Course 3 - Mission Accomplished

Taking two Wilton classes especially on days back to back is quite tiring. I threw this cake together and unfortunately didn't smooth it as i just wasn't in the mood. This is a hummingbird cake (which i had never made or tasted before) with cream cheese filling and i decided i didn't really like this kind of cake. Maybe because it tastes too banana-y. Who knows. Anyway, i brought it to work and they devoured it as always. Thank heavens for them because i hate to waste!

70 Years Young

We had a family get together this weekend and i made a chocolate chip cake with buttercream icing. I also put cupcakes around the cake but didn't take a picture. Happy Birthday Don!

Shake, Rattle, and Roll!

This is a rattle cake i made for my employee who is about to go on maternity leave with her second child. It is a chocolate chip cake with pink and brown fondant and buttercream trim/writing. It was the perfect amount of cake for the 5 of us going to dinner for her tomorrow night. The fondant got so soft while i was working with it. I'm not sure if it was because my house wasn't as cool as it should have been or if my hands were warm. Anyway, i'm new to fondant but really love what fondant cakes look like so i just need to keep practicing!

Chrisanthemum Love

Today was the third day of my fondant and gumpaste class and we learned flowers. I had to leave early to go eat dinner for my husband's birthday but at least i was able to stay long enough to make the most beautiful gumpaste flower i have ever seen. *Honest tidbit: this is the first gumpaste flower i have ever seen.* Nonetheless, it was absolutely gorgeous!! I saw them make daisies too but I was already packed up and walking out the door so I'll have to make one and post it here later.

Happy Cheaper Insurance Day

My husband's birthday was today and all the family went to dinner. I made him his favorite cake, funfetti. This is also my first fondant covered cake and i was really nervous because i froze it but it turned out perfect! I obviously need to practice covering the cakes with fondant but for my first, it turned out okay but it was delicious! I forgot to push down the edges of the dots on the sides before i took this picture. The words were free hand, not too bad if i say so myself! Happy Birthday Love, you old fart!

A Present for Hope

Today was the second day in our Course 3 class and we had to bring an iced square cake to class to cover in fondant. I decided to bake a chocolate cake with peanut butter chips and peanut butter filling. Instead of bringing this cake to work and then making another one for Hope's birthday next weekend, i decided to do as good a job as i could and keep it for her on her birthday. I only had one gaping hole so i guess that means i was successful. I put entirely too much icing on the cake before i covered it in fondant so it oozed out while i was covering it. You can kind of see it in the front shot below (it is in the bottom right corner of the cake). I also had to squish my 3D bow down because the carrying case wasn't tall enough. Anyway, i can't wait to taste it! I think this is going to be one of the best tasting cakes i have done so far, but i'll have to wait and see until next weekend!

Birthday Disaster

My Father in law's birthday was the 7th but we celebrated today because my husband was out of town. Well, my FIL wanted an ice cream cake and when i tried to make it the ice cream must have been too soft or not in the freezer long enough after i filled it because when i put it together the ice cream came gushing out all over the floor! Well, i threw that one away and just decided to hurry and make him a yellow cake. I was experimenting with fondant so the big balloons on the side are too big. I just tried to make due with what i had available but it turned out ok. It was really good though!

Beach Party!

I am missing out on a beach trip for Labor Day weekend but thought i would post the cupcakes that will be enjoyed on the trip. Hope baked and decorated these and they are so cute! We might have snuck and taste tested them and they were so good. Here's to fun in the sun...

Figure Piping

My figure piping class was tonight and it was a lot of fun! We learned various things. I made a little chick, an elephant, a ghost, wreaths and other things.

Birthdays and Babies

I had two jobs to do for today. One was a pink and white polka dot birthday party for two twin girls and the other a pink and brown girl baby shower.

For the twins' birthday party i did three dozen cupcakes for the guests and jumbo cupcakes for the girls because they requested "muffins" or "cuppy cakes" as their separate personal cake. I used some solid pink and some pink polka dot cupcake liners and did both chocolate and white cupcakes each decorated with bright pink fondant decorations stamped with birthday images (if you look close, you can see them in the picture below). For the girls i did jumbo cupcakes to be placed on a cake drum with fondant decorations with their name. For the twin that wanted a white cupcake, i decided to do hot pink striping in the batter. I finished each jumbo cupcake with pink mouse ears to go with the party theme. There will also be a candle on each cupcake for the girls to blow out.


