Happy Accidents

Sometimes the best things happen as a result of a mistake. 

I am a planner, I like to know what is going on at all times and I usually plan on the worst case scenario happening.  If you look in my cupboards, pantry or freezer you would never guess that there are only two of us living in this house.  I'm not planning on the end of the world happening tomorrow but I do have a tendency to always think I will never have enough which leads to always having much more than is needed.  Jason always jokes that we have been living here for almost three years and I still haven't figured out how to cook for only two people.  I'm always afraid I will run out of something so I usually have a stockpile (nothing like those crazy extreme couponing people) on hand so that never happens. 

A few months ago I had planned on making these super cute strawberry cake bite I had seen in my Cake Pop cookbook.  I had my cake cooked and crumbled and all ready to go when I realized that I only had a very small bag of red candy melts left and that was not going to be enough to cover all my cake bites.  Instead of freaking out, (which would have been the case a couple years ago) I used some quick thinking and used the many chocolate candy melts I had on hand and made chocolate covered covered strawberry cake bites instead.  Let's face it, everyone knows that a chocolate covered strawberry is better than just a plain strawberry any day.  I was very happy with the results and after posting the pictures of the initial batch on facebook they became my most popular item and the only baked good that I have ever repeatedly made.

I got a message last week from a friend that she wanted a treat to celebrate her mom's retirement and asked if I could make these cake bites for the occasion.  I baked my cakes yesterday so they had time to cool and set to work this morning making 70 chocolate covered strawberry cake bites.

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake Bites
1 box strawberry cake mix
1 package chocolate pudding
1 cup frosting
candy melts in chocolate, red, white and green
vegetable oil

I don't normally use cake mixes anymore but they tend to work best for cake bites because they aren't quite as dense as homemade cakes.  I followed the package directions but substituted applesauce for oil, added an extra egg and the package of pudding.  Bake the cake according to package directions in whatever pan type you choose.  Let the cake cool for a few hours or overnight.  Crumble the cake into small crumbs and mix in the frosting.  I had strawberry buttercream on hand fro a cake I made last week but you can use 3/4 of a can of store bought frosting instead.  This step works best if you play with your food and use your hands to mix.  I wear gloves when I do this because it's more sanitary and it also traps some of the heat from your hands so the mixture doesn't get too warm and sticky.  I scooped the batter out with a medium cookie scoop and then got to work making my strawberry shapes.  I rolled each scoop into a ball and then rolled one side of the ball between my hands to make a point for the tip of the berry and then flattened out the top a bit to give it a realistic strawberry shape.

Once I had them all shaped I layed them out on wax paper lined cookie sheets and put the in the fridge for a few hours.  After they cooled off I started with the red candy melts.  I melted them in the microwave for a minute or less at a time at no more than 70% power.  I added a little vegetable oil to the melted candy to make it smoother and a little easier to evenly coat the cake bites.  I dipped the top 1/4 to 1/3 of each cake bite in the melted red candy.

Once they all had their red tops I put them back in the fridge to cool off again.  While they were cooling I melted the chocolate candy melts and added some vegetable oil to that too.  Holding the cake bite by the red top, I dipped each one into the melted chocolate until it just met or slightly overlapped the red tops.

The biggest thing is to make sure the two colors meet.  If they don't meet the cake inside can squeeze out and it doesn't look pretty.  While the chocolate cooled I melted the green candy for the tops and put the melted candy in a squeeze bottle.  Onto wax paper I squeezed out little flower/star shapes for the tops of the strawberries.  I usually make a few more tops because they sometimes break when you go to attach them to the cake bites.

Once I had the green tops done and cooling in the fridge, I melted some white cany to drizzle over my strawberries.  For some reason they just don't look quite done without the white chocolate drizzle.  When my white chocolate is melted I use a fork to drizzle it over the cake bites.  The fork give the best drizzle because you don't end up with big clumps of chocolate like you would if you used a spoon.

After all the cake bites get their white chocolate drizzle it's time to add the tops.  I use a little of the left over green candy for this step.  Melt a little of the green candy and dip the flat side of each berry top in this melted candy.  This will act as a glue to attach the tops to the cake bites.

