Oh Mickey, You're So Fine!

You know the rest. But, this isn't about that song, it's about the mouse... Mickey Mouse. You've heard of him, yes? Confession, I haven't baked in awhile. Unless you count the Betty Crocker box brownies (gasp!) that I made for my hubby last week after he spotted them in the grocery aisle and had himself a little craving. Maybe he's preggers?

We are in the midst of remodeling our kitchen, DIY style, and I'm doing my best not to go crazy with the mess and disorder that it has been for longer than I can recall at the moment. Currently we're in the height of chaos and disorder as we're refacing all of the cabinets... ourselves. It's a dirty job, but it's cheaper if you do it yourself. So, there are no cabinet doors or drawers in the kitchen, everything is in plain sight and everything that is normally in a drawer is on the kitchen counter or in appropriately labeled grocery bags in the dining room. It's not ideal, but I'm surviving, and hopefully it won't last too much longer.

Because of the mess I haven't been motivated to create more mess by baking, but a couple weeks ago I was asked to make a birthday cake for this weekend. At the time the kitchen was still in working fashion so I said yes. Of course when it came time to start baking, the kitchen had been slightly deconstructed and we're also in the middle of an obscene heat wave. Perfect.

I was asked to make a Mickey Mouse cake for a 5 year old boy. No chocolate. He sent me a couple pictures for inspiration and I figured out what I wanted to do. I planned on making vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream frosting and marshmallow fondant. My original plan was to use a 10-inch cake for the middle and two 6-inch cakes for the ears. I wasn't sure if these sizes would work out, but those are the pan sizes I have so I was hoping it would be fine. Part of me worried that the 6-inch cakes would be too big for the ears. But, those sizes actually worked out perfectly.

As always, I separated my cake making into 2 days of work. On the first day I baked the cakes and made the fondant. First I made a double batch of the vanilla cake with the recipe that I always use whenever I bake cakes like this. I wasn't sure exactly how much batter I would need, but I knew it would at least be a double batch. The double batch filled one 10-inch pan and one 6-inch pan. So with those filled and ready to go I placed them in the oven together (I'm sure this is a no-no, but it was just too hot to have the oven on any longer than necessary) to bake. The 10-inch cake was done in about 45 minutes, the 6-inch was done in 55. My 6-inch cake pan is 3 inches tall so it always takes a little longer for those cakes to bake.

Knowing that a double batch of batter would get me the right amount of batter for 2 more cakes in the size I needed I made another double batch and filled the pans. When all the cakes were done baking I let them cool in the pan on a wire rack. While the cakes were cooling I made the fondant. I knew I wanted to make 3 colors; white, red and black. I started with white, then made red, and finally the black. This way I could use the same bowl and not have to wash it out every time to make sure the previous color didn't impact the following one. It worked.

When the fondant was done I wrapped all three batches individually in saran wrap and put them in the fridge. If it's cooler you can leave the fondant out until you're ready to use it, but since it was so hot I wanted to keep it in the fridge. If you do keep it in the fridge, just remember to take it out a little before you want to start decorating so it gets a little time to soften up and become more workable.

On day 2 I started by making the icing, and then I started carving/constructing Mickey. I had an idea of what my game plan was going to be, and I pretty much held to it as I worked. I started by leveling off the cakes so everything was flat on top and bottom. Then I cut each of the 6-inch cakes in half horizontally and spread icing in the middle so each cake had 2 layers. Then I also cut one of the 10-inch cakes in half horizontally and made that a 2-layer cake. Because of the height difference in the 10-inch and 6-inch cakes, and to make everything the same height, I only ended up using one of the 10-inch cakes.

With everything the same height I worked on the placement of the cakes. I cut a small football shaped piece out of each of the small cakes so they would sit flush to the middle cake for the ears. When the cakes were placed where I wanted them I iced everything and placed it in the fridge for a little while so it could set. While the frosting set I rolled out the fondant and first placed the black fondant over the cake. It ended up being enough to cover the entire cake, though I didn't need it to be because I was going to cover the bottom half with red. After the cake was covered with fondant I piped a nice edging around the bottom to make it look a little cleaner. I haven't yet figured out how to get fondant to lay nicely at the bottom of a cake, so if I can, I always try to make a little edge with icing or fondant so it looks nicer.

