July 2010 Morningstar Cakes and Treats

Where were you in the month of June?

During the month of June I was working at Target Bakery. Unfortunately I developed an issue with Dequervain's Tendonitis and had to leave that job. I did take pictures of some of the cakes I made while working there. Here is a link to photos of those cakes. :)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2061920&id=1095871167&l=03d0a84fba

Link to Corpse Bride Inspired Wedding Cake

Corpse Bride inspired Wedding Cake

This is the cake I did for a friend's wedding  that was celebrated May 1st, 2010. This cake is styled after the one seen in the movie Corpse Bride. It's not exactly like it but it resembles it quite nicely.

The cake is a four tier red velvet cake with vanilla icing covered in fondant with sculpted skulls and bones. The topper is also decorated  with fondant. The figures on the topper of the cake are made of gum paste. This was made by adding Tylose powder to the fondant. I used Satin Ice fondant on this project. I was pleased with how easy it was to roll it out thinly.

This cake was very labor intensive but worth every minute of it. The final product was very nice. :)

Thinking Outside the Cake Box

 I still had some butter cream fondant and decided to have a little fun with it. I made a special little cake for my family. I used cutters and impression molds I purchased from the clay art section of my local craft store. These leaf cutters are for working with Sculpey but they work really well for this medium. That is a good place to look for tools that can be used for fondant/gumpaste cake art. They were on clearance and I got quite a few different leaf styles for less than $6. Awesome!

I also use scrapbooking Fiskars tools for some of the things I make for my cakes. In particular I like the texture plates. They work really well with the fondant and gumpaste.

I have two more examples. First is my fondant rolling pin. It is really just a section of pvc pipe. It cost me $1.99 as opposed to the $21.00 Wilton wanted for their fondant rolling pin. Mine is longer and easier to handle. Works like a dream. :) Second is a high density foam roller that I use to smooth out my butter cream icing. It looks almost like fondant when I do it that way. A nice alternative for folks who don't really care for fondant but like the way it looks. Neither of these are cake decorating tools but they do the job quite nicely. Both are excellent tools.

Think outside the cake box when it comes to cake decorating tools. You might be surprised with what you can find in the craft store, or your local hardware store. You can let your imagination run wild. Just make sure you choose things that are non-toxic and dedicate those tools to only working with food.

Buttercream Fondant Recipe

The decoration of this cake was inspired by one of the cakes on the Mad Hatter's table in the new Alice in Wonderland movie.
BUTTERCREAM FONDANT RECIPE
Ingredients
* 1 cup light corn syrup
* 1 cup shortening
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
* 2 pounds confectioners' sugar
Directions
1. In a large bowl, stir together the shortening and corn syrup. Mix in the salt and vanilla flavoring, then gradually mix in the confectioners' sugar until it is a stiff dough. If you are using a stand mixer, use the dough hook attachment. Otherwise, knead by hand. If the dough is sticky, knead in more confectioners' sugar until it is smooth. Store in an airtight container at room temperature or in the refrigerator.
2. To use, roll out on a clean surface that has been dusted with confectioners' sugar until it is 1/8 inch thick or thinner if you can. Drape over frosted and chilled cakes and smooth the sides down, or cut into strips to make bows and other decorations.

Butter Cream Transfer

This is our first attempt at butter cream transfer.

My daughter wanted to make a cake for the birthday of one of her youth group leaders. We decided it would be fun to try out the butter cream transfer method on this cake.

We started by choosing the image we wanted on our cake. We chose the symbol for Mosaic Church. It is a crown of thorns in case you were wondering. :)

To have the image turn out right we needed to reverse the image. We did this by tracing the image on the other side of the page.

We chose the colors for our image and labeled the image to avoid confusion. After labeling we slipped the image into a plastic sleeve.

We then traced the image using a #2 tip and butter cream we had tinted black.

We filled in the first color using a #5 tip and butter cream tinted blue. We then added the second color was piped in using a #5 tip and butter cream tinted grey.

Here is the completed reverse image.

We traced the outer edge of the image and then filled in the area with butter cream using the same color we had on our cake. We piped using a #10 tip and then smoothed it with a small offset cake decorator spatula.

This is what the image looks like from underneath. Turned out nicely! :) At this point the transfer goes into the freezer for 45 minutes to an hour.

We flip our frozen image on to the cake and smoothed it into the cake. We carefully peeled the plastic off of our transfer.

My daughter then added the lettering. :)

Lovely results for our first attempt at butter cream transfer. Can't wait to use this technique again. It was fun!


Here's the video we watched to learn how to do this. :)
Butter Cream Transfer Technique

Cake Channel Link

I was looking for some new ideas and inspiration and found this site. There are some excellent photographs of all kinds of cakes. Follow the link to see them for yourself. Enjoy!

WEDDING CAKE PHOTOS AT CAKE CHANNEL