April Crafty Round-Up

You know how some people go M.I.A. around Christmas?  Not that they mean to, but somehow, they just get so busy and caught up in the season that they fall of the face of the planet and awaken around MLK day stunned, wondering where the time went.  Somehow I usually manage to stay in tune during Christmas, but spring time is always like that for me.  Easter was always one of my favorite Holidays growing up, and I love the thought of summer around the corner.  Then, my daughter’s birthday is mid-April, and I have an annual state sorority meeting that falls around this time also.  Did I mention that my wedding anniversary is April also?  So basically, here is my excuse, between two weekends out of town, getting ready for house guests, party prep, and Easter, birthday, and anniversary festivities, I have neglected you, dear readers.
 

This does NOT mean I have been too busy for crafting.  On the contrary, I have been too busy WITH crafting!  Yeeee-haw!  So here is a round-up of the crafty happenin’s from my neck of the woods. 

 
New Jewel in the Crown Card
 

This is a card I made to be attached to a gift basket for the newest collegiate chapter in my sorority.  The focal point of the card is a large chipboard crown that I inked turquoise and used pearl bling embellishments on.  The chapter name is just alpha stickers, the lambda is an upside down letter “V.” The background is some gorgeous magenta glitter cardstock I found in the clearance aisle for only seven cents a sheet!  I really love the contrasting color combo used in this card.  Here is the coordinated inside of the card:

The writing was done in a word file and printed in turquoise to match.  It was printed on white card stock, trimmed, and inked turquoise also.
 

Bunny Cake

 

This is a special Easter cake that my mother used to make when my sister and I were kids.  I know she got the recipe out of a magazine years and years ago, but I do not remember which one.  She would sprinkle flake coconut on hers as well to make the bunny fuzzier, but none of my crew much likes it, so it was skipped.  This cake is NOT done with a special pan.  It is two 9” circle cakes.  One is left whole.  The other has two concave semicircular cuts made in it to make the three pieces that form the ears and bow tie.  They are arranged closely on the board together, and iced to look like a solid cake.  After he was iced in white buttercream, I went back over the surface and tapped with a fork to form peaks in the icing to give him a fluffy look.  The border and piping detail are simply pink buttercream.  The simply Hello Kitty-esque face and bow tie polka dots are Brach’s jelly beans.  It’s always a hit with little kids and big kids both! 

Birthday Treat Bags

 

If you saw my daughter’s birthday party invitations in this post: http://phenomenallycrafty.blogspot.com/2012/03/berry-nice-party-invitations.html  you know she picked Strawberry Shortcake as her theme.  Here are the treat bags that I whipped up for her class:

These are plain red paper bad that I dressed up with a sweet printed "thank you" message tucked behind a simple strip of a coordinating decorative paper (strawberry print of course!).  I’m not the biggest fan of those little plastic junk toys that most party bags come filled with.  Our classmates left with a pencil and strawberry shaped erasers, small bag of homemade strawberry shaped candy, and a homemade cake pop dipped in red with green piping.  This was not my first attempt at cake pops, and one day I do want to share my tips and method for them with you all, but first I need to FIND the tips and PERFECT the method.  At least they were so darn tasty, it really made up for the sheer ugliness of the little red lumps on a stick.  Cake pops usually leave me frustrated, being a perfectionist and all.  I think I am going to stick to cupcakes in the future.    
 

The other new trick I tried was make homemade shaped candies using Wilton melts and a strawberry shaped plastic candy mold sheet.  This was my first go at these as well, but was very pleased with the results.  You simply melt the melts, (wonder how they got that name?), and then pipe them in the mold using a plastic piping bag with the end snipped off.  Tap them on the counter to release any air bubbles, and then pop them in the freezer for a few seconds.  Once they are cooled and hardened you turn the mold over and they fall right out!  Next time I make a run of these I will make a full post with recipes, instructions, and detail photos.  Easy on time and skill and big on wow factor.  Just how I like it!

All of this birthday kitchen crafting led up to the pièce de résistance, a strawberry shortcake themed birthday sheet cake.  I have to admit I had cake anxiety with this cake.  It was exactly a year ago, during a botched attempt a Mickey Mouse cupcake tower for birthday number two that I decided I needed professional cake help and haven’t looked back.  Taking the Wilton basics class at my local Michael’s was one of the best crafting moves I ever made!

 This cake is a Duncan Hines Strawberry Supreme mix using my same old recipe seen in my other cake posts (http://phenomenallycrafty.blogspot.com/2012/01/beer-cake.html) and vanilla pudding.  My daughter loves strawberry cake because it’s pink!  This cake was baked in my basic half sheet pan, the same one used for the beer cake.  It was base iced in light green butter cream. 

The strawberry patch is made using fat piped lines of brown butter cream with crushed chocolate graham crackers on top for dirt. Real strawberries nestle in to give a whimsical touch.   A darker green was used with the grass tip along the edge of the patch.  In addition to the floral and vine corner detail, it also has side piping in yellow and a dark green dot border.  Do the hot pink lettering and flowers look familiar?  They should, this color was left over from the bunny cake.  It truly was a perfect sized patch for her Strawberry Shortcake dolls to pick and play!  I even found coordinating candles in my super market baked good aisle.      

