My friends from college got married this past weekend, and I made cake pops for the reception. They had a very New York wedding: a beautiful ceremony in Central Park followed by a cocktail party reception at a Manhattan bar spot. Immediately, I had the idea to serve the cake pops in giant martini glasses. A little later I realized I could make the cake pops to look like martini olives. The end result looked pretty cool, and very appropriate for a cocktail party.
Since my fairytale cake pops were such a hit a few months ago, I decided to also make these red velvet with buttercream frosting. For a full tutorial on cake pops, see my post on the bridal shower cake pops I made in December. To get the shape, I just rolled the cake and frosting mixture into a ball, and used one of my fondant shaping tools to make a hole-shaped indentation in one side of the pop.
I dipped the pops in Merckens melts, and used a mixture of green and yellow to get that olive green shade. I used 1 cup of dark green and 1/4 cup of yellow. To get the chocolate to a dipping consistency, I added some Crisco when microwaving the chocolate. I used about 1-2 teaspoons per 1 1/4 cups of chocolate. I actually microwaved the colors separately and mixed after they were both melted. I did have some trouble with the yellow melts becoming smooth, but adding the Crisco really helped. I microwaved the chocolate for 30-second intervals at 50% power for the green and 15-second intervals at 50% power for the yellow (since it was only 1/4 cup). I just started with this, and kept melting more batches of chocolate as I needed. I covered roughly 15-18 pops with each batch.
After dipping each pop twice and tapping off the excess chocolate, I took a steak knife and gently popped the chocolate covering the indentation in the middle of the pop. This resulted in a recess where I could then place my pimento (aka red marshmallow fondant).
For the fondant, I just took small pieces and tapered off the ends. You only need a little fondant for each pop, but you want to make sure to plug up the hole since the cake is exposed. I dipped the tapered end in red royal icing and placed it inside the hole. I then pressed the fondant with my thumb onto the pop, so the hole was completely covered.
And then you have an olive!
The last thing I did was make some white fondant to place in the bottom of the glass. This allowed me to place the pops safely in the glass and not have them all move when people took one pop out. I wanted to make the bottom of the glass shimmery, so I added some pearl luster dust to my fondant, and also placed metallic shreds on the very bottom of the glass and also on top of the fondant. The pearl luster is subtle, but gives a nice effect.
*** I need to give a shout out to Melanie for giving me the idea of using fondant ( I was originally going to use clay) and especially for the idea of using luster dust for the shimmer. At first I was going to spray the glass with edible pearl paint, but Melanie warned me that the oil based paint may streak and that luster dust was the way to go. THANK YOU SO MUCH! It worked out great and I was able to keep everything edible, which is always good.
I made 100 cake pops, and served them in 4 martini glasses. Here they are right after I set them up.
And here they are on the dessert table at the reception!
Anyone who knows me knows that I love baking/dessert cookbooks, and that I’m a sucker for book signings. So when I found out that Lindsay Landis (who writes one of my favorite blogs, Love and Olive Oil) was in NYC signing her new The Cookie Dough Lover’s Cookbook, I knew I just had to go and meet her!
This book is seriously genius! Basically, Lindsay created a cookie dough without eggs that is meant to be eaten raw. I LOVE cookie dough, but I can never enjoy more than a spoonful for worry that I’ll get salmonella. There’s always that little voice in my head (usually my husband or mom’s) that says, “you’ll get sick if you eat raw cookie dough.” Well now I finally can!! There’s recipes for cakes, candy, and cookies..but the best part is that there’s a section on breakfast recipes all using raw cookie dough! I can’t wait to try the cookie dough-stuffed french toast! Mmmmmm!
Lindsay was so nice in person and very sweet. She even took a picture with me. I’m on the right holding my new book!
After 2 years of shopping at one cake supply store in Manhattan (that will remain unnamed), I decided to try another cake store in Queens called Sugar Room. They are closer to me, and I thought maybe they would be less expensive since they are not in Manhattan. EVERYTHING in Manhattan is more expensive, regardless of the quality. Sugar Room is a great find! Not only do they have everything I could ever want in a cake store, but they are definitely more affordable. And the best part is that for every $1 you spend, you get $0.50 in credit towards classes that they teach at the store! I would love to to take a class on Air Brush techniques, and they are offering several 1-day courses in January and February 2013. So I better do a lot of cake projects before then so I can have enough credit to take a free class! It’s amazing how much better I feel about spending money when I know that I’m getting credit towards something else.
