13th Birthday Cake for Lexi!

This past weekend was a tough one. I spent the weekend at Mom's and we made 14 layers of cake, 76 fondant roses, and 80 fondant leaves. For my niece Alexis' birthday, Mom and I decided we'd try something new and also use what we've learned in our past courses. We decided to make a two-tiered stacked cake. Hot pink and neon green were the birthday girl's choice of colors and it turned out adorable! Each tier is two layers and in total it stood about 10 in. high. We had a blast, but it was a challenge and we learned new things as we went. My favorite part was getting to take a hammer to the cake ;-) In order for the cake to be stable, we had to drive 5 wooden dowels through the cake.

Course 3 Lesson 3

For this lesson, we made royal icing flowers on a lily nail. They're beautiful when done correctly, but they're tough. Royal icing is not my forte...

I LOVE FONDANT!!!

Fondant may taste like crap, but it's beautiful on cakes and TONS of fun to work with!! Tonight in our cake class we learned how to work with and cover a cake with fondant. The first thing we did in class was cover our cake. While the fondant sat on the cake, we learned how to make a rose out of fondant. These roses are beautiful and WAY better than doing roses with buttercream frosting. After the rose we learned how to make the bow for our cake and then got to decorate. I love this cake and have always admired the way that fondant looks on cakes. However, it may be better to remove the fondant before eating the cake....there is buttercream frosting underneath it ;-)

Here is my rose



And, the final cake...

Wilton Cakes Course 3 Lesson 1

Today I got to start Course 3 of the Wilton cake classes. This is the course I have been waiting for because it focuses on fondant and tiered cakes. In Lesson 1 we basically just practiced more borders, garlands, and various other techniques with buttercream icing. The only one I got a picture of those was the ruffle garland. Next week we will be making a cake that looks like a present!



**P.S. - Mom and I have started a cake decorating business!!! (name of it to be revealed later) Right now we are taking orders for cakes for birthdays, showers, etc! (you name it, we can probably do it, lol) Let us know if you'd like to order a cake :-)

Pumpkin Roll!

This is my last week at my current job, and lots of people asked me to make one last treat before I left. I saw this pumpkin roll on another blog (don't remember which one) and thought I would give it a try. It can actually be found on the back of the Libby's Pumpkin Puree can. This was a lot easier to make than it looks, and it turned out SO GOOD!!



CAKE
1/4 cup powdered sugar (to sprinkle on towel)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)
FILLING
1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
6 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Powdered sugar (optional for decoration)


Directions:
FOR CAKE:
PREHEAT oven to 375° F. Grease 15 x 10-inch jelly-roll pan; line with wax paper. Grease and flour paper. Sprinkle a thin, cotton kitchen towel with powdered sugar.

COMBINE flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt in small bowl. Beat eggs and granulated sugar in large mixer bowl until thick. Beat in pumpkin. Stir in flour mixture. Spread evenly into prepared pan. Sprinkle with nuts.

BAKE for 13 to 15 minutes or until top of cake springs back when touched. (If using a dark-colored pan, begin checking for doneness at 11 minutes. Immediately loosen and turn cake onto prepared towel. Carefully peel off paper. Roll up cake and towel together, starting with narrow end. Cool on wire rack.

FOR FILLING:
BEAT cream cheese, 1 cup powdered sugar, butter and vanilla extract in small mixer bowl until smooth. Carefully unroll cake. Spread cream cheese mixture over cake. Reroll cake. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least one hour. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving, if desired.

COOKING TIP:
Be sure to put enough powdered sugar on the towel when rolling up the cake so it will not stick.

I can't wait for fall!!!

And since I can't wait, I decided to make Pumpkin Bread :-) Fall is one of my favorite times of the year and I always look forward to all of the pumpkin flavored edibles. Starbucks just came out with their Pumpkin Latte and Pumpkin Frappacino and after having a couple of those in the past weeks, I decided that fall wasn't coming fast enough itself so I would try to force it in my own kitchen. This recipe was recommended to me by a friend at work and she assured me that it was easy enough to do considering I had never made ANY type of bread before. This recipe was actually pulled off of www.allrecipes.com




Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread (www.allrecipes.com)

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
3 cups white sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans. (Mine only made two, but I have bigger loaf pans.)

