Banners

There is a trend out now that I adore,  banners!!  Banners are popping up everywhere. On walls, cookies and cake! I love it. Another way scrapbooking and cake come together. My two favorite things, after family, of course.

My friend created this enormous banner for her son's 1st birthday. I knew then this was a must-do!!

Here's is Debbie and Hayden. What a great day at Dan Nicholas Park :-) 

When my youngest nephew turned one, Anna and I found this great free downloadable banner. 

There were a couple of blank triangles that I reprinted and added Banks' name.

It hung on my dining room wall for a couple weeks before, I was so excited :-)

 The celebration was at the lake so this fish cupcake cake was perfect! 

Melissa at MyCakeSchool.com has the best ideas <3

Most recently, I added a banner to this circus cake...

 and this Cool Whip frosted chocolate cake! 

The birthday girl wanted Cool Whip and chocolate, yummy but not really 

a "decorating frosting".  This awesome banner is also a free download. 

Google "free downloadable banners" and see what great things are out there!

Cheaper than a KopyKake

First, let me say I would love, love, love a KopyKake. Or an ipad so I could download that projector app. Either one. I'm not picky.

However, I will not be deterred! One of my most favorite purchases this past year is the $20 lighted tracing pad from Crayola. Found it at Wal-mart. Didn't even have to pay shipping.

Just short of projecting images on to cookies or cake. I can print an image and tape it to the tracing pad. Then roll out gum paste or fondant onto wax paper or clear acetate. I bought the acetate to make chocolate cake wraps, but works for this too :-) If you don't want to use fondant, buy a Wilton Sugar Sheet in white. Already on the acetate.

Once you tape your fondant or sugar sheet over the image, trace with food color pens or paint with thinned gel colors. I love this technique.

You can even pipe royal icing transfers this way too!

I think this picture explains the rest. 

 Tape the picture to the pad. Tape the sugar sheet on top of that. Trace away.

I know not very Easter-y. But hey, anything for my first born. Isn't that what mothers do?

There is a great tutorial on MyCakeSchool.com about painting and drawing on fondant. Everything  Melissa describes in her video is true, just add the tracing pad behind your image. The trick is not to smear the black food coloring. I choose to trace all the bright colors first, then outline in black last. 

 These images are on fondant/gum paste. I outlined with the black first and quickly realized I had a problem. There was a little smearing of the black but that did not stop me. I forged ahead. 

One day I might get that Kopykake but until then I think I can create some really neat cakes with this tracing pad.

Easter Vigil and Cake!

With Easter just a few weeks away, once again I'm googling cake ideas for our parish Easter Vigil reception. Let me just say the pickins' is slim. Apparently celebrating Easter Vigil with a show stopping cake just isn't something everyone does. Here are a few that I have made over the past years might inspire someone else too <3.

First, I have to recognize sweetcreation on Cake Central. Her design is right on the mark! Loved her design so much, I used it two years in a row. Each of these cakes is enough for 100.

Any exciting baking plans for your holiday?

Apple Puff Pasty

Apples, apples, apples! I love apples. Apple pie, apple sauce, apple butter, apple jelly. And apple cake!! If an apple can be put in it, I will love it.

This weekends test kitchen was about the Apple Puff Pastry. I mean how easy, peasy and Pepperidge Farm, thank you. However in searching for a recipe, I stumbled across this Quick and Easy Puff from scratch.

Could it really be that easy? Would the layers puff like Pepperidge Farm? Oh yes, just like Truc describes. Light, flaky, buttery layers, puffed around lightly spiced and sweetened apples!

 Pepperidge Farm is on the left, from scratch on the right. True, the frozen dough 

puffed a little more, but the freshness and flakiness of the from scratch wins by a mile!

Preferred the honey glaze on the from scratch to the powdered sugar on the frozen.

This is the last batch from scratch. Got the temperature and time just right 

as well as the honey glaze with cinnamon sugar dusting on top.

Only three changes to the original recipe is the baking temp, changed to 400 degrees for 25 mins. Then brushed the edges with an egg wash to make it brown so nice. Oh yes, I used all purpose flour instead of unbleached all purpose flour because that's what I had.