Here's what the cake looked like. I know what you're thinking... who's the cake for?

You're right, now that everything was done I had to figure out how to put happy birthday and the name on the cake. Here's the problem... I was really happy with how the cake looked and I didn't want to mess it up by doing a shoddy piping job or putting poorly cut out fondant letters on it. So, I got to thinking. For my hubby's recent birthday cake I made a little banner to say happy birthday, and I thought maybe I could do something like that for this cake.

I Googled "mickey mouse font" and found one that I liked that I could download for free. I printed out "happy birthday josh" and "5th" in case I decided to include the number and worked on making a little banner. I traced the printed letters onto card stock, filled in the letters, and cut each of the words out separately. I glued each word onto red card stock in the arrangement I liked and cut that out as well. I traced that shape onto another piece of red card stock so the banner would have a backing and so I could glue a toothpick in the middle to have a way to stick it into the cake.

Ta da! I debated for awhile about where to put the banner in the cake, but I finally chose one of the sides since I figured it would be easier to put candles in the middle if they decided to do that. Overall, I was really happy with how the cake turned out and I love the little banner as well. For me it's much easier than piping, I think it looks better and I like that it adds a little height to the cake as well. Hopefully Josh liked it as much as I did.

Happy Birthday To My Hubby!

Bobby's birthday was this past weekend, the big 3-2. This is the cake that I made him... I hope you appreciate the Instagram filter and disregard the beaten up paint in the background. We're in the midst of a bit of a kitchen overhaul (check out those new butcher block countertops!) and we haven't started putting up the backsplash tile yet. But, we got the call that they're in, so hopefully that phase will start soon. But, I digress... back to my "old" husband and his recent birthday.

Bobby's favorite cake is carrot cake (it's also my favorite, further proof that we're a match made in heaven), therefore, I baked him a carrot cake for his birthday. At the moment we're currently working hard at becoming supreme physical specimens (we're doing CrossFit and training for a 10-mile run that's in May) I knew he wouldn't want a giant birthday cake like I've made him in the past since we're trying to eat healthy (key word is trying). But, I wanted to make something for him for his birthday. Since it was just going to be the two of us I decided that a small 6-inch cake would be perfect. And, with the rest of the batter I knew I would have, I would just make cupcakes and take them to work, or give them away so they wouldn't go to waste.

The carrot cake recipe I always use is one that I received from my mom, who got it from a former co-worker of hers. It's the best recipe I've found to date and I always use it when I make carrot cake. I also always use cream cheese frosting for carrot cake because in my opinion that's the only kind of frosting one should use when making carrot cake. The recipe I use for cream cheese frosting is from Paula Dean. Yes, that Paula Dean. I first discovered it when using her recipe to make red velvet cupcakes and I've been using it ever since.

The carrot cake is very simple to make (I'll include the recipe below). I just throw all the ingredients in my stand mixer and then let it work for about two minutes blending everything together. I used 3 cups of batter for the 6-inch cake. I baked it at 350 for about 50 minutes. I have found with this recipe that the cake doesn't rise very much, which is nice because I often don't have to do much cutting to get a flat surface when I'm ready to frost the cake. With the extra batter I made cupcakes, I think I got roughly twenty. I baked those at 350 for 20 minutes, turning them halfway through the total baking time.

Going into making this cake I really didn't have an idea of what I wanted to do. In the past I've made Bobby some fancier cakes, but they were quite large. Since I knew I wanted to make a small cake, I felt pretty limited as to what I could do with it, but I wanted to make it special in some way without having to do too much work.

Finally I came up with the idea that's pictured above. I knew I had everything that I needed on hand and the birthday banner probably took me 10 minutes max to put together. I used pieces of card stock from my scrap pack that I have on hand. I highly recommend the scrap pack. It's great, you'd be amazed at how many things scraps of various colors and sizes of card stock can be good for. I think I bought mine at Michaels, but I'm sure you can find one at any craft store.

