Cake Decorating

I am currently in the second class of the Wilton three class series for cake decorating. Here are some pictures of what I learned in the classes so far, and how I've applied what I've learned out of class.

Class 1- Decorating Basics

Week 3: Filled and decorate cupcakes. Learned drop flowers, and the tip for filling. I had store-bought Bavarian chocolate filling (the pudding I made was too thin). I made strawberry cupcakes. I ended up giving them all away without tasting, though I was told there wasn't much filling in them.

Cupcakes from class - shaggy mums, drop flowers and leaves.

Week 4: Brought a cake to class. We learned roses, and writing, then had time to decorate the cake. We used piping gel in one frosting (peach, for me) to get a smooth, connectedness for letters. I held my breath while writing, and free-handed the words (instructor did mention there was a press you could use in smooth icing, and then trace with the piping gel, but I didn't have one, and probably won't get one - at least for a while yet).

Final class project - Basic Decorating class.

Birthday Cake - One thing we didn't cover in my cake decorating class, but that was in the book, was using piping gel to transfer an image onto a cake, so you have a clear outline to work with when icing. I tried to follow the instructions in the book to get the image of Hello Kitty onto this cake for my friend's birthday, but it didn't really work. I ended up doing the image, made with stars like we learned in the first class, free-handed, using the paper image for reference. 

Hello Kitty birthday cake for my friend, Rusty.

 
Good Luck cupcakes: One of my student assistant's recently graduated, and was hired at a full time job. For her good bye party, I made filled vanilla cupcakes. The flowers were color coded on the cupcakes to indicate which kind of filling they had (raspberry preserves or chocolate). I didn't consider that the letters would be wavy on the piped icing on top, so that was a lesson learned here. I enlisted help from my sister, teaching her how to add the center to the drop flowers, and how to do leaves, and she helped with the decorating.

"Good Luck" cupcakes with drop flowers.

Class 2 - Flowers and Cake Design  

Week 1: We worked with a combination of gum paste and fondant to make the flowers this week. It was very tiring to kneed them together. It reminded me of therapy clay, but I had to work it longer than any therapy session in order to get colors mixed. Button flowers were created using a press, and the  pansy using a cutter and other fun tools.

Gum paste and fondant flowers -Button Flowers and Pansy.

Cherry Cream Cheese Muffins - May 25

Cherries were on sale this week, so on a whim I picked up a bag. I could vaguely remember the not-quite-pie we had made with cherries previously (Cherries and Cream Pie), and could have sworn the recipe called for cream cheese, so I picked up the last tub of Tofutti that the supermarket had, as well.


The next step was to find a recipe. Talking with Lila, we decided to try to find a muffin recipe. After an unfruitful search through my cookbooks, I turned to the Internet, and found the Cherry Cream Cheese Muffin recipe on the Wilton site.


We made some adjustments to veganize the recipe, and used fresh cherries rather than frozen. The first step was to wash and pit the cherries. We cut the cherries in half, and measured them out by weight using the scale (around 120 grams = about 1 cup [conversion from the Joy of Vegan Baking cookbook, which lists not only measures, but also weight of ingredients]).


We used up the tub of Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese, made our own tofu based sour cream from a recipe found on fatfreevegan.com, and used Ener-G to replace the eggs. Overall the recipe came out okay, and I'm going to include it below, for anyone who is interested. The sour cream is not something I would use for non-baking purposes, honestly, but I think it worked well in the recipe, though we had lots of it left over.


We haven't made a lot of muffins, and the batter for this reminded me more of  biscuit dough than anything.  I'm not sure if this is normal, or if this was unique to this muffin recipe, but I guess we'll find out as we make more muffins. With the cherries halved, we had to make sure that each muffin got at least one cherry. If we were to make this recipe again, we would certainly chop the cherries smaller than halved. One other thing we realized is that by using fresh cherries, rather than frozen ones we may have reduced the liquid in the recipe.

Cups half full - the batter was doughy.

The recipe made 12 regular sized muffins, and three larger muffins baked in stand-alone aluminum muffin cups.


The almond extract added a nice flavor, and worked well with the cherries, though there wasn't a lot of texture to the muffins, other than the cherries. More liquid (using frozen cherries) may fix this, but we also considered almond slivers as a solution. This is definitely still a work in progress, but I think we've made a great start.

The muffins - we may look for a way to add a bit of color.

