Rubber Ducky, You're the One. You Make Monday So Much Fun!

It's cupcake Monday, people!  Today is one of my co-workers' birthday, so in celebration (and to lift the somewhat blue mood around here) I made duck shaped cupcakes.  Who can resist smiling at a cute yellow ducky?

I can't take the credit for the design of this cupcake.  My friend V gave me the What's New Cupcake book for my birthday / Christmas and I've been dying to give it a whirl ever since.  The supplies needed are pretty basic: 24 yellow cupcakes, 2 cans plus 1 cup vanilla frosting (I think I used pillsbury), large marshmallows, doughnut holes, some kind of orange taffy (I used starburst - which C made me take into work because I was following the "one for me, one for you... one two for me, two for you" paradigm.  Have I mentioned my pants don't fit...?), brown mini m&ms, and a LOT of patience.

First - make your cupcakes.  I used a box mix because I was being lazy, but feel free to use any recipe you want.  I would recommend staying within the yellow/white cake family simply because it lets the bottom blend in with the yellow duck a bit more, but I'm sure you run in street gangs and do what you want.

Next you'll need to frost the tops of the cupcakes so that your marshmallows and doughnut holes have something to grab onto.  It doesn't have to be a super thick layer or pretty - trust me, the tedious icing part comes soon enough.

Don't mind the tomatoes in the background up there... I promise no tomatoes were hurt in the making of this cupcake.  Next, you'll need to attach the head and the butt (or just the butt in the case of the upside down ducks).  To make the tails, you cut marshmallows in half on the diagonal.  I used my kitchen scissors for this and it did a pretty good job.

At this point, if you need a break I'd recommend one because you're going to be elbow deep in icing for the next hour or so.  The tedious part has arrived - you see all those little gaps where the doughnut and the marshmallow meet the top of the cupcake?  Yeah... you need to spackle those with icing to smooth it out.  Then you create an army of frosted ducks in your freezer - something like this:

Freeze the cupcakes for about 15 minutes to make sure the doughnut and the marshmallow are locked into place on the top of the cupcake.  You're going to be dipping them into melted icing, so it needs to be able to stand up to some heat.  Once your army has chilled, melt some yellow colored icing in the microwave (about 15 seconds at a time).  Let the excess icing drip off and then leave out to dry.

Once all of your ducks are dipped, then you can create the beaks and feet.  I recommend microwaving and molding them in small batches.  They're a lot easier to work with when they're a little bit soft.  Attach the the beaks / feet with a small dab of icing - you might have to stand there for a minute or do a beak sticking dance to get them to stay, but they will eventually hold tight. 

Last but not least, apply the eyes to the rubber duckies with a small dab of white icing and viola!  Rubber Duckies!

 

 

My favorite are the ones with the butt in the air :-)

Overall I <3 these, but they took a really long time to make.  The best part was everyone's reaction at work.  It was awesome hearing the quaking, laughing, and joking coming from the kitchen.  I think we all needed a little bit of duck butt today :-)

To Infinity - And Beyond!

Annnnnnnd, I'm back! I have no excuses other than 1) I'm lazy 2) I've been traveling a lot for work and 3) I'm trying not to be so fat so that = less baking.  

I honestly haven't been baking much because baking = baked yumminess = me eating baked yumminess = my pants don't fit = BAD.  Being gone several weeks at a time for work also makes it hard to bake anything.  Hotel rooms are not exactly well equipped in that respect.  While I was on my last work trip, however, one of C's co-workers placed an order for a Toy Story cake!  

Some of you may remember the Spongebob cake that I made last year for a 3 year old's birthday.  This cake is for the same little boy who is now turning 4!  It's awesome that I get the chance to help celebrate someone's birthday as they grow up.  :-)

As always this was a several day process.  Silly work tends to get in the way, so I have to make my cakes in stages.  I generally bake the cake after work/bootcamp on Wednesday and then decorate after work on Thursday.  I was a bit concerned since this was a rush order and I didn't have any time for a practice run, but I think all things considered, it came out well!

I made the bed frames from melted chocolate.  I drew the template on wax paper, piped over it with chocolate, and then let it dry while I spend hours on those tiny stars.  NEVER again, btw... I need to find a larger star cutter.  HOURS of my life that I'll never get back, people.

