Sweet 16 / "Things I Like" Cake

10" Red Velvet.

Fondant Decor.  Sculpted and painted fondant figures. In my opinion the figures would have been better if they were made out of Gum Paste and tinted rather than painted.

Scout Religious Emblem Cake

Chocolate fudge 9"x13", (vanilla) high humidity II icing, and rolled fondant.

Poinsettia Cake

This is an 8" round two layer white cake.
The icing is the High Humidity icing recipe #1.
The poinsettia and details are MMF.

Marshmallow Fondant Poinsettia

Thanksgiving Centerpiece Cake

High Humidity Frosting Link

This is the best recipe I've found for high humidity. It's from the Wilton website. It tastes good and the texture is perfect for icing and decor. It's nice and white so it takes tinting well. They have two recipes but I like this one the best.

Wilton High Humidity Recipe-I

Making Hand Scuplted "Food" for Thanksgiving Centerpiece Cake

These are some of the items that will be going on the top of our Thanksgiving centerpiece cake. They are hand sculpted out of colored rolled fondant. I will be adding details to the items when they are set.

I recently realized that the turkey was anatomically incorrect and fixed it.

We made a few more items today and added details to the existing items. We still have a couple of items left to make. We will bake the cake itself on Tuesday. We will finish up and decorate the cake on Wednesday. I'll post final pictures when the project is complete.

Note:  Click on the photo to enlarge. The quarter is to show the size of the items.

Fondant Rose detail

This is the fondant rose decoration/practice session.

Notes: Circular petals, thinned at edges, curled,  and combined to create bloom. Hang inverted or propped to dry. Each rose is to be individually crafted this way.

Blueberry Cheesecake

Hubby just LOVES cheesecake. Blueberry cheesecake is his absolute favorite. This is the cheesecake I made for him to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary.  We save cheesecake for special occasions and Hubby's birthday.

The recipe is from Phili cream cheese but I've tweeked it a little. It's creamy rich and fabulous. I like to top it with fresh blueberry preserves.

When blueberries are not in season, I top it with Bonne Maman's Wild Blueberry Preserves.

Game Night Cake / De Blob

The kiddos wanted a themed cake for our game night. One of them suggested a De Blob cake.  I thought it was a fun idea and this is what we came up with.

It's an 8 inch round cake made in a 8x3" pan. The cake was yellow cake this time around. Turned out fun and yummy.

For our next De Blob cake we were thinking of making more of the characters and color trails. Maybe we can even add the paintbots that the characters get their colors from.  This is a really fun cake idea for game night or a birthday party.

Cookie Bar Tower

These are some yummy chocolate chocolate chip cookie bars I decorated with marshmallow fondant leaves.

I was practicing making fondant leaves again today. Getting better. I think I like the tiny leaves best. The larger ones need to be thinner.

Marshmallow Fondant Recipe

INGREDIENTS:

2 LBS SIFTED POWDERED SUGAR
16 OZ MARSHMALLOW (SMALL IS BEST FOR EASY MELTING)
3 TBSP WATER
1/2 CUP CRISCO / VEGETABLE SHORTENING
DIRECTIONS:
1. PUT 2 LBS SIFTED POWDERED SUGAR INTO BOWL OF MIXER AND ADD 1/2 CUP CRISCO.
2.  PLACE 16 OZ OF MARSHMALLOWS AND 3 TBSP OF WATER INTO PAN
PLACE ON LOW HEAT UNTIL MELTED STIRRING CONSTANTLY. (ABOUT 3 MINUTES)
3.  ADD MELTED MARSHMALLOW MIXTURE TO THE POWDERED SUGAR MIXTURE. MIX ON LOW UNTIL INCORPORATED. ADD POWDERED SUGAR IF TOO STICKY / WATER OR CRISCO IF TOO DRY. ADD 1TBSP AMOUNT AT A TIME ONLY AND MIX. (YOU CAN ADD COLORING AT THIS TIME IF YOU ARE MAKING ALL THE FONDANT ONE COLOR.)
4.  KNEAD LIKE BREAD DOUGH ON A SURFACE SPRINKLED WITH POWDERED SUGAR (SIFTED) ADD MORE SUGAR TO SURFACE AS NEEDED. TEXTURE SHOULD BE SMOOTH AND WORKABLE.
5.  DOUBLE WRAP THE FONDANT IN PLASTIC WRAP AND SET ASIDE UNTIL NEEDED. ADD GEL COLORANT FOR COLOR EITHER DURING THE PROCESSING OR AS YOU NEED IT. I ALSO LIKE  PUTTING INSIDE A ZIPLOC BAG. EITHER SEEMS TO WORK FINE.
NOTE: FOR BEST RESULTS USE CORNSTARCH TO AT THE ROLLING OUT STAGE OF YOUR PROJECT.  MOVE THE FONDANT AS YOU ROLL IT OUT TO PREVENT STICKING TO YOUR ROLLING SURFACE.

Harvest Pumpkin Cake

This is the hand sculpted cake I made today for the Harvest luncheon at church.

This is the first time I ever made fondant from scratch. The recipe is from Twisted Sifter. It turned out well. I do think that using corn starch works much better than the powdered sugar at the rolling out stage of the project. :)

This cake is a 6 inch round (pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese inside/marshmallow fondant outside). The base is a 9 inch round (yellow cake tinted orange and iced with milk chocolate icing).

The decorations are also made by hand out of marshmallow fondant. Everything on this cake is edible. :)  and yummy!

Monkey Face Cake

This cake was made for our youngest child's 1st birthday. The cake is a simple milk chocolate cake. The center of the face is an 8" round and the ears are a split 6" round. The cake was cooled over night and iced the following morning. The cake was covered in milk chocolate icing.

Fondant Face: First we had traced around the 8" pan to get the size of the face of the cake. The face was freehand drawn on a piece of parchment paper. We then cut it out and traced the shape on the fondant using a skewer.  We then cut the face out of yellow tinted fondant using a sharp knife.

The fondant was placed on the cake and chilled for an hour.   After cooling, the details were added using more of the chocolate icing. It was a fun and lovely cake. This one was a success.

Changes for the future: The fondant face piece should be a little smaller so that more of the chocolate underneath shows. This cake needs to be presented on a larger base/platter.

Welcome to Morningstar Cakes

Welcome to Morningstar Cakes.  This blog is a record of all the wonderful things coming out of our little kitchen. Cake is always a celebration even without an occasion. It is however especially sweet when it celebrates a milestone or special event in our lives. Morningstar Cakes is a sweet celebration of life and we don't need any excuse to celebrate. Rejoice!


"This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118