Easter Egg "Nests"

Jelly Bean Easter Egg "Nests"

Before I started dinner on Easter Sunday, I wanted to make those cupcakes I'd been wishing so desperately to make for two weeks.  

The goal this time was to use a white cake mix to determine if it would be an acceptable "wedding cake".  When I took the cake decorating class, I was shocked to learn that they actually use the same old cake mix from the grocery with the addition of a little bit of almond flavoring.

I used Duncan Hines Classic White cake mix and added 1 Tbls of almond flavoring.  Apparently, I've never used that particular mix because I've always make white cake with the entire egg, not just the whites.  I never know what to do with the yolks left over.  The directions didn't give me the option of using the whole egg so I used just the whites.  I'll figure out what to do about those yolks, eventually!  Note to self:  make a list of things to do with just egg whites and just egg yolks.

The consistency of the batter as I scooped it into the cupcake wrappers reminded me of marshmallow cream.  It makes sense because marshmallows are mostly egg whites and sugar.

Another thing I noticed is the difference between the cupcake wrappers I'd gotten at Country Kitchen and the ones I'd been getting at the grocery.  The "specialty" papers  are quite a lot heavier! 

The virgin run of the convection oven!  I have 4  cupcake pans -- 1 will accommodate 12 cupcakes and is a lightweight aluminum.  The other 3 hold 6 cupcakes each and are heavier aluminum and 2 of them have gotten quite dark over time.

White Wedding Cake Cupcakes from the Oven

I loaded the pans into the lower oven - the convection oven - on two shelves, one each side of the oven.  The pan holding the 12 cupcakes started to get a bit golden on the top so I checked them and they appeared to be done but the two pans of 6 cupcakes weren't.  I took out the first 12 and started letting them cool and kept a close eye on the remaining cupcakes, which took about 5 minutes longer.  I'm not sure why, but I suspect it may have something to do with the heavier weight pans and that they were darker.  The main thing is, all three pans had really nice looking cupcakes with NO burnt bottoms!

While the cupcakes finished cooling, I mixed up my buttercream frosting and colored it with leaf green paste color.  Then, using a #233 decorating tip - it has lots of tiny holes - I covered the cupcakes with "grass".  I learned this in the class I took and they were a bit more nest-like.  I found it difficult to do in class and couldn't quite recreate it this time, either.  I like the look of grass, so that's what I went with.  Then added three jelly beans for color and voila!  Easter eggs "hidden" in the grass!  

This is really quick and easy.  I'm going to try to think of more ways to use this tip.  One thing I did learn is that, my frosting was a bit dry at first.  It took a lot of effort to squeeze it through those tiny holes.  After I thinned it with a tiny bit of milk, it was much easier and went a lot faster.

As for the cupcakes, they were wonderful!  Very moist and soft - almost like angel food but not so dense.  The addition of a tablespoon of almond flavoring seems to give it the "wedding cake" flavor, too!

Victim of the Oven

My oven died  a couple of weeks before Easter.

TWO WEEKS.  Two WHOLE weeks.  I had no idea just how much I use the oven until it didn't work.  

To make a long story short it was the day before my youngest son's fiancée's 21st birthday.  My son had called a few days earlier wanting to make sure I was making a cake or cupcakes for her because if not, he wanted to get her a cake.  It seems her mom had never made her a birthday cake.  It made me sad, but hey … we're not all into the same things.  Anyway, the pressure was on because not only had I told him she'd have cupcakes (I was going to be doing some for approval for their wedding) and you only turn 21 once!  It's not like I could make cupcakes on Friday and it would be "right" for her 21st birthday.  I learned that it's nearly impossible to get an oven repaired in this town.  Thus, the TWO WEEKS whine.  Hubby decided that maybe we should just get a new one since I'm going to be doing a lot of baking and I need a dependable oven.  What would have happened if this was the week before the wedding?

We went to the grocery on the Thursday before Easter.  We like to have a leg of lamb on Easter Sunday and had one all picked out.  Up and down the aisles we went and when we got to the baking aisle, I thought about making a special loaf of bread … and then it hit me … NO OVEN!  I can't even cook the lamb!

My hubby and I are the worst pair of procrastinators.  This was the jolt we needed, so the next day I met him at the appliance store after he got off work.  It's a little mom and pop local appliance store and we HAD done a little homework over the previous two weeks, so we knew their prices were actually MUCH better than Menards' and Lowe's and the selection was amazingly better, too. 

