State Fair Time!

At long last, the famous C&H Sugar Cupcake Decorating Contest entry!

The theme for the contest is Fall Wedding Cupcakes, which I found very uninspiring at first. I got some very good advice from my dear friend Chris which put things in perspective, and I got to work. For the sake of originality, I wanted to avoid pumpkin flavored cupcakes. Some Pinterest browsing gave me ideas for other fall flavors. I made test batches of a few recipes and forced my friends and coworkers to taste them all. The chai cupcakes were definitely the best, so I adapted the recipe for my tastes and purposes. (Side note: if you like chai, you will love these cupcakes. I can't get enough of them!)

My mortar & pestle and a spice grinder. I used whole spices and ground them myself for the most intense flavor. 

 I tried to be tricky with my oven to get super poofy cupcakes by preheating to 350 and then turning it down to 325 when I put the cupcakes in, but my oven is a piece of garbage when it comes to temperature regulation. They did not come out poofy at all, much to my dismay.

Cardamom!

 I used one of my newest Wilton toys, the cupcake filler tip. It claims to be an easy and drip-free way to fill cupcake pans. It is definitely cleaner than trying to scoop the batter with a measuring cup like I usually do, but you can see in the picture I still managed to drip a bit. As for easy - not really. You have to apply a great deal more pressure to get the batter through the drip-proof tip, and you can't squeeze from the back of the pastry bag like you were using icing - I found that a milking-the-cow motion worked the best. I'm going to continue using it since I've already got it, but I wouldn't tell anyone else to run out and get one for themselves.

Squeezy squeezy. Look at my super cool apron!

I forgot to take pictures during the process of making the gum paste decorations. It took about two weekends to get the desired result. Adding food coloring to the gum paste didn't get the right intensity of color that I was looking for, so I painted the dried decorations with another Wilton product, the Dab'n'Color. This turned out even better than I expected - the colors are beautifully variegated and mottled and super fall-like. Added bonus: the leaves are lighter on the back side just like real leaves!

The end result. 

We turned them in this morning. Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern was doing some filming, which leads me to believe he's got an Episode on a Stick in the works. Either that or someone at Food Network thinks cookies are weird! I feel pretty confident about my chances, because the entrants before and after me had boring looking cupcakes and I suspect they were pumpkin flavored. Cross your fingers and wish me luck that the judges like cardamom as much as I do!

Work birthday - Jackie

The theme for the cake decorating competition at the State Fair this year is fall wedding cupcakes. I am mightily uninspired by this theme. Fall wedding cake? Sure. Wedding cupcakes? I can do that. But fall wedding cupcakes? Get ready for a sea of pumpkin cake with gum paste leaves, judges. I've been kicking around some ideas, and I used Jackie's birthday cake as an excuse to try some out. 

 I have all of the supplies for Wilton Course 4, but haven't been able to take the class yet because NO ONE ELSE WILL SIGN UP FOR IT. Since I'm not an idiot, I decided to take matters into my own hands and try some of the flowers from Course 4.

 I taught myself the stargazer lily and the Gerbera daisy, yay go me. The lilies look great but man alive do they take forEVER.

 My thoughts on this design: the purple is too violet and not burgundy enough, the burgundy is too purple and not red enough, but the orange and yellow look great. Obviously I've got way too many flowers for the size of the cake, but imagine that as the top tier on a four tiered cake, with the flowers cascading down one side...lovely, no?

Bender cake!

Next in line for the work birthays was Greg, a rapper and Futurama fan. I decided to mess around with fondant and see if I could make Bender's head. Sure enough...

It turned out perfectly. Now I want to make a Planet Express Ship cake!

Work Birthday - Nesi

We had four birthdays in two weeks at work in June, and I seemed to think it was a good idea to make each person a cake. Ha! I make good choices. 

Up first was my boss. I took this as an opportunity to do a little experimenting. I made frosting with actual butter for the first time ever. The result was....well, buttery. Overwhelmingly buttery. I felt like all of the effort I had put into making a merengue and custard base was wasted when it just seemed like it came out as fluffy butter. I think I will keep trying different recipes, but this first try was pretty off putting. 

I used my leaf tip to create a ruffle effect that I had seen on Pinterest. The end result was pretty cool, especially on the side (it got a little limp on the top, as the frosting was warming up from my hands)

Girl lookit that ruffle

Carrie's Graduation

Andrew's younger sister Carrie recently graduated from college, and their lovely mother asked me to make a cake for her. My points of pride on this cake are the Minnesota M drawn freehand, the perfectly matched maroon and gold (thanks to Andrew for help) and the consistent shell border. I know it's the common boring border, but practice makes perfect and I'm getting better!

I've really got to stop taking pictures with my phone....

Classy S'mores Cake

My dearest darling Alyssa loaned me her kitchen torch so I could make this happen:

Chocolate cake with some graham crackers mixed in, topped with generic marshmallow creme and then TOASTED AWWW YEAH!

All I want for Christmas is a kitchen torch. Is that my housewarming gift, Alyssa???

Time And Relative Dimension in Cake

My best friend Alyssa is an amazing chef and can bake like a dream. I was pleased as punch when she texted me "So...I get a birthday cake, right?"  Her only request was Funfetti, and I'm not one to buy a box when I can make it from scratch, so...

Andrew says "It looks like a fire hydrant."

Behold, the Wilton answer to Funfetti. Just one colorburst packet was about $3, so doing several colors would end up being a little pricey. I like the idea of using them for a sports team theme, though. No one expects color inside the cake!

Ganache to meet you. 

I highly prefer ganache to frosting, because it's fast and easy and tastes unbelievable. I had some issues with the white chocolate ganache. It probably wasn't the best idea to use shelf stable cream. Even if that was ok, regular old Nestle baking chips do not have the right properties for ganache. A failed batch and a little internet research taught me that baking chips are formulated to stay fairly chip-shaped throughout the baking process, meaning they don't really melt right. A trip to Byerly's for some Ghirardelli chips resulted in a much thicker (and actually useable) ganache.  

Blue box and some Black Box

A great deal of kneading and blue food coloring later, I had some fantastic TARDiS blue fondant. I worked some muscles I didn't even know I had getting it rolled out big and thin enough to cover the cake. I'm very proud of how smooth the fondant went on  - no cracks or bubbles! It's the first time I've done anything other than a round cake with fondant, too, so I'm very proud of all the corners and angles.

It's bigger on the inside.

The finished product, an adorable personalized Dr. Who cake, one day start to finish. Unless you count the dishes. They are not finished.