Long Time No Cake

Well, this year has been crazy so far. Now that I am laid off I actually have the time and energy to download all my saved pics on my camera and write about my experiences. I can't even remember what I've done.

Cake Dummy

I wanted to find a way to practice decorating without having to hassle with actually baking a cake. I also didn't want to buy a dummy, they are too expensive. So I ventured to make my own. I had the blisters to remember it by.

1. Cut 36 layers of cardboard (Mine is 9" round 4" tall, use any pan you like as a template)
2. Stack all layers and tape together on four sides from top to bottom to hold them together
3. Wrap around with cardstock and tape (smooth uneven edges of layers)
4. Wrap with several layers of plastic wrap to hold together and protect.
5. Wrap with foil to smooth and for crisp edges and tape if needed.
6. Wrap again with a few layers of plastic wrap

This took about 3 hours total. To use, secure the dummy to your cake plate with tape or frosting. Decorate as you wish. When you're ready to clean the dummy scrape off all the frosting and then remove and toss the top layers of plastic wrap. Re-wrap with a few layers of plastic wrap and you're ready to go again.

I haven't used my dummy yet, lack of time and energy, but hope to soon.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

The only other thing I have pictures of is some of the dozens of chocolate chip cookies I made as a thank you for a referral and for my coworkers on my last day of work.

Make it a sweet day!

Catching Up: Holiday Cupcakes, Lightning McQueen and 1 Huge Cupcake

After the holiday rush I have finally recovered enough to want to write about them.

First, I made four trays of mini cupcakes for a meet-and-greet at work. The reaction was better than I expected and several people placed orders, which was so wonderful and exciting!

Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Icing
Orange with Orange Buttercream
Pumpkin with Cream Cheese Icing
Devil's Food with Chocolate Fudge Icing

For my nephew Evan's first birthday I made him a Cars cake featuring Lightning McQueen. I made the car out of pound cake and the base cake is french vanilla with buttercream and marshmallow fondant. I bought red fondant since it's hard to get red-red from home dye. I made the car details out of fondant using food color markers and allowed them to dry. You can't see it in this picture but his number 95 is also on the top of the car. The "mud" is chocolate buttercream icing and the tires are chocolate cake. I had a cold and it wasn't exactly smooth sailing but everyone loved it. Oh, and the cake tasted good too ;)

A BIG THANK YOU  TO MY SISTER TAZIA FOR ALL HER HELP!

Then the holiday rush was upon me and it was cupcake boxes with those same four varieties. I lost count of how many boxes I made but it was A LOT, I felt like a bakery. They got positive reviews from everyone, even people who don't like cake - those are my favorite.

Oh, and I couldn't forget the giant cupcake for my friend Phuong. She's another of the "I don't like cake" converts. The orange cake with orange buttercream suited her tastes since it was fruit based and not too sweet.

The giant cupcake pan wasn't easy to work with, mine was all silicone resting on a cookie sheet. The first time it didn't cook all the way through. I went and bought two heating cores and used them the second time to get the centers to cook more evenly. The cores made it tip a bit and spilled all over my oven. Icing it wasn't a piece of cake either. I know, stupid pun, I couldn't help myself. I tried to make the bottom look like a cupcake wrapper, but it was hard to make the cream cheese frosting stand upright because it is very soft. Some lessons learned so hopefully next time it will go smoother, but it turned out well.

Thank you for all my friends, family and coworkers for your support!
Have a sweet day!

Julie & Julia

I am a bit behind on my postings but am skipping ahead anyhow. I am watching the movie Julie and Julia on one monitor while I type and work on my second monitor. Oh what bliss is two monitors!!! What a wonderful movie and I'm only halfway through. I'll probably watch it a few times before I return it - gotta love Redbox.

I was asked to teach a friend's husband how to make mini cupcakes and fondant. They are moving to Japan and opening a bakery and are interested in making small, cute desserts. To say the least I am flattered and hope I can deliver on every expectation. So for the next two Saturday's that is where I'll be. I made a list of all the supplies we'll need and which recipes we'll use. I am very excited.

For the preparations I thought it wise to take my battered packet of recipes and clean them up a bit. To make them shorter I removed all the steps that I knew by heart and were just taking up space. Sift together dry ingredients, fill cupcake liners 1/2-1/3 full, bake until toothpick in center comes out clean, etc. Turns out that wasn't a great idea since I'm always asked for my recipes and I don't mind sharing. They're not much good to others without all the steps so now I have to add them back in. Also the clean-up is a bit literal since most of the pages have some sort of food splattered on them.

