Christening Cake

At long last, another cake post!

A few weeks ago, my friend's darling daughter Charlotte was baptized and I had the pleasure and privilege of making the cake!

Pink. Pretty. Just right for a little girl.

I am so grateful that this cake came together! A little more than a week before the party, I came down with the flu. I was sick for about 3 days, then started to feel better so I thought I was out of the woods. Instead, I was hit with a sinus infection and two ear infections! And when I say hit, I mean it! It knocked me out! The doc said my ears were "angry with me." I thought that was so funny. And true!

I love it when something unexpected makes me laugh when I'm feeling pretty crappy otherwise. Those little moments are the best!

Thanks to some antibiotics, I was feeling well much better when it came time to bake and decorate. Also, I was no longer contagious, which is really important when you are baking for someone else! Just in time!

Want the details of this cake? Of course you do! :)

Both tiers of this cake are vanilla bean cake with milk chocolate ganache. They are fondant-covered and also decorated with fondant details.

The top is a white fondant plaque with a cross made by forming ropes of fondant into loops, then pinching and connecting them in the middle. I added the tiny pink flowers for dimension and to pretty it up a bit. They also serve a functional purpose. They hide the joint. Nice! I love it when things come together like that!

"I love it when a plan comes together!" Come on now - I know I wasn't the only one thinking that! And no comments about how old I am to remember that quote! :) Points to anyone who knows where it comes from!

I quilted the sides using a homemade quilting marker/impression mat, then made the actual lines with Wilton's little quilting wheel. I saw online one time a homemade mat that could be used to mark spaces or lines. You can buy these mats, too, but they aren't cheap! Click here to see an example.

I'm sorry, but I cannot for the life of me remember where I first saw the homemade mat, so I can't give proper credit. I will say, though, that I didn't copy it exactly but rather just used the general idea of a homemade mat to figure out how to do mine.

In case you are interested, this is what I did. I bought an inexpensive plastic cutting board, the kind that is flexible and that you can see through. I was looking for a clear one, but couldn't find it, so I opted for a pastel blue, which I could still see through. You could also use a flexible plastic placemat. After I made mine, I found plastic sheets in the quilting section of Hobby Lobby. They were clear and would have been perfect for this project. They were by the self-healing cutting mats.

So, I had my plastic. Next I bought little plastic sticker dots in the scrapbooking section of Michael's. They are simple raised dots meant to be used to decorate a scrapbook page. Mine are very small, white and very smooth on the top. I cut my plastic sheet lengthwise so that I had a long piece that was 4 inches wide. This is because the cakes I make are generally 4 inches tall. The cut long edge will be the top of the mat. I placed the dots on the plastic sheet in a grid pattern using the pre-printed grid on my own self-healing mat. You could also use a ruler. You want them in a diamond pattern. I ended up making two of these mats, one with 2-inch diamonds and another with 3-inch diamonds. I used the smaller one on this cake.

Don't they look cool? And all for just about $3.00 total!

To use them, align a long edge with the bottom of a fondant or buttercream covered cake (fondant works best). Very gently press the dots into the cake, just enough to make a small mark with the dots. Be careful not to move the mat out of alignment! Once the marks are made, very carefully pull the mat straight out from the cake. Line up the last row of marks with the dots on one end of the sheet and press the rest into place. Continue until you have marks all around your cake. Then simply connect the dots with the wheel tool or small pizza cutter (though it might be difficult to get all the way to the bottom edge with the pizza cutter). Make sure you don't cut into the fondant, but simply mark the lines very lightly.

Easy peasy, right?

I hope you enjoyed seeing Charlie's christening cake!

The news is out that I recently made a pretty spectacular fishing-themed cake. I'm so humble, aren't I? :) Well, that cake is coming up soon, so come back looking for it! I know that you will love it! And hopefully it will live up to this hype!

Projects

I have been busy lately! But not all with cake or baked goods. I have been reorganizing my kitchen. I emptied all of my cabinets and shifted everything around to make my kitchen more usable and comfortable for me. After all, I spend A LOT of time there and it is my favorite room of the house. It's where all the magic happens!

