The Basketball and Grilling Experiment

Ok, so as you know I am a beginner at all of this cake decorating stuff, I mean I can make a mean cheesecake, and I can kind of work with fondant, but butter cream and candy melts are still a new thing for me! So a few weeks ago, I thought I'd make a basketball cake for my dad. I already had a 3-D ball pan that I used for Pilgrims at Thanksgiving so why not?

So I made a yummy Chocolate sponge cake (recipe below) and poured it into both ball pans. It turned out I needed to make a 1 and 1/2 batch of the recipe because it didn't fill the pan enough and it turned out to look like a funny looking egg shape. So, instead of wasting a cake I made two halves, the one above I gave to my dad. I couldn't find the "Terracotta" color to make basketball orange and plain orange is just too bright so added some brown to the orange. I tried following the directions but I just couldn't make it look as pretty as the pros. I did use the Wilton 2010 tip to do the stars instead of the #16 it works pretty well!

This is the other half, I did that one first, and it kind of looks like a spider crawled on top. However, it did taste good! Both cakes were a chocolate sponge with fudge icing inside and butter cream to decorate (all recipes below).

Ok so if that wasn't enough I saw these little grills on Wilton.com and thought I'd make them. Ok first off I could not get the leg placement to make these stand up and second I would use poured fondant next time instead of candy melts, because the candy melts are just a pain!

The candy clay was pretty easy to work with after it dried, before it was super greasy and gross, but it did taste pretty good. Hopefully you can se that these are supposed to be hamburgers with cheese and hot dogs. The coloring is pretty basic except for the hot dogs. I used the red clay and brown clay mixed together to make that color and the grey is just a tiny bit of black.

I wish I would have taken pictures of the mini grills because they turned out so much better. I am grateful to my family for letting me experiment on them.

 Recipes:

I used the frosting recipe from an earlier post: Click Here

Chocoloate Sponge Cake (Remember use 1.5 instead of 1)

ButterCream Icing: Click Here

Candy Clay

Daisy Cupcakes

Alright, so this is not an original idea, I found it at Bakerella's site and she is so much better at this stuff than me! Obviously. I made these for Mother's Day and they are really good and easy.

Ingredients:

For Daisies:

Yellow Candy Melts

Pink Candy Melts

White Candy Melts

Blue Candy Melts

Wax Paper

(For Cupcakes)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup softened butter

3 room temperature eggs

2 cups flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups sugar

2 tsp vanilla

1-1/2 cup milk

(For Frosting)

1 cup white vegetable shortening

4 Tbsp water

2 tsp vanilla

1 lb (4 cups) Powdered Sugar

1 Tbsp Meringue Powder

Yellow Food Coloring

Decorating Bag

Tip 1M

In mixing bowl beat butter 30 seconds on medium high. Add sugar, beat 3/4 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time. Beat in vanilla. Add remaining dry ingredients and alternate with milk starting and finishing with dry ingredients. Pour into the baking cups and bake for 20 minutes or until done (at 350 degrees).

For the frosting, cream shortening, vanilla and water, add dry ingredients until you get the right consistency then add food coloring.

For Daisies you will need wax paper laid down on a flat cookie sheet and taped so the paper doesn't move.

Also you can hand draw the daisies to use as a stencil (under wax paper) or you can free hand it. Yep I can't draw, I used several cookie pans and didn't really use my drawings. First place your whole yellow candies on the paper.

After you melt your white chocolate put in a decorating bag and either use a size 2 tip or cut a medium-small hole and make the outline of the petals, make sure it connects with the yellow center. Put in the freezer for 2 minutes until solid.

After you remove the flowers from the freezer get a bag of melted blue and/or pink candy with your size 2 tip fill in the petals (I did use both colors.) Put in freezer until ready to use.

To use flip it over so the flat side shows.

Pipe (with your 1M Tip) on the cupcake with your icing in a swirled pattern and press your flower in and viola done and enjoy!

St. Patrick's Day Cupcakes

St. Patrick's Day often comes and goes without people giving it much thought. St. Patrick's Day has always been a little more than just a holiday for me, growing up. It just so happens to be my birthday and my father's as well. So, I decided to make something for this St. Patrick's day as well. I actually had originally planned to make a plain chocolate cupcake with butter cream icing, but then I thought I hadn't made carrot cake in a while. This carrot cake is a hodgepodge of several recipes and it is really, really great and the cream cheese frosting is always a classic and so yummy.


Unfortunately there were a few casualties during the making of these cupcakes; my stand-mixer's motor gave way before I could get the carrots in. Then my carrot peeler died, so I had to use a knife to peel the carrots it was an interesting experience. However, everything turned out really well. I shredded my own carrots, which gives the cupcakes an extra freshness.