 Just when I thought I was all baked out, a there was a note in my church bulletin requesting cookies for the local chapter of Kairos Prison Ministry.  It may not surprise any of you, but I like to do my giving back with baked goods.  Down at my local Sam’s club I found this bad boy:

Yes, a 4 1/2 POUND bag of chocolate chips.  I already buy sugar and lots of other dry goods in bulk so why not?  I set out on a mission to wave my wand and turn that bag into a bazillion cookies.  It only took about 6 hours of baking with one three year old "helper", and a few “broken” ones were saved for us, but I pumped out over a 12 dozen cookies (yes, a full gross!), out of that bag.  And with that great feat, my kitchen is closed for a while. 
 
I think we've hearded all of the craft dogies into the blog corral for now!!

I promise I will try not to desert you all for so long again!  Of course, if you have questions about these projects, or would like additional details, don’t ever hesitate to contact me!          

Super Bowl Snacks Part 2 - What's for Dessert?

Cake of course!  

A lot of my baking process can be read in the beer cake post.  If you are really interested you can go back and see my basic process there.  I bought a Wilton football cake mold several months ago, but hadn’t had a reason to use it until now.  Basically the Super Bowl is THE most appropriate time for football shaped cakes.  I knew if I didn’t use that sucker now it was going to be collecting dust for a while.  Nobody makes cakes to celebrate training camp. 

Here is my football cake mold.  When using shaped pans it is IMPERATIVE that you prep your pan.  Get all up in those nooks and crannies with your cake release goo (or shortening and flour if you must).  It really will ensure a prettier cake in the end.

Since footballs are brown I went with a death by chocolate theme.  The ingredients are the same as the beer cake, only using chocolate cake mix and chocolate pudding.

Again, they are as follows:

A box of cake mix.  I use Duncan Hines.

A box of Instant Jell-O Pudding

1 cup of sour cream

4 eggs

½ cup vegetable oil

½ cup water

I bake at a lower temperature for a longer time.  This cake was baked at 325 for about an hour.  It was cooled slightly and turned out onto my board for frosting.

I must admit I am not super crazy about the chocolate buttercream recipe I used for this cake, so I won’t be posting it.  It came out very, very rich.  It was tasty, but a little over the top.  If I do find one I AM crazy about in the future I will let you all know. 

The base of the cake was frosted in the chocolate buttercream and the details were regular white buttercream.  For the regular buttercream I used THIS RECIPE as always.  They were piped on with a piping bag equipped with Wilton’s #13 tip.  The side stripes are just three piped lines that I smoothed over with a spatula.  I did a simple dot border around the base.  Talk about a fast and easy decorating job!  Even with baking and cooling time this cake was a snap.  What a sweet ending to a sweet game!

The Beer Cake!

I am not an expert baker.  Not even close.  I’m just a mom who got sick of buying birthday cakes from a big box bakery that looked and tasted so… average.  However, I do come from a long line of gifted home cooks.  My Mamaw is an amazing baker, and I love for us to work together in the kitchen.  After we struggled to produce Mickey Mouse cupcakes for my daughter’s birthday last year, I was ready to sign us up for professional help.  Oh don’t get me wrong, they tasted divine, they just looked horrific.  So we set out to take a Wilton cake decorating class at Michael’s, which I LOVED.  Now I make lots of cake for my friends and family.  I have even sold one!  I have only had the time to take the first section of the four cake decorating classes offered, but would love to have the opportunity to take more. 

The Wilton website is an amazing resource, and I refer to it often when baking, especially for recipes.  It is in the links section of this blog.  There are also tons of instructional cake decorating videos available on Youtube.  My other favorite cake site for instruction is www.designmeacake.com.  This link is also in the links section here on my blog.  This is the site of Edna De La Cruz, an amazing cake artist.  She’s so good she’s even been on Food Network’s “Challenge.”  She has wonderful recipes that include instructional videos with great tips.  I much prefer her buttercream recipe to Wilton’s because it contains actual butter instead of all shortening.

Whenever I set out to make a birthday cake I am reminded of this Disney gem from my childhood:

Poor Goofy.  Baking is such an arduous process for him!  Why can’t he just be dancing with the others?  But alas, his cake turns out all right in the end.

I know what you’re thinking.  When are we getting to the beer cake?  Well folks, here it is:

My father makes home brewed beer as a pastime and this was his 50^th birthday cake.

So, you’re gonna make a cake, eh?  Well, where do you start?  In this case my mom specifically requested that the cake look like a beer, so I started with that idea.  After searching the Wilton website I find they did make a beer mug shaped cake pan called “Good Cheer,” but it has been long discontinued, and I didn’t have the time to scour eBay, so I decided to make my own shape by carving the sides of a sheet cake down to look like a pint glass.  So here was my basic plan, bake a regular sheet cake (actually a half sheet in this case), carve it, ice it in a beer colored frosting, and then pipe foam and other details in white.  I sketched a glass on a piece of paper the get a feel for the shape and then measured a real one to get the dimensions right between the top and the bottom.

