Filled Up, Poured Out

Last week, I had the wonderful privilege of making a dessert for a Women's Ministries Kick-off event for my church. As I was thinking about what to make, I thought of the theme for this year, "Filled Up, Poured Out." It stems from Romans 15:13, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." I really love this verse and the theme for this year! Hope, joy, peace, filled and overflowing with and through the power of God! Wonderful!

The image that goes along with the theme is a pitcher overflowing with water. I thought that would be perfect for a cake! So, I carved a pitcher out of cake and made it "pour" out water. Pretty cool, huh? I was very excited about how this one turned out!

I haven't carved a lot, so it took quite a bit of planning and thinking for me to get this to work. I wanted the pitcher to appear as if it was tilted, pouring out the water. That was the most difficult part! To make the shape, I took 6-inch and 8-inch cakes and stacked them on top of each other. Then I carved the shape of the pitcher little by little with a thin serrated knife. I covered the top of the cake with blue candy clay so that I could later make it look like the pitcher was filled with water. The rest of the pitcher was covered with gray candy clay. Normally, I would not cover an entire cake with candy clay or modelling chocolate, but I wanted to make the top of the pitcher appear thin and higher than the water. Unlike fondant, candy clay holds it's shape and will stand up even with nothing supporting it directly. The seams are also easier to blend away with candy clay, which melts slightly until the pressure and warmth of a finger.

To apply the candy clay, I rolled it out as thinly as possible onto a sheet of waxed paper, then used the waxed paper to wrap the candy clay around the ganached cake. I then peeled away the waxed paper and smoothed out the candy clay onto the cake using my fondant smoothers and my hands. The edges didn't come together everywhere, so I took scraps of the candy clay and pieced them onto the cake where they were needed, smoothing the edges with my fingers. It was definitely a process and not as easy as it sounds!

I decided to leave the finish on the pitcher a little rough. So, I marked it up a bit and colored it a little with black and silver petal dust, brushed on randomly to create a tarnished look. In the verse, we as humans are the vessels. We are the pitcher being filled with hope from God. We are imperfect vessels, yet we are fully accepted and even welcomed by God and freely given the gifts of hope, joy and peace. So, my pitcher cake needed to be an imperfect vessel, too. Sometimes imperfection can be beautiful!

To make the "water", I used more candy clay, a long rope for the water pouring from the pitcher and a flat piece to be the puddle of water on the board. I tinted some piping gel with blue coloring and swiped it with a spatula over all of the blue candy clay to make it look watery. It worked perfectly!

The board is cut from 1/2-inch foam core and covered with black and white fondant, marbled together. I like the effect, but I wish I would have done a different color. The board matched the pitcher a little too well! The letters and numbers were cut out of an icing sheet.

Inside this beauty is some serious deliciousness. Lightly lemon blueberry cake with blueberry swiss meringue buttercream. White chocolate ganache covered the entire thing underneath the candy clay. It was enjoyed by all!

Here is the recipe so you can make it yourself! Enjoy!!

Lemon Blueberry Cake with Blueberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream
For the Cake:
3 cups (12 ounces) unbleached all purpose flour
1 (1/2 ounce) tablespoon potato starch
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups (14 ounces) granulated sugar
3 whole large eggs
2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract or vanilla paste
3/4 cup (6 liquid ounces) buttermilk
1/2 cup (4 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 cup frozen blueberries (do not thaw)

For the Buttercream:
6 egg whites
12 ounces granulated sugar
Pinch salt
12.5 ounces unsalted high-quality butter (I use Kerrygold), very soft room temperature
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
½ - 1 cup fresh blueberry puree*

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare 2 8-inch round cake pans by greasing them with shortening, lining them with parchment paper and dusting lightly with flour.

Whisk together the flour, potato starch, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla and a splash of the buttermilk. Set aside.

Add the rest of the buttermilk and the butter to the flour mixture and mix with the paddle attachment on low speed until moistened, then on medium speed for 90 seconds. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula.

Whisk the lemon juice and lemon zest into the egg mixture, then add in three parts to the flour/butter mixture. Add each part on low speed then mix on medium speed for 20 seconds after each addition. Gently mix in the frozen blueberries. (Adding them frozen keeps the batter from turning purple, as does mixing them in quickly and gently.)