Once I had them all completed I packed them up in tissue so the tops wouldn't break off.  Here they are all packed up and ready to go to the retirement celebration. 

They almost look like the real thing and may even taste better.  I love happy little accidents like this!

Loves Me Some Rhubarb!

One of my favorite things about this time of year is the delicious rhubarb and all of the amazing ways to use it.  I have always loved rhubarb and growing up I remember my mom always making wonderful rhubarb desserts around this time of year.  I was very excited when I found out that we had rhubarb plants on our land when we moved into our house and although they are small, I do my best to use as much of it as I can each year.  I am a big fan of the traditional ways to use it, crisps, pies and anyway it can be mixed with a strawberry.  And although I like the traditional rhubarb desserts, I just had to find a new use for my beloved perennial.  I found a recipe for cupcakes using rhubarb and since I have been all about filled cakes lately I decided to jazz it up a bit and stuff them with a rhubarb mousse.

I started with the mousse since it needed time to chill.
Rhubarb Mousse adapted from seriouslygood
1 lb rhubarb chopped
1/4 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1 packet unflavored gelatin
Juice of one lime
2 egg yolks
2 cups heavy cream

Cook rhubarb, water and 1/4 cup sugar in a sauce pan over medium heat, stirring often until the rhubarb starts to break down.

Transfer the rhubarb to a food processor and add gelatin and lime juice and pulse until smooth.  Move this to the fridge to cool completely.

In a double boiler, beat the egg yolks and remaining sugar (it will be super thick at first until it starts to heat up).  Cook over simmering water until they are a pale yellow

This should be cooled to room temp before moving to the next step.  Once the eggs and the rhubarb have cooled, mix them together.  In a mixing bowl with a whisk attachment, whip the cream until stiff and then fold in the rhubarb mixture.  I put this whole thing back in the fridge so it could get nice and thick before I used it to fill my cupcakes.

Rhubarb Cupcakes adapted from fooddoodles.com
1 cup rhubarb puree
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup softened butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs

Preheat over to 350.

I started by putting chopped rhubarb in a food processor and pulsing until it's broken down.  Then add this puree to a sauce pan and cook until it's reduced by half. (You will need the same amount of puree for the frosting later so I just doubled it right away and then measured out what I needed for the cupcakes)

It doesn't look that appealing but it will taste good I promise.  I put this in the fridge while I made the rest of the batter so it could cool down a little.  In a big bowl beat the butter and sugar until fluffy and then add the eggs, vanilla, cream (the original recipe called for milk but I had cream on hand, if you want your cupcakes to be a little lighter you can use milk) and fruit puree.  I another bowl sift together the dry ingredients and then add those to the wet ingredients until just combined.  Scoop out into 12 lined cupcake cups (I doubled this recipe to make 24 so I could be a good co worker and bring some in to work today).

Bake for about 20 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Then move the cupcakes to a cooling rack and start on the frosting while they cool.

Rhubarb Frosting
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup of the reduced rhubarb puree
3/12 cups powdered sugar (you may need a little more to get the right consistency)
1/2 tsp vanilla

Blend the butter, the fruit puree and vanilla to combine.  Slowly add the sugar (about a half cup at a time) until the icing is the right consistency (a little thinner if you are spreading it on and a bit thicker if you will be piping it on so it will hold it's shape.

When the cupcakes were cooled I took out my handy little cupcake corer and cut out the core of each cupcake to make room for my rhubarb mousse filling.

I put the mousse in a piping bag, our you could use a big Ziploc with the corner cut off and filled the centers of all the cupcakes. (Next time I would definitely cut the mousse recipe in half because I had a lot left over even though I had doubled my cupcake recipe.)

Once the cupcakes were filled I put my frosting in a piping bag with a large star tip and piped a swirl onto the top of each cupcake.

You'll want to store these in the fridge because of the mousse centers.  They looked so yummy I had to try one right away.  I can tell you if you like rhubarb they will not disappoint.  The cupcakes are rich and dense with a hint of rhubarb flavor and they mix well with the soft cream mousse center and the delicious rhubarb buttercream ties the whole thing together.

Cakes!!