Baking the actual cake part is very simple.  I use a kicked-up box recipe I got from my Wilton teacher.  Here are the ingredients:

A box of cake mix.  I like Duncan Hines the best.  I do NOT like Pillsbury.  Just don’t get a mix that says “pudding in the mix.”  *Don’t pay a lick of attention to the recipe on the box!*

A small box of pudding in a coordinating flavor.  For example, if you are using white cake use vanilla pudding.  You can get creative with your flavor combos here in a yummy way.  I love to use butterscotch pudding mix with yellow cake.

4 eggs.  If you want white cake use whites only.  I use the whole egg for all other flavors.

1 cup of sour cream.

½ cup of water.

½ cup of vegetable oil.

Before you get to mixin’ you need to prep your pan.  I am using a product by Wilton called cake release.  It’s like greasing and flouring all in one step.  You just brush it on with a pastry brush, covering the full pan, making sure to get your corners well coated. 

After combining your ingredients pour your batter into your pan, making sure not to fill it more than half full.  If your pan is more than half full going in it could over flow or rise above the edge making a round place.  Basically, it could make your finished cake ugly, so don’t do it.  Throw that last half cup of batter away if you have to.  I bake my cake at a lower temperature, 325 for a longer time (50 minutes in the case of this cake).  This helps it to not hump up or fall in the middle.  Remember our dear friend Goofy?  Another lesson we learned from him:  You will WANT to look at the cake before it is done, but DO NOT LOOK AT THE CAKE!  Every time you open the door you have the risk of the cake falling in the middle, and you reduce the heat in your oven.

When your cake comes out allow it to cool for a few minutes in the pan and then turn it out to a board for complete cooling.  If you prepped your pan like I told you to you will end up with a beauty like this:

Now I set about making it look like a glass.  Using a serrated knife I started cutting away diagonally at the sides.  I ended up with this shape:

For my base frosting I used a recipe I had not used before, but really liked.  It was easy and mixed like a standard buttercream.  Here are the ingredients:

1/3 cup Shortening.  I use Crisco sticks, it makes the measuring a snap.

1/3 cup Butter.  Use REAL butter NOT margarine.  Also, make sure it is super softened.  If it is cold you will have lumpy frosting.

¾ cup Creamy Peanut Butter.
1 tsp. Vanilla.  Again, use the real stuff.  Imitation is just plain ole not as good.

1 pound of powdered sugar. 

4-6 Tablespoons of milk.  Start with 4, then judge your consistency.  If it’s too thick add the milk a tablespoon at a time until it is spreading consistency.   

I added a little yellow color and some brown to darken it up and make it look more like a home brewed beer and less like a Michelob Ultra.  These are Wilton cake colors:

Add them sparingly as a little goes a long way.  Only dip a CLEAN toothpick or knife tip in the jar as to not contaminate the whole thing.   Also, be careful with your clothing and other porous surfaces as they can be extremely staining, especially the darker colors. 

Then I over beat the heck out of this frosting on purpose to give it a bubbly carbonated look:

The foam and piping details are just regular buttercream.  I use this recipe: http://www.designmeacake.com/bcrec.html with one exception, I just use regular shortening, because I have been unable to find any high-ratio at my grocery store.  Edna also has a great video on this page to walk you through the process.  I mixed a portion of my plain buttercream with a couple teaspoons of piping gel to make it easy to make outlines and letters. 

Homemade buttercream is easy and takes just a few basic ingredients.  It really kicks the can frosting’s artificial booty.  One ingredient worth seeking out at your craft store is meringue powder.  I think its addition really helps to stiffen the icing and allow it to be piped more easily.  However, if you or someone eating your cake has an egg allergy you need to skip it.

The most difficult part of the cake process for me is applying the base icing to the cake.  The best tips that I have are to apply more icing than needed and remove little by little with your spatula as you go.  Make sure you are pushing the icing and not the cake.  After the basic icing is applied I piped the beer glass outline using a small #3 tip.  I swirled the bag as I heavily piped with a larger #13 tip to make the foam, making sure to “spill” a little down the sides of the glass. 

Pretzels were added as a border to add to the beer theme.  I have to admit I didn't come up with that myself, but saw it on the Wilton message boards after searching for "beer cake."

Writing on a finished cake can be absolutely nerve racking.  The first time you do it, it will most likely not look as good as you hoped.  I recommend practicing on a practice board or paper plate first.  You don’t want to end up on www.cakewrecks.com, so check your spelling first by writing your message down on a scrap of paper first. 

So there you have it folks, my super basic cake tips!  Remember when it comes to cake, even when it looks like crap, it can still taste wonderful, so keep on baking for practice, and share those tasty treats!