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Friday, August 20, 2010

Minty Mojito Cupcakes

Start off SUMMER with some refreshing cupcakes! Here I have created a yummy lemony- lime cake infused with minced mint leaves frosted with a lime cream cheese frosting! 

~My recipe for the Minty Lime cake is below~

LIME MINT BUTTER CAKE

Makes (2) 9 x 2  - Round cakes 
or (1) – 12 X 2  Round cake
or 24 cupcakes


Dry Ingredients:

1 ¾ cup. All Purpose Flour
4 tbsp.  Potato Starch
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt

Liquid Ingredients:


¾ cup. – Half and Half
¼ cup. – Sour cream
2 tbsp – Limoncello liquor
1 tbsp. - Lemon extract
1 tsp. – lime oil

Creaming Ingredients:

1 ½ sticks - Unsalted Butter
1 3/4 c. granulated sugar
4 - large eggs
1 tbsp – Lime zest ( Zest of one lime)
2 tbsp. – minced fresh mint leaves ( no stems)

1.    Preheat oven at 350 degrees.   Line the bottom of the plans with parchment paper.

2.    In separate bowl sift the flour and whisk all the dry ingredients together.   Measure the liquid ingredients into a separate bowl, whisk together and set aside.  Measure the butter and sugar into large stand mixing bowl and set aside.

3.    In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter until creamy then add the sugar and cream until fluffy for 3 - 5 minutes.

4.    With mixer on the lowest speed cream, add the eggs one at a time, fully incorporating after each addition.  Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Then add Lime zest and minced mint leaves and cream until incorporated.

5.    Add the dry Ingredients mixture alternating with the liquid mixture in 3 -5 additions each, beginning and ending with the dry mixture.  Don’t wait for the dry or liquid ingredients to be fully incorporated before adding the next.  This step should take a total of about 60 seconds.

6.    Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl all the way down.  Don’t miss the clumps in the bottom middle of the bowl.   Now mix on medium speed for 15 to 20 seconds to develop the batter’s structure.

7.    Prepare the pans. Deposit the batter in 3 separate sections of the pan and smooth out with the rubber spatula or an offset spatula.  The pans should be 2/3 full.   Drop the pan on the counter a couple of times to settle the air bubbles in the batter.  Bake for 9 inch cakes for 30 – 35 minutes  or 12 inch square cake for 40-45 minutes  or for 19 minutes for cupcakes and transfer to rack to cool.

8.    For packaging, invert each pan onto a flat surface and remove the layers.  Remove the parchment from the bottom of each cake and wrap the cake tightly in plastic wrap. If you are decorating the same day, the cakes can be left out to use and frosted same day. Assembling a layer of cake is easier if the cake is cold; refrigerate the layers overnight or for up to 5 days before frosting.

I love dissecting the cakes and looking at the lovely texture of cake!   OOooOoO so yummy! :)
Now decorate with a sprinkle of brown sugar and cute little cocktail umbrellas or bendy straws and spring of mint leaf!  YAY~!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Destiny calls for a LOST cake...

It's the "Final" season for those devoted "LOST" fans!
HERE IS MY LOST CAKE!  

I have never seen the TV show "LOST" and when doing research for this cake I would say that I got many different opinions about the show.   Despite the cloudy reviews, I still needed to careful examine some of the many details for this cake.   I was able to gather valuable details about each component I had to create from fellow friends and followers of the show :)

 I was very excited to make this LOST cake and I definitely agree to the fact that this was one of my most intricately detailed cakes yet.

First I was to create the LOST Island from the TV show..  

 
Here are all the other components on the LOST cake which includes:
1) a Polar bear
2) the Four toed foot statue
3) the Oceanic airplane
4) Main Dharma logo
5) Sharks
6) Smoke Monster

 
 
 
The four toed foot statue from Season 2!

 '
Here is the smoke monster and that was made out of cotton candy with black powdered food coloring.


Here is the LOST Dharma logo on a luggage floating near the sharks!!


The Oceanic plan crash!!!

Here are some of the characters from LOST...can you guess which ones??  
I haven't drawn the faces in yet!


If you guessed Locke and Jack you are winnerss!! :D



 AHHHH!  Locke meets the Smoke monster!!! :D

 The back side of the cake!  There is a dharma logo on the island!! :P


 
The hand sculpted Jack and Locke figures in mini forms which are about 3-4 inches tall!
WOW!  I was soo uber amazed at the look of this cake!   
I adore it and now I am a LOST fan!   
I hope Shannon enjoys this fantabulous cake! :D

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Grease Cake!