I grabbed five different colors from the scrap pack and started cutting out little triangles. I did it all freehand because it didn't need to be perfect. Once I had the number of triangles that I needed I arranged them in the color order that I wanted and wrote out a letter on each one with a thin Sharpie. I cut two lengths of red string that I also had on hand and attached the triangles to the string with small pieces of scotch tape. I had some wooden skewers on hand so I decided to use those as my posts since I couldn't think of anything better. Straws would probably work as well, but I didn't have any. The skewers were a little longer than I needed so I just cut them with scissors to make them a little shorter. The hardest part of the whole process was tying the strings to the skewers so they would stay in place and be the appropriate length. It was a trial and error process, but it only took a couple of attempts before I got it right. I've always wanted to try something like this with a cake, and I think it turned out to be a success. I was really happy with how it looked, especially for throwing it all together in just a few minutes. Most importantly, the birthday boy said he liked it and the cake was delicious!

Carrot Cake

2 c. sugar
2 c. flour
1 1/2 c. salad oil
2 c. grated carrots
1 c. well drained crushed pineapple
5 eggs
1 1/2 chopped nuts
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda

Put all ingredients in a large bowl, except nuts, and beat 2 minutes by hand (I don't use nuts because I don't like them, and I also beat everything with a stand mixer, but you could probably use a hand mixer as well).

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes in 9x13 pan.

If you want to you can vary your pan size, you'll just need to adjust your baking time. These are just the instructions I got with the recipe. I have made this recipe with 6-inch and 8-inch cake pans. I've also made cupcakes with this recipe. I just alter the baking time, however I always bake at 350 degrees.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 lb cream cheese
1 c. butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
4 c. confectioner's sugar

Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla until smooth. Add sugar and beat on low speed until incorporated. Increase speed to high, mix until light and fluffy.

What's Up, Dr. Seuss?

The holidays are over and I'm still exhausted, you? No matter how much time I have off, this year I was fortunate enough to have 4 days (win!), I'm always tired afterward. I don't know if it's the travel, all the holiday preparations (baking, shopping, etc.) or just that I'm getting older (ah!), but, I'm pooped. I need a vacation. As always this holiday season I was busy baking, but had all of my Christmas baking done about a week before C-Day so I could get all my cookie gifts put together and distributed before the holiday. Normally once I'm done with Christmas baking I'm done for the year. I like to give myself a little baking vacation since getting ready for Christmas is so much work. However, this year, I got a very special baking request that was due two days before Christmas. Although I knew it would be a busy time, I'm not one to turn down a friend, or the opportunity to make a little extra cash. I did do a lot of Christmas shopping this year!

A co-worker of mine asked me to make birthday cakes and cupcakes for his 3 children. They all have birthdays within a week of each other. The kicker is they're all the same week as Christmas give or take a day or two. Pretty amazing planning if you ask me. They were planning a party for December 23 and asked me for three 6-inch cakes and 40 cupcakes with a Dr. Seuss theme. They sent me all the specifics, chocolate cakes with vanilla buttercream, 20 chocolate and 20 red velvet cupcakes, as well as some details of what they were thinking for each cake. Cat in the Hat, Lorax and One Fish, Two Fish. With their suggestions and the help of Google, I mapped out my ideas and was ready to get to work.

I used the same trusty chocolate cake recipe I use every time someone asks for chocolate cake. It's my favorite and so far it's been a success. I made the cupcakes first, starting with the red velvet. Since everything else was going to be chocolate, I wanted to get the odd flavor out, out of the way. For the red velvet, I used this recipe from the lovely Paula Deen. I've used this recipe several times before and have always had great results with it. Plus, I love Paula. Who doesn't? I'm talking to you Anthony Bourdain. Once the red velvet batter was ready I baked 12 cupcakes at a time, thankfully I have 2 cupcake pans which made this process go much faster.

While the red velvet cupcakes were baking I started on the chocolate cake batter. I made a double batch of the chocolate cake thinking that at the very least it would get me 20 cupcakes and maybe one 6-inch cake, and it did. If memory serves me correctly, I even had a little batter left over. Once the red velvet cupcakes were done the chocolate cupcakes went into the oven. I did the cupcakes first because they have a shorter baking time than the cakes and this way the batter would sit out for the shortest amount of time possible.

