Come over to the Dark Side........We have Cake.

I was definitely on the Dark Side this week.

I just couldn't shake it. I think I had a kind of a "baker's block".....sort of like having writer's "block" I guess. This post was much easier to write than it was to come up with a birthday cake idea for my 8-year old nephew. I mean, I had NOTHING. No ideas. Zip. Zilch. Nada. My only consolation was that he is the type of kid that takes pleasure in just about anything, so it made me really want to put a little extra effort into making him something special.

But I couldn't think of anything.

Of course when I made the mistake of asking him what type of birthday cake he wanted, he thought for a few seconds and hesitantly said, "I don't know..........maybe a Scooby-Doo cake?" I immediately focused on the fact that he hesitated before answering me. It gave me the necessary reason to believe that he really didn't care WHAT type of cake he had. Also, I needed a reason to justify my decision not to bake a Scooby-Doo cake. Call me crazy, but I have never been a fan.

I still didn't have a clue of what I was going to do. I had almost decided to just bake him a baseball cake when my friend Michele gave my baker's "block" a little shove. When I told her that I couldn't come up with any good ideas for an 8-year old's birthday cake, she stared at me disbelievingly, then slowly and distinctly started spewing the names of Star Wars characters. Chewbacca, Luke, The Death Star, The Millenium Falcon, Darth Vader, C3PO and R2-D2. Wait...R2-D2??.........................R2-d2!!!!!!!

That's it!

R2-D2, of course! My nephew's bedroom has a Star Wars theme and if he is knee-deep into Star Wars play mode he will almost always answer to the name Luke. What was I thinking? It was the perfect solution except I wasted so much time trying to make a decision, now I didn't know how I was going to pull it off. I only had about 2 hours that night to start it and 2 hours the next morning to finish so I threw some cold water on my face, took 800 mgs. of Motrin, donned my Wonder Woman apron and quickly downshifted into "vortex mode". The clock in the hallway had just struck 11 p.m. when I was whipping up the Devil's Food cake batter. I poured it into four 4-inch baby spring form pans and popped them into the oven.

After baking and cooling them, I leveled off all but one of the cakes. Since the cake needed some additional stability, I used plastic straws as a means of support through the center of all the cakes. Then I stacked and crumbcoated it with vanilla buttercream and put it into the refrigerator for an hour or so to "chill out".

Now I needed to design R2-D2's "legs", but I knew it couldn't be done with cake......too crummy. Having worked with Rice Krispies and marshmallow before, I knew that the mixture would hold up to sculpting, so I made enough to fill a 9 x13" pan and let it cool completely. I measured the length I would need on each side, then carved it out.

After I shaped R2's "legs", I covered everything in white fondant and attached the legs to the body with lollipop sticks. Then I lightly covered R2 with Saran Wrap, patted his little round head and left him tucked away in a corner of the counter until the next morning.

(Note: Remember, fondant does not like to be refrigerated.)

The next morning (after several cups of coffee), I used a beautiful royal blue colored fondant to cut out various shapes for the frame. Then I sipped mixed vodka, a dab of black food coloring, a dab of blue food coloring and edible silver dust to get a very glossy silver-gray color that I used to paint on R2's "head". Then I finished R2's body with a touch of red, blue and black fondant pieces.

And the little guy started to come to life....

As I've said before, riding by on a fast horse, you would miss the little imperfections (that I see) in some areas of R2's little body...........at least I hope you would.

Just a random musing here...

If Darth Vader went to grade school,

this could be his eighth grade photo.

Cue the Stars Wars music...

Ah-h-h-h. That smile means a sweet success!

Happy Birthday Cody!

Love you buddy,

and

May the Force be with you!

The "Sneaker Cake"

I love working with fondant.

You can roll it, color it and mold it. It reminds me of all of those wonderful brightly colored cans of Play Dough when I was a child. Of course, the only difference is that you can eat fondant.....I can't say the same for Play Dough, although I do remember taking a nibble on a couple of pretend French Fries once. I didn't go back for a second taste. Fondant tastes like marshmallow whereas Play Dough tastes like clay. Blah! In any case, whenever I have the opportunity to work with fondant I learn something new about it. For example, if it's too cold it will be too hard to roll out and work with, if it's too hot it will melt and slide off the surface of the cake. If you leave it uncovered for longer than 5 minutes, it will begin to get hard and have a crusty feel. If you refrigerate it, condensation may form when you remove it and the fondant will "sweat" and fall apart. By the way.........all of these scenerios? Not good.

My baking project this week was to make a birthday cake for the 55 year old friend of one of my clients. I was told his "hobbies" are running and drinking beer (hopefully not at the same time). After careful thought, I decided to attempt a three dimensional sneaker and beer bottle and place them on top of the actual cake. I created the sneaker by baking a vanilla cake in a 13" x 9" pan, letting it cool, then stacking it using buttercream frosting in between the layers. After popping it into the freezer for about an hour or so, I "carved" out the sneaker shape.

Looks a little like an "elf" shoe, doesn't it?

Hmm..

I'll keep that in

mind for

the Holidays..

Then I covered the whole thing with fondant.....