If you are up for a little Test Kitchen at your house, I highly recommend this recipe. And the Pepperidge Farm puff pastry, you know to be diligent :-)

The Fondant Bow

I learned two important lessons in the spring of 2010:  sometimes these techniques take a little practice and never, ever apologize for how your cakes turn out. Just keep going and smile! I thank Julia Childs for those two little whispers in my ear all the time.

I have a sister whose family celebrates 4 birthdays in the spring.  That year they were gracious enough for me to practice, practice, practice fondant bow making. As well as refining the White Almond Sour Cream recipe. Of course, the youngest in the family understandably did not want a bow on his cake! It was three times' the charm for the bow making experiment!

First a few lessons from my sister, Michele's cake. I followed steps like those described here. But somehow my loops were a little more round than an actual bow.

The recipe was another first. Can I say again how much I love the White Almond Sour Cream recipe? The only change since first baking this cake is that I now use 6 whole eggs instead of 8 egg whites. I  like the texture a little better. The end result isn't as white and fluffy as a true white cake, but the cut cake is so very neat and pretty.

Finally, sugar sheets. I love sugar sheets. For my sister's cake, I found beautiful free downloadable scrapbook papers, printed them on card stock and had our local Harris Teeter print that on sugar sheets. I loved the ability to cover a cake entirely with a fabulous pattern. I learned that the best way to do this in the future is to have a cake the same size as the sheet. The sheets aren't seamless.You'll see in the picture!

Even though I knew I had a little more to learn here, 

Michele was surprised and thrilled with her birthday gift cake!

The very next weekend was my brother-in-laws birthday. This time I tried another method of bow making. Wilton can't be wrong, right? Although the loops were more bow like, I still felt something was missing. Maybe not enough loops, definitely not to use buttercream to put it all together.

This time I stamped with black food coloring to get the pattern on the loops. 

Finally, my nephew's party the very next weekend, I think. Third times the charm.

 The loops are cut at 1" wide 6" long. Those proportions work every time. I managed to get a shape that I really, really liked. Also, this bow was a mixture of modeling chocolate and white fondant. Way more stable than plain fondant. Since then, I use either modeling chocolate or gum paste to mix with fondant. Either way is the bows loops aren't as likely to break as with plain fondant. Oh, and I used melted chocolate as the glue to hold the bow together.

Shortly after this bow making marathon, a month or more later, I had the opportunity to try again for a family friend.  Bingo. I love how the sugar sheets really make this bow stand out. And the extra ribbons add the finishing touches to look like a real bow.

Reading Julia's book "My Life in France" was totally worth it. I hope you will remember those two whispers too. Practice makes perfect and Never apologize, just keep going and smile!

Again With the Writing?

Have I mentioned that I really do not like to free-hand pipe words on cake? Yes, I think have.

These letters were made with the Curlz MT font. 

My new favorite way to get the message across is Royal Icing Transfer letters. There are a few drawbacks but for my purposes, I love it.  A few reasons why:

1. I get to use up extra royal icing.
2. 1001 Free Fonts.  Did you know how easy it is to install a new font onto your computer? For Windows:  Download the zip file. My downloaded stuff ends up in a file called "Downloads". That Bill Gates is so smart. Then choose Extract all files. When you are asked where to extract the file to, click Browse, choose My Computer, Local Disk C:, Windows, Fonts.
3. Dried royal icing keeps for a long time. A long time. Pipe some extra "Happy Birthday", leave the words attached to the wax paper and store it in a box. (Note: I haven't tried storing with shortening on the wax paper. I've only stored words piped on plain wax paper.)
4. I get to try out the size of letters BEFORE placing them on the cake! In my publishing software I draw a circle the size of the cake, then type the letters and choose the right font size. Way better than a Cake Wreck. 
5. I get to use up extra royal icing. What else can you do with extra black royal icing?

There are some great tutorials like this one from Klickitat Street for silly faces or this one from Suzdaily

These are the Halloween faces from Klickitat Street. I just choose the happy/silly faces!

I know, not words, but royal icing transfers and how cute did they turn out?!

