Recent activities: Big and Small -

Hi Everyone!

I know I've been gone a while, but its been for a good reason! :)

I've had cakes and cupcake orders coming out the wazoo!

So today I'm just going to do a quick post to show you what I've been up to, and tomorrow, I'll show you how to make the super cute (and super easy!) Fondant Ruffle Flowers :)

So a few weeks back, I made this little number:

And of coarse, by little, I mean Huge, Heavy and did I mention huge?
This is a Double tall, 8" Chocolate mud with white chocolate ganache, and a deep 6" Raspberry and Hazelnut with white chocolate ganache on top. I was asked to make this cake with virtually full creative freedom and this is what I came up with.

As the cake was for an engagement party, I wanted it to have that romantic feeling, and I'd been wanting to try out a ruffle cake for a while, so I jumped at the opportunity to use the technique on this cake. Originally I considered doing the ruffles in an ombre effect, but with the colours being used at the party (Black, White and Silver,) that kind of went out the window. I then thought about doing some silver ruffles as well as the black, but as I don't yet own an airbrush machine, that would be a rather difficult task. So in the end I went with just black ruffles, with silver edges, and I think it highlights the ruffles while breaking up the black and white perfectly.

To make the silver for the ruffles, its just some silver lustre-dust mixed with a little vodka, and hand painted on the very outter edge of each layer of ruffles. The hearts are black fondant rolled into an even sized rope, then picking up the ends, rolling them thinner so they taper of into a soft point, then curling them up. I wanted them to be asymmetrical, as it gave them a more rustic, hand made feel than just cutting them out and sticking them on. I set them aside to dry then brushed them with some dry powder lustre-dust. I Really loved the way this cake turned out and it gave me a great cake to photograph! Sooo.. I may have gone a little nuts with the photo's. Here are just a few:

But I am really very proud of this cake, and I love the height difference and the contrast and how rather photogenic it was. (Hehehe)

(Pretty sure my neighbors all think I'm nuts now, after spending an hour or so taking photo's between and in front of the windows in my lounge room.. :p)

Ive also had a few smaller cakes, for kids and adults alike:

 Avengers For a Ironman Crazy Newly 3 Year old

 

And a KitKat & M&M Cake for Sam on his birthday :)

 Also had 24 Rainbow cupcakes go out to my little cousin Issac on his birthday, and many many more..

My wonderful fiance has been in Melbourne for work for a few weeks now, and I went over to see him the weekend just gone, Many many many hours of shopping later, I'm going to have some awesome new toys to play with! Cant wait to show you all :)

See you tomorrow for more!

Thanks for reading,
The Beginner Baker!

Rainbow Cupcakes! A How-To -

Hello again!

Before I get started, I just wanted to share a bit of an update on the Tassie Always Cakes Front!

I'm sorry its been so long since my last post, But recently things have gone a bit crazy for me!

I do cake decorating from home, and its really taken off in the last few weeks, (Which is GREAT!) This has meant alot of discussions with clients and potential customers, bookings, and designing cakes! This has also led to designing some business cards which I'm so, so excited about! Cant wait to share them with you once they arrive! :)

Now: Rainbow Cupcakes!

I would also like to mention you can use the same method used below to make Ombre (Gradients of the same colour) Cupcakes, "camo" cupcakes,  or any other multi-coloured cupcake ideas you can think of!

After last weekend and the rainbow cupcakes, and cake pops I made for my little nephew, I was asked by about 8 different people "How do you get them to look like that!" and "How do yo get them to come out evenly sized!?" My answer to both? Its very simple!

Now, I must apologise, as I forgot to remember to take photos of the whole process, but hopefully I can explain it well enough that we don't need them!

Rainbow cupcakes are best made with a "White" Cake mix, so think a moist vanilla cake, or butter cake recipe and mix to the instructions. ( For my nephew I chose to use a box-cake mix, Simply as it was mostly for two to 12 year old kids, and they couldn't really care less what they taste like, if they are bright colours and topped in sugar, they'll eat them.)

Mix your chosen recipe up to the instructions (if you are using a box cake, I read on the back of mine it would make 24, I only got 12, but my cases were rather generous) Then you'll need some bowls, one for every colour you are wanting to use, (I chose six, Red, Yellow, Orange, Pink, Blue and Green) and I suggest using six bowls. You may want to keep one in your mixing bowl, but I find that if you use a bowl for every colour and keep one in the mixing bowl, you end up with either too much or not enough of the mixing bowl colour, so I use the same amount of bowls as colours so that I can evenly distribute the mix between them.

