Wilton Course 2, Final Basketweave Cake

What's Baking?
My last cake - final - for Course 2.  I had class this morning and made a Heavenly White Cake (Colette Peter's recipe) with Chocolate Buttercream Icing (Wilton recipe), Royal Icing flowers and Color Flow butterfly.  It was a lot of fun to make although the basketweave is very time consuming, so are the flowers and color flow, too.  I guess it will get faster the more I practice.  It was hard piping all that buttercream icing while smelling the chocolate the whole time!

I am quite pleased with the way it turned out considering it was my first time doing basketweave, those kinds of flowers and color flow and I was very excited to be able to give this cake to a friend who is hosting a brunch tomorrow for Palm Sunday!

More Practice - More Royal Icing Flowers

Wilton Course 2, weeks 2 and 3 - RI flower practice

A few of the royal icing flowers I learned how to make on Saturday--Wilton Course 2, classes 2 and 3 combined.  Great teacher, but I need to practice, practice, practice and make a bunch for my cake final coming up on Saturday.  Would like to get that all done before I clean out the kitchen and start preparing for the Seders.  Looking forward to learning how to make a basket weave pattern in butter cream.

As usual, you can click on photos to enlarge them and comments are always welcome!  Funny thing, I started to add a few photos of finished cakes to Facebook and I got a couple of comments there!  Maybe it's easier to comment there or it's just my friends being nice!  Anyway, thanks for looking!

Chocolate Ganache Cake

What's Baking?
After yesterday's cake. I decided to try to learn more about chocolate ganache so I made Chocolate Ganache Cake  from Epicurious (Minor variations include using very strong espresso coffee instead of the espresso powder and boiling water since I recently ran out of espresso powder.  And I only had 1 cup of brown sugar so I used that and some white, but cut back the total amount.)

Birthday Cake

What's Baking?

Wilton Course 3, Final Cake

What's Baking?

Getting Ready for Wilton 3 Final!

RI Flowers

Royal icing flowers from class.  Morning glory, lily, poinsettia and petunia.  Need lots of practice!  Next week the tiered cake.

Royal Icing, Wilton course 3

Looking forward to working with royal icing and class tomorrow (was snowed out last week).  I need to make some using the Wilton recipe and color it for making a variety of flowers.  I've never worked with royal icing and am a bit concerned about two things I've heard about. 

Operation Baking GALS, round 17

I just got back from the post office and had taken a few quick pictures as I was packing up this package. I baked a double batch of mini-chocolate chip shortbread cookies, cut in squares, and included brownies and banana bread that some friends had baked.  I also put in a bag of marshmallows -good for padding (and snacking!).  It's a great way to show our appreciation and it's nice to be part of larger group baking and supporting our troops.

Green Fondant Elephant - color change?

So, my fondant elephant is still on the window sill watching the snow (yes, it is snowing again and, yes, I did forget about the elephant and left it where I was photographing it!) and it changed color!  It's green!

Fondant Elephant!

Last night was my third time playing with fondant!  I joined The Philadelphia Cake Decorators Club and we made fondant or gum paste elephants.  It's a nice group- they say that they are of all levels of experience, but everyone seemed a lot more comfortable and familiar with fondant than I am (haven't touched gum paste yet).  They were very welcoming and

Operation Baking GALS

Well it's the little things make it all worthwhile!  I received an email from the soldier in Afghanistan that I baked and shipped cookies to earlier this month.  She included pictures of herself and was very appreciative of our support and said the cookies arrived in perfect condition!  Yep, I just signed up for the next round!  Let me know if you want more info about this wonderful group of bakers.

Soccer Cupcakes

What's Baking?

I baked these for a boy who is turning 11 and loves soccer.  They are Martha Stewart's marble cupcakes (thank you cupcake queen at 52 Cupcakes) decorated with buttercream icing, hand-painted fondant, and hand made molded white and dark chocolate.  They were fun to make and a lot of first tries for me!  He's taking them to school tomorrow to share with his class.  Hope they like them!