And that is why I'm sharing some of it here. I figure you all like to bake (or at least like to read about baking) and so maybe some of the tips and tricks I tried will help you too!

This was a big job. While I had cabinets and drawers empty, I also completely cleaned them. It is so nice to have that done!

My kitchen has a lot of cabinet space, but half of the space in them is unusable for me because I am so short. I can only reach to the second shelf in the upper cabinets without a stool. So, I want the things I need most on the first two shelves so that I don't have to get out the step stool for every little thing. I also wanted to avoid running all over my kitchen and around my island, which is right in the center, for every project. So, I created "stations" in my kitchen. For example, I have a baking station. It is basically the island, which has three small drawers and two cabinets. I put all of my baking ingredients in the larger of the two cabinets, along with a set of mixing bowls and liquid measuring cups. In the remaining cabinet, I have baking pans - my most-used cake pans, cooking sheets, and cooling racks. The drawers contain baking utensils like measuring cups and spoons, some spatulas, a rolling pin, silpat mat and my candy thermometer. In another is my plastic wrap, parchment paper, foil, and wax paper. Now when I bake, I can reach everything I need from one spot! It's perfect!

I also have a cooking station with my oils, spices, canned goods and other most-often-used pantry ingredients, and my pots and pans. I have another set of mixing bowls here, along with the utensils that I use most often for cooking. This is all right by the stove. I have noticed already how this type of organization will make my life in the kitchen easier.

So, here are some projects that I tackled when doing all of this. To create more easily accessible space for myself, I hung some smaller things on the insides of the cabinet doors. My spices used to be all jumbled together in a big drawer. Now they hang in little plastic bins on the inside of the cabinet that contains my cooking oils.

The spices themselves are in little clear plastic containers that I found on clearance at Target a year or so ago. When I get new spices, I decant them into these little containers and store any extra in its original jar on the highest shelf in that same cabinet. The bins that you see hanging on the door are actually silverware dividers that I found for $3.99 each at Bed, Bath & Beyond. I attached them to the door using Command strips. Genius, right? Yes, thank you! :) Because the spices in their new containers are so light, the strips hold them up beautifully and I don't have to worry about trying to screw anything into the thin wood of the cabinet door. I labelled each jar with my low-tech labeling system. That would be a pen and some tape. I should have printed off fancy labels on fancy clear paper, but that seemed like too much trouble. I know. Martha would be so disappointed in me!

I also have my extracts in little baskets secured to a door in my baking area with Command hooks.

I needed a deeper basket for these taller items, so the plastic silverware dividers would not work. I found these baskets with the bathroom items at Meijer. It was $4.00 and came with suction cups attached. I simply pulled off the suction cups and used the little holes for my hooks. Storing my extracts this way also makes them all easier to see, so I remember what I've got!

I used to store my main baking/cooking utensils like whisks, spatulas and wooden spoons in a large jar next to my stove. I had the idea to hang them to save some counter space and make them look much cooler. I bought an inexpensive towel bar at Target and some shower curtain hooks. I hung the towel bar on the bottom of one of the upper cabinets by the stove. Each hook has one or more items hanging on it.

I really love how this project turned out! My fab Mother-in-Law gave me her whisk collection and now I have a great place to display it!

Another counter-space-saving project has to do with fruit. We try to always have lots of apples, bananas and other fruit in the house, which I love. What I did not love was having a big fruit bowl in my way on my counter all the time. I found an oval bread basket at Target and decided to hang it on the wall. It worked! I originally had it hanging with Command hooks, but the full basket was a little too much for the little things. So, I went and got a couple of thin bathroom robe/towel hooks and used those instead. They are attached with drywall anchors, so this basket isn't going anywhere!

Here are some pics of a couple of other things I did:

Our most-used mugs are now hanging with, you guessed it, Command hooks! They are hanging right above the coffee maker on the bottom of the upper cabinet. Very convenient!