- In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a seperate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared loaf pans.

- Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Class #2 of Course #2

After having a week off of class, I was ready to go back and learn new things! For this class we had to have royal icing instead of buttercream icing. Royal icing is much easier to make than buttercream and also much easier to clean up! This week we learned how to also work with color flow icing. This turns hard like candy but keeps a shiny, puffy look to it. For our flowers this week we did apple blossoms, violet leaves and violets.

Here is what it looks like with all of my stuff spread out in class:


Here are my color flow birds (mine are the ones on the top left, mom's are on the bottom right):


Here are my violet leaves, violets and apple blossoms:

Wilton Cakes Course 2

Tonight I started Course 2 of the Wilton Cake Decorating class. This time around, we only have to make one cake and not until the last class (which makes things tons easier for me) but we still have to make all of the icing. For this class we focused on learning two flowers: the rosebud and the chrysanthemum. The rosebud wasn't too bad but the mum was a real pain. By the way, the picture of the cake on the box is the cake we will be making in our final class for this course...

Here is a picture of my finished chrysanthemum:

The Grand Finale of Level 1

So, for our final cake of Level 1 Wilton Cake Decorating, we had to FINALLY finish the famous Wilton Rose. This rose has been taunting me for weeks and actually had me a little worried. I've wanted so badly to do well at this, that I thought that this would be my failure. This class was a lot of fun and after finally finishing a rose, I felt a great feeling of accomplishment :-) I LOVE the way this cake turned out! My teacher even told me I should consider being an instructor after finishing all of the levels!!

A few people have asked me what I do with all of these cakes after I decorate them. Most of them get taken to work and one of them has stayed at home for Blake. After playing with buttercream icing for hours on end, I have no desire to eat any of these cakes. Now, if only I could apply this principle to chocolate, pasta, etc...

On to the pics!


This was the first time I've iced a cake with ABSOLUTELY NO CRUMBS in the icing!!

Practice Run

So my first "Kitchen" show is in September and the host and I decided on this brownie recipe. It comes from the Fall/Winter 2007 Pampered Chef Season's Best cookbook. I was told that before the show, I would need to practice the recipe 2 or 3 times so that when the time comes, I know what the heck I'm talking about. After running through the recipe once, I realised I might have to do this all 3 times. It's an easy recipe, but when you're trying to explain what you're doing and explain the products and do a new recipe, things tend to get mixed up and a little difficult. Regardless, I made it through the recipe and these brownies are like HEAVEN!!! Sweet, salty, chocolate, caramel....mmmmmmm...............
(pardon the bad lighting for the pics...)





Warm Nutty Caramel Brownies (Fall/Winter '07 Pampered Chef Season's Best)

1 tsp. vegetable oil
1 package (12 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate morsels, divided
1 package (18-21 ounces) brownie mix (plus ingredients to make cake-like brownies)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar, divided
1 cup salted mixed nuts, divided
5 rolls (1.7 ounces each) milk chocolate-covered chew caramels, divided (40 pieces total) {I used ROLOS}

- Preheat oven to 375F. Lightly brush Large Bar Pan with oil using Chef's Silicone Basting Brush. Chop 1 1/2 cups of the chocolate morsels using Food Chopper. In Classic Batter Bowl, combine brownie mix, water, oil, eggs and 1/4 cup of the brown sugar; mix well. Fold in chopped chocolate; pour batter into bar pan, spreading evenly using Small Mix 'N Scraper.

- Chop nuts using Food Chopper. Combine half of the nuts and remaining 1/2 cup brown sugar; sprinkle evenly over brownie batter. Bake 20-22 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.

- Meanwhile, using Utility Knife, cut 16 caramels into quarters. Place remaining 1/2 cup chocolate morsels in prep bowl; microwave on HIGH 1 minute or until melted, stirring after each 20 second interval. Spoon melted chocolate into resealable bag; set aside.

- Remove bar pan from oven to Stackable Cooling Rack. Immediately press remaining 24 caramels evenly into brownie in four rows of six caramels each. Sprinkle quarted caramels and remaining nuts over brownies. Trim corner of chocolate-filled bag with Utility Knife; drizzle chocolate evenly over brownies. Cut into squares; serve warm.