...and it ended up looking something like this......

I can't say that I am 100% happy with it. In fact, I can see loads of mistakes. The fondant started to dry out while I was working with it and it cracked in several places. I'm finding that there is just no way to repair cracked fondant. I don't think Nike will ever endorse this particular style of footwear, do you? It's hideous. Well, as my father used to say when things didn't turn out quite the way he planned, "If you are riding by on a fast horse no one will ever notice". Let's just hope the entire birthday party is being held out on the Ponderosa.

The next part of the project was to make the beer bottle. Using cake would have been too messy and too soft. I needed to use an edible substance that would stand up to rolling and forming. After some research, I ended up using Rice Krispies and Marshmallow to make the bottle shape. That's right....the beer bottle is one big Rice Krispie Treat! Then I covered it with fondant and kept working it until I was satisfied with the shape. To get the feeling of a "glass" bottle, I mixed brown food coloring with vodka and painted it on the fondant letting it dry in between coats (when Vodka dries it leaves a fabulous shine.......like glass). The beer bottle label is white fondant and the name was done with Edible Food Markers.

After crumb coating the Devil's Food cake, I mixed up batches of deep orange, yellow and dark gray buttercream. I used the dark gray for the "road", the yellow for the "highway lines" and the deep orange for the Birthday script. I even added a small fondant "Speed Limit" sign that read "Age Limit 55". Get it??

Many Happy Returns!

(and by that I mean "return" for more cake of course!!)

The Baking Vortex

It all started innocently enough.


I have always been a lover of cookbooks, so in July of 2008 I decided to go all out for my nephew Cam's 13th birthday by baking these monsterous double chocolate covered cupcakes. I got the idea as well as the recipe from one of my beautiful cookbooks. I literally have about fifty of them in all shapes and sizes. The topics range from Cupcakes to Cake Decorating, from Baking to Fondant. I'll admit it. I'm a pushover for a great looking cookbook.

Now I think it's important for me to mention that I come from a large family of chronic chocoholics, including my parents and their parents and their parents before them.......and my sister and brother-in-law....and my niece and two nephews, and all of my aunts, cousins and uncles too. I am convinced that we have chocolate running through our veins, not blood. I'm serious. Growing up in my family, if someone dropped a dish and said, "Oh Fudge", everyone came running into the kitchen yelling, "Where?"

My many visits to South Carolina to see my Aunt Grace and her family always ended by baking something that contained chocolate. On one of my trips, after experimenting with several recipes from one of my aunt's well-worn and highly coveted cookbooks, I found it stashed away in my suitcase when I arrived home. The inscription says it all.....

Growing up, I avoided cooking or baking anything alongside my mother, unless you want to count a Creme Brule that had to be made for me to receive my Girl Scout Cooking Badge. My mother, being a bit of a control freak perfectionist, found it difficult to allow me to make mistakes, so she almost always did it herself. Actually, the Cooking Badge should have gone to her instead. I have always wondered, just how important is it to stir a sauce clockwise instead of counterclockwise?? Is it true that it can actually reverse the earth's rotation? Well according to my mother forty years ago, if I didn't stir it the "correct" way, yes....it could. So, for the most part my cooking and baking skills were honed while my parents were out of the house. Fudge was my specialty. Still is.

I recently took an Adult Education Course in Cake Decorating at a local high school. It was a very basic course, but enticed me with just enough information to whet my appetite for more. I got "the bug". I gathered up all of my cookbooks and researched the internet. I spent hours and hours looking at pictures of cakes, cupcakes, frostings and fondant. I have taped every episode of Ace of Cakes, Amazing Wedding Cakes and Food Network Challenge and I continue to soak it all in. I frequent web sites and baking blogs to study techniques. And while I constantly test recipes and attempt to mimic even the most difficult designs, my ultimate goal is to create my own original "niche". My co-workers are my taste testers. They tell me what tastes good and what tastes great. The best preparation for me in this new venture was to purchase this book at Barnes & Nobles on the science of baking.

Looks so easy, right? Mix ingredients together, bake it, take it out of the oven and presto.......magically it's done....but how does it happen?? What makes the cake rise?? What makes a cake fall flat??? I always wondered why so many recipes instruct you to cream the butter and sugar together first. Well, now I know. Do you?? This book explains the science behind it. I'm hopeful that each explanation will help me to become a better baker.

So now I am in this up to my neck. But I am enjoying it. It has provided me with another creative outlet and I am finding it quite challenging. It started with one person ordering cupcakes from me and now, it has almost taken on a life of its own. I work from referrals and since I already have a full-time job, I can usually only handle one or two orders a week.

For my sister Kathy's birthday this year, I surprised her by making a Purse Cake. This entire cake is edible. I read books, I looked at hundreds of online photos.......

I started by sketching it out....




then baking and stacking ...



...and frosting them .



...then I hand-carved it,



...and covered it with white fondant.






The "leather" bands are fondant which was stained with brown food coloring and vodka. I used the same technique for the "handles" which are made of gumpaste. I used a fork tine to punch "stitch holes".




I made a paste of gold dust food coloring and vodka and painted the purse "hardware".


Voila.

She loved it.