Divide evenly into the prepared pans and bake in the preheated oven for 35 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached. Cool in pans on a wire cooling rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely. Tort and frost as desired or wrap tightly and carefully in plastic wrap and aluminum foil and freeze for up to one month. Thaw completely before unwrapping.

While the cake is cooling, make the buttercream. Whisk together the egg whites, sugar and salt in a large bowl that sits comfortably on top of a saucepan, or in the top bowl of a double boiler. (The bowl should have no trace of fat (including egg yolks) in it anywhere or your egg whites will not whip up properly. I often wipe my bowl down with some vinegar or the cut side of a lemon to remove any residue then dry it before putting my egg whites in.) Bring about an inch of water to a boil in a large saucepan upon which the bowl will sit without touching the water, or in the bottom pan of a double boiler if that is what you are using. Make sure that the water will NOT touch the bottom of the bowl in which the eggs are placed or the eggs will scramble. Once the water is boiling, turn down the heat to a simmer and set the bowl with the egg whites mixture on top. Whisk continually until the egg white mixture reaches 165 degrees F on a candy thermometer, or until the egg whites are very foamy and all the sugar is dissolved, about 5 minutes.

When the eggs reach 165 degrees F., pour the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into the bowl of a stand mixer. Immediately put the bowl onto the mixer with the whisk attachment and whip on high speed until the eggs reach stiff peaks and the bowl is cool to the touch. This can take 10 minutes or more. Once the egg whites have reached stiff peaks, turn the mixer to the lowest setting and add the softened butter one tablespoon at a time until all of the butter is incorporated into the egg whites. Continue to mix on the lowest speed until the buttercream comes together. It will look soupy and curdled at first. That’s normal! Keep mixing on low speed and it will come together. Just keep an eye on it and stop the mixer when the buttercream looks smooth and silky.

Once it comes together, switch to the paddle attachment and add the vanilla extract. Mix on low until incorporated. Add the puree a little at a time to ensure that it is fully incorporated. Add more to taste, being careful not to break the buttercream by adding too much.

*To make the blueberry puree, heat 2 cups of fresh or frozen blueberries in a medium saucepan with a few tablespoons of water until the blueberries begin to break down and the liquid is boiling. Once it is boiling, mash the blueberries with a potato masher or a wooden spoon. For a very smooth sauce, puree with an immersion blender right in the pot or briefly remove from the heat and puree in a blender. Reduce to a simmer and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced by half. Remove from the heat and stir in a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice.

Cupcake Cake

Man oh man. Has this been a rough couple of weeks! With, thankfully, some good things sprinkled in there too.

I need a bumper sticker that says "I'd rather be caking." Because that is what I would almost always rather be doing. Especially lately. Especially when I was replacing a door jam and chiseling out the openings for the hinges, latch, and lock. (Thanks to my Dad for helping with most of the problem-filled door repair!)

Oh, and I would rather have been caking when I got into a little fender-bender which, though it was very low speed and with no injuries, resulted in my car being undriveable with $3000 worth of repairs.

All of this in the few days before the arrival of the largest group of guests to ever stay in my home at one time. 8 in total. Instead of planning meals and making arrangements, I was trying to make sure we had a back door instead of a hole. And trying to figure out the whole car mess.

I could go on - the wind suddenly snapping our deck umbrella in half and hurling it across the deck, dragging some other deck furniture with it. Or stepping on a shard of glass of unknown origin in my bare feet and making a mess of the floor. Or losing the insurance check. Yes, I did that too. But enough of all of my woes! That is not what you stopped here for!

I must say, though, that there were plenty of good things about the past two weeks. My Dad came for a visit. Then my brother and sister, along with their amazing families, came to visit and we all had such a wonderful time together. And we ate like kings despite the chaos before they got here.

And we got to celebrate my niece's birthday! Little Rose turned 3 just before visiting, so of course I had to make her a cake! A giant cupcake cake. And Rose loved it!

I even managed to take lots of progress pics, so you all can make your own!

Shall we dive in?

First, a picture of the final product.

Cute, right?

I made this cake from 2 8-inch rounds of chocolate cake, filled with strawberry swiss meringue buttercream, and covered with chocolate ganache and fondant. The base of the finished cupcake is 5 inches across and the top of the wrapper is 6 inches across.

Begin with your cake rounds. You will need a cardboard round that is 6 inches and another cut to 5 inches. Take your 6-inch cardboard and use it to cut your 8-inch layers down. Cut each layer to 6 inches using the cardboard round as a guide. Save the scraps in a bowl. You will need them soon!

