a month of birthday cakes...

This past weekend was one of my best friends 25th birthdays and I really wanted to try to make an extravagant cake.  I have now completed all Wilton cake decorating classes and thought it was time to really challenge myself.  I've found since starting cake decorating that sometimes the hardest part is just coming up with an idea!  But for some reason this time it came to me pretty quick.... although throughout the process it changed a lot!

The party was on Saturday and I started getting things ready on Wednesday.  I began with making the fondant roses so that they would have a chance to dry hard before I started assembly.  Then I made the fondant that I would use to cover the cake.  Its a lot of work and was really tough on my kitchenaid.  I think in the future I might just knead it by hand.  I also think I might look into getting some food service gloves so that I can work the dye in without making my hands tie dyed!  I think too this time I let the fondant sit for a couple days wrapped in saran wrap and it was much easier to work with.   

I was most worried about making the fondant and smoothly getting it on the cake.... but my biggest challenges were the inside!  I tried a new recipe for lemon cake (I know, I know, no new recipes when it's important!) which did not pan out well.... Then I wanted to make the Italian Buttercream I made a week or so ago and try flavoring it with raspberry jam.  I made it ahead, refrigerated it, and tried to beat it up the next day... lets just say it looked so bad I didn't even want to taste test it! From now on that recipe will only be made the day of!

But besides all the set backs the cake turned out fabulous... I must say I even impressed myself a little bit!

I wish I had taken more pictures of the process but I felt so in over my head to think about anything else!  But here are links to the recipes I made for the party:

Marshmallow Fondant  - I did not add butter, but used a lot of shortening while working with it
Chocolate Frosting  - just the "perfectly chocolate" frosting recipe at the bottom.  I just eyeball the milk.... I always make it really thin if I'm going to be spreading it on a cake.
Salt and Pepper Cheese Puffs  - I added a couple teaspoons of powdered mustard and salt in the dough
Sangria - always make a double batch ;)
Jalapeno Popper Spread - I used about 3 fresh jalapenos instead of canned and added two diced chipotle peppers in adobo sauce from a can.  Added breadcrumbs on top and baked it in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Now I have Dan's birthday coming up in a few weeks.... I better start planning!

slacker update

So, I haven't been cooking or baking much the past couple days... I felt like Tuesday and Wednesday last week I spent the whole day in the kitchen!  By Thursday I was sort of sick of being in the kitchen and also coming down with a cold.  Now I am in that full-blown cold stage where nothing tastes good so I haven't had much desire to cook!  But I made two semi-successful cakes last week.  One for the birthday and one for my final cake class.  I am really sad that my classes are over... it was fun to be learning something new and it was nice to meet with the same ladies every week for 3 months!  I will definitely miss it and I need to force myself to keep practicing!

This is obviously the b-day cake.  I really need to work on my writing with a piping bag!  There are so many oddly placed flowers because I had to cover up my mistakes....

This is my final class cake with fondant.  This was the very first time I covered a cake in fondant so there were definitely imperfections but... I really liked the simplicity of the cake.  I made my own marshmallow fondant since the premade stuff is so expensive and not that tasty from what I've heard.   Hopefully I will get a good nights sleep tonight and be back to the kitchen tomorrow!

Flower power!

So last night we actually had a somewhat exciting dinner... we added mashed sweet potato seasoned with chili powder to our tacos which we haven't done before and I must say it was pretty good!  I was inspired by this recipe, although we really didn't follow the rest at all.  It added a creamy texture so I didn't need to add quite so much sour cream.... (substituting a vegetable for dairy!?)

Tonight I had my Wilton fondant class and we made some fun flowers: 

Carnation

 Yet another rose...

And a Calla Lily!

One thing I find really entertaining about the Wilton class is that we take the time to make all the parts of the flower (even if they really can't be seen) and in our book they are properly scientifically named!  For the Calla Lily, the yellow part is labeled as "the spadix".... I have a Bachelors degree in biology and I did not know that is what it was called!