Ingredients:
(For cup cakes)
2 Cups Flour
2 Cups Sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
4 eggs
1 c canola oil
1 tsp vanilla
4 c shredded carrots (don't use the pre-shredded bags)

(For Icing)

6 oz cream cheese (softened)
1/2 cup butter (softened)
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
4 - 6 cups powdered sugar

(Other Items)
Cupcake Liners (Shamrock or Green Liners)
Wilton Color Spray in Green
Green Sugar Sprinkles
Wilton 1M Decorating Tip
Decorating Bag

First preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Then beat the eggs until they get foamy.

Next add oil, in a small stream, slowly.
Then gradually add all of the dry ingredients.
Add vanilla.

Then add your (hand) shredded carrots and fold them into the mixture.

Aren't these cupcake holders just cute (you'll need 24 of them).

Fill your cupcake liners 3/4 of the way full. Then bake for 18-2- minutes.

While you're waiting for your cupcakes cool, you can start making your icing. (You can tell when your oven leans when your cupcakes are a little lopsided)

In a medium to large mixing bowl you'll beat together everything except for the sugar. Mix it together until it's nice and smooth.
Add sugar in slowly (I only used 5 cups), if you add it too fast you'll get a face full of a sugar cloud. Continue to add sugar until the frosting is the consistency you are looking for.

Put your icing into your bag (that already has the tip) and in a spiraling movement frost the cupcakes (There is just enough for all 24 cupcakes).

After that's all done you'll spray the tops of the cupcakes with the spray in a circular motion and then sprinkle with the ... sprinkles.

These are great and I hope you enjoy them as much as my family did!

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Cupcakes

So, as I was making my list of food and desserts I was going to make, I had a hankering for cupcakes. I've been meaning to make some since Thanksgiving, but just never got around to it. I have made Chocolate Cupcakes with peanut butter on the inside before, but I kind of cheated a little (instead of making the peanut butter center I put a mini Reese's cup inside the batter) and they were really good.

So, I found this recipe from Taste of Home (I'm a tiny bit obsessed right now, seriously go get their cookbooks!) and thought it looked pretty good, a lot of liquids though, but that just made them nice and moist. Of course, I don't get to keep the cupcakes, my son gets one and the rest go off to my husband's work. Which is really a lot better, because then we'd just end up eating all the sweets, and too many sweets, though tasty, really isn't good for us.

These are really moist and quite tasty. I'm going to give you a double recipe for the frosting, if you are like me and do the swirly top then this is perfect. If you prefer to do a smooth top (using a knife or spatula instead of a decorator's bag and star tip) you won't need as much frosting.

Ingredients:

(For Peanut Butter filling)

3 oz cream cheese

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

2 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp milk

(For Batter)

2 cups sugar

1-3/4 cups flour

1/2 cup baking cocoa (I would have used Ghirardelli but they were out)

1-1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 eggs

1 cup water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla

(For Frosting)

2/3 cup butter, softened

4 cups powdered (confectioners') sugar

12 Tbsp baking cocoa

6 - 8 Tbsp milk

Ok, now you can use the cheat here and just insert a mini Reese's Cup where this mix goes, and just skip it all together or you can use this peanut butter mix.

So in a small bowl you'll put in your cream cheese (softened), peanut butter, milk and sugar and beat it until its smooth and well mixed, then just set it aside.

Now in your large mixing bowl you'll throw all your ingredients for your batter in your bowl and mix away. Really that's pretty much it, no real order, no real prep just put them all in. Mix it all together and it'll be nice and runny. (It's supposed to be runny so don't be worried, it'll turn out great.)

Now, you'll use Jumbo muffin cups here, preferably the foil ones lined with paper, they stand up on their own and you won't need a muffin pan.

Fill the muffin cup about half way with the chocolate mixture, and then put a small dollop of the peanut butter mixture in (or your Reese's cup). You can put more chocolate over the peanut butter, but it won't really matter, it just floats up. Fill up all your muffin cups (about 12-16) and pop them in the oven (on a jelly roll pan) at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until it tests done.

Before adding any of the frosting, they need to be completely cooled.

In a large bowl throw in all of your frosting ingredients beat them on low until nice and smooth. Mmm it looks really good!

Ok, now you can use a decorator bag here and a Wilton 1M tip if you'd like. Or just smooth on the icing with a spatula.

Before frosting, I recommend removing the cupcake liners. Using the tip start from the outside of the cup cake in a circular pattern and end in the middle. This always reminds me of an ice cream cone, but I was in a hurry and just slapped some icing on so, they are a little sloppy! There it is done, yummy, moist, store in an airtight container and enjoy!