The drawbacks are how fragile dried royal icing is and how fragile dried royal icing is. Since the fonts are free and royal icing is extra, easy-peasy.  Pipe one more time just to be sure you have a backup if the letters break.

I think the tip to use shortening on the wax paper does help. Tried it both ways and yes, think the shortening does help the letters release a little better. Also, I like to use the little thin spatula tool that came with my Cricut Mini. So thin, just right for moving these letters around.

New favorite font: Calamity Jane

Best tip ever for royal icing is using a small fan. I love how this cuts the drying time in half! I bought a small little fan that fits on the sideboard in my "cookie staging area" aka dining room. Works like a charm on cookies too. The letters on the cake above I piped in the morning and placed on the cake in the afternoon.  That is pretty quick turn around for royal icing.

Calamity Jane works for boy cakes too!

So, again with the writing? Yep! What would you like to say on your cake?

One Carrot, Two Carrots, Maybe a Pound More

Google Carrot Cakes. You will find one confusing wonderland of "ultimate", "world's best", "go to" recipes. At least white cake recipes are almost all the same. Carrot cake recipes can be so very different, they should all have different names. Pineapple-Carrot, Coconut-Carrot, Buttermilk-Carrot, Spice-Carrot, the list goes on.

Carrot just doesn't begin to describe the cake!

As much as I love Cake Doctor recipes, the carrot cake version just hasn't been my very favorite. It is good. Not an embarrassing cake to serve. But is that how you want to describe a cake? Nope.

So begins the criteria for a really delicious fruity, spice carrot cake.

• Must include citrus
• lots of carrots, no skimping on the carrots
• spice, lots of spice cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg
• definitely no coconut

Can I just take a minute to address actual shredded coconut in the cake batter? I love coconut cream or coconut milk in the batter. The actual shredded coconut is just to chewy for cake. Too candy like. It is lovely pressed on the frosting and toasted coconut covering the cake is divine! But in the batter, no thanks.

Back to the criteria:

• brown sugar and spice, oh yes.
• buttermilk for long lasting moist cake
• some oil, but not too much.
• super moist. Always a marker for success!

Here are the 3 contenders: Cake Doctor Orange Carrot Cake, Edgar's Bakery Carrot Cake (with pineapple) and Ultimate Carrot Cake from Sticky Gooey Creamy Chewy blog. 

Almost choose Martha Stewart's recipe but no citrus and loads of butter. Butter in cake is either good or dry. Super moist and citrus are criteria, so Martha isn't in the comparison for now.

Cake Doctor's recipe is a solid go-to recipe. I like the citrus flavor, the cake-mix-turns-out-the-same-every-time-reliability. But the texture was too yellow cake like,  not like a true carrot cake. And not enough spice. Finally that pesky pudding addition. I always cut it back to two tablespoons. Pudding will make your cake so moist, it is irresistible! But it will also make your cake shrink every time. Not pretty. 2T seems to be the balance of added moistness but not so much deflating when your cake cools.

Edgar's Bakery version is very delicious. Positives for this version is the addition of pineapple, the nice carrot cake texture, super moist. Baked up nice as a cake and a cupcake. On the downside, not enough carrot, spice and the oil is on the border of moist and oily. I can't decide. However, rabbit leaps ahead of Cake Doctor. 

Just finished the third recipe and it is definitely a winner! The Ultimate Carrot Cake really does meet all the criteria from above plus it has a nice yellow orange color from the pound of carrots.  The crumb is a nice texture, not a crumbly but denser than a yellow cake. The ginger and nutmeg along with the cinnamon is awesome! I made the Orange Cream Icing too, perfect citrus to balance the cream cheese.

The cupcakes look tempting plain!

No fancy icing for taste testing, just frost the cake and be ready to serve! 

When you call Coyote Trail Cakes to order a carrot cake, this will be the one! Hope you click over to Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy to see the whole long list of ingredients in this Ultimate Carrot Cake :-)

UPDATE: The reviews are mixed! Anna and I loved the third recipe. However, three of my sisters preferred the Edgar's bakery version. Hmmmm more experimenting may be called for :-) Maybe I will try Marth's recipe after all.