Once the chocolate cupcakes were set I made a single batch of the chocolate cake batter for the remaining two 6-inch cakes. I had more than enough batter overall and ended up getting a couple extra cupcakes that I took into work the next day to get rid of. Each cake took about 50 minutes to bake, so it was a lot of waiting, but it didn't matter. While everything was baking I worked on making the fondant. I made 4 colors (white, yellow, red and orange) and ended up having way more than I needed. But, I'd rather have too much, than not enough. After Day 1 of cake making, I had 3 cakes, 40+ cupcakes, and 4 colors of fondant ready to go for Day 2.

On Day 2 I started working as soon as I got up because I wanted to be done as soon as possible. Day 2 took much longer than I thought it would. I knew it would take awhile, but I didn't think it would take as long as it did. I think I worked from 10a-4p give or take a half an hour. When you add that to the 5 hours of baking and fondant making the day before, it's a lot. Maybe I'm still tired from all of that?

So, Day 2, or decorating day started with making all the frosting. First, I made the cream cheese frosting for the red velvet cupcakes. I only needed one batch of that, and again, it was the odd man out so I wanted to get it out of the way. Everything else was going to be vanilla buttercream. To frost the cupcakes I used my icing gun with a star tip to make them look nice, and I bought a rainbow assortment of sprinkles. I thought bold colors were the most appropriate for Dr. Seuss. I also bought bold colored Wilton wrappers for the cupcakes. I was going for fun and kid friendly.

After the red velvet cupcakes were set I started on the vanilla buttercream frosting. I ended up making 2 double batches (I should mention, I used my stand mixer for everything, other than the fondant, for this entire project) just to make sure I would have enough. I had more than enough. I probably could have gotten away with 1 1/2 batches. Live and learn.

I frosted the cupcakes first employing the same method I did for the red velvet cupcakes. I wanted everything to be consistent. Once the cupcakes were all set and tucked into their respective boxes I went to work on frosting the cakes. I like to put the cakes in the fridge before I frost them because it makes it easier and helps to minimize the crumbs. The crumb layer is already a pain, but I like to make it as painless as possible. After each crumb layer I returned the cakes to the fridge so the icing could firm up a little and make the second layer easier to apply so everything would be smooth. After the icing of the first cake had set, I started working on the fondant for it. Cake number 1 was Cat in the Hat.

This was the hardest design for me to come up with because to me Cat in the Hat is so simple. There's not really much to do with it other than the obvious. I new I wanted to portray the hat somehow, but I also knew I didn't have the skill to make anything look like the cat. Working with only one layer also limited what I could do. They had suggested kites and perhaps adding some blue polka dots so I tried to work in all three of those elements.

Here's what I came up with. While it is plain, I was ultimately pretty happy with it. It wasn't my favorite of the bunch, but I thought it was cute and fit the criteria.

Cake number 2 was The Lorax. They sent me suggestions for colors, green, orange and truffula (I think I spelled that right) trees. I confess, I knew what the Lorax was, but I had to Google truffula trees, I had no idea what they were. It's been more than a couple years since my Dr. Seuss days, and since I don't have any kids yet, I don't feel that I should know what they are. After my Google searching I knew what I wanted to do. This design was actually the easiest for me to come up with, so it would obviously be the one that took the most time to execute. I knew I wanted to do the face of the Lorax on the top and on the sides I would do truffula trees going around.

It took forever, but this was the cake I was the most proud of and was the most work. I think if I were to do this one again I would add some outlines, but truth be told, I was already tired and I still had one cake left to go.

Cake number 3 was One Fish, Two Fish. One Fish, Two Fish I am familiar with and didn't need to do any Google search to know what I was dealing with, but I did just for research purposes. I also came up with the design I wanted for this one pretty quickly as well. I also took the time to print out shapes of the fish so I could cut them out of fondant and put then on the cake. That little dream didn't come true. After several failed attempts to "trace" and cut the fish out of fondant, I gave up. I either don't have the right tools, or this is just something that can't be done. For a few minutes I panicked because I didn't know what I was going to do. I couldn't have a One Fish, Two Fish cake with no fish. That wasn't going to work. I also knew that I wasn't going to be successful at cutting out the fish and if they didn't look like the actual fish the cake was going to look stupid. Then a little light bulb went off and I thought, why not just "glue" the fish I cut out onto the cake? Sure, it's not cake, but, it will look much better than anything I'm going to be able to figure out. And, just to clear things up, my glue, was frosting.