It's been entirely too long since I have written a new post.  Somewhere between school, work, cake decorating and trying to have some time with my husband I got so busy I just had no time for anything else.  I'm happy to say that I have been doing a lot of baking and I've even had quite a few cake orders lately (most of them for the same week)!  I'm so excited to be able to make the cakes that are served up at such important events.  So to catch up with a lot of what I have been doing the last month this post is all about cakes.  I hope you all enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them.

The first cake I made was my first ever dog birthday cake.  A friend from high school contacted me through facebook to ask if I could make a cake to celebrate her puppy Carl turning one.  I couldn't turn down that opportunity.  I did a little digging online to find a cake that would be good for both dogs and people and found that carrot cake would be a good option.  I also found that dogs shouldn't have too much sugar and since frosting is almost all sugar I found a recipe that used splenda instead.  I dyed the frosting brown to look like chocolate tried a new technique for the first time, using modeling chocolate.
Modeling chocolate is my new favorite thing!  It's basically like chocolate play-doh and breaks all the rules about playing with your food.  It's super easy to make and can be made in any color you can think of. 

Modeling Chocolate:
1/2 pound of candy melts (you can use any color or flavor but white it the best to start with since you can add food coloring to make it any color you want.)
1/4 cup corn syrup
melt the candy melts over a double boiler or in the microwave.  If microwaving make sure to use no higher than 70% power and only for a minute at a time until melted.  Add the corn syrup and stir until combined.  Pour onto a sheet of plastic wrap, wrap up and put into the fridge for a couple of hours.  Take the modeling chocolate out about a half hour before using.  Kneed the chocolate until pliable and add food coloring at this point if you plan to color it.  The more you play with it the more sticky it will get.  You can always put it back into the fridge to harden up if it gets too sticky to work with.

The next cake I made was for a bridal shower for a friend of a friend.  This was a super fun cake to make as it used my favorite color combo of hot pink and lime green.  This was a three layered marble cake done with a topsy turvy effect.  I love the way it turned out!

Then I started a crazy week of cake making.  Two of my nephews turned six, I had two ordered from ladies that I worked with at UHC and one from a lady I worked with at Coach.

My nephew Deklan's birthday was on May 10 and the weekend after he had a party with his friends.  The party was at Artworks in Suamico so he wanted an art cake.  He initially asked for a cake with an artist painting a picture but since that was a little outside of my ability I went with a box of crayons.  Deklan asked for a red and blue cake so the inside was a layer of blue and a layer of red velvet.  The crayons are more modeling chocolate.

My other nephew Jack turned six on the 15 and he asked for a Mario cake.  Jack wanted a yellow cake and I went with a strawberry buttercream frosting.  I decided that a full size Mario cake would be a little too difficult so I went with a mushroom shaped cake with a modeling chocolate Mario to go along with it.  The cake was pretty easy to assemble and actually the Mario wasn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be.  Watch out Charm City Cakes!

Margo, who I worked with at UHC had contacted me a while ago to ask if I could make a first birthday cake for her little girl Macey.  This was a pretty simple yellow cake with a raspberry buttercream.   I added some modeling chocolate polka dots and I made a small smash cake just for the birthday girl.

The last cake was for another UHC coworker, Susan and her oldest daughter's first communion.  This one was super fun because I wasn't given much direction other than she liked bright colors, chocolate cake and something non-traditional.  I went with three layers of chocolate cake with a strawberry buttercream filling and frosting.  I stacked the cakes off centered and added some cross cut outs.

This past weekend I got to make my favorite cake ever.  My best friend Steph asked if I could make a cake for a customer that she has come to know very well over the past few years.  This family has been through a lot and they were having a party to celebrate their daughter finally being cancer free.  The story was that she could never have a gumball from a machine while she was going through treatments so Steph asked for a gumball machine cake for the party.  I tweaked a red velvet cake recipe and made it orange velvet instead since orange is the color for leukemia awareness ribbons.  The cake was covered in a vanilla and strawberry buttercream and decorated with gumballs.  I even arranged some orange gumballs to add an awareness ribbon.  I love the way this cake turned out and I love meaning behind it.  I was so excited to be able to make this cake for such a special little girl.