Ooooh Sandy....whhyhyhyhyyyy can't you see..that this cake is so you!! :)    
Grease is the Word!!  
I have a Grease theme cake with Sandy sitting on top. This cake was created purple  for Kelly who is now a JMU student!  
She is also playing the role of Sandy in the Grease Muscical at JMU!  
Oh... Tell me more!!
   I created Sandy in her innocent white Dance off dress!  She is made with sugar paste and I used tuile to puff out her dress! 
I do love it when she goes scandalously black too :)
I think the white dress best represents Sandy before she turns devilishly sexy for Danny..:P
 The "Grease" symbol was the hardest part to make!  
This icon is a must if you implying all things Grease symbol!! 
I created this symbol using an edible food printer to print the logo and then trace it on top of red fondant rolled out.  
Then once I cut the red car, I cut out the white part and using piping gel, adhere the grease word on the red car.  Once it basically glued to the fondant with piping gel...I used white icing to pipe in the white part to give it texture.
The first time they met...

The top of the cake!!
The JMU side of the cake ..LOL :D
"Summer Nights", in my opinion this song is one of the best duet pieces in a musical!
 Congrats Kelly!  Thanks Amanda for your support :)
I hope you  enjoyed this Butter yellow with chocolate buttercream cake!
Yummmmmmmers!

Monday, February 22, 2010

Glamourous Snowflakes

Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together!   Congrats to my friend Maria and Andrew and there simply elegant cascading snowflake wedding cake!
I dropped the cake off at The Gathering Place in Clarksburg, MD ... its pretty far from good ol' VA.


The cake sizing is Round 6", 9" and 12"  and the cake flavor is Red Velvet cake with cream cheese filling.  A definite favorite among cake flavors!  The cake is designed with a red fondant ribbon trim with gold and pearl dusted snowflakes adorned with silver dragees :)




Here are the flakes of snow I have made using 3 different sized snowflakes!  I have dusted them with gold or pearl dust, soooo shiny!  I shall now pile them on the top of the cake for a beautiful formation of sporadic snowflakiness :)


 
Here I have the cake stacked and then I just applied the red fondant strips as borders around the cake.  Be sure to take the length of your cake and times it by the circumference to get the length you need for your cake ribbon.
So say your cake is a Round 6"inch then,
6" x pi (3.14159...) = 18.85 inches of ribbon needed around the cake
This is how  you measure the length of ribbon you need to border the side of cake for Round cakes.
  
 
Arranged the snowflakes ever so gently and flowing.  Simply, snowy and serene :)

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Sweets for my Tweets!

My Tweets deserves lots of sweets!   I bought these adorable handfelted His and Hers Tweets in Hot Pink and Electric Blue from FELTMEUP Designs and I have wanted to put them on a cake for a long time and I finally got a chance to on my Valentine's day cake I made for my valentine :) 




I thought I would go with the hot pink and blue as my fondant decorations.  I just bought these really cute paisley teardrop cutters from Global sugar art and use these to make a really cute design on the cake.  Then I used flower and heart cutters to decorate the sides of the buttercream cake.   The cake is a Round 6"inch cake and the cake is chocolate pound cake with peanut butter buttercream .....yummers!  It tasted just like a Reese's cup!


Tweet Tweet!!! .. we get to eat our cake and keep our tweets!:D

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Year of the Tigger!

It is said to be an optimistic year based on the Lunar Calendar. We will enjoy Chinese New year but also Valentine's Day!  Here is my lovely friend Tigger, the most popular Tiger I know. He makes an awesome cake topper to this festive Chinese New Year cake :)
 
He is adorned on top of a bright chinese red fondant cake!  The cake is decorated with fondant made double happiness symbols,a golden nugget and red firecrackers!

 Here was my inspiration, I saw this Lucky Money envelope and knew right away I had to do Tigger! :D  

This was Tigger before I painted his stripes! He's so helpless..

  Here is Tigger finally sculpted and I just attached his head!   I used black flower stamen for the whiskers!
I created the gold signs with square cookie cutters and then turned them to diamonds and hand piped the chinese characters.  While piping the chinese "happiness" letters I realized that I was much better at piping in Chinese than in English!  LOL :)
The story of why the colors are Gold and red.. check out Wikipedia for the Chinese Mythology that started the Chinese new year tradition.
Each firecracker is a rolled piece of fondant and I mixed t tsp. of gold pearl dust and 1/2 tsp. of lemon extract and painted on the gold strips on the mini firecrackers.
Here I used Edible Gold Dust spray and sprayed the golden nugget!  

I attached the Chinese plagues on the sides of the cake and then placed Tigger and his golden nugget on top  and then added the final decorations by piping red strings for the firecrackers to be connected!  
This is a Square 6" inch with vanilla bean cake and Green tea buttercream!  Wishing you all a wonderful and prosperous year!  Enjoy your lucky money!
Gong Xi Fa Cai!