Faced with two rooms full of stoves, my heart went PittyPat!  Never been a fan of the stainless steel - fingerprints and streaks make me C R A Z Y!  Hubby said he wanted me to pick the stove I really wanted because I really do cook a lot.  I hadn't realized that a lot of the stoves with double ovens included a convection oven in the lower  oven and I've always wished for a convection oven.  But I finally narrowed the choice down to two, the main difference was the center burner and the color.  The black enamel stove had a small "warming" burner in the center and the stainless steel stove had a long burner in the center with a griddle.  The stainless steel stove won - I just don't think the warming burner would be something I'd use much while I know I'd use that long, full burner in the center. 

Decision made, begging for delivery on Saturday so I could make Easter dinner didn't work - there were already several deliveries booked.  Thankfully, we were able to borrow a pick up truck and the appliance store loaned us an appliance cart.  We got it home and hooked up and WOW.  :)  I love it!

Now I'm back to Fattening the World One Cupcake at a Time …  ok, maybe two or three cupcakes at a time?

My beautiful new gas range!

Outside the Box

Valentine's day got away from me this year.  A perfectly good cupcake holiday and I never got around to making cupcakes!  Hubby and I celebrated, of course, but not with cupcakes.   Sigh.

I'd been wanting to try some of the great sounding cupcakes I've been seeing in others' blogs and I came across a Butterscotch Cupcake recipe and EVERYONE around here LOVES butterscotch!  Soooo … my first foray outside the box (cake mix, that is).

It took me 4 1/2 hours from start to finish and even then, I only had enough frosting for half of the cupcakes.  Not really sure what I did wrong there.  I happened to have some white buttercream frosting left from another batch and frosted the remaining cupcakes with it.

I was also disappointed with them in that they were dry and a few were a little too brown on the bottom - the papers almost looked like they had started to burn - so they were too dry.  Another thing I didn't like is that the frosting almost had a burnt taste to it - probably the browned butter - but I'm pretty sure that was just my personal taste.  I think "normal" toast tastes burnt.  :P

Butterscotch cupcake with butterscotch frosting

I sent half to work with my sweet hubby, kept a couple for us (I liked the ones with the buttercream well enough), and took some to my oldest son (Gator cake) and his fiancée.  Hubby said everyone at work liked them - said they were very rich.  (LOL Isn't that what people say when they don't like something so that they have an excuse not to eat it all?)  Hubby liked them.  Oldest son and fiancée liked them - his fiancée, really liked the butterscotch frosting.  Sooooo …. I guess I'm the weirdo.

I shall try again.  Later.  :) 

Butterscotch cupcakes with butterscotch frosting & cream cheese frosting and drizzled with butterscotch

Christmas Cupcake Tree

Seems weird to be writing about Christmas, but I'm trying to keep everything in order.  It's kinda fun to see my progress, now, looking back.

As soon as my son's birthday is past, Thanksgiving blows into my kitchen.  Sadly, we couldn't all get together but son had received a frozen turkey LAST year from his company and was fearing the Christmas ham that was coming, due to lack of freezer space.  Frozen turkey lasted a year because said son didn't know what to do with it, so I had him thaw the bird in his fridge and bring it over for feasting on Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend with the requirement that I would show him how to cook it and all the other "required" Thanksgiving treats. 

No matter how many years I make Thanksgiving dinner, for some reason it's still slightly intimidating.  It's truly easy - we don't do anything "fancy", just stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, veggie, and pie.  Unless it's a BIG family get together, in which case there is a veritable blessed MOUNTAIN of food.  But, it was just my husband and one son and me, so we only had enough excess to make us all happy with the leftovers.

What's that got to do with cupcakes?  Not a damn thing.  That's the point … I never got to make the cupcakes with the turkey decoration that we did in my class.   Oh well, next year.

Christmas Cupcakes

But, just a couple of weeks later I went to a luncheon where everyone brought something and I volunteered (or maybe someone else volunteered me) cupcakes!  What better way to see if my skills were getting better?

They came out so pretty!  I hated to take them  anywhere and let them be eaten.  I just wanted to LOOK at them!  They were a hit at the luncheon and right before we devoured them, I realized I hadn't taken any pictures of them!  They were simply repeats of the ones I learned in my decorating class but this time they weren't as wobbly.  All together, displayed on an acrylic stand, they were the perfect decoration and I really wanted to remember them.  Here's a photo from my phone, the colors are off but at least I have something to remember them by.

Here's what I mean by seeing progress:  the first photo is a cupcake I decorated in class, the second one is the "practiced" one.