I firmly believe in using a food scale to get consistent results every time, which is important when I'm making something someone purchased. They are paying for that consistency. You can buy a pretty good digital scale for about $15, I found mine online. It should at least show ounces by tenths (ex: 9.8) and grams, which are more accurate since they are smaller increments than ounces. It's also helpful if you're using recipes from other countries.

I had a few conversion tables, but none of them seemed to match exactly. So I found a conversion calculator online that I trust and re-did all my measurements (http://www.recipes4us.co.uk/us_cups_to_weight.htm & http://www.angelfire.com/bc/incredible/weightmeasure.html). This is also handy to figure out how many cups are in a pound so you know how much to purchase, especially for buying in bulk. There are 16 ounces in a pound, so if a cup of honey is 12 ounces then 16/12 = 1.3 cups per pound.

1 Cup = Ounces/Grams
Brown Sugar = 7/200
Butter = 8/225
Cake Flour = 4/100
Cream Cheese = 8/225
Chocolate Chips = 6/175
Cocoa = 4/100
Coconut =3/75
Cornstarch (Cornflour) = -5/125
Corn Syrup = 11/300

Evaporated Milk = 7.8
Flour = +4/+100
Honey = 12/340
Oatmeal, Dry = 3/75
Oil, Vegetable = 8/225
Peanut Butter = 9/250
Powdered Sugar = -5/125
Pumpkin = 8/225
Shortening = 8/225
Sour Cream = 8/225
Sugar =8/225

More to come, have a sweet day!

Cupcakes & Fondant Flowers

I'm making boxes of cupcakes for Christmas. They are samplers, 4 cupcakes - 1 of each flavor.

Pumpkin with Cream Cheese Icing
Devil's Food with Chocolate Fudge Icing
Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Icing
Orange with Orange Buttercream

Here's a pumpkin mini cupcake. I'm not a huge fan of pumpkin, so I had to test it before I mass manufactured. These were so delicious, especially the cream cheese icing. The icing was a bit odd while it was mixing it acted more like a dough than an icing, but resulted in a very smooth and creamy frosting with just enough sweetness. The pumpkin cake was moise and light, not overpowering. Mmmm!

I used my new gum paste flower kit to make these fondant flowers. Simple, but cute! I was pleased with my first attempt. I used fondant because I had some on hand and didn't feel like making a batch of gumpaste. It took longer to dry and I used those cheap paint palettes to dry them with the curve.

Strawberry cake with cream cheese icing

Sugar crystals to add some sparkle

Have a sweet day!

Inspirational Posts

I wanted to acknowledge those other cake bloggers that have inspired me to try new things, learn new techniques, and start my own blog!

Bakerella

Sesame Street Cake Pops

Valentine "Chocolates" (They are made out of cake!)

 Cake Wrecks

*Note: these inspirations are not wrecks, they are part of the Sunday Sweets collection featured every week.

Hand-piped buttercream, someday I hope I can do this!

This is my favorite topsy-turvy cake since it looks like it's about to fall over.

Look at those little Lego bakers.

Candyland Cake

The woman on the left is cake!

Mario and the Princess happily ever after

4 Goodness Cake!

So cute!

Sleepover Cake

CakeJournal

This is one of my favorite sites, Louise has many how-to's with lots of pictures.

Domed cupcakes with fondant mini roses

Cake Central

Warning! This is a very addicting website!

Cake Central is a large forum website with user submitted recipes, pictures, how-to articles, and heaps more.

That's all for now, have a sweet day!

Chalk Petal Dust

I am devoted to cake decorating and am establishing quite a collection of supplies. I have purchased shimmer dust in the colors available at my local craft store, but there were only 12 and I wanted matte powders too. When I went searching for petal dust the prices for small containers shocked me. There was no way I was going to pay that much money, there had to be a better way.

After much searching I stumbled upon a reference to chalk powder used on gum paste flowers. Voila! That was the solution I was looking for. So here are the instructions to make your own cheap petal dust using chalk.

Supplies needed: paper, cornstarch, non-toxic chalk, tea ball, small containers, gloves. I bought a box of sidewalk chalk with 20 colors for $2.20, cornstarch for $2.00, a tea ball for $2.00, and a $5.00 case with 24 small containers meant for beads. So $11.20, which is about the cost of two 1/2 ounce containers of petal dust.