For the baby shower, i made a custom pink and brown polka dot cupcake tower and made both chocolate and white cupcakes and petit fours each with a white M monogram in chocolate cupcake liners. The petit fours do not even deserve to be called petit because they ended up being HUGE! So, i'll call them grand fours.


What a job this was. Cupcakes: no problem, fondant letter and petit (grand) fours: TIME CONSUMING! I began at 8pm and didn't finish until 2am. I think my feet fell off somewhere in the kitchen... i'll just look for them in the morning. In the morning you ask? Yes, i am blogging at 2:42 AM waiting on the petit-grand fours to dry but dry or not, i'm putting them up now or else i'll be sleep blogging!

Brownie Fun

Hope and I attended the brownie class tonight and had a lot of fun! We were able to open all the flavors and other treats that Wilton offers for brownie making. While chocolate buttercream is good on the brownie, Wilton makes a brownie fudge icing that is F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. Here are my brownies. We had two circles, one heart, a mini, a pop, an oblong, and one that looks like a set of stairs. Still not sure what that one is supposed to be!

Web Store

Since i don't have any jobs being finished this week for pictures i thought i would post that i have bought so many baking cups, i decided to open an online store to sell some of them in. Bear with me because i just populated it but it is there nonetheless! I have to buy thousands at a time to get a good price so i have more than i need presently. These would make your baking that much sweeter!

Doberge and Petit Fours

Today was the doberge and petit fours class and it was amazing! I learned a few things that i hadn't really thought of and can't wait to experience. I am so excited in fact that i wanted to do a post just on my class without any pictures of anything i've made because, well, i just got home from the class! Below are pictures of what we learned to make and there is a certain someone that is absolutely obsessed with these cakes so a surprise may be in order, for practicing purposes of course. My husband's cousin decided to come with me and i think she really liked the class and i enjoyed her being there. We also tasted the cakes and man were they good! Here are some pictures i found online of what we had in class. I can't wait to do this myself! I may just have to experiment this weekend.

Doberge cake is a layered dessert originating in New Orleans, Louisiana. Still popular in the area, the cake is made of multiple thin layers of cake alternating with dessert pudding.

A petit four is a small cake generally eaten at the end of a meal or served as part of dessert.The name is from the French petit four, meaning "small oven".

Candy Basket

I was enlisted to make some candy and cupcakes for a family get together this week. I was able to do what i wanted so i decided to make a dipped candy basket of sorts. Yesterday Hope came over to help me and we had a blast. What a team we are! We made dipped sandwich cookies (chocolate and golden), dipped rice treats, and dipped pretzels. We packaged them and put them in a square dish i had at home. I also made Chocolate cupcakes ahead of time with mint buttercream icing topped with fleur de lis designs.

Sugar Cookie Experiment

I still had some royal icing left over from my course two Wilton class and since i used the leftover pink for flowers, i decided to experiment and use the left over purple to make sugar cookies. I had never made sugar cookies from scratch so i had no idea how this would turn out. Well, the dough was a little tough to work with because it was mushy and not as stiff as i would have liked but oh well maybe it was too hot in my house. The icing was not as runny as it needed to be but i was pressed for time because i was late for a girl's night out! They were really good though, at least as good as sugar cookies can get. I'm not a big fan of sugar cookies but they were good nonetheless. I went to Party Time yesterday and bought some stuff for something for next week so while i was there, why not buy everything else i don't need!?!? Just kidding, but i did buy a bucket of cookie cutters. I guess now i know what theme i will have on my Christmas list! I want, oh i mean i NEED, everything!

Elyjah Baby Announcement

I became an aunt in May and offered to do the baby announcements for my new nephew. I absolutely love to design these types of things so it was my pleasure. These are my first baby announcements though but i think they turned out pretty cute!

Our First Job.... A Baby Shower!

Hope and I did our first baby shower baking today. We made two dozen chocolate chip cupcakes and two dozen white chocolate cupcakes all with blue, green, and yellow pastel baby items on top. We are so happy with them, they came out SO cute!

Intermediate Class.... Mission Accomplished!

Today was our last day in the intermediate decorating class. This class was only three classes long because the teacher couldn't do the fourth class so we came early on a few days. Hope was on a teaching conference in Boston (jealous) for the week to come back today so i baked and dirty iced both of our cakes and this was the best cake i have ever made!! It was oh sweet and moist.... YUM! We learned basketweaving today and covered our cakes in it. We had to put the flowers we made on our cakes along with the dreaded birds but i'm still proud nonetheless. We also learned the rope technique which was pretty easy and i loved it. Unfortunately these classes don't give us a lot of room for creativity because we follow along through the book to create the cakes using what we have learned. I absolutely CANNOT wait for the advanced decorating class so we can touch on fondant and i am further taking the fondant and gumpaste class. I may just fall over from excitement, but i must wait for those until September. I am so glad i started doing this!