Now stack and fill the 2 6-inch rounds that you just created. Use the 6-inch cardboard round as your base. An all-butter buttercream or other filling that becomes firm when refrigerated works best for this. Ganache would work perfectly, too.

Once stacked and filled, put the whole thing in the refrigerator until the icing is firm. I left mine in for about a half an hour. You don't want to leave it in too long at this point or the cake will dry out. If you are using a shortening-based buttercream, you can always stick the cake in the freezer to firm it up. It may take a little longer.

Once it is all firmed up, take it out and place your 5-inch cardboard round on the top in the center. Now it's time to carve the tapered lower half of your cupcake! It's not as hard as it may seem, I promise!

Get yourself a sharp serrated knife. Here are the two that I use. Sorry for the glare!

The larger knife is a bread knife and I use it to tort my cake layers and cut larger pieces. The smaller one is what I use the most for cake carving. It's a little flexible and that makes it easier to get the shapes I want.

Use a little icing or ganache to secure the 5-inch cardboard round to the center of the top so it doesn't slide around on you. Then cut the edges of the cake from the edge of the top cardboard to the edge of the larger bottom cardboard. Go slowly, making small cuts from top to bottom. You can round it out a little at the end. You can always cut more, but it's hard to put the cake back on once it's gone. Again, keep your scraps.

When you are finished, flip the whole thing over, so the smaller end is on the bottom, just like a real cupcake. Here is what it should look like. Slide your knife between the 6-inch cardboard, which is now on the top, and your cake. Remove that cardboard. In my picture, you will see more filling icing on the top. Just ignore it for now. I'll get to that!

Add more icing to the top. (See - I told you I would get to it!) Then take your cake scraps and build up the top into a mound. Use ganache or your filling to "glue" the scraps in place. I used ganache because I think it works a little better, but buttercream would work too. Don't use anything that dries hard (like royal icing) because you will need to carve this later. Your mound will (and should) look pretty messy at this point. You just want to make sure you have the basic shape of the cupcake top in place. You will carve it later.

Stick it back in the frig for a short time to firm it up a bit again. This will make carving a bit easier.

Then, little by little, carve the scraps on the top into a rounded mound. It doesn't have to be perfect, but you do want to make it as round as possible and even/balanced on all sides. Take little pieces of the scraps as you need them to fill in gaps or holes. Just "glue" them in place as before and let it set a little before trying to cut them.

Now you are ready to ganache the whole thing! Spread your ganache over the whole cake, spreading it with a small off-set spatula until it is as smooth as possible.

Put that baby in the frig for a little while, even overnight, to firm up the ganache. Then it's time to smooth it all. Unless you got it perfect the first time. I'm not that good, so mine needed a bit of a touch-up.

Now you can do this one of two ways. You can use the hot-knife method to smooth your ganache. This actually works really well. Boil some water. I use my tea kettle. While the water is heating, get a dish out to hold the hot water. I use a bread pan. You will also need a towel that you don't mind getting chocolatey, or, if you prefer, just use paper towels. You will use this to wipe your off-set spatula, which you will also need. For this cake, I used my small spatula, but for basic round cakes and larger cakes, the large spatula or, my favorite, my bench scraper, work well. Once the water is boiling, pour a bit in your dish/pan and dip in your spatula. Wipe it off on the towel, then use the warm edge to smooth the ganache. Don't hold it in one place or it will make a melty dent. Simply move it along the edge and it will slightly melt the ganache on the surface and smooth it all down.

The second method and the one I used for this cake is to just take your spatula and scrape the ganache to smooth it down. This is what it should look like when you are finished.

You can see that I still have a few lumps and bumps in there. You can fill those in with more ganache then smooth again. Honestly, you can do this again and again and make yourself crazy in the process. Go for it as long as you want to. I was short of time on this cake, so I made peace with my lumps and bumps.

Stick the whole thing back in the frig while you prepare your fondant. You will want some brown or chocolate fondant first. You will need to roll a round piece slightly larger than the top of your cupcake. Measure and roll according to your specific cupcake dimensions, which may be different than mine depending on how you built yours at the top. Dampen just the mound of your cupcake with a little water on a pastry brush, then roll out your fondant. Place on the top of the cupcake and trim to just below where the top of the cupcake "wrapper" would be.

Smooth with your hands and a fondant smoother.

