Cake Decorating, Ninja Style part 1

I don't keep up with blog as often as I should; if it were a plant it would die, like most of my plants do. Fortunately, even though I have a brown thumb with plants, I have a vanilla thumb (?) with cake! I started this cake decorating venture about a year and a half ago and I'm extremely happy with how much I've learned. Thanks to YouTube, Google, my followers, and a million wonderfully helpful blogs on the net, I feel like I've accomplished so much over this short amount of time.

In fact, one may even call me a CAKE NINJA!

Nice pants, cake ninja.

.......Not that kind of ninja, I hope.

I have been working with fondant for a cake I designed for a friends birthday. She loves shoes just as much as me and her favorite color is red, so whilst browsing the internet I came upon this image and designed the cake based on that:

I have leftover houndstooth sugar sheets from a cake I made last year that I've been wanting to use and would be perfect for this shoe. I've never ever EVER made anything like this before, so it will be a definite challenge for me. I'll have to keep you all updated.

*Update* I did not finish the shoe in time for her birthday, as there was a death in the family. The shoe project will have to continue at another time. 

Most of the time I'm too hard on myself. Like one of my close friends says, "If I treated anyone else like I treat myself, I'd hate me!" I'm a 25 year old almost-graduate, renting a little apartment with my boyfriend and all of my animals. I don't have a store front or some crazy awesome kitchen, or even an amazing desk job where I look like a smart business woman. Speaking of smart business women: 

Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion

That last part actually sounds pretty boring, compared to the fact that I play with cake and fondant and paint ALL THE TIME! So, I started looking through all of my pictures of my completed works and I decided to be proud of myself. I've accomplished more in a year and a half than I ever thought possible. My most recent cakes were extremely successful, and I did them both on one weekend, while I was going out of town! Man I'm the bomb. (Thank you, Randy, for doing all of those dishes <3)

One order was for a boy's first birthday party, with a mustache theme. They sent me the invite, so I designed a cake and cupcakes to match the theme. I made Blueberry Lemon Zest cupcakes with chocolate mustaches, a mustache shaped smash cake, and a blue and green chevron cake with a cursive "P" on the cake. The chevron pattern and letter were made of modeling chocolate.

I searched and searched the internet to find information about applying modeling chocolate to buttercream, and all of the small amount of information that I found claimed it would work fine. In the past it's worked for certain decorations, but I've never tried to use it to replace fondant, like with this cake. It wasn't bad, but fondant definitely would have looked better. The modeling chocolate was heavier than fondant, so it started to sag on the buttercream. Other than that, everything turned out great! I used handmade stencils for the decorations. For the mustache cake, I used a grass tip and chocolate icing. I smoothed out the sides, and added the stringy texture with my decorating tip. (I tried using the fork technique thing suggested by results from Google. It failed. THE INTERNET LIED.) I think my stringy mustache looks better than the forky thing anyways :)

                                     

Well, that's the end of part one. I'll have to continue telling you about the other order I had that weekend in part 2!

Here's a sneak peak :) Have a great night everyone!

Sweater Season/Flu/White Chocolate Houndstooth Wafers

Sweater season! I love the cold; sweaters, scarves, and fluffy socks wooo!

You know what else goes along with that?

Colds and flu's. I'm really glad I got my flu shot this year. I think I'd be in a much more severe condition right now if I hadn't. My lover boy and his whole family have some kind of severe cold; they passed the sore throat and head congestion on to me. Last year I had it bad. Counting my blessings! I found this really interesting image on Facebook yesterday. A friend had posted it. It's really interesting facts about common fears.

Do you see the fact that says 36,171 Americans die from the seasonal flu? How scary is that?

I think it's kind of funny they put the whole "Americans audited by the IRS" thing in there. Is that the average adult's nightmare?!

I never want to be in that dark place. No offense.

Now.. onward to food related things. This blog is called Big Awesome Cake after all! In the midst of my sickness last night I had an energetic rush that lasted all of ten minutes. I wanted to make Randy some awesome Alabama themed cupcakes. I was thinking some Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting with heart shape houndstooth wafers. I never made them. After that energetic rush, I ran out of breath (as raggedy and harsh as it was/is) and crashed on the couch to watch Waterboy.

"Man that's some high quality H2O!"

Onward to the white chocolate houndstooth wafers. I haven't made them yet, but in my head they look amazing. My plan is to pour out some tempered white chocolate and apply my houndstooth sugar sheet, then use my mini cookie cutters to cut cute little hearts or circles. 

I think it's going to look awesome. Thoughts?

Time for me to lay down and watch Being Human on Netflix!

~Amber

Images:

http://blog.freepeople.com/2012/09/closer-favorite-fall-sweaters/

http://kusleika.com/breakfast/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/beafraid.jpg

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/the%20waterboy

http://www.shopping.com/Luck-s-Lucks-Edible-Image-Houndstooth-Black-Prints-Luck-s/info

Special Occasion: Bananas Foster Cupcakes!

I haven't made cupcakes in a few months. I've been baking all kinds of other things, especially cheesecakes, because I want to open a bakery in a few years. When I do, I'm going to have a lot more than cupcakes there. Cupcakes are one of my favorite things to create, though! I like pretty much anything miniature, and I love sweets, so cupcakes are perfect for me!

However, living in the Deep South for most of my life has opened me up to a lot of Southern influences, especially Cajun influences. I live right outside of Mobile, AL, which means I'm about 4 hours away from New Orleans, LA. It's one of my favorite places to go in the U.S!