If you are making a large quantity of these for a bake sale or a big order, you can use 2 or 3 quantities of the recipe, and split each in half or thirds, as you require, same method works. :)

After you have split you mix up evenly, put a few drops of your chosen colour (If you are using this method for ombre cupcakes, ignore this bit) into each bowl, until the desired colour is reached, then set yourself up with three bowls either side of your cupcake pan (This just makes it easier to reach each colour and your cupcake pan, keep track of what you have used, and also helps prevent dripping into another colour) Place a Teaspoon or Tablespoon in each and start adding colour!

I chose to start with a spoonful of each colour into two of the cases then began mixing up the orders so no two would look the same when cut open. You may want to do them so that when its bitten, you get a layer of each colour, or splodges of each, (For mine I wanted splodges) so I placed the spoonfuls in different areas. Some to the sides, some in the center, some with a stripe across the top.

For a layered effect, you want to put a spoonful of each colour in the pans, one at a time. (So all the red, then all the orange, then all the yellow etc) Always placing the mix into the center of the cupcake case.

For ombre, you want to split the mix up, And For this method, squeeze bottles, piping bags with a small round tip (a #3 or a #4) or a zip lock bag with a small hole cut from the corner for each colour is very helpful. Lets say you want purple ombre. In the first bowl you add one drop, the second two, the 3rd three and so on, until you have the amount of shades you would like, then put each mix into your bottle/ Bag (if you are using zip lock bags, don't cut the corner until after you have put your mix in as you may be left with a bit of a mess) then start with your darkest colour, and pipe enough to cover the bottom of your pan about 1/2 a centimeter (about 1/8 of an inch) (If you are using three or less, adjust to having about 1 centimeter of each (about 1/4 Inch) then with the second darkest shade, pipe from the outside in to the center, and continue to do this  until you have used all your shades and bake.

With any of these methods you want to make sure not to fill your cases more than 3/4 full as you will have cupcake overflowing from your case.

This is what mine looked like with the "Splodge method"

These are some Ive done before with the layer rainbow with mixing up the colours:
(by that I mean not in order) 

You can see the rings of colour a bit from the top, but there are several more in the case you cant see.

These are my First ever rainbow Cupcakes my Little Niece and I made when she came to stay one weekend:

This is pretty much what the ones above look like on the inside. :)


For the icing, you can use much the same method if you want to have multi-coloured icing on the top, Just put all the colours in one piping bag. (Here, I used Yellow, Green and Blue Buttercream)
This is the (top photos) finished product!

I Simply decorated them with a medium marbled blue and white fondant star and some rainbow sprinkles.

This was the rest of the spread I whipped up:

Rainbow Cake pops, and Chocolate covered Oreo's! Yummo!

That's it from me today, but I'll be back very soon with more..

Sneak peak? Ok.. you've twisted my arm ;)

How to make the simplest flowers imaginable!
Cant wait to share these with you!

Thanks for reading, as always!

The Beginner Baker!

Cupcakes & Cake Pops - A Beginners Journey -

Hello Again!

I'm back to tell you all about my recent cake pop adventures!

So as I've said in the past, everything on this blog is pretty much a first for me, and cake pops are no exception. I made my cake pops with two events in mind: My little nephew's second birthday, and my friend's baby shower, which both happen to be this weekend, so a great tme for cake pops if you ask me! Both have requested cupcakes, and I will be sharing those with you when I make them, but I decided to make some cake pops to go along with them.

For my nephew, it was to be rainbow cupcakes, and so rainbow cake pops to match seemed perfectly appropriate! To do this I chose to use a butter-cake box-cake mix, mostly because its going to be for kids, and as long as its bright, sweet and covered in chocolate, they aren't going to mind what they taste like too much.

For the baby shower, I decided to go with just a plainly coloured mix of the same. So here's how I started:

Firstly, I lined my 12 hole cupcake pan, and filled them with liners. (I chose some old mis-shapen ones I've had for ages, just because I would be throwing them away after baking anyway) I mixed up the cake as per the instructions, then I filled 6 of the cases with the plain coloured batter. Next, I started using my ice-cream scoop (which decided to fall apart in the middle of scooping, (RIP Little scooper!) to get roughly equal amounts of batter into 6 different bowls (make sure not to get too crazy with the amounts - remember its only one colour per cupcake) and then added my colouring into each bowl combining well. As its for a boys party I chose mostly boys colours but added pink as there will be girls eating them as well - Red, Yellow, Pink, Green, Blue and Orange. I then poured them into the cupcake cases with the aid of my silicone spatula.