1. Disassemble tea ball into two halves, wash all containers and dry completely.

2. Put on gloves to protect your hands, grate chalk through tea strainer onto a piece of paper.

3. Add 1/2 tsp cornstarch, also sifted through tea ball half. The cornstarch keeps the powder from clumping, but it also lightens the color.

4. Mix together with your finger and pour through tea ball half one more time to combine.

5. Fold paper and pour powder into container. Use a paper funnel and poking device (I used a mangled paper clip) to help if the opening to your container is small.

6. Snap on the cap and repeat for all desired colors. After all is said and done you have an entire kit of powders, and a lot of chalk and cornstarch left over for several more batches as you need them.

I will caution you that although the chalk is non-toxic it's not really tasty. Since you will probably use it sparingly it shouldn't cause a problem, just keep in mind if you are covering large areas. You can mix the powders with clear alcohol or an alcohol based extract (like almond or lemon extract) and use it as a paint. The alcohol evaporates, leaving behind just the liquid color, this keeps gum paste and fondant decorations from becoming soft after painting. You can also mix with clear piping gel to tint for writing, although I recommend using gel or paste icing color for large amounts.

I hope to make some gum paste flowers soon and use my new powders. I'll post pictures!

Have a sweet day!

Ice Cream Cake & Devil's Food Cupcakes

I have some catching up to do! I finally got the pictures off my phone onto my computer, so here's the ice cream cake I made for my husband for his birthday in September. It was two layers of ice cream and one layer of white cake with whipped topping and oreo cookies. It was delicious, easy to make, and so much cheaper than Baskin Robbins.

I also tested cake mix to make domed cupcakes to be dipped in poured fondant. I also used this same post from Louise's Cake Journal website as inspiration for the flowers & leaves on my Devil's Food cupcakes below. Betty Crocker mix versus Duncan Hines. I have always been steered towards Duncan Hines, but one week they were out of white mix so I grabbed Betty Crocker. The cupcakes came out very domed without my even trying. I wanted to be sure so I tested it, the winner is Betty Crocker for domed cupcakes!

Betty Crocker

Duncan Hines

I made a test batch of Devil's Food cupcakes with Chocolate Fudge Icing. I made rolled pink fondant roses and leaves using marshmallow fondant.

They were delicious, but the cake was very light and fluffy, I need to find a dense chocolate cake recipe.

Chocolate Fudge Icing

This icing dries thick and is very rich. I don't think it's too far off actual fudge. Sift cocoa and powdered sugar separately to prevent lumps.

2/3 cup butter (5.4 oz)

1 1/3 cups cocoa (5.3 oz)

6 cups powdered sugar (1 lb 9.8 oz)

2/3 cup milk (5.3 oz)

2 tsp vanilla extract

Melt butter over medium heat, add cocoa and heat just until bubbles form.
Pour into mixer bowl and cool slightly.
Add powdered sugar and milk, alternating, beat until smooth.
Add vanilla, beat until fluffy.

Spice Ornaments and Banana Cupcakes

I've been busy this weekend, it felt good to be baking again. Yesterday I made spice ornaments. They smell heavenly, I'm going to have a hard time giving them away! Mostly I made gingerbread men but threw in a few gingerbread girls and snowmen.

Spice Ornament Recipe & Instructions
1 cup cinnamon
1 tbsp cloves, ground
1 tbsp nutmeg
1 cup applesauce, drained
2 tbsp white glue

Drain the applesauce with a fine strainer (about 1 1/2 cups makes 1 cup drained). Combine all ingredients with a spoon until it starts to form a ball. Knead for a few minutes until it is smooth but slightly sticky. Use flour on the dough and a cutting board to prevent sticking, then roll out 1/4 inch thick and use cookie cutters for desired shapes. Before removing cutter from dough make a small hole in the top with a toothpick for the ribbon to go through. Dry cutouts on stackable screens for several days until completely dry and hard, flipping over each day so they dry evenly. Then decorate as desired, I use royal icing if I want them to look like frosted cookies. You can use glue, glitter, buttons, candies, etc. You can spray or dip with varnish or shellac to seal and add gloss, but it would probably affect the scent. DO NOT EAT THE ORNAMENTS.

I also made banana cupcakes with lemon frosting. Very lemony, just how I like it! I'll take them to work tomorrow along with my huge bowl of leftover halloween candy to share.

Have a sweet day!