On one of the last trips I made to NOLA, I had an opportunity to eat at Chef Emeril Legasse's Delmonico restaraunt. It's that kind of restaraunt you see in movies or read about, where there's no price on the menu and the waiters attend your every need (they also have a little table shovel for crumbs!) For a party of three, we paid about $100 dollars each. The most memorable thing that we ate there was dessert:

BANANAS. FOSTER.

Oh my goodness, I've never forgotten the Bananas Foster that I ate at Delmonico's! That being said, I've created Bananas Foster cupcakes on behalf of my friend Tara's birthday!

These are by far, one of the fanciest and best-tasting batch of cupcakes I've ever made. If you ate about six of them, you would probably begin to feel a buzz from all of the rum! It's a spiced coconut cupcake with rum in the batter, spiced cream cheese icing with rum, and the bananas foster spooned on top. The whole package has hints of spicy cinnamon and nutmeg, and a smooth taste of coconut and rum. The Bananas Foster topping finishes it off!

Caution: These cupcakes are messy, delicious, and highly addictive! Click on the Recipes tab to view the recipe!

Comment with feedback and questions :)

Chocolate & Coconut Lovers Duo

I got a request for anniversary cupcakes for a friend's parents. She told me one likes coconut, the other likes chocolate. I really REALLY wanted to do a coconut chocolate mix but I decided I better stick with safe instead of risking sorry!

I wanted an elegant, romantic look for these little cakes. I wanted to express an emotion with them. In my imagination, I saw an elegant happy couple, eating dinner in candlelight on the terrace of a castle.

Basically, I imagined Beauty and the Beast (in his Prince form) NOMing on some of my decadent cupcakes.

With that in mind, I created these little Beauty's.. tee hee :)

Check my Recipes tab for recipes on these cupcakes and other decadent delights!

Creativity, my friend.

I made some Strawberry Buttercream cupcakes for a momma and her little girl's birthday party! I had such a hard time with the candy lettering, after hours of practice and two wasted bags of candy coating, I finally went to the store and got a fondant letter mold. It worked perfectly!



Strawberry Jam

The cupcakes were delicious (of course I had to test one out, how else would I know?) and while making them I decided to save some of the extra batter for a new flavor experiment. I'm really glad I did!!! My new cupcake flavor is.... *drum role please!* Blueberry Lemon! It's the same delicious vanilla cake from the Strawberry Buttercream cupcakes, but in the batter I mixed in whole fresh blueberries, lemon zest, and fresh lemon extract. The icing is blueberry lemon cream cheese. I took one bite and got hooked; as did my boyfriend!

I ALSO made a lemon buttermilk bundt cake for my beloved. He tells me lemon bundt cakes are his favorite, and I felt like he needed a happy surprise so I made a buttermilk bundt cake, you can find the original recipe here. I added lemon juice, lemon zest, and lemon extract. The lemon extract barelely did anything for me. Next time, I'll get about 4-6 lemons and juice them to put in that bundt cake. It wasn't tart enough. However, the icing I made was tart and sweet! It was a simple powdered sugar glaze, with lemon juice and zest in it for the flavor. All in all, pretty good.

Velvet Love Cupcakes

Love is a celebration, and today I got the opportunity to help celebrate a couple's first anniversary! The couple requested Red Velvet cupcakes to celebrate, and in conversation asked if it came with any filling. I told them I could make the red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese filling and vanilla buttercream icing; they liked that idea! So today, I whipped up a lovely batch of Red Velvet cupcakes with Cream Cheese filling and Vanilla Buttercream icing, which I'm calling Velvet Love cupcakes in honor of them. I used a star tip for the icing, and added red lips sprinkles on top.



Velvet Love

Velvet Love



Velvet Love

Skills to pay bills!

Yesterday I slaved in my kitchen for 12 hours straight baking cupcakes and cookies for a twirling competition at my local middle school. I got three and a half hours of sleep and sore feet, but it was all worth it to see and hear the feedback for my cupcakes! If it weren't for my friend helping me out, I would have pulled an all-nighter! 

Within the first couple of hours we sold almost all of my boxes of 6 and a lot of single cupcakes, along with some cookies. An hour before the competition was over, all the boxes were gone and I was almost sold out. So many people came back for more cupcakes and wanted boxes to take them home!

For the twirling competition, I wanted to bake three different types of cupcakes that had flavors that would appeal to girls and moms. I also wanted them to look feminine and girly. Something vanilla, something chocolate, and something a little bit different. Here we have Vanilla cupcakes with Strawberry filling and a Strawberry Buttercream icing, Chocolate cupcakes with a peanut butter filling and Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge icing, and Red Velvet cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing.
The Strawberry Vanilla was the absolute best in my opinion, and a lot of people agreed! So I've decided to share a recipe with you, along with my pictures. Enjoy, and comment with questions or feedback!

Make Ahead!!

Strawberry Filling:

• 1lb Strawberries in syrup. You can make your own simply by cutting strawberries in half and pouring one half to a whole cup of sugar on them. Let them sit out, covered, for a few hours until all sugar is dissolved. VOILA! Strawberries in syrup.
• 3 Tablespoons lemon juice
• 3 tablespoons of corn starch

Put strawberries with 1cup of syrup in a blender, chop or puree, your preference (chunks make filling cupcakes difficult.) Pour blended strawberries into a pan, add other ingredients and cook until mixture starts to boil. Take off the burner and let cool completely, the mixture thickens as it cools. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Can be used in cupcakes, icing, for toast, biscuits, whatever! Mmmmmm


Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese icing & Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter filling and Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge icing



Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese icing



Strawberry filled Vanilla cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream icing



Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter filling and Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge icing



Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese icing



Strawberry filled Vanilla cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream icing



My Display at the table and my super bored friend