Legos

Many, many months ago...I agreed to do a lego themed cake and cupcakes for a friend's wedding.  This cake was a bit more of a challenge as their was a lot to do (a 3 tier cake and 72 cupcakes) and I had an additional child to take care of.  Turns out, a break from cakes may be in the best interest of my family and my sanity :).  I decided if I was going to pull this off, I needed a good plan of attack. 

The Plan

The weekend prior to the cakes due date: 
-Make the chocolate lego bricks
-Make the lego knobs
-Mix fondant colors for covering cakes
-Make the cakes and freeze them (I will talk more about this later)

Tuesday:
-Make frosting

Wednesday:
-Bake cupcakes
-Frost Cakes

Thursday:
-Cover cakes with fondant
-Ad detail work to cakes

Friday:
-Frost cupcakes
-Deliver

When my friend came to me, she brought a stack of lego bricks in the shape of a three tier wedding cake, she wanted the cake to look like that...only bigger.  Her colors were pink and brown, so the cake was to coordinate.  As always, I started by taking many pictures of the process, but as I got involved...I picked up the camera less and less.  Stay tuned to see how well I stuck to the plan and how it all turned out.

A taste of summer

Another adoption fundraising bake/garage sale.  Our good friends Aaron and Kristy have decided to begin the process of adoption to add to their already beautiful family of three.  Last minute, I decided to do some cookies...I actually started these at about 5:00 in the evening and finished them around 12:00 am.  I wouldn't recommend it :).  I saw a tutorial for these cookies a few months ago, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to give them a try.  You don't really need a step by step, as the tutorial is done very thoroughly, but here are some pictures for you.

I tried a new royal icing.  I looked up one that included lemon juice.  I thought it might be nice if these citrus looking cookies had a taste to go along with it.  I was unhappy with the way the icing turned out.  It didn't spread like I prefer and it never really hardened completely.  It was very airy...I'm sure there is a place for this texture of royal icing, but it is not in decorating cookies.

I also noticed that the final look of the royal icing was more matte than I would prefer.  Especially for a cookie that should look like a juicy orange.

None the less, I packaged half of these little guys up.  I was able to take half to the bake/garage sale, and half to a class reunion.  I even had leftover for a birthday party the following day!

Owl Cookies

 It has been a while since I've posted anything.  The main reason is the new love in my life!

Click on the picture to read more about our adoption story.

 We welcomed Titus to our family over two months ago.  Isn't he just the cutest thing you've ever seen? He's grown a lot in the last few months.  It has been a blur of pure joy. 

You may recall in my last post we were hosting a garage sale for some close friends of ours who were raising funds to adopt.  Not long after we brought Titus home, they too were blessed with an addition to their family.  I had to take a break from my maternity leave to provide some cookies for her baby shower for two reasons: 1)  I am so excited for them. 2)  I love owls, and her nursery is owl themed.  The below decal is on the wall in their little one's

 nursery.

 With my inspiration, I was off.  I used a 3 1/2 inch round cookie cutter.  Decorated with royal icing, I tried to implement different parts of the decal.  My favorite were the little owls.  This picture was taken before I got the cute little flowers on the owls heads.  They were even cuter after. 

Congratulations to Talley and Sarah and their precious little daughter!

 

More Cookies

Click on image to make larger.

Last summer, my husband and I, along with another couple from church held a garage sale to help fund our adoptions.  We had planned to do this annually to continue to raise funds for the cause of adoption.  We were thrilled when we learned that yet another couple from our church was working toward an adoption.  This year, we are raising funds specifically for them.  We have been working all week to gather, price, and organize the many items that have been donated by family and friends.  The amount of stuff (and good stuff) is amazing! In addition to the garage sale, we will also be having a bake sale.  Here are a few of the cookies that I worked on yesterday to sell.  Hopefully, the weather holds and we are able to raise a lot of money for a cause so near to my heart.

Rhino Cake

 A technique I have wanted to try for over a year now is called frozen buttercream transfer.  I was given the opportunity to give it a try this week.  A friend was turning forty, and he LOVES rhinos.  While I initially envisioned a 3-dimensional rhino busting through the front of a cake, my husband reminded me that we did not have the time this week to take on that particular cake (make note of this for a future date).  Instead I chose a logo (blue rhino marketing) off the web and used this tutorial to accomplish this fun cake.  It was still pretty time consuming, but fairly simple and not stressful at all. 

This is four layers of chocolate cake with chocolate ganache between each layer (my friend is a huge fan of chocolate).  I used American vanilla buttercream for the logo and the exterior.  Crumb coat is a must when covering a chocolate cake with white frosting.  I was pleased with my final coat of buttercream...pretty smooth.  I used a hot offset spatula to accomplish this (dip your spatula in really hot water, wipe it clean, and use it to smooth your cake, it melts the buttercream a little for a smooth surface).  Follow behind with a viva paper towel to smooth out any bumps.  Not too shabby!  There was a bit of bleeding between the white and black as the transfer thawed.  I used Wilton food coloring, and I've heard some other brands are better for eliminating this problem.  Speaking of black frosting, I add cocoa powder to my vanilla frosting first (making it brown) before adding the black food coloring.  It is a lot easier going from brown to black than white to black.

Lace Sugar Cookies

A friend asked me to make some sugar cookies for a baby shower in Colorado.  This is the farthest my baking has traveled to date :).  The colors for the shower were burlap and lilac.  The mom-to-be was a fan of vintage lace.  When I googled lace cookies, I found a great tutorial and looked forward to these cookies with great anticipation!

I started with the purple border and flooded with tan.  I let them set overnight and spent over four hours piping the detail on 30 cookies.  I LOVE decorating cookies and was very pleased with the final product.

Half of the cookies had holes in them to string them with some ribbon and hang them from a tree branch.  The picture of the display is yet to come. 

Strawberry Cheesecake

I've never made a cheesecake before...at least not one that didn't come out of a Jell-o box.  A friend of mine had a birthday coming up, and her favorite dessert is strawberry cheesecake.  I found a recipe and did a bit of reading on how to successfully make a cheesecake.  It seems like it should be a very complicated thing.  The most important thing I learned was probably not to over beat once the eggs are added.  I topped this with stabilized whipped cream, and was pleasantly surprised at how well the whipped cream held up.  In order to get the hearts on top.  Before baking, place a teaspoon of the strawberry mixture around the outside and one in the center.  Run a knife through each glob making a complete circle.  Starting just above the strawberry glob in the center drag your knife through.  Though I marbled some of the strawberry in the cheesecake and added the hearts on top, I also served the cheesecake with strawberry topping on the side.  Pretty and delicious!