 

 I love the little army men flanking the bed!

 

I didn't have time to make the characters myself (and let's be honest, I'm not THAT talented - they would have looked like deformed rag dolls).  It's cool that the kid gets to keep the figures - everyone loves bonus presents!  That, and it was awesome running around the party store yelling, "I've got Woody!  I found Woody!"  Hilarity ensues as all the mom's in the store shuffle their small children away from the crazy woman.

 

She needed the cake to feed 30 people, so I made a dozen cupcakes to go along with the cake.  I know my favorite characters were the little aliens, how about you?

 

All that's missing is the claw. "Oooooohhhhhh.  The claw."

 Thanks for stopping by!  :-)

It make look like a cake, but to the Trained eye...

A little while ago I posted about my first foray into fondant work as part of a commissioned cake.  You can read about that here.  The second part of the challenge was sculpting the actual engine part of the cake.  I think it came out pretty well for a first attempt, but what do you think?

First I had to sculpt the cake into the shape of engine.  The trick here was freezing the cake the day before.  It makes the cake 10x sturdier and makes it more"forgiving" when a nutcase like me tries to sculpt for the first time.  As long as you wrap the cake in several layers of plastic wrap before putting it in the freezer the cake will still be moist when you serve it.

The second step is applying a crumb coat.  For those of you who don't watch cake shows as obsessively as I do, a crumb coat is a thin layer of buttercream that you set in the fridge before applying the real deal buttercream.  Basically, it prevents the hogillion crumbs that you created when carving the cake from getting mixed up in the outer, decorative layer of icing.  Think of it as a "happy hat" for your cake.

I didn't take pictures as I was decorating because not only was I covered in frosting, everything that I had touched in the course of the previous 2 hours was covered as well.  Since I didn't want my camera to join the peanut gallery, I decided to take pictures once I was done.  Only I forgot... and packaged the cake in a huge box, covered it, and sealed it with tape.  Crap... So C, got to take pictures once he got it into work... while it was storming... good times.  Anywho, this is what the finished Henry looked like!

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Apparently C's co-workers were afraid to cut into him.  This was the damage around lunch time, but once someone had the cajones to take the face off, I hear it didn't last too much longer.

The Little Engine That Could (force me to post again)

So I'd like to say that I have some awesome excuse for not posting, but my only reason is that I haven't really been baking much of anything in the last few months.  Lame-sauce, I know.  In order to make up for my shameful lack of baked goods, I bring you phase 1 of my most difficult cake yet: Henry the Tank Engine.

One of my co-workers asked me to make a birthday cake for his adorable little boy's 3rd birthday party.  He saw the Spongebob Squarepants cake that I made several months ago and liked what I had done, so he asked if I would be willing to make a cake for him - of course! :-)  The tricky part?   He and his wife are throwing a "Henry the Tank Engine" party and he wanted the cake in the shape of Henry (the #3 Engine from Thomas the Tank Engine).  Now,  I've done a few character cakes before, but they've all been drawn on a flat cake. My challenge here is that this will be a carved cake and it will involve some fondant work, both things which I've never done!

I wanted to do a practice round so that the real cake wouldn't be my first time practicing these new techniques, so over the last couple of days I made marshmallow fondant and began practicing Henry's face.  It's not perfect, but for never having worked with this medium before I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out. 

This was round 1:

 Round 2:

Round 3 (the one I'm happiest with):

Once I'd picked the face I was going to use for the trial cake, C was allowed to pick a face to chomp since he'd been asking since yesterday if he could bite Henry's face! The poor Henry was Henry #2.  First went his forehead:

 And then went his nose.  Poor Henry didn't see it coming...

Stay tuned for updates on my foray into cake carving!

That's Not Baking!!!

A while a go one of my BFFs asked me to post about some of the healthier food that I've been fixing instead of the baked yumminess, which has obviously been severely lacking recently.  So here goes! 

Fish and I have had a difficult relationship in years past.  I blame it on my mom (like most adults do with any "problem") and her love of feeding us fish sticks as children.  To this day when I smell fish, I'm taken back to those sticks of fishy mush coated in heaven knows what covered in ketchup so that I could choke them down. 

