Optimus Prime

The good news is this cake made it to the party, and the standby cupcakes I purchased did not get touched. It was an absolute hit. The bad news is that my poor little son was having a slight tummy problem (he wasn't sick though), and he didn't want any.

The cake is all Chocolate Fudge. I made four 12 x12 inch cakes and cut off about 1/3 of it to use as scrap and to make the back of the truck.

The rest is a modge podge of 8x8's and 6 x 6 inch cakes. Here is a picture of the first cake I attempted and how I put it together. It's how I did the second cake, too.


At certain points during this process I thought for sure I was done-for. But I kept on truckin' (haha), and was pleased with the final results. Sure, the fondant isn't smooth, but the overall effect was definitely there. For my first attempt at something of this nature, I can't complain.

The frosting was just regular lemony buttercream infused with cake for sturdiness. Actually a little too much cake, the frosting didn't wan't to stick, and if it did it wanted to fall off and take pieces of cake with it. That contributed greatly to the mushy look of the fondant.

The silver pieces are cardboard and fondant or just cardboard. The black portions are Rice Krispy Treats covered in fondant.

The big part of the truck was eaten, we brought home the leftovers only because Little Man didn't get to have a piece yesterday.

Ask me if I'd try this again and right now I'd probably say no. But in a few weeks the bug will bite me again and I'll be tearing the kitchen up!

When Color Attacks - The Recipe

I feel that since I've started this blog, I've been entirely too stingy with the recipes. So my dear readers, prepare for the most luscious cake recipe(s) you have ever tasted. I am not a scratch snob, though I do prefer a good scratch recipe over an "extended" box recipe any day (except for White Almond Sour Cream, which I will reserve for another post where I've actually used it).

The lovely thing about this cake is that it is horribly imperfect, yet it's received the best reception because of that. Some have called it a Dr. Seuss cake (without my prodding), and that is an effect I find delightful! I purposely did not take my time on the details because the book (Whimsical Bakehouse) I got the idea from stressed that it's okay to be imperfect, much like an impressionist painting. It's horrible from up close, but from afar it is fantastic (that's impressionist, right?)

The cakes are 9", 6", and 4", which are relatively small for a tiered cake, but really quite enormous for anything but weddings. The bottom and the top layer are Chocolate Fudge cake (a Toba Garrett recipe), and the middle layer is a Lemon Supreme Pound cake. The frosting and filling is buttercream. I want to stress that unsalted butter is a must. Unless you like things realllllly salty.

I also have a few tips before I get started.

1. Line the bottom of your pans with parchment paper. You would not believe what a huuuge difference this makes in releasing the cake. Also, grease them with butter. Flour is not really a necessity when greasing. Do not use Crisco unless you like crispy edges (learn from my mistakes, peeps).

2. Use GOOD pans. They make all the difference in the world. The two types of pans I typically use are Magic Line and for Springform I use Kaiser.

3. Drop the pans before putting them in the oven. I've gone into more detail in my first recipe.

4. Cool the cakes for at least 20 minutes (some say 10), and before you flip them out (or release them from the Springform), run a butter knife along the sides to release it. The bottom is taken care of with the parchment paper.

5. Wrap them in plastic and refrigerate or freeze until firm.

6. Use gel food coloring in your frosting because it doesn't water down the consistency much; but don't use Wilton - it sucks. I use Americolor or Ateco (Ateco is available at Sur La Table among other places I'm sure).

7. Buy your extracts and other specialty items (like high quality cocoa/chocolate) at a gourmet food store or specialty kitchen store like Sur La Table. Believe it or not, it is usually much cheaper than what you will find at the grocery store. I can get a 4oz bottle of high quality lemon extract for 6.95 at Sur La Table, that at the grocery store costs $5 PER OUNCE.

Now, without further adieu:

Chocolate Fudge Cake

2 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 and 1/4 cups granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed DARK brown sugar

1 cup Dutch processed cocoa powder (IMO it doesn't NEED to be Dutch processed because it is pricey, but if you want to do it right for a special occasion it does make a small difference)

2 and 1/4 tsp baking soda

1 and 1/2 tsp salt

2 and 1/4 cups buttermilk (you can substitute with milk and vinegar [1 tbsp per cup of milk] if you have an oh shit I don't have that moment, but use the real thing if you've got it)

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2 large eggs

1 and 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

6 oz melted semisweet fine quality chocolate (Bakers brand will do)

Heat the oven until 325 or 350. If you've got patience you will have much more even cooking results at 325.

Mix all ingredients together in a mixer on low for 30 seconds, scraping the bowl (constantly if you're anal about following recipes to the T).

