A word about dry weather and high altitude

I briefly mentioned in my last post that I switched from using gumpaste to using fondant when making the large flower on top of the cake. I did it because of the dry weather. I live in the dry state of Colorado at 5,280ft above sea level. A far cry from the practically sea level, high humidity state of Florida that I grew up in. Baking here is a bit different than Florida. Thanks to a friend, I have a great chocolate chip cookie recipe that works here, but I have yet to recreate the one I grew up with and have it tun out well. Have you ever seen those directions on the bottom of a cake mix for high altitude? yeah, us Coloradoans actually have to use those.

I have many people ask me if my sugar cookie recipe is a an old family favorite or something. To answer that question, it is not. I've never even tried the recipe I grew up with out here because I know it wouldn't work without figuring out the altitude adjustments that would need to be made. Instead, I found one from a high altitude baking blog. Even with that recipe, I made a slight change based on other's comments and the fact that the blogger bakes at about 9,000 ft altitude-almost twice as high as my mile high city.

Why am I talking about this now? When I made the flower for my last cake, the creator who made the flower originally (and kindly put video tutorials online to show others how to make it too) recommended using gumpaste. In fact, many bakers seems to recommend using gumpaste (instead of fondant) for flowers, figurines and basically anything that needs to dry or hold a certain shape. Gumpaste supposedly dries faster and harder than fondant an thus, is the better option. Even though I've been solely using fondant, I decided to try out gum paste for this flower cause I really wanted it to come out right. Well...try I did. and what I ended up with was gumpaste that dried WAAAAY too quickly! the petals were drying out before I could even finish doing basic ruffling to the edges. I tried adding shortening and it didn't help at all. I finished the flower only to hate it.
So...I switched back to my trusty fondant and it worked beautifully. Not only did it come out great, but the flower still dried completely hard within 36 hrs (others talk about fondant taking full weeks to dry fully).

I'm sure professional bakers and maybe others who grew up here who have figured out how to use gumpaste effectively in this dry weather. However, if you live in a dry climate and are an amateur like me, know that fondant is easier to work with.

A Spring Cake

A couple of week ago, I had a baking fail. Now, I don't know about you, but I hate that. Especially when it is something relatively simple that I've tried (and failed) at before. ugg! Maybe one day I'll tell that story. However, this post isn't about that, it's about the cake I made the day after that to make myself feel better. To be fair, I had been wanting to practice my buttercream frosting techniques and had been itching to make a cake anyways. The previous days failure just neccesitated the need to bake something and have it actually turn out. I'm certainly still learning the ins an outs of cake decorating (there's a ton to learn), but it was fun to practice.

So without further ado, here's my cake-

Valentine's Cake

And now begins posting catch-up....

I made a cake  for V-day, it was a fun 3-layer, 6 in. cake. It was my first time do 6 in. rounds and my first time doing 3 layers. I think because of inexperience, it ended up being a little lopsided and the top layer was a bit smaller than the others. Certainly not perfect, but I learned for the future! I did the hearts using a technique called quilling. They were made out of fondant, but the actual cake was covered in buttercream.

Super Bowl Cupcakes...that never saw the light of day

Goodness...I am so behind on posting! I have pictures from multiple things that I have yet to put up! My plan today was to at least put up pics of some Easter cookies I made, but I forgot I took all the pics on my hubby's phone and haven't put them on my computer yet. So hopefully I will get those and soon!

In the mean time...I will finish a post I started a long time ago from a cupcake mishap back in January.

I had wanted to make something fun for the super bowl and settled on some cute football cupcakes-simple, fun, and yummy. What could go wrong? They were baked, decorated, done. See...here's the proof-

Of course, some of you may have been at the same super bowl party I was and you're thinking, "I don't remember any cupcakes."

Well, that would be because they never made it there. See, I have this neat cupcake/cake carrier that *seems* like a great idea. I used it to carry a 9x 13 cake once, it worked great. There's this little tray that you put in the carrier has raised edges for normal cupcakes on one side and mini cupcakes on the other side. In theory, a fantastic idea that should allow you to take your cupcakes wherever you need to go.

In reality, the edges that held each cupcake in place were were much too short to do any good. we didn't even get to turn the car on before one bad move sent all the cupcakes tipped over on there sides into each other. There was no saving them. Unfortunately (or fortunately), no pictures post disaster. And when I say they got messed up, I don't mean a couple were messed up and the rest were fine...I mean the frosting was messed up on just about every single one. Awesome, right? yeah...not so much.

They still tasted good, so I'm sure I could have brought them into the party, but I just couldn't do it. 

More Sugar Cookies!