Here is the result:

Now, A few tricks (Which I will go into further in my next post) that I use when cooking any cake, or cupcakes: I never use my fan forced oven setting. I find it alters the texture of the cupcake, and makes them more dense, and can actually stop your cakes from rising properly, I always select the top and bottom heating element, but no fan. I also never trust the cooking instructions - In this case the box told me if making into cupcakes to bake for 20 - 25 mins. I took these out at 18 and they were already quite golden and cooked. Always set your timer for less and check. And finally, Don't open your oven until its almost time for them to be done - In this case I didn't open it until the 18 min mark, and that was only as I could see they were pretty much done. but anyway, more on that soon.

So this is what they looked like when they were done:

 

Now, you can probably see a little dot in each cake? This is my skewer mark. I checked each cake as the coloured ones had extra liquid added, and as the trusty scooper passed away, they have different levels so I wanted to make doubly sure that they were cooked through. After this, I let them cool completely, and then removed the cases, and destroyed them into individual bowls. (this is incredibly satisfying after they killed your trusty scooper buddy)

Then they looked like this:

Ahhh... After you destroy your cupcakes, they shouldn't have any big lumps, but you don't want the crumbs to be too fine either. Using your hands is they best way as you can feel how fine they are, and know when to stop.

Next you add your frosting. Again, I used bought frosting - As its easier and alot less messy, and they will be devoured with out much tasting anyway. I chose to use the Betty Crocker ready-to-spread vanilla frosting. As my cupcakes were fresh, they were quite moist, so I only added about half a dessert spoon of frosting to each bowl, but you may need more or less. Be liberal with the frosting, because you cant take it out once its in there! You want it to feel like play dough.

Next comes the fun part! For the "blonde" balls I weighed out the mix for 25g per ball to keep them the same size, for the rainbow, I made them 30g - 5g per colour.

This first pic is of the first roll. In this roll, you are after a general shape. They will be sticky and they will change shape (especially if you are in a warm climate) but as long as you get them into a "Ball" shape, that's fine. You can also see they are a little fuzzy, that's because they are warm and sticky.

After this roll, I popped them into the freezer for about 15 mins, then got them back out and  rolled them again:

 

Then put them back into the freezer for a few hours (1-2 hours is plenty, but I had to go out)

When you get them out of the freezer, let them sit on the bench for about 15 minutes to warm a little. This may sound a bit odd, but you need to let them warm a little, otherwise your chocolate/ candy coating will crack as the cake balls expand a little as they warm up.

While they are warming a little, you want to melt your coating. This is what I used:

I got the sticks from shiploads, but you can buy them pretty much anywhere these days.

Next comes the sticking. Dip the end of the stick into the coating, then into your cake ball, and set aside, and continue. after i had done them all, i popped them back into the freezer for about 5 minutes, just until the chocolate set up nicely.

While that was happening, I chose my decorations.Rainbow 100's and 1000's, sprinkles and stars for my nephew, and baby blue sanding sugar and baby blue stars for the shower.

I poured a little of each into a glass for easy dipping, then got started! Dip the pops, one at a time, into your candy coating. Keep a toothpick handy to pop any bubbles while the coating is still wet, then gently tap the stick onto the edge of your chocolate container to get off any excess chocolate, then into your decorations!

I was lucky enough to have some Styrofoam laying around, and used that as a cake pop stand, but you could also use a glass with some sugar/ salt/ rice etc to hold it just while it sets up

Then you are left with something that looks a little like this:

When they had set, I popped them into the little cases I had, just to keep the pressure off them to prevent cracking and make transporting them a little easier. Done!

Now you may be wondering why I had the multi-coloured silicone moulds in my mini cupcake pan? Excess melted chocolate can be poured into those to make it easier to use and melt for next time! Or just to eat as a snack....... :)

But they did give me an idea...

You'll know about that soon!

Any questions, comments or anything I missed? Just pop a comment in!

Thanks for reading as always,

The Beginner Baker.