Blend in the melted chocolate. I have a tip at this point. Before you preheat your oven and measure the ingredients, put the chocolate in the pan on the stove and don't turn on the burner. The heat from the oven when preheating will melt the chocolate very evenly and nicely if you've got a cheapie stove like I do.

Mix on high speed for 3 minutes. If you've got a Kitchen aid like I do (oooh I like my Gloria!), it may take less time. You will notice a consistency change in the batter, it will become fluffy. That's where you want it.

Pour into pans and smooth. Then lift the pans and drop them several times on the counter. Then stand on your head and spin around while twiddling your thumbs and singing "You've Got a Friend in Me". Just kidding, but seriously, do the pan dropping thing, it helps to alleviate air bubbles. Use this as a general rule of thumb when baking cakes.

This will make two nice sized 8" layers. For my 9" and 4" layers I used a recipe and a half and it was plenty.

Bake for 50-75 minutes depending on your oven temperature. They say that when the toothpick comes out clean it's overcooked, but I've always used this rule and my cakes are never dry.

Are you still with me? Are you ready for the Lemon Supreme cake that I find "okay", but non-chocolate lovers find fabulous? Here goes:

Lemon Supreme Pound Cake

(I usually double - but for this particular cake you wouldn't need it unless you want scraps for filling and that's another topic for another day)

1 box Lemon Supreme cake mix (Duncan Hines is the best for cake mixes)

1 box Lemon Jello

1 Cup Hot Water for the Jello

3/4 cup Vegetable oil

4 eggs

1 TBSP lemon extract

Dissolve the Jello in the hot water and mix the rest of the ingredients while the water is becoming one with the Jello.

Add the dissolved Jello

Bake.

Yup, that's it.
Again, cooking times vary depending on oven temperature. The cake will look very crispy very quickly, but that's okay, the inside is still moist.

The BEST Buttercream frosting ever

(provided you like powdered sugar based frosting's):

2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup vegetable or hi-ration shortening (yeah, fancy words...just use solid Crisco)

1 and 1/2 tsp Lemon extract (you can actually substitute with any extract, including vanilla, but lemon really works well and gives the frosting a nice subtle touch that you do not get with vanilla)

3 lbs confectioners sugar (technically you should sift, but who the heck has time for that?)

1/2 cup + 1 tbsp water - start with just the 1/2 cup and add the tbsp if you need it.

3 TBSP meringue powder (you can find this with the Wilton Cake Deco Supplies at craft stores. It is NOT a necessity, but very helpful during the warmer months in stabilizing the frosting)

1 tsp salt

Cream the butter and Crisco (or whatever). It should be nice and creamy, not lumpy at all.

Add the extract and salt.

Add Confectioners sugar one cup at a time (but I usually cheat and add more, it depends on how much *poof* you want from the sugar and what your mixer can handle - but you definitely need an electric mixer).

When all of the sugar is added, mix in the meringue powder. Your mixture may become too dry before this point, if it does, you may add a small amount of water to help.

Add the water or milk (if you so choose) and mix for 7-8 minutes (again, Kitchen Aid's need less) until light and fluffy.

Sample for quality.

Then sample again for good measure.

And sample a third time for prosperity.

Oh heck, sample until you feel sick to your stomach so that you can resist the finished cake.

Note: Even though you can store this (freeze for up to two months) - I make this right before I'm ready to decorate because it has the best consistency at this point. If you do store it before making, make sure you mix it again in the mixer before using on the cake.

Now, if you want to decorate it like the above cake, umm, I have no advice. It was a modge podge flurry of color and I'm actually quite surprised it did not collapse. Okay, well it didn't collapse because I at least know how to support a cake, but the rest of it was just a lot of dye on my hands and coupler changes (for the frosting tips).

I know there are a few of you out there who are going to be making cakes soon and have expressed interest in getting advice from this non-expert. Please don't hesitate to email me at sugarbunz at gmail dot com. It would make me feel important :)

I Would Like to Formally Apologize to Blue Bonnet

I just have to say it. Are you ready? Drum roll please.....

I am pleased with this cake.

*Collective GASP*

I know, I know. It's a shocker. I actually LIKE a cake I made and can admit it. No self-defacing comments in this post. Well, at least not yet.

The cakes are as follows:

First tier 8" - Chocolate Fudge Cake with Natalie's own concocted chocolate buttercream. The chocolate flavor is derived from cocoa powder, semi-sweet chocolate chips, and chocolate extract. It came out a bit dryer than expected, but crusted very well (for smoothing).

Second tier 6" - Sour cream white cake with raspberry flavoring. Frosting is lemon-y buttercream.

