Mwahaha

I love Halloween. I love how excited all the kids become with the hopes of getting lots of candy. We didn't get as many kids as we did last year, but there was a steady line of kids knocking at the door. I made cupcakes for family friends and their kids.

Pumpkin cupcakes: Orange Buttercream frosting rolled in orange crystallized sprinkles, a piece of green licorice for the stem and pipping gel tinted moss green made the vines.

Eyeball cupcakes: White Chocolate wafer painted with green and black food coloring. Veins were free hand painted onto the cupcake using red tinted buttercream.
Vampire Bite cupcakes: Since I love Vampires, I had to honor them. Just simply dip a tooth pick in red buttercream, poke and drag into the side of the cupcake.

Enjoy!!

Keeping it simple

Going into the final flower design on cakes class I knew I wanted to keep things simple on my cake. I made all of the royal icing flowers on my cake as well as my mom's cake. I really liked the smaller flowers especially because my cake was smaller. The basket weave frosting was made from the Wilton butter cream recipe with coco powder. Both cakes were shipped off to my sister's unit at the hospital. Enjoy!

                                                                    My cake

                                                              My mom's cake

                                           A little Halloween humor for my younger sister

Until Halloween,

Julie

Hey there Cupcake!

I baked up these little treasures as a donation to my alma mater for their open house. Sunshine sunflower cupcakes and a few polka dotted one as well.

I also made brownie cupcakes with chocolate fudge icing.

In my third flower class, I learned daffodils,daisies, and lilies.  Then we reviewed the dreaded Victorian rose. It is going to be the death of me, I practice and practice and I am still having issues with it. Next week is the final class and we learn the basket technique. Can't wait!

Maroon Lily? Yep!

                                   I also got a little surprise from my mom...SPRINKLES!

Filling a tall order

I was given the task to make my older sister's boyfriend's mother's birthday cake. Whooa say that ten times fast. Anyway, a Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake was the preferred and I obliged. I decided to do a test cake to make sure it was what they had in mind.
The cake was created from a few different chocolate cake recipes I had come across. The secret ingredient was a cup of brewed coffee instead of water. The coffee bring out the taste of cocoa powder which was chocolate flavoring.  This was my first time making fresh whipped cream from scratch. I was a little nervous about how runny it was at first, it took a lot of beating to get it to a solid consistency. Then I melted some heavy cream and gelatin let it set and added it to the fresh whipped cream. The strawberries were sliced very thin and stacked on the first and second layer of the cake. A chocolate ganache made from ghirardelli topped the cake and the decorated whole strawberries on the side. My taste testers said it was good and I am hired.
                                                       Here is the finished product

In my Wilton Cake decorating class we learned a bunch of different flowers that are made from royal icing. I have to say I really like working with royal icing because the clean up is so much easier than with butter cream. Betty (the instructor) told me to make fall colors so that we could use them for a harvest looking cake. We learned the violet, the wilton (Victorian rose), the primrose and the apple blossom, and the rose bud. The rose and the rosebud gave me lots of problems. I practiced and practiced but it was a lot of fun. Another thing that I learned, I have a tendency to make my icing very soft. Got to knock that off.

Here are a few samples of my flowers:

Sweetish,

Julie

The grass isn't always greener on the other side

This past week was a really rough one. I got a special delivery from a very special person that made me smile.

I wanted to make something for the veterinary hospital to show my appreciation for how compassionate they were with Sophie and their hard work. The idea just came to me while I was driving home from work. I looked through books and books of cupcake ideas, I googled, I yahooed, I searched high and low for ideas. Nothing seemed to excite me or was relevant to what I was trying to achieve.  So I thought up this idea:

I melted  milk chocolate and white chocolate and drew out a dog bone on parchment paper and put it into the fridge to harden over night.
Made chocolate cupcakes, green frosting, filled the cupcakes with chocolate and then made the design on top. The "dirt" is Nabisco 100 calorie pack oreos and the paw print is made out of wilton's recipe chocolate frosting. The paw print was having a tough time adhering to the pulverized cookies. I fought with that for a good hour on getting the imprint to stay on and not stick to my tip. These little cupcakes were the hardest thing i have made so far, but so worth it.