Before

After

Before

After

The Birthday Gator

Runway cake

Every year on each of my kids' birthdays, I've made their birthday cake.  I think it started because my oldest son liked airplanes since he was old enough to toddle through the house, screaming "AhBEE!  AhBEE!" when the F-4 jets from our local air guard base flew over our house.  (It took us awhile to figure out that he was actually saying "airplane")  We couldn't find a bakery who could decorate a cake with F-4 planes with cammo colors.  Taking into consideration my incredibly poor artistic abilities, I managed a cake with a chocolate runway with die cast metal planes stuck on cardboard and frosted over.  I found a picture of it in the depths of my hoard of his baby pictures. 

When this same son's birthday came around last fall, I wanted to continue practicing my decorating skills.  My dear husband , who constantly spoils me ROTTEN, surprised me with a couple of cupcake decorating books containing tons of cute cupcake ideas.  Some look almost overwhelming, but one day I'd really like to try doing some of the craziest ones.  Mostly, though, I've used them to give me some ideas.  Many of the designs are made with cupcakes grouped together and frosted as if they were one cake.  Because my kids all live over an hour away, there's no way I could transport an arrangement of cupcakes held together with frosting. 

Since my oldest enjoys asking friends and family to bring him back an alligator or a shark when vacationing, I knew which of the designs in the books I was going to do - the one where the cupcakes are arranged in the shape of an alligator.  I modified it slightly because I was short by a couple of cupcakes and because I had to be able to move them. 

Gator Eyes

Gator Claws

The book recommends using zip lock bags and cutting the corner out, but I really don't like using the zip bags -- over the years, I've never had much luck using them with tips with and without couplers, I used a #150 carnation tip, mixed up a swampy green color (mixed blue, red, and yellow paste color until it was sufficiently yukky looking) to create the overall "skin" and broke apart Hershey bars for the bumps.  While the book used marshmallows for the eyes, I couldn't justify opening an entire bag of marshmallows to use just one, so using a #12 round tip, I simply piped two round eyes and used a little blob of black frosting from that tube of black frosting.  Also, the book uses little hard candy bananas for the claws - I didn't have any, so again used a tube of yellow that I had with a leaf tip  and kind of starting out like a regular leaf then releasing the pressure on the tube and pulling away.  Not as pretty or perfect, as you can see, but it did the job. (I'm realizing now that keeping an assortment of those things that look like toothpaste tubes full of colored frosting, is probably practical for the times when all I need is a little bit of one color.)

Finished Gator

My Strange Carrot Cake

Remembering that my future daughter-in-law wants some of the wedding cupcakes to be carrot cake, I looked at a bunch of recipes.  Then I remembered I may have to make 50+ on top of the 50+ of the other flavors and thought I'd try out the Duncan Hines Carrot Cake mix.  Foolishly, I still don't know if it tastes "right" but the reports have been encouraging.  You see, I made my hubby take the uncut cake to work where I wouldn't tangle with it and it would get eaten before it could dry out.  Cupcakes have a little longer life expectancy around here.  2 pieces of cake would be BAD for me, whereas 2 cupcakes … well, they’re little, therefore I can get away with eating 2 in an EMERGENCY.  (That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!)

The point of this project was to try out the cake mix.  The kids were kind of interested in having a small cake that they could freeze, per tradition.  So, what better way to try out my newly acquired cake decorating skills? 

Under normal circumstances, carrot cake comes with a cream cheese frosting but I wanted to work on decorating so I made the regular white buttercream frosting and used that.  In my class we learned to skim coat a cake, letting it set up and then frosting over that.  It makes the cake look so much nicer!  We also learned that the skim coat helps keep the cake moist if it has to be made a day before.

Teacher's Frosting "Shells"

My "shells" around the bottom

In the class, I flunked making "shells" with the #33 tip.  Here is how my teacher made them - I kept them for reference until they fell apart.  For whatever reason, getting the proper 'poof' at the top just wasn't happening.  Practice makes perfect and I still need a LOT of practice, but the shell decoration at the bottom of the cake came out pretty well.  On the other hand, the loop decoration around the top edge left quite a bit to be desired.

Roses, rosebuds, & leaves

Next came the roses.  They're really not that hard BUT, in my opinion, if your frosting isn't the right consistency it's a lot harder.  In this case, my frosting was too soft - should have added more powdered sugar but didn't think of it in time.  I used tip #104 and made the roses on waxed paper squares stuck with a dab of frosting on a flower nail and scooched them off onto the cake before they were dry enough - haste makes waste - but they weren't too bad and  the addition of leaves helped hide some boo boos and filled in a little.

Finally … the writing.  Since I knew this cake was going to work with my hubby, I didn't want people to think I didn't know any better than to use buttercream frosting on a carrot cake instead of cream cheese.  Having written "Happy Birthday …" a gazillion times in my life, I didn't think I'd have any trouble doing it on this cake.  WRONG.  In the past, I used the cake frosting in a can - much softer - and my hands were getting tired so my writing had seen better days.