Smooth some more with a flexi-smoother. You will love this handy DIY tool! I read about this online, quickly made my own and I love using it! Go out and get one of those office presentation folders with the clear plastic cover. Cut the cover off and then cut two palm-sized rectangles. Round the corners. Voila! Flexible fondant smoother. Useful for rounded areas like the top of your cupcake and two together also makes really sharp corners on cake edges. (I'll show you that another time.)

Now it's time to put the fondant on the sides of the cake. Measure the circumference of your cake at the widest part, near the top of the "wrapper" area. This is how long you will need your fondant to be. Start with a long log of fondant that you've pressed down with your palm.

Make sure the surface is dusted liberally with cornstarch. I use a little "pouch" of cornstarch for this. Just fill a couple of squares of cheesecloth, available at fabric and craft stores, with cornstarch then tie it into a little pouch with a rubber band. Pat it on your rolling surface to get a nice dusting of cornstarch!

Back to the fondant... Roll out the fondant into a long strip. Make sure it is wide enough, too, by measuring the distance from the bottom of your cupcake to where the top of the "wrapper" will be.

I wanted a fancier wrapper (and in some ways easier), so I took a frill cutter and cut the top edge of the "wrapper" with it. If you want your cupcake to have a more traditional look, just skip this step and cut a straight line. Use a ruler to get a straight line, then place the cutter against it to cut a decorative edge. Cut the full length of the fondant strip.

Use your pastry brush and some water to lightly dampen the lower half of your cupcake, where you want your "wrapper" to be. Roll your fondant "wrapper" strip onto a small rolling pin. You can use a large rolling pin, but a small one is easier to maneuver. You can also just roll it without the pin, but I've found it a little easier with the pin. Dust your fondant with a little cornstarch first to keep it from sticking to the roller or itself.

Unroll the strip right onto the cake. Cut with a paring knife or other sharp cutter to trim, then press the ends together to seal it all up. If you work at it a bit with your fingers and your fondant smoother, you can make that seam virtually disappear. Here is mine before smoothing and pressing it down very much.

Before worrying too much about the seam, you will want to trim your bottom edge. A pizza cutter works great for this. Trim it close to, but not right up against, the cardboard round at the bottom of the cake. The fondant may shrink up slightly after it's cut and you don't want that cardboard exposed on the bottom of your cake. Of course, if that does happen, you can always do a nice little border at the bottom edge of your cake. Easy fix!

Once you've trimmed the bottom, use your smoothers to smooth the fondant all the way around. To do the bottom edge, I lift my cake and hold it on my hand like this.

This doesn't work as well for very large cakes, but for most cakes you can do this. Hold it up and use your fondant smoother (the hard plastic one) to smooth the bottom edge down and under. Don't press too hard at the bottom edge. I have found that with practice, this is the best way to get a nice clean bottom edge. One of my goals has been to learn how to do a fondant edge that can stand on its own without adding a band or border. A nice simple and clean look.

Once you've smoothed the bottom edge, you can place your cake on your cake plate or decorative board. I used one of my smaller cake stands. I love how it looks like it could be sitting in a little cupcake or ice cream shop!

If you want the traditional folds in the wrapper, simply take a thin skewer and press it into the fondant "wrapper" vertically all around the cake.

Now you can decorate the top! I cut a wavy circle of white fondant to make an "icing" top. Place it on dry so you can move it to center it if you need to. Then lift the edges and apply water or vodka with a small paint brush to secure it. Smooth it down and pop any air bubbles with a safety pin. You can always cover any holes with the sprinkles.

Next, make little balls of lots of colors of fondant to create the look of sprinkles on top of your cupcake. I had my kids help with this part and they loved it! Apply them with a tiny drop of water or vodka randomly over the white top. Form your cherry by rolling a cherry-sized ball of red fondant. Using a cone tool (or just a toothpick or the handle end of a small paintbrush, anything that will make a little dent), make a dent in one side of the red ball. This is where the stem will go. Slightly flatten the other side for the bottom of the cherry. For the stem of my cherry, I used a small piece of cloth-wrapped floral wire. Set it in place on top of the cake with a little water or vodka.

And now you are finished!

Here is the birthday girl. She is the sweetest, most hilarious little girl! I love being around her! And I absolutely love the look on her face as she watches me place the candles on top of the cake.

Here she is blowing out the candles. So cute!

Have a wonderful weekend! And happy caking!!