Posted inBaking Supplies|Comments Off on My new favorite cake store!
Anyone who bakes a lot has their fair share of failed baking projects…and I am no different. Even when I have trouble, you usually see my finished products: pretty cakes and cute cupcakes. Well, it’s not all pretty cakes and cute cupcakes. I figured since July is a slow month for baked goods, I would share my most recent epic fail, a bread pudding that I made for Mother’s Day.
We celebrated Mother’s Day with my in-laws this year, and my Mother-in-law loves bread pudding. So does my dad, but I’m actually glad he was not present for this cluster f**k. Why make more people suffer than absolutely necessary? So what was so bad about this bread pudding?
First off, the recipe called for soaking raisins in 1/4 cup of bourbon overnight. I thought, “Great! This will really make the bread pudding stand out and give it a kick.” Well, every bite released a kick of straight bourbon into your mouth, and with multiple raisins in every bite, it was as my brother-in-law called it, “edible booze”.
But to add insult to injury, the sauce called for 1 CUP of bourbon. I decided to cut that down. I can’t remember if I used 1/2 or 1/4 cup, but whatever I used was way too much. Because the raisins were saturated with bourbon, the sauce kind of stayed on top, and didn’t really absorb into the pudding. This was good, because you could tell that the actual pudding was delicious. But between the soaked raisins and the boozy sauce, it was rendered inedible. We actually threw it out, and I hate to do that.
I’m not even going to post the recipe until I can find a better sauce and try it again with regular raisins. But once I do, I will do a new post because bread pudding is a great brunch dish. So there you have it, proof that not all recipes are created equal, and sometimes you mess up even when you try to account for this.
So, what was your most memorable baking failure? Please share stories!!
I’m in a wedding next month, and the bride wanted to surprise the groom with a groom’s cake at their rehearsal dinner. So she asked me to make a toolbox cake since he is amazingly handy around the house. We decided to go with a DEWALT theme, since these are the tools he has at home (and they really are the best out there). This was by far the largest, most complicated cake I have made to date, and I made it during a heat wave nonetheless! Because of all these factors, I had a lot of trouble with my fondant. I had to throw away all the batches i made (will go into that later), and had to make 3 more batches the night before the cake was due! I was truly exhausted at this point, and did not think I could physically make any more fondant. So I want to give a huge thank you to my mother-in-law Arlene, who came over at 8pm to provide moral support while I worked. She even assisted and helped with the part of the process I hate the most: sifting the confectioners sugar. I’m like the Tasmanian Devil when I sift. I get sugar EVERYWHERE. Arlene was perfectly neat and barely got a drop anywhere on the stove or counter. I was very impressed. Thank you, Arlene! I could not have finished this cake without your help! Here is what my recycle bin looked like by the end of the night:
The Tools:
I felt that the tools were the most important part of the cake. If these didn’t look realistic, then the entire cake would be doomed. I started with these early in the week, and spent 3 days on them, making sure that they were exactly as I wanted them. I had my husband’s tools out on the table so that I could use them as a reference point. I made them out of modeling chocolate, since that would be both the easiest and tastiest option.
Modeling Chocolate (from Cake Walk Blog)
Ingredients
1 lb of high quality white chocolate, chopped
7 TBSP light corn syrup
Instructions
Melt the chocolate in the microwave at 30 second intervals, at 1/2 power. Stir frequently until there are no more lumps. Be careful not to burn the chocolate.
Heat the corn syrup for about 15 seconds in the microwave, until it is the same temperature as the chocolate. Pour the corn syrup into the chocolate and mix together with a rubber spatula until combined. As the chocolate cools, the mixture will thicken.
3.1.07
At this point, I needed to knead the modeling chocolate. There was a bit too much oil in the mixture (the above recipe is a rough measurement and depends on the white chocolate you use. Some chocolates have more oil than others). As I kneaded it, I let some of the oil drip out and kneaded the rest back into the chocolate until I had a uniform, pliable texture similar to fondant. This may take a while, so just keep kneading until everything is smooth and uniform. Then double wrap in plastic wrap and let sit over night on the counter.