First fondant covered cake!

What's baking?

Week 2 of Wilton Course 3, the package or present cake.  This is a 2 layer double chocolate cake filled with chocolate hazelnut buttercream, iced with a thin layer of buttercream under fondant.  Working with fondant is loads of fun, but I have plenty of practicing still to do!  Next week's class is royal icing flowers.  I haven't worked with royal icing as I skipped Wilton Course 2, any suggestions?

Mini Chocolate Chip Shortbread

What's Baking? 
This is the recipe for the heart-shaped cookies shown in my post from Feb. 8.  I made a double batch and was really testing the capacity of my Kitchen Aid stand mixer with 10 cups of flour!  I rolled the dough a bit thinner than usual and ended up with at least 150 cookies.

Fish with Orange Avocado Salsa

What's for dinner?
Dinner was based on Mahi-Mahi with Blood Orange, Avocado, and Red Onion Salsa recipe from Epicurious but without detailed measurements!  I used 3 delicious very juicy oranges that we had from Florida, 2 limes, 2 ripe avocados, 1 small red onion, no jalapenos and halibut.  I marinated the fish for a few minutes in some of the juice from the oranges and limes.  This was delicious and great as leftovers, too!  Enjoy!

SNOW, SNOW, SNOW

It's still coming down heavily and they just said more snow Monday!  It's been snowing since last night.  Getting dark now but you get the idea from the pictures!

15 pounds of homemade cookies shipped to Afghanistan

What's baking?
I sent a box of cookies to the troops this morning as part of Operation Baking GALS.  I baked heart-shaped Mini Chocolate Chip Shortbreads and Cocoa Krispie Treats. The package also included Toll House Bars that my friend baked and another friend donated money to cover the shipping costs.  It feels good to do this!  I'd be happy to help anyone interested in getting involved, just ask.

A few more pictures of my first wilton rose cake!

What's Baking?
Well, thanks again to my friend,  the cake I made for my daughter made it the 300 plus miles across the state! Daughter sent me some photos (thank you!) and it looks like it sustained  only minor damage and that she and her friends enjoyed!  Looking forward to my next Wilton class and fondant!

Operation Baking GALS, round 16

Today, February 1, is the first day of shipping for this round of Operation Baking GALS.  This is a wonderful organization that I have been involved with since last summer both as a team leader and a volunteer baker.  We bake homemade goodies for troops serving overseas.  It's great to be able to share by sending a little taste of home as a way of thanking those protecting our country.

Wilton Course 1, week 4 - final cake!

What's baking?

This is the cake I made for my last Wilton class of Course 1.  I did not want to post it until after it got to my daughter for her birthday!  The cake is the same recipe Chocolate Layer cake as the mini cake a couple of posts back with the buttercream frosting using the Wilton classroom recipe with half butter, some almond extract and a dash of salt.

The roses are still a bit of a challenge.  I do need to practice and hope to find time before the next class starts, but I am pleased how this cake came out and very happy that it managed it's way across the state in time for my daughter's birthday!

More cake decorating practice!

What's baking?

More practicing! Can you tell I like making the drop flowers?  The cupcakes are Brownie Cupcakes (click for recipe) from Joy of Baking with Wilton Classroom recipe for the Buttercream Frosting.   

Practice

What's Baking?
Mini 4" cake to practice.

I needed to bake a cake for my last Wilton Course 1 class.  I used Mark Bittman's recipe for Simple Chocolate Layer Cake to make a mini 4" cake to practice and a larger cake for class this week with Wilton classroom buttercream icing.  The whipped cream would have been much better, but this was to practice decorating!  I cut the little cake into two layers and brushed them with Creme de Cacao and mixed some strawberry jam with buttercream for the filling.  I'll post pictures of the larger cake with the dreaded Wilton rose later.