Red White & Blue Striped Cupcakes

I know it's been awhile since my last post...sorry readers!  Work's been really busy these days so I haven't had as much time for yummy creations. But I squeezed in a couple hours to do something that represented Independence Day.  With the upcoming holiday, I thought it'll be fun to add some red and blue stripes to white frosting.  These are red velvet with almond cream cheese frosting (I usually use vanilla extract but I had no-color almond extract on hand and used that so I could try to keep the frosting as white as possible).  I have to say that I'm really loving the taste of the almond cream cheese!

I'm surprised that I don't see this technique used more often as it's a real easy way to produce a cool effect.   After frosting the cupcakes, I topped them with yellow stars for the finishing touch.

To make this effect, you'll need some food color gel, a couple brushes, pastry bag and an open star pastry tip.  I used No-Taste Red (regular red tastes bitter) and Royal Blue colors.  I'm sure this is obvious (but just in case!) make sure to not use brushes that you used on non-edible items. 

When you're "painting" the food coloring into the inside of the bag, you want to make sure that the bag is as open as possible so that your frosting goes in smoothly.  Below are a few methods I use to put frosting into my pastry bags.

Hand Method: Cup the pastry bag and fold the edges of the bag over your hand. 

Open the bag as much as possible.

Glass/vase method: Replace your hand with a glass.  This is my favorite way as it not only frees up both hands but any frosting that comes out from the bottom is caught in the glass.  If you're using a large pastry bag like a 18", use a vase.

The hubby method: You didn't think he gets cupcakes for free, did you? He needs to earn his keep! =)

This was the method that I used for this project as I wanted the pastry bag to be as smooth as possible. 

So I MEANT to take some pictures of me striping the bag but I got too into it and forgot (sorry).  But all I did was paint red and blue lines into the inside of the bag and then carefully inserted the frosting so that it didn't smear on the sides too much.

Good Luck & Wedding Cake Pops

Monday was my account coordinator's official last day as she moved to a new position within the company.  I was sad to be losing her as she was a phenomenal member of my team for close to 3 years but also really happy for her new beginning.  I'm starting to interview potential candidates tomorrow and really hoping I find someone just as great as her! 

I wanted to do something special for her but really wasn't sure what.  A client asked for cake pops for her wedding favors and since I never made them before, I thought it'll be great to experiment and make some cake pops for both projects. 

I made "Good Luck" cake pops to wish my AC well.  

And here is the design of the wedding cake pops that the client asked for...the bride and groom theme seems quite popular these days as this was an idea for another wedding as well.

The client went crazy over them btw, yay :)

The cake pops were easy to prepare: mixed crumbled chocolate cake and frosting together in a mixing bowl.  I then used a melon ball scooper to get a consistent amount to roll for each ball.

Rolled them out and stuck lollipop sticks in each one and let chill in the fridge for a bit.

Dipped each one in white chocolate (I did this in small batches while keeping the other pops in the fridge so they wouldn't soften and fall apart while I was dipping them).

How they looked after being dipped in the white chocolate.

After they hardened, I made the tuxedo pops by partially dipping them in dark chocolate and piping the bow and buttons with a toothpick.

The rest were decorated with fondant and sugar pearls.

Hello Kitty Ninja Cake

I saw a picture of Hello Kitty Ninja the other day and I knew I MUST make her just because of her sheer cuteness. 

Close up of the details.

I free handed Hello Kitty out of chocolate fondant.  After the pregnant lady topper that I previously made for a baby shower cake, I knew how much work it can be to make a topper but Hello Kitty was fairly easy.  Below is a picture of her minus her nose and katana that I later put on her back.  Hello Kitty Ninja kinda reminds me of Domo here no?

I got these pretty great fondant molds that just came out from Wilton.  There's 4 different ones each at $10 which is great because a lot of molds are a way more expensive.  One store I went to was selling a ball border mold for $30...no thank you. 

I made branches first and made sure to dust the cavity with cornstarch per the instructions (although later I tried without and they still came out easily).

The branches.  I stuck toothpicks on the bottoms so they would easily stand up on the cake.

Painted them with brown dye to give them some texture.  This gave them a much more realistic look once they dried.

Covered my cake in fondant and ready to be decorated.

I used the mold again to make the leaves/cherry blossom borders and individual cherry blossoms. I applied the borders and some blossoms on the cake and attached little blossoms to the branches.

Overall, I was happy with the look of the cake.  I thought the mold worked great for the topper but the cavities are a bit deep so the borders came out looking thick.  I actually didn't use the mold for the leaves on top and just rolled out fondant really thin and cut them out.

Kai Lan Cake and Cupcakes

My client asked me to make a "Ni Hao Kai Lan" cake for her goddaughter's 1 year birthday.  I had to google to find out who Kai Lan was!  She looks a lot like Dora the Explorer to me.  Below is the cake (plus the 25 cupcakes that she also ordered) with the toppers that she provided.

A close up of the cupcakes on the left: red velvet with light green cream cheese frosting.  Both flowers were made with fondant and the bigger one was painted with royal blue food coloring afterwards.

She gave me a picture of the cake below and asked me to re-create the cake with some alterations (different topper, an additional cake tier for the bottom and the happy birthday message on top). 

Here's my two tier cake (before the topper was put on it).

The cake was an almond cake with strawberry filling and vanilla buttercream frosting.  Below is some of the  leftover strawberry filling in the pan that I happily enjoyed later!

Two layer cake was filled with the strawberry filling and iced with the buttercream frosting. The great thing about fondant cakes for me is that I'm not so obsessed with making the icing perfectly smooth since it's going to get covered anyways (although it still needs to be somewhat smooth or else bumps will show through).

Used sky blue food coloring to tint the fondant to the top tier color.

 Rolled out the fondant (this handy fondant mat from Wilton shows you how far you need to roll out.  Since this was an 8 inch cake and 4 inches high, I needed to roll it out to at least 16 inches (8 + 4 + 4).  I give it an extra inch so I don't have to be completely exact when I'm covering the cake.  Rolling it out too little obviously will not give you enough to cover the cake but on the otherhand if you roll out the fondant too much, it makes it more difficult to work with. 

Placed on top of the cake to start covering.  This part has to be done very carefully so that all sides of the cake are covered (not so fun trying to re-adjust after it's on top) and that there are no tears or wrinkles. 

Repeat with the bottom tier with tinted green fondant (I used kelly green food coloring and rolled the fondant out to over 18 inches since that was a 10 inch cake), made the decorations and then started on the cupcakes.

The client told me everyone enjoyed how it looked and tasted which always makes me super happy.