All Moved & Settled with Cookie Cake

I am back from hiatus. We've moved into our new house and are all settled. Plus I actually have some time away from my busy work schedule right now. To follow-up from my last post my white cake made with xanthan gum but without the bake-even strips worked well, althought I only used 1 tsp of xanthan gum and it didn't seem to hold it together as well - but it also wasn't gloopy. I also learned to mix the batter and add the xanthan gum at the last possible second, blend, and then pour into the pans to reduce the gloopiness. Technical word, I know.

The vegetarian red velvet cake with 2 tsp of xanthan gum still came out crumbly but they were slightly overcooked so I think that's the cause. I hope to make another test cake soon. The german chocolate cake with coconut walnut cream frosting came out great, everybody loved it. I was on a tight schedule that weekend with two cakes just a week before we moved and the frosting wasn't setting up quickly enough, even in the fridge so I added some xanthan gum. Then some more, and more, and more. I was able to frost the cake while the frosting was still a bit too thin but it hardened up quickly. I know there was too much gum and it made it really thick and sticky so I'll have to try it again soon with enough time for it to cool naturally.

Last week I made cupcakes for Evelyn's goodbye party at work and a cookie cake for my co-worker's daughter. They both turned out great. Cupcakes were the typical red velvet and buttercream, I have 20 cake recipes and all anyone wants is red velvet. I was tired of swirls so I tried something different. They look flowery & lacy and I really like it.

The cookie cake was a new thing for me. I could have made the typical 1 layer thin cookie cake but I had a better idea, an actual cookie-cake. Cookie instead of cake. So I made a cake layer sized cookie.

I frosted the cookie cake with buttercream and decorated with summer-themed candies. The candies were fun and challenging to make. I did more planning with the order of the colors so it took much less time. Lots of toothpicks sacrificed themselves for these candies.

I asked my friend to take a picture of the cut cake and she so kindly delivered.

Have a sweet day!

Test Cake

I made a test cake to see if the xanthan gum would help hold it together better. I also used the bake even strips. The gum worked, the cake wasn't crumbly. I'm thinking the bake-even strips are making the cakes not bake completely through even though they look done. The cakes are sticking to the bottom of the pan even when I grease & flour them and with a parchment circle.

I will try again without the strips. It will have to be with white cake because I'm out of the stuff for red velvet until I go shopping again.

Here's my week for baking:
Friday: Ice Cream Cake
Saturday: Vegetarian Red Velvet Cake
Sunday: German Chocolate Cake

Jugle Cake & Vegetarian Red Velvet Cake & Disaster

What a week! I had parcelled out the various tasks for my niece Hannah's jungle-themed birthday cake and on Thursday got a last-minute order for a vegetarian red velvet cake. Sunday I made fondant leaves for jungle trees and fondant ears for the elephant cookies. Monday I attempted to peel the leaves off the bowls I had set them on to dry curved and the elephant ears off the cutting board. They absolutely refused to come off. I ended up scraping them off with a steak knife and then scrubbing the bowls and cutting board. I got off what I could and then put them in the dishwasher.

Ok, so no fondant leaves or elephant cookies. Alright, that's ok. I can make leaves with the green royal icing I had made. There were no elephants on the party themed plates so we could live without those. Monday I baked the sugar cookies with zebra, lion, and giraffe cookie cutters from Wilton's Animal Pals Cutter Set. I always forget how many thin rolled-out cookies my sugar cookie recipe makes. So with about 80 cookies I fathomed I would decorate them all and we could have cake and cookies.

Tawny's Sugar Cookies
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 tsp lemon or almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 tbsp sour cream
4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Cream butter, shortening and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, then lemon extract, vanilla extract and sour cream. Beat until creamy. Sift flour, baking soda and salt and combine with wet ingredients. Chill overnight and then roll out on a floured surface for cutters or into balles and then flatten with the bottom of a sugar coated glass. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-12 minutes just until the edges start to turn golden (bake time varies depending on the thickness), do not over bake.

Wednesday I worked late and then started frosting the cookies. This frosting can be used to outline the cookie and then thinned to fill-in the outline. This was my first time attempting the fill-in method, I had only used it to pour over cookies before. It was taking me a long time so I thinned the icing a bit more. Then I filled-in a whole bunch that looked perfect. They looked perfect until the icing kept settling after a few minutes and spilled right over the outline.