Third tier 4" - same as the first. Someone gets a personal sized cake. Kinda like a personalized pizza, but with a lot more calories. Scary, I know. How can anything contain more calories than a personal size pizza? Well, here it is. In the flesh. Erm..in the frosting. I dare not estimate the reality of the calories and fat inside.

As you can tell, my flavor of the moment is scrolls (specifically pink and brown). I wanted to make a small three-tier cake with scrolls and I wanted to do it quickly. The baking was done last night after work, the decorating, tonight. It took, all in all, from warming butter to room temperature to the last buttercream rose, about six hours. Yeah, a lot of time, but a lot less than the full day task I am used to. I want to get used to doing cakes quickly, as it's a possibility I may be doing it for real in the future.

Now for the title of this post. Last night I ranted and raved about Blue Bonnet margarine and how I felt a bit misled that it would work well in buttercream. I used all butter tonight (with a small amount of Crisco-blech), and had the same results. I now know it was the stinking butter and NOT the margarine that was giving me crappy results. I was still able to ice this cake successfully enough, but something in the butter seems to cause the powdered sugar to crystallize so that you get "chunky" frosting (it's not the sugar because I used two different brands last night and tonight). Eeeeew, sounds gross, but it's similar to tasting granular sugar in something, and it royally pisses me off! As a result I didn't bother to smooth the frosting as well as I could of, but it's all good.

So there it is, my official apology to Blue Bonnet. I am sorry, I shall not give up thee just yet!

As for the cake. I wasn't so sure at first. The largest layer went well, the smallest, not so great. Thankfully I had planned roses on top and knew that the little mistakes on the smallest layer would probably be a moot point by the time the top was encrusted with pink buttercream. I think I was right. I have to learn that no cake looks great until it's finished. When I am making these "little" mistakes, it really gets me down; until I see the big picture. I just have to learn to see the big picture a bit sooner!

To close this post I must share a picture that really exemplifies how messy cake-making really is. I now know I am a powdered sugar buttercream frosting kinda gal, and as such, powdered sugar is the single most messy ingredient in a cake. The picture below shows just how well powdered sugar can infiltrate your kitchen. I promise this cake had no alcohol in it! How powdered sugar got there is anybody's guess, but if you've never tried powdered wine, I highly suggest it.

A little somethin' somethin'

I hereby dub thee...

"Lushious Lady Cake". Emphasis on the mispelling of "luscious" because this puppy is infused with Godiva Liquer. The recipe for chocolate buttercream came from the same book I've got all of my favorite recipes from so I wanted to make it right. Which means when it called for Godiva liquer, I went out and bought an expensive little bottle of the stuff. The frosting has approximately five buckaroonies worth of alcohol in it.

I didn't think the alcohol would be noticable, and as you might guess, it's nearly impossible not to sample the goods to ensure quality when making a cake. No, I didn't pour myself alcoholic chocolate on the rocks, but I did have my fair share of boozy frosting. After about two tablespoons I actually felt dizzy! I'm not a lightweight by any means, so I can only guess the sugar mixed with the alcohol had some kind of special effect on me; but nevertheless this cake will not be going to it's intended recipients: My mom's coworkers. The last thing she needs is to get blamed for a workplace full of drunkards.

The cake itself is Chocolate Fudge. It's funny, but the first time I tried the recipe I didn't care for it, now it is my hands down favorite. I filled it with raspberry flavored buttercream, and covered it with the Godiva infused chocolate buttercream. Honestly, it's ok. I will have a piece later (shucks) to determine if I think it's really just ok, or if when mixed with the flavor of the cake and the filling if I like it.

This was also a good excuse to practice buttercream roses. They are still eluding me with their ragged edges, but I am now convinced it's the consistency of the frosting, not the inexperience of my hand that is causing the problem.

I went a little crazy with the scrolls because they are one of my favorite cake effects, andthere are many MANY mistakes, but the overall effect is very pretty I think. Once I realized that there was no way I was sending this to work with my mom I just had a hay day without regard to how many mistakes I made.

This is one cake my son will not be sampling!

Hip Hop HOORAY!

Call me crazy, but I'm rearin' to go again after this cake! I guess I'm truly getting better at this stuff after all, because things ARE getting easier. There is absolutely nothing that went wrong with this cake. Well, at least not the decorating portion of it. I didn't have any "oopsies" to cover up. The flowers are NOT placed strategically to cover up my screw ups. They are there because I thought they would look nice there.

The lady I was making this for only requested something lemony so it's a lemon pound cake. Now here comes the one and only screw up on this cake. Are you ready?

