canvas," the clock was on.

I had to get home from school, mix up some icing, decorate the cake, and take it back to school for the Sociedad Honoria Hispanica induction ceremony-- in an hour and a half!  I was going to decorate the night before but I was really tired, so I decided that I would have enough time Thursday afternoon.  It turns out that I did have enough time, but barely.

The red took the longest to mix up, of course, but I was pretty happy with the shade I got.  The roses, I think, turned out supurbly.  I'm definitely getting better at them. :-)  They didn't have enough time to freeze, unfortunately, so when I put them on the cake, I had to be really careful that I didn't smush them because they were so soft.  Thankfully, I didn't!

Oh, and the message says, translated, "Congratulations to the new members!"  It's not exactly centered; I could have put the message lower on the cake, but it still looks fine, I think.  The only probably I really had was that after I put the roses on, I realized the first exclamation point was covered up, so I repiped it.

In conclusion, I was able to decorate the cake, change clothes, and get back to school in time so that I wasn't late to the ceremony.  Afterwards, I had the pleasure of serving the cake (which might have been a disaster because I forgot to bring a serving knife, but someone had a plastic knife, so that was nice) and everyone told me that it looked (and tasted) really nice.  Which I was very happy about, because I'm always afraid that when I make a cake for someone I know, it will be a disaster.  Thankfully, it wasn't.  Also, one lady who ate the cake told me that I did a wonderful job on it, which was quite a compliment, because she used to be a caterer and she knows her cakes!

Despite the crazy afternoon, the induction ceremony, cake included, was definitely a success.  And all that craziness definitely keeps life from being boring!

Sweet Stuff

I have two or three cakes (at least) coming up in the month of March, including another anniversary cake, a birthday cake, and maybe another birthday cake.  Until then, I will tide you over with a couple of old pictures from January and early February.  The cake is for my grandma, and the cupcakes were for a "cupcake walk"-- like a cake walk, but each of the kids that won got a cupcake for the prize.

 

My plans for the future include attempting to cover an entire cake with rolled fondant (I've only tried decorations so far) and possibly making gumpaste figurines, so stay tuned for more!

9 Month Anniversary Cake

9 Month Anniversary Cake, originally uploaded by Kelsie <3.

Happy 9 Month Anniversary to Josh and Emily!

I had a lot of fun making this cake, which Josh asked me to make last week as a surprise gift for his girlfriend. It's amazing to think that just 24 hours ago, this cake was only two layers of vanilla cake cooling on the counter. Look at it now!

I was really pleased with how classy and elegant this cake looked. I wasn't really sure at first how to go about things... all I knew was that I needed a pink cake with flowers on it to be delivered after church tonight.

So I perused Cake Central, and saw a pretty 50th anniversary cake with all the swirls, which is partly my inspiration. By the way, I freehanded all the scrolls with a #3 tip. I just kind of went by what was in my head more than any set pattern or any pictures that I saw. The dots/pearls are either #3 or #5, I can't remember which.

The green is actually left over from the Advent cake that was still in the freezer, but I added some juniper green icing paste to make the color less spring-y (something that bothered me a teeny tiny bit when it was used for the wreath).

I owe a lot to Katie for the flowers. Originally, I was going to do dark pink or yellow flowers, and probably fondant ones too, but Kate convinced me to make white buttercream flowers. (She says the buttercream ones look prettier, but I'm not so good at making them.) The gold dust came later when I was testing a rose, just to see how it looked. Well, it looked gorgeous, so I colored the other roses just the same. For the final touches, I added some green leaves, and, ta-da! I was done!

(Secret tip: instead of using a blob of piped icing for the roses' centers, I used Hershey's kisses. Yummy!)

I really hope that Emily loves the cake as much as Josh did when I gave it to him. He was so excited! I'm really glad that he asked me to help him celebrate doing what I love best! ;-) And just like the cake says, "Happy 9 Months!"