Baking, The Art You Can Eat!

For this upcoming Easter Sunday, I've decided I want to do cupcakes instead of cake. For one, cupcakes are always easier (or so I thought) and you don't have to cut them (this part IS true).  To accomplish this "little" task, I made two grocery trips on different days because let's face it, I would like a crazy person with what I was buying - including 3 jars of pickles because I love pickles.  Above is my "work station". As you can see, I had no more room on the table for everything so the chair beside me turned into a table. Included in my shopping spree for this cooking fun are airheads, variety pack of Twizzlers, Easter colored M&Ms, Rainbow sour strips (whatever they're called...), 3 different kinds of marshmallows (they have flavored yellow and green marshmallows! I think lemon meringue and lime something... I would have to check but I don't want to leave my bed..), flower sprinkles, pink sprinkles, chick peeps, Starbursts ...

You read that title right. This cake is going to be a Mudkip from Pokemon. If you don't know what it is, then here is a picture of it below.  Look, a Mudkipz! So for this lovable little guy, I started off with Funfetti Cake Mix :)  Then I shaped the larger cake into the main head of Mudkip and the smaller cake into the head-fin thingie... Of course, I was told this looks more like a turtle with a huge head...  Add the blue fondant for the skin tone.  Then I rolled out my orange and pink fondant for his mouth and his.. umm... cheek flaps? Hehe, it looks like he's drooling... Why it looks like that is because I use water to stick the fondant to the fondant. Very easy and water is definitely edible :)  Now because of limitations on time, I was sleepy and I was babysitting while baking this, I just used black frosting for the details and marshmallows pieces for the white eye part... I'm tired, so my vocabulary is very limite...

My brother-in-law's birthday was today, and as an always amazing gift, I baked a cake (truly shocking, I know). This time, however, I didn't have as much time. So I decided on something simple.  First I started off with a German chocolate cake.  Voila! Cake. I trimmed off the top because it was all foofy and I needed it flat. Then I used a nice fluffy whipped vanilla frosting.  The crumbs from when I cut the cake sort of mixed a bit with the frosting, but I thought it made it look cooler. Done!  Nah, just kidding. That's much too boring. So to add a little sprinkle, I used....  A homemade buttercream design! The above shows it almost done, but I wanted to show how I at least layered it... I meant to take a picture earlier, but I forgot because I was waaay too into this. As you can see, this is a dedication to the Playstation and to Final Fantasy since my brother-in-law is a fan of video games and Final Fantasy. And I thought it was too ...

You read it, and it's exactly as it sounds. An epic Kirby cake. Strawberry cake mix, strawberry frosting, pink colored fondant and GO! Adventure begins at 7:30... ish... Bruins game was on... distracted a bit. They won at least, probably in anticipation of this awesome cake - probably not.  Amazing silicon 9" pan, sprayed down with cooking spray and filled with the most delicious smelling cake mix ever...  BCD trimmed down the sides after the cake was done baking - going for an eagle's eye view. Frosted with strawberry frosting and placed in the fridge. Not the prettiest thing in the world... but look at how much room I made in the fridge!!  These next few pictures are of us shaping the second strawberry cake into Kirby's limbs - I did the hands while BCD worked on the feet. Let's just say.. cutting a cake into the shape we want it to be isn't as easy as we hoped.  That's my partner in crime, BCD!! NOM NOM NOM!!  N...

I was asked by friend to make her a birthday cake. And I have my daughter's cake coming up as well. My co-workers also seem to like when I bake, so hey, couldn't I at least make a profit here??  Eh, maybe not. Anything with food nowadays seems like too much trouble. It might take the fun out of baking too - and you never want to take the fun out of cupcakes! So as I was saying, I have some baking coming up, so look forward to those!  Since my daughter's 2nd birthday is coming up, I'm planning on something.. epic. A layered cake with all of my daughter's favorite things! :) Maybe some cupcakes on the side and some other desserts my husband likes - maybe mini cheesecakes with oreos or snickers, or cake/brownie pops! I'm getting all excited already! 

As I said in my last post, I created another cake for my sister-in-law for her birthday party. I had started with the idea of "yes, I'm making a cake", but other than that, I had no idea what exactly I was going to do.  My thought process as a step-by-step process:  1. Make a cake.  3. Hmm.. maybe buttercream, I'd have to make that homemade huh... maybe add a design too!  2. Let's make it a double layered cake - crap, need to buy a small cake pan...  3. Let's use marshmallow fondant! Do I have marshmallows?  4. I know, I'll model turtles on it!  5. *at the store* did I get everything...? Ah, screw it, I'm going home.  Okay, so at this point, it's around 6 PM. And I start baking.  This is my preparation area. I also realized that a bunch of the stuff was still not there... so I had to go digging in my pantry for more. After that was all set, time to start baking!  I used a 9" pan and a 6" pan as my two sizes. ...