Ruffles! (How to Make Them Out of Icing)

I love that every cake I do is an experiment for me right now. This week, I got to experiment with making ruffles out of icing. Can I just say that I love ruffles! On everything - clothes, chips, and now on cake!

And what better way to try out ruffles than on a lingerie cake? I have made one once before so this time I wanted to do it a little bit differently.

What you need:

• A cake to decorate 
• Prepared icing
• Pastry bag, and most importantly a
• Wilton tip #402, 403, or 406 (depending on what size ruffles you want) Hint: you could also use the #104 petal tip.

How to do it:

• Cut the tip off of the piping bag and place the tip into the bag where only the top of the tip is showing out of the bag
• Fill the bag about half way to 2/3 full of your prepared icing and twist (this gives you a good grip on the bag to squeeze)

• Place your tip at a 45 degree angle just above the surface of the cake. 
• Gently but firmly squeeze your icing out of the tip while making a small up and down motion. 

It took me a couple of practice runs before I got the hang of it - but I loved the way it turned out! I will definitely be using this tool and technique again!

Here is a picture of the cake I did this week using this technique along the outer edges of the cake.

I would love to be able to make a 100% ruffled cake like Martha Stewart's Ruffle Cake. It is gorgeous!! 

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Recipe Post: Chocolate Buttercream

I made this chocolate buttercream for the first time a few weeks ago. It was a huge hit! I have licked so many icing bowls that it makes me sick even thinking about it, but when I took the first taste of this chocolate buttercream icing I had to make myself stop eating it so I would have enough icing to put on the cake.

I found this recipe at savorysweetlife.com

A simple recipe for classic chocolate buttercream frosting. Perfect for frosting cakes, cookies, brownies, or cupcakes.

 

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks or 1/2 pound), softened (but not melted!)
• 3 1/2 cups confectioners (powdered) sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract or 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 4 tablespoons milk or heavy cream

Instructions

1. Cream butter for a few minutes in a mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed. Turn off the mixer. Sift 3 cups powdered sugar and cocoa into the mixing bowl. Turn your mixer on the lowest speed (so the dry ingredients do not blow everywhere) until the sugar and cocoa are absorbed by the butter. Increase mixer speed to medium and add vanilla extract, salt, and milk/cream and beat for 3 minutes. If your frosting needs a more stiff consistency, add a little more sugar. If your frosting needs to be thinned out, add additional milk 1 tablespoon at a time.

A little note from my experience with this icing: it has a naturally soft consistency that is perfect for covering a cake and even some boarders. BUT, I have found that I personally need the icing a bit more stiff to hold shape better, so I add a little bit more powdered sugar and a little less cream.

Here is a cake I just did this week using this recipe. I dressed it up by sprinkling some mini chocolate chips around the edge after I took this picture.

Enjoy!

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Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?!

Besides the fact that I am SUPER excited that the New England Patriots are going to the Super Bowl (by pure luck, I might add) - I was also very excited to make this football cake for my co-worker's son's 16th birthday. He plays for Clover Hill High School and the colors are green and gold, so I wanted to make sure I represented them in some way - here I decided to do green and gold shadowed fondant lettering.

I used the star tip to pipe the brown and white icing, and the grass tip to pipe the grass (not sure of the technical name - that's just what I call it).

For the cake itself, I tried a new recipe and to be quite honest I'm a little nervous about it! It is supposed to be similar to the consistency of a pound cake. But when I was baking it, it seemed like it was taking a really long time to cook in the middle - not sure if it was the new pan I was using, the amount of batter, or maybe even the dreaded over mixing (yikes)??? I usually get to taste my cakes before I decorate and send them out, but I didn't get to this time - so I am waiting on pins and needles to hear the results. Worst case scenario, at least it looked pretty!! Right?

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Presents

It's been a while since I've posted, even though I've been pretty busy in my cake decorating. I feel like each cake I do is better than the last - and hey, I've got paying customers now!!! Did you read that? It said paying, just in case you missed it. That's a big accomplishment for me! I'm not charging hundreds or anything close, but it really is helping me cover the costs of this expensive hobby of mine. It's giving me a lot of practice and practice is exactly what I need. So it really is like getting a little present or reward for each cake I do.