Our island has an overhang, but there isn't enough room in that spot for stools or anything, so it has been pretty useless space. I want to eventually build shelves custom for that space, but to try out the idea, I bought these little rolling bathroom cabinets at Walmart ($20 each). In these cabinets, I have the kids' snacks and other snacks, like the bars my husband takes to work with him everyday. I found the red chevron bins at Target. They hold the kids' cups so they can now get their own drinks of water when they are thirsty. Here's to some independence for those kiddos! I love it!

The "curtains" are tea towels I found at Target (can you tell red is my accent color?). I bought two small tension rods, "hemmed" the ends of the towels with no-sew, no-iron hemming tape and hung them on the bars. Don't they look great?

I have so many more projects to share with you! But it will have to wait until another time. What's that they say? Leave them wanting more. I'm sure you all (well, the four of you who actually read my blog anyway!) are so fascinated by all of this that you can't wait for more! :) I have more cake projects to share, too. So stay tuned!

Pie Pops!

You all are going to love these! Little tiny pies on a stick. What's not to love?

First, I apologize for the long delay in writing a post here. I've been a bit distracted, and possibly a little overcommitted, lately. Oh, and a two-week bout with the flu/sinus infection/ear infections had me completely out for awhile. I was sick for so long that we actually ran out of sweets in my house! For those of you who really know me, you know that almost NEVER happens! I have several projects to post in the next couple of weeks; hopefully that will make it up to you!

Back to the pie pops...

I wish this was my original idea, but I actually saw it on the web once upon a time. Sadly, I don't remember where I saw them or who had done them, so I can't give proper credit for the basic idea. The technique and recipes are all mine, though.

It was February when I made these, so I decided to shape them into hearts for Valentine's Day. It worked fantastically! (I'm not sure that is a real word. If it's not, it should be!)

So, here is how you do it. Grab your favorite cookie cutter. Make sure it is big enough to hold filling with a space for sealing around the edge. My heart cutter is about 2 inches wide and maybe 2.5 inches long (top to bottom). You could use different cutters for different holidays or events. Endless possibilities!

You will also need sucker sticks for these to make them into the "pops." You can find these at stores like Michael's, JoAnn's, or Hobby Lobby. Just look in the candy-making section with all of the candy melts and molds. If you can't find them or are just too anxious to try this to run out to the store, you can make these without the sticks. Of course, then they won't be "pops" but just little hand pies. But that would be wonderful, too! Something totally worth making!

Now, grab your favorite pie crust recipe. Now, you know I'm all about baking from scratch and, honestly, pie crust is super easy if you have good instructions to follow. Oh, and I happen to have some good instructions for you right here! :) (Just scroll down to the recipe and follow the first part. No need to make the berry filling for these little pie pops, though you could certainly try it.) But if you are really short on time or simply don't feel like messing with the dough, go ahead and buy some from your local grocery store, unroll it and cut away. I won't tell. They will still be amazing!

Prepare and roll out your dough. Cut your shapes with your cutter dipped in flour so that it won't stick. Place the cut-outs on a very lightly floured piece of parchment paper. Re-roll your dough as necessary. Try to get as many pieces cut as you possibly can each time you roll it out. The more you roll, or mess with your dough in general, the tougher the crust will get. So try to handle it as little as possible.

Now you are ready to fill! You will need two of your pieces per pie pop. Take one and very gently press a sucker stick into the dough. You want the top of the stick to be in the middle of your pop. You should have around 1 inch of the stick inside the pop with the rest sticking out of the bottom.

Now spoon on a little of your favorite jam (I used strawberry for some and blueberry for a couple). Mine could hold only about a teaspoon of the jam. You want to make sure the filling will be totally contained on your dough pieces with about a quarter inch of room at the edges to seal it all together.

This one had too much filling. Can you tell? It wanted to squeeze out when I added the top piece of dough. If that happens to you, simple remove some of the filling with a spoon and wipe off the edges as well as you can. Then try again with that top piece of dough. No one will ever know you had a bit of trouble with it.

Now cover the whole thing with a second dough cut-out. Line it up exactly, being careful not to press the filling out to the edges. Press gently around the edges with your finger. Take a fork and press the edges of the dough together to seal it completely. Press all around the edges. Place your little pop on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Once your baking sheet is full, place the whole thing in the refrigerator to firm up the butter in the dough before baking. Leave it in there for approximately 15 minutes.