Then I made a cake for one of my sister's co-workers that was getting married and it was her last day of work before getting hitched and the honeymoon. I was excited to use up some of the extra butter cream I had left over from class so it wouldn't go to waste.

These are pictures from my first flower class. We worked with fondant and created these daisies and pansies. My mom and I are taking the Wilton class at a different site this time. I miss Sue!!!!

Sweetish

Graduation Day

Today was my last Wilton Basics class! It was graduation day. First we learned a little more about preserving cakes, then how to write on a cake, and then the famous ribbon roses. The final class project was to have a cake design in mind and decorate one. I decided to add coco powder to the basic Wilton butter cream icing recipe. Everyone who tried it said it was 100x better than the plain vanilla.

I loved making the ribbon roses.

This cake is dedicated to Sophie. Who loved life and sweets.

Onto floral design on cakes

Cookie Monster

Cookies have been my biggest defeat thus far. Oh, man.

My first cookie was a plain sugar cookie with royal frosting in red, white, and blue. I tried to make them as patriotic. It was my first time working with royal frosting, but I really liked it. I can't wait to use cookie cutters for fall looking cookies.

My second cookie was a camouflage sugar cookie. I took the dough an divided it into three. I used Wilton food coloring (Brown and Juniper Moss) for two of the portions and left one with its normal tan color.

 I molded the cookie by breaking the dough into small pieces and  shaping it into a cookie. (Disregard the top cookie that was a tester)

And this is what I ended up with, a thin wafer. Yikes! I had my taste testers try and tell me what they   thought. Still edible, just really thin and more square in shape than round. Better luck next time :)

Apples to Apples

It all started at a farm in East Bridgewater where my parents and I went apple picking. It was so much fun!Next time my mission is to convince them to go on a hayride with me. We got great apples from this tree...

Then my mom and I made apple pies. Not as fun as I thought it would be to make because the dough isn't made from scratch. It was really simple to make. We substituted sugar for splenda.Next time we won't mush up the apples-just leave them in slices and also add some raisins. Although we haven't been able to figure out how to make them not as crunchy when they are baked. We made two pies yesterday and this is all that is left as of today.I guess they liked it. I opted to just eat raw apples and leave the pies to the family :)

Even the little bean ate some pie.

Until next time!

Sweetish,

Julie

Practice makes perfect

Cupcakes, Cupcakes, Cupcakes EVERYWHERE!!! It seems like everyone is obsessed with cupcakes. I will admit I love the look of them-glorious cuteness. However, they made me nervous. I learned rather quickly, I loved playing around with them. These cupcakes were in honor of Mary, a very special lady :)

This week was my second Wilton cake decorating class!

Lesson #2: Don't beat yourself up!! Practice really does make perfect. I have to say when I am decorating it is like there is no one else in the room and I am meditating and concentrating. Seriously it is so relaxing. This class we learned how to transfer a pattern and use tip #21. Fun, fun! Okay so the green looks like worms and the pattern is a little off center, but it can only gte better from here. Right?

Sweetish,
Julie

The element of surprise

Scrap booking paper is multifunctional! Woohoo! I wish I would have thought of this sooner. First of all scrap booking supplies can be super cheap if you hit it right. Today's project was a care package for my boyfriend who is in the Air Force. Enough said.

Ta da! (feet not included)

                         Hopefully it gets to its overseas destination in one piece.

Wilton who?

One of the many reason's AC Moore and Michael's Crafts are two of my loves is because of all of the fun things that they have. My mom and I were in the store picking up some odds and ends and on a whim signed up for a Wilton cake decorating class. We bought all of our supplies and were ready for class the following week. Unknowingly I think my sweet tooth may have inevitably been cured within the first class when I learned that buttercream icing has, not one but TWO cups of crisco.
                                                Heart attack alert!!

Rule #1) Do NOT eat your mistakes (no, no, no)

Rule #2) It's just cake. Don't take it so seriously.

Rule #3) Over thinking causes mistakes. Go with the flow.

Oh, hello stars on a practice board using tip 18. They are a little messy with peaks and all that junk because the icing was not stiff enough (too much water, oops).

I wish I had gotten a picture of my mom's practice board or even took a glance at it. I was just so enthralled in my own work I forgot she was there. Until next time.

Sweetish,

Julie