Ta DA!  Finished cake!

The report back was that everyone loved the cake and several commented that they liked it better with the buttercream frosting.  Now that we're getting down to the wire, I think I'm going to have to run it by the kids and see which they'd like. 

And, I probably SHOULD try one, too!  (Oh darn!)

Know Your Flora and Fauna

Poinsettia decorated cupcake from my class.

It's umm… a little wobbly.  Did you notice

that the frosting is a little yellow?  The only

butter flavoring I could find was yellow.

NOW I know to look in the cake decorating

section at the store!

When I was taking my cupcake decorating class, one of the decorations we learned to make was a poinsettia.  It seemed to me that it would be pretty easy to adapt the poinsettia and make it become a sunflower.  My future daughter-in-law's  bouquet will be sunflowers and her wedding colors are black and PINK.

About that time, the plan for the wedding cake became wedding cupcakes.  One reason being that no one will have to stand and cut cake - it's just grab and growl.  (Betcha don't hear THAT said very often about wedding receptions!)

The plan, so far, is to have several different cupcake flavors, each decorated differently.  Plan A is:   1) White Wedding Cake with Buttercream Frosting (I'm thinking the sunflower will go on this one).  2)  Funfetti - believe it or not, I've never made Funfetti cake/cupcakes.  3)  Chocolate, and 4) Carrot cake.

To practice the White Wedding Cake, I made cupcakes with French Vanilla Duncan Hines cake mix and added almond flavoring.  I was shocked to learn that our local "most loved" cake shop uses cake mix and everyone thinks it's the best.  If it's good enough for them it's good enough for me, especially since I'm baking 200+ cupcakes all by my lonesome.  I'm not getting the right flavor, though, so I'm going to try just plain white cake mix - I'm betting the "French Vanilla" flavoring in the cake mix is overpowering the almond.  NOTE TO SELF:  Don't forget to make more white cupcakes to try out this theory.

But, I digress.  (I know, I do that a lot.) 

Anyway, I mixed up my batch of buttercream frosting and colored it the perfect sunflower yellow.  (I'm still amazed that I don't eat half of it before anything gets decorated.)  Pondering how to make black or brown frosting, I thought about chocolate frosting, but it just isn't right somehow, and it wasn't going to take very much anyway.  I happened to have several tubes of different colored frosting and one was black, so I thought I'd try that.  It was perfect!

Unfortunately, the flower wasn't.  After making several sunflowers using a leaf decorating tip (#352) to make the petals  and a small round decorating tip (#3) to make the center "seeds", my shapes were becoming more uniform but  the flower still didn't look right.  THEN the lightbulb came on (one of the GOOD lightbulbs like they have in cartoons, not one of those stupid curly cue things!) and I got online and actually looked at a sunflower.  DUH.  The center where the seeds are is huge on sunflowers!  (Remember … by any stretch of the imagination, I have ZERO artistic skills.  My stick people can sometimes be unrecognizable.)

After using the small round tip to put a gazillion little dots in the center of the sunflower exactly one time, that lightbulb flickered on again.  Use the multiple opening tip (#233).  Ta da!  Sunflower!  Showed them to the bride-to-be and the decoration was approved!

Victim of Cupcakes

Oh lawsy mercy! WHAT has happened to me? I'm addicted to cupcakes! (Making them, thank goodness - but I sure don't mind eating them, either!)

IT'S NOT MY FAULT! My children have done this to me.

You see, it started when my youngest son and his fiancee asked me to make their wedding cake so they could save money on their wedding.

He was 21 at the time and to date, my biggest accomplishment was making a Big Bird birthday cake that was actually recognizable as being Big Bird. I think that even might have been before his time - for his older brother. Maybe not. I don't remember.

There was also the T-Rex cake and then I also made Barney from the T-Rex pan, but other than those, their annual birthday cakes have been either layer cakes or sheet cakes with "Happy #st/rd Birthday, Insert Name" decorated with the theme of their year. Had a lot of hockey, airplane, baseball, and car cakes, and in my opinion, some were barely recognizable!

So I dug out all the cake making supplies I'd accumulated over the years and made some cupcakes for a dinner party we were going to. Surprisingly, they were well received! This was followed by a cupcake decorating class. Now, I was getting cocky. I think I can do this!

Equipped with supplies, enough knowledge to get me in trouble, and very little natural artistic skill I started the adventure.

I’ve started this blog as a place to record what went right and what went wrong, fun new things to try, and even a place to work on my photography skills.