Now would be a good time to preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.

This filling process can be a bit time-consuming, but it's oh so rewarding, too! You can also freeze the dough, so if you don't feel like spending a lot of time filling, or if you just get bored with it (I'm not sure how it's possible to get bored with baked goods and baking!) you can simply wrap the remaining dough tightly in plastic wrap, then wrap in aluminum foil and place in a freezer container or bag. And into the freezer it can go! When you want to use it again, bring it to room temperature before taking it out of the bag, foil, and plastic wrap. Then roll as normal! Easy!

Back to the ones you've made. After they've had a good chill, pull them out and make yourself a little egg wash. That's just one egg whisked with about a tablespoon of water. The egg wash will help to make your pops a perfect golden brown color and also acts as the glue that holds the sugar onto the pops. I also used a little egg wash to help the stick stay in the pop and to seal the edges of the pops while assembling them. You can do that too! Take a pastry brush and brush the tops of each of your pops with a thin coating of the egg wash. Immediately sprinkle on some coarse sugar in whatever color you like. I used red for my strawberry pops and white for my apple pops.

Oh, you noticed that I said "apple"? But I haven't given any instructions for apple! *Gasp*

Okay, this is the best, in my opinion. The apple pie pops. A little more involved than the jam, but very worth it. Finely dice a small apple and mix in some cinnamon, nutmeg and a pinch of salt. Saute the mixture in a little butter until the apples are just tender, but not too soft. You want them to be the apple equivalent of al dente, with a little "bite" in the center, or they will turn to mush inside the pops when you bake them later on.

After the apples are tender, put them in a bowl and mix in some flour and, for sour apples, a little brown sugar. Voila! Your apple filling is complete and ready to use in your pie pops! Because this is filling is more firm than jam, you can use a little more. It won't squish out the sides of the pops as readily as the super soft jam. I used a tablespoon of the apple filling in each of the apple pie pops. Fill and seal the pops just like the ones made with jam.

This may sound like a lot, but really it isn't all that precise. So, have fun with it! Play around with flavors and fillings. Then be sure to let me know what you come up with!

When your pops are all ready, bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the pops are golden brown. Remove with a spatula to a cooling rack to cool. You can use the stick to pick them up after they are cool. If you try to use the stick too soon, your pop will fall.

You will have to imagine a beautiful picture of all of my little pie pops all together, maybe standing up in a cute little vase, or arranged on a plate. Somehow I missed that picture. I thought I had taken one, but alas, I cannot find one anywhere. It is very likely that the picture in your imagination is better than anything I could have taken anyway!

These are really fun, so I hope you try them! Enjoy!


Simple Pie Dough
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
A pinch of salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
1/4-1/3 cup ice-cold water

Whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt. Add the butter and cut it together with a pastry blender, a fork, or two knives until it is mixed and the butter has formed pea-sized balls. Add water a little at a time and blend in by stirring with a fork. When the dough is moistened enough to hold together when squeezed, but not so moist that it comes together in a ball around your fork, it is done. Turn it out onto parchment or a floured surface and shape into a ball. Chill briefly before rolling out between two pieces of parchment until it is approximately 1/4-inch thick. Cut into shapes for your pie pops! Bake your pops at 375 degrees F. for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.


Apple Pie Filling for Pie Pops
1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 apple, finely diced
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
A pinch of salt
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon brown sugar (optional)

Heat a saute pan over medium-low heat. Add butter and melt. Add apples, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Stir and saute until apples are just tender (not too soft). Remove from heat to a medium bowl. Stir in the flour and, if using a tart apple like granny smith, the brown sugar. Cool to room temperature before using in your pops.

Heart Cakes

Remember that cake giveaway I did on Facebook about a month ago? Well, the cakes were baked, decorated, and delivered 2 weeks ago, right before Valentine's Day. I thought you might like to take a look. And I also thought I'd better do this post now before February is over, because, let's face it, everyone is really tired of Valentine's Day once March hits!

Maybe you're tired of Valentine's Day already. If so, keep it to yourself and enjoy this post anyway! :)

Just kidding.... maybe...