It was bedtime at this point so I scrapped the "decorate all the cookies" idea and picked three of the nicest lion & giraffe cookies. I frosted those and then picked the best of each animal, set them to dry and tossed the rest of the cookies. I know, sounds like a waste, but I didn't like cookies at this point and my husband didn't like the lemon or that they weren't frosted with buttercream, which is tasty but you can't make it perfectly smooth easily.

Poured Cookie Frosting
4 cups sifted powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup light corn syrup

Combine all ingredients and add coloring as desired. Use full-strength icing to outline and add milk to thin for filling-in.

Thursday I baked the white cake. Once again I couldn't get it perfectly white, it browned a little. The first layer came out nice, so I was hoping to avoid my previous crumbling experience. Have I mentioned that we are moving soon? There are boxes everywhere. While I was baking my husband had moved a large houseplant in front of my one access area to the table so he could see the TV better. I had already flipped the cake onto a board so I could then flip it onto the cooling rack right side up. By the time we got the plant moved and I got the cake onto the rack it had broken into three pieces. I was prepared this time with double everything so I had plenty to make more.

I also worked on the trees, the royal icing leaves had dried and I only broke a few trying to get them off the waxed paper. I dried them flat to be on the safe side. I used more royal icing to attach the leaves to pretzel rods. This was very difficult and most of the trees broke at least once and some of the glue icing dripped down a bit. I held the pretzels upright with scrunched paper towels in a round pan and let them dry in the fridge.

Friday I got a last minute order for a vegetaria red velvet cake. I was very excited to use egg replacer, I had always used water, flour, and oil to replace the eggs. I am still perfecting my vegetarian cake recipe to make up for the missing eggs and it's still a bit crumbly. I also bought Bake Even Strips so I wouldn't have to handle the cake so much to level it. They worked great, the cake did rise evenly so I didn't have to level it. With both of my new toys the cake ended up even crumblier than before.

I had thought about using xanthan gum, a common ingredient used in gluten-free baking to help bind it together. It is pretty expensive so I wanted to try the egg replacer first. So now I am going to make a test cake with some xanthan gum and use the bake even strips again and see how that goes. I have another vegetarian cake to deliver on Saturday so I hope this does the trick.

Saturday morning I frosted the jungle cake and finished decorating it. After the party I rushed home and decorated the red velvet cake with whipped cream.

In the end, both cakes turned out beautifully and I am happy to take my findings and continue on my baking adventures.

If you can't tell, she started eating the grass before we could get a picture and light the candle.

The candy letters are a thin layer of baby blue for the letter-front and chocolate for the backdrop.

Make it a sweet day!

Raspberry White Cake

The cake turned out beautifully. Too bad I had my dates mixed up. The party is October 9th not September 9th. Oh well, everyone else seemed to enjoy my mistake tremendously.

I still couldn't pull off a white cake that didn't brown on the edges. I even undercooked it a bit but that just left it a bit uncooked in the very middle with brown edges still. I've tried the "keep the temperature at exactly 350 degrees" theory, I think I should try the "cook extremely slowly" method like you do for cheesecake. It can't hurt. But the cupcakes from the same batter came out perfectly white, probably attributed to the shorter bake time, but were completely cooked.

I'm sure I've said I'm not a big frosting person. Usually I see it as the medium to decorate the cake and nothing more. Using the exact same recipe I've always used, Wilton's Buttercream Icing, this icing was especially fantastic. I couldn't stop eating it! It was smooth and creamy but not too sweet and the perfect consistency too. I might be turned into a frosting lover yet.

White cake with raspberry filling and buttercream icing. I made the filling by using 1/2 cup buttercream plus 3 tbsp raspberry jam. Use jam instead of preserves if you don't like the seeds. The fresh raspberries on top were a real treat with the buttercream.

Cupcakes, Cakes, Truffles

It just occurred to me that I have a busy baking week. Today I need to make red velvet cupcakes, buttercream for the cupcakes, raspberry filling and 2 white cake layers. Tomorrow (Tuesday) I'll give the cupcakes to a coworker for her birthday. Tomorrow evening I will assemble and decorate the white cake with raspberry filling for a coworker who is leaving. On Wednesday I need to make the filling for the toffee truffles and on Thursday I will finish them to give to a friend on Friday for her birthday.

When am I going to pack and get my 10 hours of beauty sleep every night?

Here are the red velvet cupcakes with buttercream. Pretty and yummy!