Speaking of presents, here is a cake I did for my friend and coworker. I had no idea what design I wanted to do. All I knew is that I wanted it to look like a present, and I wanted a bow. A pretty one that looked like ribbon.

And here is one I did for my babysitter's son's birthday. (The inside is camo too!)

 And cupcakes to go with the cake.

For my son's 2nd birthday, a Thomas the Train cake! (My older one decided to "drive" the train on the icing tracks - he's still alive)

A polka-dots and stripes cake for another friend and coworker's daughter.

 And I'm doing another one tomorrow! Loving all of this business and the practice I'm getting. Football cake post coming soon!

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The Viva Method

This wonderful Christmas weekend was spent cooking, spending time with my family, and eating. And eating. And eating. I also got the opportunity to make a cake for one of the lovely ladies I work with - it was her daughter's birthday the day after Christmas. And although I love making and decorating cakes, the part that gets me the most worked up is making the icing smooth to give it a polished and clean look.

Making the icing smooth on the cake is NOT "a piece of cake"...that is until I learned a new way to do it - the Viva method.

Of course by "Viva," I mean the Viva brand paper towels. They are made smooth, without any designs or imprints on them.

What you need:
1 roll Viva paper towels
1 fondant smoother
An iced cake

How to do it:
Once you crumb coat and ice your cake, put it in the refrigerator for at least 30 - 45 minutes, or until the icing is beginning to set up and create a crust on the outside.

Next, take out the cake with the hardened icing and place a Viva paper towel on top. With gentle pressure, begin smoothing the top and sides of the cake (I usually do it in circular motions, but I don't think there is any science to it).

Once you have worked over the entire cake with the paper towel and fondant smoother, you will have an evenly smooth iced cake!

This method has just made my life so much easier and I'm glad I'm no longer spending hours just trying to get the icing to look "clean"!! Hope this tip can help someone out there.

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Re-Post: Carrot Cake!!!

This is a re-post from my old blog, but since I am making a carrot cake today, I thought I would share. I found the recipe on allrecipes.com and altered to my liking. Enjoy! (Picture to come)

Carrot Cake III

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil (I used 3/4 cup oil & added 1/2 cup applesauce)
• 2 cups white sugar (I used 1 1/2 cups brown sugar & 1/2 cup white sugar)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (and a dash of nutmeg)
• 3 cups grated carrots
• 1 cup chopped pecans (I only used these to sprinkle on top, not in the batter)
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 4 cups confectioners' sugar (I think I ended up using about 3 or 3 1/2 cups)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chopped pecans

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.
2. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, white sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in carrots. Fold in pecans. Pour into prepared pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
4. To Make Frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Stir in chopped pecans. Frost the cooled cake.

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the best cake decorating tool ever invented.

When I first started doing cakes, I decided that I would try to make a stacked 2-tiered cake for a friend of ours child's birthday. It would be simple enough, I thought. I even did all the research and knew that I needed a couple of cake boards, and some dowel rods to hold the top layer up. I was all set. That is until the cake turned out like the Leaning (butterfly) Tower of Pisa.

Although the cake ended up turning out okay overall, I missed a pretty fundamental and basic step - making sure the cake was level...on every layer. So the very next cake I did for Bosses Day, I went straight out to purchase the Cake Leveler. Before using this tool, leveling the cake took so much time and effort. Now its as easy as setting a dial and cutting a perfectly straight line.

Start by cutting the "dome" off of the cooled cakes.

 

You can see how perfectly level the cake is. 

Once the cake is level, it is so much easier to ice and decorate the cake.

After its all cleaned up. Ta-da!

So if you are interested in cake decorating - don't wait to purchase this tool. It is so affordable and saves so much time. And remember: when a cake is set up the right way from the bottom up, it doesn't matter what decorations you put on it, it will make you look like a pro!

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