I did two versions of the decorations, both red on a white background.

The first was a heart with a cut-out in the middle.

The second was two hearts, one smaller and on top of the other. I'm calling it a "double heart."

Which is your favorite? I just love how the red looks against the white background. And with the red cake stand. So pretty!

This is the first time I've attempted to do so many cakes at once. I wanted to test myself and this certainly was a test! Of stamina, organization, and stress. Overall, I'm glad I did it, but I did learn that at this stage in my life, with young children running around, I can't do quite so much at once. So, for now, I will stick to one cake at a time.

Do you want to see some of the process? There is a lot that goes into making even a small cake. These pictures show some of it.

First, of course, baking the cakes. I ended up making my vanilla recipe 4 times and my chocolate recipe 3 times, though I miscalculated and ended up using one I had made the week before and frozen. Shhh....don't tell! This picture shows about half of the cakes. They are already baked, cooled, and wrapped waiting to be all dressed up in ganache.

After the baking and cooling comes the trimming. I trim any domed tops off carefully to make a nice flat and level surface at the top of the cake. Then I tort the layers, or cut the cakes in half horizontally to make two layers out of one cake. Cakes baked in my 3-inch tall pans sometimes get torted into three layers. I keep the scraps in a big bowl for snacking. Hey - don't judge. I deserve a little of the fruits of my labor! And I have to make sure they taste good, right? The scraps from these cakes filled two large bowls, mostly because I baked some layers in 12-inch pans and cut them down. This left a lot of excess at the edges.

I used to do my torting with a little tool, but to simplify things for myself, I'm training myself to tort and trim with just a large knife. I use a really nice bread knife that my mother-in-law was kind enough to give me a few years ago. It is very long and perfect for trimming and torting cakes. I hold the knife with the blade on the cake where I want to cut. Then, keeping the knife very straight and still, I turn the board the cake is sitting on around and around until the knife goes all the way through. I brace the arm holding the knife against my body so it doesn't move. This way, the knife stays even all the way around and the cut is much more level the first time. I check with an actual level, then trim if necessary.

After the trimming comes the filling and covering with ganache. Here are the cakes all in their ganache undergarments. Look all you want. They won't be embarrassed! :)

They are kind of pretty just like this, aren't they?

Here is one all by it's lonesome. It is almost finished, but I still needed to clean up a few divots and bumps in the ganache.

The smoothness of the ganache layer is everything to how smooth the fondant will be! You would think that the fondant would be a little forgiving and mold on the bottom to any slight bumps in the ganache while maintaining a smooth top. Sadly, it doesn't work that way. The fondant will show everything, and I mean everything. Kind of like a sheer shirt - you want to make sure what you are wearing under it is fit to be seen! The fondant will hide the color (unless it gets rolled too thin, which I have done before too! Oops!) but not the bumps and divots. This is one part of the process that takes a TON of practice.

I let these sit overnight to make sure they are nice and firm. I will usually put a ganached cake in the refrigerator to firm up, but I couldn't with these simply because there were too many to fit in my refrigerator. So, they sat a little longer to ensure a nice firm surface for the fondant.

I put the fondant on one cake at a time until all had the white base. Then I did the decorations.

Wait a second, how did that get in there? Hee Hee. This is my beautiful, er, handsome little nephew Caleb. I got to meet him last weekend and couldn't resist sharing a pic or two so that you can admire him too! He is such a nice baby, too, so sweet and peaceful. I don't think he cried at all while we were visiting. Though I've been told that he doesn't cry much ever, I prefer to think that he was just so enamored by my presence, he was too happy to cry! :)

Take a look at his perfect little face.

Okay, back to the cakes...

It was so much fun to just give these little cakes away and (hopefully) bless some families with a nice treat. I hope they all enjoyed the cakes!

Yellow

I did this little cake to learn/practice the quilting technique. Do you like it?

The "quilting technique" consists of the lines on the sides of the cake, in a criss-cross pattern. I put mine a little too close together, I think. But overall, it was fun and I really like the look. I put tiny little flowers at the points where the lines crossed. Kate helped with that part! :)

I also love the rolled roses on the top.