I have more sugar cookies to share! I made more last week and tried a number of different ideas, so I have quite a few pics to show :) I'm going to split them up into separate posts though to make it easier...so if you like what you see, make sure to come back every couple days for more pics.

My first (and quite possibly my favorites from this batch)- cherry blossoms! These reminded me of the time I went to Washington D.C. right during cherry blossom season. It was sooo beautiful!

 I tried a couple different methods of doing the cherry blossoms. What you see above is definitely my favorite. This next picture, you can see on the 2 bottom ones where I tried the wet on wet technique. I didn't like it nearly as much. (it also didn't help that my icing wasn't the right consistency-which makes all the difference in the world when working with royal icing.

Royal Icing Sugar Cookies!

Earlier last week, I stumbled upon a blog called Sweetopia and was in heaven. I spent waaay too much time browsing it only to end up later on another amazing blog called bake at 350 for waaaay too long also. What are these blogs about? cookie decorating! I was so inspired I had to make some of these cookies.
Here's my first try at these- The designs are somewhat sporadic since I wanted to try out a bunch of different ones.

petit fail...oh wait...petit fours

ok, truthfully, these weren't actually fail, but I REALLY thought they were going to be for a while while making them. For a few reasons, they turned out less like true petit fours What made mine different?

no marzipan layer-couldn't find the stuff to make it or buy it pre-made
buttercream filling instead of a jelly-my personal choice, cause it sounded yummier
a box cake mix instead of the true sponge mix i should have used-all the blog describing this recipe has tons of comments about how difficult these were, so I figured I'd make at least one step easier on myself.

What ARE they? Basically, tiny 2 layer cakes with a buttercream filling covered in a chocolate ganache coating. The flowers on top were made from royal icing.

I adore tiny desserts-not that I've made many, I just always gravitate towards the pictures. After all, who doesn't like a bite size dessert that they can just pop in their mouth when they want something sweet?

Well, these made me almost give up-mostly cause it was a process that went better over a few days-however, those few days gave me time to lose steam and motivation. I brought some to a friend after I made them and as a fellow person who enjoys baking, she asked if I would do them again (best question to ask ever!) I told her they weren't worth it and I probably wouldn't make them again. However, I think I've changed my mind. Why? 1) They tasted REALLY good. 2) My husband really seemed to enjoy them. and 3) I think I've come up with a few methods/tools to make it a bit easier.

In case you didn't know, baking is generally a bit of messy endeavour.  Considering I'm pretty good at getting messy all on my own, me + baking = disastrously messy

These are definitely at the top of the messiest things I've ever made-they even beat out cake pops. In case you don't believe me, here's the proof...

Helicopter Cake!

My Brother in Law's birthday was in the beginning of December and since he is really into RC helicopters, I thought it would be fun to surprise him with a helicopter cake (admission-the surprise factor may have had to do with uncertainty of how it would turn out in addition to a surprise just being fun).

I used my trusty pinterest and google search skills to find inspiration and then set about creating my own version of things I saw! I was really pleased overall with how it turned out.  I did find myself  slightly dismayed at how small a 9 x 13 cake is-haha. Its certainly big enough and feeds enough, but after looking at a bunch of professional cakes and watching too many episodes of cake boss, I had somewhat inaccurate estimations of the amount of cake I had to work with ;) oh well, I made it work anyways!

For those curious, I used butter cream frosting for the edges of the street, grass, and the stream. I used fondant (and cookie cutters) to create the helicopter pad and the rocks.
The bridge was made from graham crackers and fondant and was the only part I would do differently if I were to make this cake again. I was never really happy with how the bridge turned out but i didn't have the time or extra icing to re-do it.
The helicopter was a toy helicopter we had around the house.

Here are the pics-

The road to success certainly must include some failure...

A while back, I discovered this thing called royal icing. It's basically an icing you can use to make flowers and other decor details, then let it harden completely and store the details until you are ready to use on a cake. Remember the little packets of letters and flowers you can buy in the grocery store to put on cakes? It basically looks, tastes, and feels like that.

I tried it out myself a month ago or so and made some very simple flowers and was excited by the prospect of what this icing meant. I ha visions in my head of making elaborate and not so elaborate flowers that I would have stored nearby ready to pull out for any and all appropriate occasions. It sounds like a great idea, right? decoration pieces that you could make weeks or months ahead of time and then just place on a cake or cupcake?

And then...reality [and a bit of failure] hit.