Clone Wars

We are immersed in the world of Star Wars at our house lately. Will saw the original movies this summer and there was no turning back. I have to admit, though, that they are pretty good and bring back some memories! Now Will is really into Clone Wars, which is a cartoon set between two of the newer movies and features Anakin and clone good guys. I confess I don't really know much about the series except that Will loves it.

My little guy turned 6 this week and asked for a Clone Wars party and cake. This was the first year we have thrown a birthday party for him with his friends. Wow - that is a whole other story!

On to the cake! I had a really hard time coming up with ideas for Star Wars or Clone Wars. The movies and cartoon series are all so character-based and I don't think I can do justice to figures that are people. I also can't really draw. The other alternative was complicated ships, which also seemed beyond my current abilities. (Check back in a few years or so, though, and I bet I'll be trying some!) I finally decided to do a clone trooper helmet. I chose Rex, who is a leader of the clones (I think).

Here is the finished cake.

Do you like it?

I also snapped some progress pics for you. This was a carved cake, so I thought you might like to see it in process.

I started with a 12-inch round (3 inches high) marble cake filled with dark chocolate ganache. I then carved it into the basic shape of the clone helmet. You can see at the bottom that I "glued" some extra pieces on to make the full curve of the bottom of the helmet. I used some of the ganache as the "glue." After I had the basic shape around the edges, I started carving the top - adding a curve to the top part of the helmet and cutting out spots on the "cheeks" of the helmet.

Here is the carved cake. It's a little hard to see all of the details on the top.

Next came the ganache to support the fondant. The ganache is the same that I used between the layers. It creates a nice smooth surface for the fondant.

Fondant was next up. I was a little worried about the fondant going on smoothly over all of those little curves, but it went pretty well. I was very pleased with that part!

Here's a helpful hint - make sure your fondant smoothers are clean before smoothing white fondant! I accidentally got some of the ganache on mine when smoothing one side and didn't notice. That ganache then got smeared onto the other side of the cake. Doh! It took some doing to get it off and ended up leaving a little mark. Now I will always check that!

After the white fondant was on, I added the black and blue details in fondant. The hard part was the measuring and making sure both sides were even.

Another lesson I learned with this is that you can make fondant really black by painting it with black gel food coloring mixed with a little vodka. Another lesson I learned is that it takes absolutely forever to dry. At the party, kids were walking away with black streaks on their fingers and faces. And though I did all of this on Friday, that black is still not dry! And it is now Sunday! I don't think I'll be using that method again unless it is something I can paint well in advance and in a smaller area.

I would recommend buying black fondant if you need it. I like to make my own fondant, but you have to add a ton of gel color to get a true black. (The same is true for a deep red.) In the past, I've started with chocolate fondant to make black and that works a lot better. This time, though, I didn't want to make a full batch of chocolate fondant for just these accents, so I started with the white that I had. I added a TON of color and it was still only a dark gray, but clearly gray. In hindsight, I would have just used the gray on this cake instead of painting it to make it a true black.

I recently used Satin Ice fondant in black (sadly, all of it was used on my last cake and it is not readily at hand for me where I live) and it was wonderful. I think I will make a point of buying the Satin Ice for red or black projects from now on. It is a little pricey, but well worth it for these colors.

Finally, I needed to add some depth and shading to the helmet. I debated for a really long time with myself about this. I almost didn't do it. But the helmet needed something in the "cheek" areas and around the top and sides to really look like the clone's helmet. I decided to paint it on. This is the one part of the cake that I am not really happy about. If I had time and more fondant/cake/etc., I would have re-done it. But the reason I went ahead and tried this in the first place was because I knew this was a family cake and I want to learn new things. I think the first problem was using the gel color for this. I suspect that it would have gone better with powdered colors. The second problem was the brushes. I just don't have the right brushes for this. Third, my skills and knowledge of painting is limited! I am seriously going to start watching The Joy of Painting on PBS now. I actually love that guy anyway and I know that what I learn will come in handy in my caking future!

I am very grateful for opportunities to learn and grown my skills, though. How can we ever learn and get better if we don't try new things and if we don't fail, even a little, at some of them?

Overall, I am very happy with this cake. And Will really loved it. That is all that really matters to this mother's heart!

Stay tuned for another cake that I also did this weekend and will post about tomorrow. I have a lot of cakes and cake plans coming up, so come back often or, better yet, sign up for e-mail and each post will be sent straight to your inbox. Thanks for reading!