This was the first time I made these, too. They are whimsical and fun. The green of the leaves was the perfect accent on this all-yellow cake. What a great cake this would be for Mother's Day or just for spring. Bright, sunny, and fun!

Heart Cookies

Last week, Kate celebrated her half birthday at school. I love that they allow this in her preschool because my darling's birthday is in June and she will forever miss out on celebrating her birthday in her classroom. So, this year, she got to have this fun day! Yeah!

For her half-birthday, I was able to bring in a special treat for the class. Kate chose cookies and I steered her towards a lace design I've seen on several blogs and websites. I just wanted to try it and what better excuse? I was happy Kate approved!

Here they are:

I tried a new method for the background/base icing and it didn't work super well for me. That is why you see rough edges on the pink in these cookies. But I was really pleased with how the lace patterns turned out. It is surprisingly easy to do. Just start with dots and add little details one at a time until you end up with the whole lace design. I used a Wilton #1 piping tip and royal icing to do the white piping.

I used a new recipe for the cookies themselves and it is fantastic! The recipe isn't mine, though, but is from LilaLoa.blogspot.com. A wonderful site if you want to check it out! She does truly amazing cookies! Click here for the recipe.

Enjoy!

Dora and Diego

Last weekend, I had the great pleasure of creating a cake for a sweet little girl, Gwen. Her grandmother is in my Bible study group and I was thrilled to be able to do this cake for them. Gwen's parents and I also have several mutual friends, so I was excited to finally meet them!

Gwen's party was done with a Dora and Diego theme, so that was also reflected in the cake. Here it is!

This was the first time I've done a topsy-turvy style cake. See how the tiers look "crooked"? That's what they call "topsy-turvy" if you haven't heard that term before.

The Dora, Diego, Baby Jaguar, and Boots figures are chocolate transfers. I made them out of candy melts to avoid the tempering process that you have to do with real chocolate and to get the nice colors.

To create these, I started by finding pictures of each of the characters online. I then printed those pictures that I liked and taped waxed paper on top of them. I melted the candy melts in the proper colors, then put them in piping bags with small round tips (I used #1, #2, and #4 round tips). To keep the candy melts from hardening in the bags and clogging the tips, I set them on top of a heating pad set to medium and covered by a towel. This kept them warm enough to stay melted so I could easily go back and forth between the colors without having to stop, empty the bags, unclog the tips, and re-melt the candy every two minutes. So much easier!

If you do this, first outline the outer edge and main lines of the picture, then fill in with the color. Remember that the bottom is what will show when you remove, so work from the outside in. Anything that you want in the background of the image should go on last. You can also add relief colors and lines to the image after you finish it by removing the waxed paper and then piping it on the front (originally the bottom). Does that all make sense? If not, just ask me to explain the confusing parts and I will try!

The transfers are really just standing free and leaning up against the cake. In the end, I decided that to try to secure them with chocolate or fondant would just make it look messy. I was delivering it to the place of the party, so it worked out well to just set them against the cake. I knew the cake wouldn't be moved.

For the rest of the design, I wanted to generalize on the Dora and Diego theme, so I chose the colors that generally appear in the cartoons to create the idea of grass/jungle and sky without being literal. The flowers were a little girly touch because the case was for a little girl. I think the flowers are my favorite part!

Here is a pic of the cake before the transfers were added.

The final version also included a candle in the shape of a tree with Dora and Boots sitting against it. I didn't want to attach the candle until I delivered the cake and it wouldn't stay on the top otherwise, so I don't have a pic of the cake with the candle. But it was really cute! You'll have to just take my word on that. Don't worry, you can trust me! :)

For those interested in all the yummy details, here you go. The bottom tier was white/vanilla cake with milk chocolate ganache and the top tier was my dark chocolate cake with milk chocolate ganache. I hear that the plates were licked clean! Yeah!

I hope you all enjoyed my topsy-turvy Dora and Diego cake! Have a blessed week! Check back here often to see more cakes I have coming up. I also did cookies and another cake this weekend that I will show you soon!