I made a batch of this icing the other day and had instructions that I had printed off on how to make about 6 different types of flowers using this icing. I actually remembered this time to split the batch into 3 bowls so I could work with different colors. First off, this icing is a bit tricky and dries really quickly, so if you aren't using it, you have to keep it covered with a damp cloth. second, the only liquid in the icing is water and the littlest amount can change the consistency very quickly.
Well...with my first batch,  I made some purple icing. I didn't put enough water in. I was afraid I hadn't, but didn't REALLY know I hadn't until it was already in the icing bag and by that point I wasn't about to take it back OUT of the bag. So, I learned what happens when the icing is too dry. Not only is it impossible to work with, but you get a result like this-

See those purple ones and how crackly they look? ugh.

Being stubborn, I attempted to work with the purple for a while before I finally just gave up. For my next batch, I chose a teal/blue. I made sure to add a little more water and this was much easier to work with. However, then I came to the realization that I Could NOT make the flowers. Seriously, I had simple instructions on making flowers apple blossoms, violets, daisies and another I forget. they were all labeled "easy" or "somewhat easy" and it was impossible. I spent 45 minutes trying to get something decent and this is all I ended up with....

yeah...not quite the pretty flowers I was hoping for. I had also printed out the instructions of making roses, which was in the "medium" category for difficulty and seemed difficult. I figured though, I've already royally screwed up all the other flowers, why not screw up the rose too?
Imagine my surprise when I started these and they were actually looking decent-even good! what? It doesn't make sense at all. But hey, I'll take it.

I actually still have the 3rd batch of frosting set aside in a Tupperware. After the several hours of working with all the stuff previously, I just didn't have the energy to try any more. Maybe one day I'll give those other flowers 1 more shot and If I can't make them decent, then I'm giving up royal icing flowers!
Here's my roses-

Broncos cupcakes!

My husband and I had a chili cook-off/broncos game event to go to the other week. As what typically happens, guys were supposed to bring soda and girls a dessert or other item of some sort. It was a Younglife leadership event, and since I'm his wife and he's the actual leader, I didn't really NEED to bring anything, but he knows I like to make stuff and so let me know about the request. Since I was studying, I wasn't sure if I would have time, but it turned out that one day I really needed a break, and baking cupcakes seemed like a fun break to take. I bought new icing colors and was determined to do some fun colors...........Once I remembered it was for a football game, I figured Broncos colors would be ideal. I will totally admit that I had to look them up on the Internet to find out what the actual colors were (good thing I did, too-my guess was quite off)
I decided to make mini cupcakes since people tend to like the little bite size deals :)

More baking!

Well. I found out I passed one of my exams! I won't know about the other one for a while, but at least it's done with!

In early September, I made my birthday cake! It certainly won't win any awards and the writing is quite crooked, BUT, it was my first layered cake (just 2 layers), it didn't fall over, and it sure tasted good-so I was pleased.

A little while later, a friend and I made some more cake pops. They turned out pretty well, though I learned the lesson that even though making them bigger might SEEM like a great idea, it really isn't-unless I want them all to fall off their sticks, that is :) oh well, ya live and learn.

Cupcakes!

When I made my cake pops, I had to buy a few decorating tips. I had not previously used decorating tips, so I really didn't know how it would go. Well, since then, I've been itching to use them again, mainly to decorate cupcakes or a cake. Well, this weekend was going to be the time! I made cupcathe cupcakes friday (with my new mini cupcake pan), bought a couple more tips at Michaels (since I had previousy been on the search for ones that would make tiny decorations for the cake pops and now I needed bigger ones), and got to work Saturday!

I wasn't sure how different it would be using homemade icing versus store bought icing, so I decided to try both. Both worked pretty well, though I had a little trouble with the homemade frosting keeping its shape or structure. I kept having to putting it in the fridge to make it workable. Whereas, the store bought was a bit easier too work with. I ended up with nice cupcakes from both though. Upon tasting, both were great! I've had multiple tasters/cupcake eaters confirm the good taste as well.

I made a batch of pink homemade frosting and then used food coloring to make the white store bought yellow. Then, disaster hit (ok, that could be some *slight* exageration). I had about 8 cupcakes left and no more frosting. I was curious to see how much frosting I would use since I had grand ideas for icing my cupcakes, and I used quite a bit ;) For the last few, I figured I would just make one more batch (or actually half batch, which is what i did before) of homemade frosting and color it blue. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong, only that something did. It ended up grainy looking and not holding shape well at all-even after it spent a few minutes in the freezer. I'm guessing I either didn't get the butter soft enough before making the frosting or my husband's finger swipe of butter before I added the other ingredients messed up (he thought it was frosting and it wasn't until after he ate a fingerful of butter that he asked what it was! oops!). Anyways, I learned a lesson and it wasn't a big deal. I just have a few sad little blue cupcakes that had icing spilling all over the edges since it wouldnt hold when I tried to build the icing up.

A few pictures to make you hungry :)