When you are ready to use it, break off a piece and knead it in your hands until it is soft and pliable again. Then you can mold it into anything you want. Keep rinsing your hands in cold water (but make sure you dry them) so that your chocolate does not melt too much. You can use fondant tools to make lines, indentations, and holes so that your figures look more realistic. When you have the figure you want molded, let it set in the fridge for 30 minutes or so. If you are storing figures for more than a day, I would then leave them in open air on the counter (on top of plates or paper towels) so that they do not sweat.
Because of the heat wave, we had our AC unit pointing towards the kitchen at all times, even overnight. This way, the tools were stored in a cool, dry place. This worked surprisingly well, considering the wonderful weather we had.
For any tools that had “rubber handles”, I colored a small piece of chocolate with the Wilton gel color by kneading it in with my hands.
After the tools were set, I sprayed them with edible silver paint. Make sure you do this on a paper towel, so the tools do not stick to the plate. I did the front side, let it sit for several hours, and then did the back side. For the wrenches, nails, screws, washers, and nuts, I just sprayed them together all at once.
For the tools that had handles, I sprayed them one at a time, gently covering the handle with plastic wrap so that the silver did not get on it. Take the plastic wrap off immediately after spraying, or the chocolate will sweat. If it does, just let it sit in open air to dry.
The cake:
The cake itself was pretty simple. I used the Perfect Pound Cake, frosted with coffee buttercream frosting, and filled with salted caramel sauce. I marbled the icing and sauce between the cakes, and this gave a nice subtle flavor. Next time, I would like to try a full layer of caramel sauce on top of the frosting, to see how that tastes.
For the coffee frosting, I found these great individual packets of instant coffee by Nescafe. This way, whatever you don’t use stays nice and fresh. I used 3 packets for 3 cups of frosting. Just make sure you smash the grounds in the packet with a meat tenderizer so that it becomes a fine powder.
To construct the cake, I made three 9×13 cakes (3 batches of pound cake per pan, for a total of 9 batches). I leveled, torted, and filled the first two cakes as I would do for a normal cake.
For the third layer, I cut out a square from the middle, to make a recess to hold the tools. I placed the outer frame on top of the cake and frosted the entire surface.
I used the part that I cut out to sculpt the drill:
After everything was frosted, I covered the cakes with marshmallow fondant, which was easily the most difficult part of this process.
The Fondant:
Normally, once rolls out fondant into a single sheet and covers the cake on one motion. The drill was quite easy because it was small. The toolbox however, was quite difficult due to its height. I couldn’t get a sheet big enough to cover the cake fully. Because of the heat, once I put the fondant on the cake, it got covered in frosting. This meant I could not roll it out and try again. So I ruined my first batch of fondant.
The second time, I made and used my fondant right away, without letting it rest overnight. BIG MISTAKE. I could barely roll out the fondant, and it was all crumbly like play doh that has sat out for a while. I realized I had to make yet another batch and let it sit overnight, even though this meant I was getting dangerously close to the rehearsal dinner. I actually had to decorate the cake the day of the party (which I hardly ever do).
The third time, the fondant came out GREAT! I made even more than before so that I could roll out a big enough sheet to cover the cake. However, I was still unable to get it large enough. I think the problem was that my rolling pin was not big enough. So I decided that I would cover the cake in patches, since it was a box. I figured if any cake design would allow for seams, it would be this one.
My one worry was that if it got hot, the frosting would seep through the seams. So I covered all the seams with fondant that I rolled in my hand to make into a thin snake shape. It made the seams neater, and sealed everything in. To attach to the fondant already on the cake, the painted the back with water to get it to stick.
For the DEWALT logo on the toolbox, I hand cut the letters out of fondant. For the logo on the drill, I used fondant cutters in the shape of letters.
After that, I glued a tape measure around the cake board and added my tools. I attached them with royal icing so they would be secure for the car ride.
All in all, for a cake that I had serious doubts that I would finish in time, I was quite happy with the end result. And more importantly, so were the bride and groom!