Gross, right?  That's what I thought about all fish.. or at least I did until recently.  C LOVES fish, including their mushy sticks, and since I've cut most of the meat out of his diet already, I figured I couldn't deny him another source of healthy, lean protein simply because I didn't like it based on childhood memories of frozen, processed fish.  Enter Tilapia.  It's a mild (read non-fishy fish) that can be used in lots of different ways.  We generally broil it with some kind of topping, but this past week I decided to try something a little different.  I had leftover low-fat buttermilk in my fridge from making a dessert for C to take into work, and I also had some potato flakes in my pantry from the last time I made sticky buns (yes, there are potato flakes in my sticky buns... what's it to ya?), so I decided to make potato encrusted tilapia.  It's pretty simple, and pretty darn tasty too!

First I mixed the leftover buttermilk (maybe 1/2 c) with a clove of chopped garlic and let it sit for a few minutes.  Then I lightly seasoned the fish with salt and pepper and let it soak in the buttermilk for a few minutes.  Once it was done introducing itself to the buttermilk, I dredged it in some potato flakes, popped it into a hot pan that had some olive oil in it.  Let that puppy sizzle on each side for 2-4 minutes (depending on the thickness of the fish) and serve!

I paired it with a spinach salad that had brown turkey figs and a raspberry pomegranate vinaigrette.   Yum!

My Shortcake Goes Both Ways

I know I promised to get out of my baking funk, and for the most part I think I have.  I have moved on from the disappointing cupcakes and have decided to focus on things that I can actually eat (i.e. slightly healthier).  In the latest issue of cooking light there was a recipe for a citrus shortcake that was intended to be used for several desserts (a trifle and a brandied peach shortcake).  There were recipes for the dessert ideas, but I run in street gangs and do what I want, so I took their recipes as suggestions and worked with what I had in the house.

But before I could make the desserts, I had to actually make the shortcake.  The recipe can be found here.  And what would a post be without some pictures?

The recipe told me to make this in an 8x8 square baking dish, but since I don't have that I improvised.  I think it turned out pretty well, don't you?

Now that the shortcake was done, I had a couple desserts to make.  The first was a berry trifle.  I cut a couple slices of the shortcake into small cubes and put them in the oven to toast.  While they were getting a tan, I mixed about 1 c of greek yogurt with 1 tbsp of sugar, 1 tsp of orange zest, and maybe a tbsp of fresh orange juice.  Then I tossed some strawberries and blueberries in another couple tbsp of fresh oj and let them all get acquainted with each other while the shortcake finished getting toasty.  When the cubes looked more latina then white-bread I took them out of the oven and layered them in a glass with the berries and the yogurt sauce.  All said and done, they looked like this:

Next up was peachy shortcake (om nom nom).  The recipe in Cooking Light called for Brandy, and grilling peaches, and lots of other ingredients.  Since the peaches I had were in season, ripe, and basically amazing, I decided to forget all of the complicated stuff and let the peaches speak for themselves.  I removed the skin, sliced them, and then drizzled with just enough honey to make a light sauce.  Next I mixed about 1/4 c of greek yogurt with 1 tbsp of honey to sweeten it.  Last, but definitely not least, I layered the citrus shortcake with the peaches and the yogurt sauce.  The end result was such a fresh, light dessert that it was perfect for the ridiculous summer heat we've been having these last few days.

Take home message?  Recipes are great, but don't go out of your way to follow them.  Listen to you gut, go with what's in your pantry, and the end results will be well worth it!  Enjoy!

Bring in 'da noise, bring in 'da funk

Cause that's what I'm in.  A Baking Funk.  I was all excited about the cupcake journey until cupcake after cupcake from that book seemed to disappoint.  It's so hard to be excited about a project that doesn't deliver on a consistent basis.  Sad no baked yumminess panda.

There are tons of other recipes that I've back-logged in my "omg that would be amazing" file, but due to recent events I've been trying to cut back on calorie-laden foods.  What recent event, you ask?

BAM!

So now that I've entered the world of wedding planning and actually have to fit into a pretty white dress at some point without feeling like a sea cow, a cupcake, or a snow beast, I have to cut back on the baked goods (cause as we all know, you can't bake something and then not "quality test" it at least once... or maybe twice...)

I promise that I'll attempt to be better about posting in the future, it just may not be as frequently since I'm not baking as much as I was.