Friends, Food, and Fun

We had a get together at our house last night and had a bunch of friends over. We barbecued hot dogs and hamburgers and we had chips and dip and some monogrammed cupcakes. I also made a taco dip and deviled eggs. I have never made deviled eggs, but they were so good, that was the first thing to go! The vanilla cupcakes are filled with a vanilla cream cheese filling and topped with buttercream and the chocolate chip ones are filled with mousse and topped with chocolate buttercream. I hand drew the monograms with chocolate and topped them with sugar crystals.

Flower Garden

Yesterday we made daisies, violets, pansies, daffodils, and apple blossoms. It was so much fun! The daffodil to the right looks funny because we made it out of the wrong colors because half of our class didn't show up for some reason. We also made color flow birds. My bottom one got a little crushed while i was packing it up. We will finish these by adding the beaks next week too. The best thing about these is that they last forever. I can make a ton ahead of time and use them for a project next month if i want. This is getting easier and easier, i guess i'm getting the hang of it!

Candy Making

Yesterday was chocolate making class and it was so fun! We made peanut butter cups, cordial cherries, turtles, chocolate rice crunch, and yummy tiger butter. We had a ton of candy all over our tables and we came home with a box full. I of course brought it to work and only ate one piece, the tiger butter. I made the chocolate rice crunch and Hope made the turtles. Yum! The cutest part was this little mouse that we made. Justin posed him by the cheese for extra affect! Is it just me or does his butt look huge!?!? :-) You can't see real good but his ears are slivers of almond. Too cute...

Practice Run

In an effort to prepare for our get together next weekend at our house, i decided to make a practice run of the chocolate and white cupcakes i wanted to serve. The chocolate cupcakes have chocolate mousse filling and chocolate buttercream icing and the white cupcakes are amaretto cake cupcakes with bavarian cream filling and buttercream icing. They were so good but oh so very rich. The mouse came out SO good. That's the first time i made any kind of mousse.

I made way too much for a tasting but i forgot i was making half a batch and put the full batch of eggs so i had to double everything else i had already done! Oh well. The more the merrier, right? The people at work will love me... I ended up making about 40 cupcakes. Yum! Here are the cupcakes with the filling showing placed on my magnificant appetizer plates.

Intermediate, Schmitermediate

Last night was the first class of the intermediate cake decorating class and it was fabulous! We touched back on shells but learned rosettes, reverse shells, rosebuds, and made chrysanthemums. I can't wait to make all the beautiful flowers. The only thing about the class was that there were numerous people that had not taken the first set of classes so instead of moving right along, our teacher had to reteach many things. Why would you not take the beginner's class before taking the intermediate class? Anyway, i finally got the buttercream thing down! This class will only be three classes because our teacher has to go out of town for a teaching conference but it looks like it is going to be a busy three weeks! On a separate note, i got my ice cream maker attachment for my kitchenaid mixer! I was so surprised when it came in as a wedding present. Nothing better than free gifts, right? I can't wait to make the ice cream!

Recipes

If anyone has any yummy baking recipes they would be willing to share, please do. If you would like, email to shannonlharvey at aol dot com. I am especially interested in moist cake, filling, and buttercream frosting/icing recipes so that i can expand my recipe box of options to choose from. I would share mine but i don't have any yet! Also, what is your secret to a moist cake? I have seen a ton of add-ins discussed online. I know i will come across a tried and true recipe i like but i am being very experimental right now!

The Red, White, and Blue

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend, i know i did. I just got back from a weekend at the beach and wanted to post Thursday's cake for you. It was our last class of our beginner's class. We even got a certificate!!! So cute..

Hope and I of course made our cakes festive so we could enjoy them along with all the great food we ate. I left my cake at work for them to enjoy and we brought Hope's to Florida. We decided to make some stars on top of our cakes and insert a few scattered jumbo start sprinkles i bought a little while back. We also sprinkled the top with red, white, and blue non-pareils. The cake was red velvet. We didn't have enough food coloring so we used half of what the recipe called for. The cakes were okay but there is another recipe i want to try for a better outcome. The icing started to melt off the sides but it was delicious!

My Cake

Hope's Cake

The Inside

One down, a bunch to go!

I also decided to make some cheesecake balls to bring to work for Monday. They were so good and fun to make!