Vegan Cherry Cream Cheese Muffins (as we made them)


Ingredients:
¼ cup tofu sour cream
    (what we used)

• 1 10.5 oz package firm tofu
• 4 tsp lemon juice
• 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp agave nectar
• ½ tsp salt

Blend all items in food processor or blender until smooth and creamy. (Makes 1 ¼ cups)

 
3 tsp Ener-G Egg Replace (2 eggs worth)
4 TBSP warm water
120 grams (a smidge more than 1 cup) fresh, pitted cherries
8 oz (1 package) Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese (Plain)
4 TBSP Earth Balance non-dairy butter, softened
½ Cup granulated sugar
½ tsp almond extract
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 TBSP baking powder
½ tsp salt

1. Make sour cream first, set aside (the recipe makes ~ 1 ¼ cups, but you only need ¼ cup for the muffins).
2. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line muffin pans with muffin pan liners, or spray with baking spray.
3. In a small bowl whisk together the Ener-G Egg Replacer and water until frothy. Set aside.
4. In a large bowl, blend cream cheese and butter with electric mixer until creamy. Add sugar, egg-replacer, tofu sour cream, and almond extract. Mix well.
5. In a small bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Beat flour mixture until cream cheese mixture, until just moistened.
6. Stir in cherries - do not over mix.
7. Fill muffin cups ½ full. Bake 18 - 22 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Possible changes to Recipe (untested)


Use 1 cup frozen cherries (juice squeezed out) instead of fresh cherries
   OR
Cut fresh cherries into smaller pieces than halved (quartered or smaller)


Reduce almond extract to ¼ tsp, and mix in almond slivers (1/2 cup??) into batter


Top with brown sugar and butter mixture
   OR
Sprinkle top with white sugar and candied almonds

Yum.

New tools/ ingredients:  Reynolds ® Foil Jumbo Baking Cups
Recipes used: posted above
Co-bakers:  Allyson, Lila
Date: May 25, 2011

Stand Mixer

My husband and I went out to dinner about a month ago to celebrate the end of the term. He had successfully completed his qualifying exams towards his PhD and I had graduated from  the business certificate program I had enrolled in.


Conversation turned to a contemplation of what he wanted to do for himself in terms of a bigger celebration - he is pondering upgrading to a new computer, something that would make that last step he has, writing his dissertation, easier. I jokingly said "Hey, I just graduated, do I get something?" He said of course I do, and asked what I wanted. 


The answer was easy enough - even though it has only been on my kitchen wish list for a short time. A KitchenAid, Artisan Series Stand-Mixer. 


"Great," he said. "Let's get it for you this weekend." He also joked that if I hadn't picked out and purchased the stand mixer that I wanted by the end of the weekend, he'd be forced to build me one out of scraps of 2 x 4s and a rusty old drill onto which he would somehow affix (duct tape, maybe?) the attachments.


Since I already knew the type of mixer I wanted, I spent an evening driving around town to check out various department and kitchen stores to try to find who carried them, and who had the best price. Even with the sale going on at Macy's, and the "reduced price" deals offered elsewhere, the cheapest option ended up being Bed Bath and Beyond, where I had a "20% off one item" coupon. 


Next challenge - which color did I want? As you can see, KitchenAid Artisan Series has an option of 27 different colors (http://www.kitchenaid.com/flash.cmd?/#/product/KSM150PSER/) I narrowed down my options a bit until I had 2 or 3 real contenders, though I did solicit the opinions of my co-workers and friends. Some of the colors suggested matched some of what I was thinking, though my boss suggested red and orange flames. I laughed at that, but then found there is a store that actually sells flame decals for KitchenAid mixers (http://flameka.com/default.aspx). Inspired by this, I searched for other decals, and found butterflies and abstract designs, as well as words - all designed for stand mixers. Unfortunately, my brief search did not turn up any dragons.


I was down to two colors when we went in to BB&B to order my stand mixer - neither were in stock, and we ended up paying a little more for shipping so I could get the color I wanted. It wasn't until the salesperson asked me which color, and "Green Apple" came out that I was sure which color I was getting.  (For those interested, my other top-runner was Blue Willow.)  Another perk about ordering at BB&B when I did was they had a rebate going on, and I have sent in my Proof of Purchase and such, and now await delivery of a 5-quart glass mixing bowl :) 

Isn't she pretty?

I've used my pretty new stand mixer (and in writing this I am saddened that it doesn't have a name - perhaps I should try to find one for it...) a few times, mostly to make frosting for my cake decorating class. The color almost matches my new(ish) kettle, and goes well with the orangey color of my kitchen wall (http://www.myperfectcolor.com/en/color/75394_Walmart-91143-Firewater) (it's richer than it looks on the screen, really).  


Anyway, like the computer for my husband, my graduation reward is something that I think will help ease the next steps I'm taking in my experiments in vegan baking.