I found a recipe for doctored lemon pound cake that was highly rated on cakecentral.com. Knowing that most box cakes only make an 8" cake if you're lucky, I doubled the recipe. I was making a 9". When I poured the batter it didn't seem like it filled the pan enough but I figured it would rise.

Umm, no. I had one "decent" sized layer, and one incredibly puny layer. After levelling, it was not even an inch high. The other layer was puny too, but not as puny. I really love my scratch recipes, but I didn't really have the time; and they tend to rise better. So I decided I would make this more of a torte style cake with three layers instead of two and bring out my last box mix; which happened to be white cake instead of Lemon Supreme (Duncan Hines if you are curious, it's the only box mix I'll buy most of the time). No problem, I'll just add a boatload of lemon extract to it. Since the other two layers were yellow I decided it would be fun to make the white layer, pink. Hey, I was feeling springy.

That was it, that was THE ONLY THING THAT WENT WRONG! Can I get a WOOT WOOT?!

Since I had already done the pink and yellow thing with the cake, I decided to take it up a notch and really go crazy. I colored one of the layers filling blue, and one layer purple. Or was it green and purple? Or blue and green? Oh who knows, but you get the picture. I'm not sure how it will look once cut, but I hope it looks "springy" instead of like I ran out of one color of frosting and used another.

I thoroughly enjoy basketweave. Yes, it's tedious and can be hard on the hands, but I can do it. Yes, that's why I like it. Because I can do it. Yes, that's reason enough thank-you-very-much. It looks shiny in the pic, and globby, but it's really not. My cheap-o camera is notorious for taking things out of context. I don't think that made sense but I don't care.

This was my first try at "grass". I think it came out pretty good. It was very easy. There is a wonderful little tip, #233 to be exact that is an absolute necessity IMHO. I have some small holed tips and was actually going to attempt grass with one of those. Yeah, then I really would have been certifiable.

As good as this cake went, my apartment is an absolute mess. When you mix three layers of cake, fondant, gumpaste, buttercream, and a very bored 3 year-old, things are, umm, shall we say VERY MESSY? My poor kid, he really gets mesmerized when I'm doing these things and I'm sure he was disappointed to see it walk out the door. So I have decided I'm going to go to the store and get the fixin's for one small easter basket cake that I can surprise him with tomorrow. Let the sugar high begin!

HAPPY EASTER!

UPDATE:

Here is the cake I made for my lil man. He pretty much completely ignored what I was doing because I told him this was for someone else, so I think he'll be tickled pink when it sits next to his Easter basket tomorrow morning! This is a small cake, only 6", the right size for our family...I got a little too busy with all of the decorations and umm, grass, but it was fun. Yes, I know there are lot's o' white spots in the grassy section but you must understand that at that point my hand wanted to fall right off!

Happy Easter............Again!

Pink and Brown around town

I wanted to try out a new recipe, it's my first foray into "doctored" cakes. I am pretty adamant about doing my cakes from scratch, but this recipe sounded fabulous and I had to try it! The cake itself is white almond sour cream. Mmmm, sounds sooo good huh? Well, it's made from Duncan Hines white cake mix, but has a ton of other ingredients including (surprise) sour cream. It's pretty good but I can still tell it came from a mix. It's so moist it almost seems undercooked but it is not. I also tried out a new buttercream recipe. I really like different buttercreams, but plain ole buttercream is the only one that doesn't require refrigeration once it's on the cake. I did try Swiss Meringue Buttercream a couple of weeks ago because everyone raves about it; but I found it rather plain and was very reminiscent of whipped cream frosting which I am not fond of at all. Oh well, back to my original topic! The frosting and filling on this cake is raspberry cream cheese buttercream and it is FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC! This little experiment ended well

My other little experiment did not. I wanted to make a chocolate fondant covering with raspberry flavoring. I played around with it too much and it ended up becoming too brittle. So I started with a fresh batch and just colored it brown and used raspberry extract in it. It tastes halfway decent. But because I had to get into a new batch that wasn't technically ready for it's showtime (Fondant should sit for 24 hours after being made); There are a lot of tears and small bubbles. That's why there are so many dots! HA!

Overall I am happy with this cake. I had very little idea of what I was going to do when I started on it; so I think this is halfway decent. I did learn to let fondant well enough alone, but since I am giving this to my friend in the morning, I needed it tonight. So I think tomorrow I'll make a batch or two just to have around! I also learned that I am not big on doctored cake mixes, they still taste like cake mixes. Most people love cake mixes, but I want my cakes to taste different. I am just as interested in baking good cakes as I am in decorating good cakes.

P.S. The roses are what are called Ribbon Roses. I see them a lot on whimsical cakes, and since that is one type of cake I really want to learn how to make I thought I'd give the roses a try. :)