Sheepish, aren't they?

Hi, back from a mini break in Bethany Beach, DE. Much needed for my husband and me, since this year has been such a roller coaster ride. It was the first time in years that I did not feel the need to communicate...well, it makes a difference since I still am searching for that next "job" or should I say passion?!

The day we left, I had 2 orders to fill. A carrot cake and a 1/4 sheet cake for a baby shower. They are expecting a boy and thank you, Martha Stewart- came up with this for the cake. I didn't have the patience to pipe a lambs head so I played with some marzipan and made little faces. I think that they look a bit more like puppies, but I think I'll work on my sculpting skills and play some more. I don't think I'll ever put some of those crazy things on cakes like I've seen, and much prefer the "cute" factor.

Sheep, lambs, who knows what else can be placed on a cake...

It's leftover night

After the Gaga birthday cake, I had all this left over frosting and I hate to waste it all, especially when there is premium butter, cocoa and Ghiradelli chocolate involved. There I am rifling thru all my cookbooks and oh, a cupcake I have never baked...Peanut butter cupcake! Mind you the PB is hard as a rock in the fridge, since it's natural and so is the butter, and the eggs are really cold. I read that you are able to bring the eggs to room temp pretty fast by putting them in a bowl of really warm water for about 10 minutes. The recipe said I would get 30 cupcakes, not sure how...is that like loaves and fishes?...
I only came up with 23. *sigh*

I went thru the "black and white" butter cream (it's vanilla meringue butter cream with chocolate syrup), then the vanilla butter cream and then the dark chocolate butter cream. I didn't want to do another complete bag set up so just filled the nearly empty bag up. I loved the effect of the one you see pictured here, and won't be able to recreate it for, say a batch of 24, but you can see the progression of what was happening in the pastry bag.

My lucky "guinea pig" friends at Scott Honda had these for breakfast this morning. Hope they enjoyed chocolate and peanut butter with their cups of coffee. Not too bad of a start on a Monday morning, don't you think?

Birthday Cakes, anyone?

Who knew that when I took the latest order that I would be writing with icing? This is a 6 layer dark chocolate cake filled with vanilla pastry cream and raspberry jam, covered with vanilla meringue buttercream and B&W meringue buttercream. Or that's what I call it since it was a light handed addition of dark chocolate syrup (thank you, Ina Garten) for color. I LOVE an all white cake, but thought that the outside should somehow reveal the surprise inside?

Anyhow, then there's the writing. I have been a calligrapher for years and love pen and ink. This was something new and completely different. I made a dark chocolate buttercream and loved the contrast in colors. I even practiced my lettering on 2 large sheets of parchment paper after tracing a circle on it. I thought, omg, if my writing was too big and did not fit the top of the cake. There are no erasers or starting all over- it was a one shot and that's it.

My husband reminded me that I had to move me or the cake to a better spot to have the best angle to write. I chose to leave the cake where it was AND perched myself on my kitchen stool "above" the cake. As it was, one of the "p" closed up and had to wait an hour for the thing to harden up in the fridge, so I could surgically removed it with a paring knife and icing palette knife. (Oh, said husband said I should always have toothpicks around to help with the extraction process or unclogging the round tips since they get clogged IF the icing is too thick...seriously with a pound+ butter , that buttercream should flow like thick olive oil!)  so there it is...letters are still a bit wobbly, but all in all not too bad for the 1st time out.  
And I think I will do more practising, since I love to write in Chancery cursive, instead of modifying roundhand...I'll try to remember to post these adventures later on....

Remember I have the hardest time trying to remember to take pictures :-)

PS. I don't know who "Gaga" is...it's not Lady Gaga, for sure.