White-White Cake Practice

Yesterday my goal was to make white cake that is actually white, not brown. There was both success & disaster. I thought to myself, “this is why we practice”. I started at 9am and wasn’t done until 9pm. I liked the end result, but it seemed like a lot of work for a little cake and some cupcakes.

Box Mix
You can call me a cheater, but I use box mixes for practice cakes. Of course, I have a few special tricks to make my cakes “better than a box mix”.

I started out with white box mix. It browned more than I would have liked. I waited ten minutes and then loosened the edges and flipped onto a board. I grease and flour my pans, line with parchment for anything over 9”. I’ve never had a problem with a cake falling apart besides my very first cakes without eggs (I have vegan substitutes now).

My first 8” cake came out of the pan just fine. Before I could flip the cake onto a rack to cool it broke into pieces. I hadn’t even touched it, it was just too light and couldn’t hold it together. It sure tasted good though! Normally, I would make cake balls out of any extra cake but I also only had barely enough powdered sugar to make the frosting I needed for the cake, so I decided to wait and see.

So, saddened that I wouldn’t have enough mix for another 8” layer, I resigned myself to making more batter to replace it. I baked the other two 6” cakes and the second 8” cake, they all came out beautifully, only very lightly browned. I have no idea why that first one fell apart because all the batter was from the same batch. Maybe it had to do with the wait time between the cakes?

White Cake Batter Disaster
I found a white cake recipe online from what I considered a trusted source. This recipe promised to make white-white cakes so I wanted to try it. What a disaster! I followed the directions exactly, weighing all the ingredients, and the batter was very runny. I figured it might be part of the secret so I would give it a shot.

What a disaster!

The “cake” boiled out of the pan and all over the bottom of my oven. I tossed the “cake” and the rest of the batter. While the oven cooled off I did all the dishes and counters in preparation for the next batch. Mind you, this is all for one 8” layer so I can finish my practice cake.

The oven got cleaned as best I could and I made a batch of my standard white cake batter. Good thing I bought lots of eggs because I had to use double the amount to use all egg whites for a whiter cake. I made the 8” layer I needed and used the rest of the batter for 12 cupcakes. I will admit that the homemade recipe version was a little yellower than the box (I have no idea how, I used all-white ingredients for both).

 

Icing
Because I had over-ripe bananas I needed to use I also whipped up a batch of banana cupcakes. While the cakes were baking I had made the Snow-White Buttercream Icing (recipe from Wilton). I followed the directions and added the recommended amounts of water and corn syrup to get the right consistency. However, I will use less corn syrup next time. Corn syrup is great to make the icing stretchy for drop strings or leaves but that same stretch can cause the icing to droop down the cake if it’s not kept cool enough.

I also tried another tip from a cooking website about crumb coating. I had always crumb-coated my cakes with cake glaze but that is messy and time consuming plus I didn’t have enough powdered sugar. It recommended thinning ½ cup of icing with milk until it is very thin and spreading over cake then cooling it. This did not work well, the icing was too thin and drooped down the cake and then when I went to apply the regular strength icing it just slid around the top. So I scraped off the failed crumb-coat and then regular strength icing as a base for the fondant.

Fondant
I rolled out the fondant I made the night before, which went much better than I expected considering what kind of day I was having and all the fuss made about how difficult fondant is to work with. I think I made it a little too thick and that could have helped hold it together better.

I piped a bead border, a little more difficult because of the stretchy icing. Attached the heart candies with icing and frosted the cupcakes, also adding a heart candy. Amazingly I had enough icing for the banana cupcakes and I flavored it with lemon and some lemon yellow icing color.

Throughout the day I had been melting candy and making red and pink vanilla candy hearts. I wanted to color frosting for the border in pink to match the pink candies. Using just pink Wilton icing color it was too day-glow pink. I took half out and added more white icing. I was stuck for a while trying to figure out what to do when I thought of adding some red too darken it up a bit. That didn’t do much more than take the edge off. Then I decided to try to tone it down with some copper (light skin-tone) color. Voila! Matching pink icing that doesn’t glow in the dark.

Wrap-Up
It was a productive and tiring day. I learned a lot from this practice cake and am glad I allowed myself plenty of extra time. Lessons learned: have lots of extra ingredients in case disaster strikes, don’t use so much corn syrup in icing, don’t crumb-coat with thinned icing, roll fondant a bit thinner and I want to test the theory that letting the batter sit helps keep it from browning.

I have to get ready for the day and then drop these goodies off for others to enjoy. Thank you for visiting.

Make it a sweet day!

~Tawny