Honestly, I loved it. I felt a little bit like a cheated because it wasn't all edible, but at the same time, I couldn't argue with how great it looked and I knew that no matter what I tried to do, it wasn't going to look nearly as good as anything else I was going to come up with. And, overall, the client and the kids were happy, which is all that really matters.

As always, there is a lesson I take away from each of my experiences in baking for a "client" and in this case it was that no matter how much I plan out my designs and what I want to do, there is always going to be something that isn't going to work as I envisioned it would. But, don't panic, just take a breath, use your brain and try to come up with a solution. I was truly in a panic about One Fish, Two Fish. On the brink of considering a small cry in frustration fest, but I got it together and figured out something that would work. Go me, and may your 2013 bring you moments of enlightenment as well.

Guten Tag!

That's hello or good day in German for those who aren't as well versed as I. Why am I writing German greetings you might ask? Well, there's one probably not-so-obvious-to-you answer. Because I recently took a little trip over the great big Atlantic Ocean to the country where some of my ancestors are from. You guessed it, Germany. Don't worry, I'm still baking, in fact I've been baking quite frequently as of late, I baked 2 pies for Thanksgiving (apple and coconut creme) and Christmas baking is in full swing. Therefore, cupcake baking is currently on hold. I just haven't taken any pictures of anything (except for my Germany birthday treat you'll be seeing soon) and haven't had much time for posting. It's been a busy couple weeks.

So Germany you say? It was a work trip, and that's just about all I did. Work and try to sleep. The time difference was not my friend (Germany is 6 hours ahead of east coast time). For those who are unaware, I work in production at ESPN and for Veteran's Day this year we broadcast portions of SportsCenter from Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Maybe you watched? My mom and dad did, they're so proud. We were there to support our troops and also cover the college basketball game that was going to be played in one of the hangers on base, Michigan State and Connecticut.

What's Germany like? Well, I really couldn't tell you because I didn't see much of it. There were 2 shuttle rides to and from the airport in Frankfurt, but I slept during those. Once I realized the German countryside looks a lot like the Connecticut countryside I decided sleep was more important. As I mentioned we worked from Ramstein Air Base which is also where we stayed. There's a hotel on the base for civilians, military and military families which was my home for about 5 days. The base was very much like America, and had I not known I was in Germany, I wouldn't have known I was in Germany, other than the surplus of BMWs and Mercedes that drove around the base. If you go to Germany and rent a car, it will be a Mercedes. Promise.

The food was very American as well. There was a mall attached to the hotel (that I couldn't shop in, it was only for military and their families) that had a food court (where I was allowed to purchase things, things being food items only) that included fine dining establishments like Subway, Taco Bell and Baskin Robbins to name a few. There was also a Macaroni Grill, Chili's and Burger King on base. If I had to compare it to something, I would liken it to a college campus with it's own mini airport and giant airplanes. From what I remember of what I learned while there, Ramstein mostly has C-130s which are enormous airplanes, like a cargo plane. They're the types of planes you can drive vehicles into, massive and really cool to see. I didn't get to ride in one, but it was just cool to walk to the production truck in the morning and see them all sitting on the tarmac.

As I mentioned we were there to honor our troops for Veteran's Day, we were also there to cover a basketball game. One of the first places I went when I got on base was to the hanger where the court was being built. It wasn't to see the court, it was to try to get my base pass so no one tried to throw me out, but it was cool to see part of the process of building a basketball court in a hanger. The first time I saw it there was just one set of bleachers put up. The morning of the game I stopped in the hanger again to check out the finished product, it was pretty amazing.

I had a little time so I wandered around a bit to check everything out since I knew it was unlikely I'd get back into the hanger once the game started since I'd be working. I like to have swag to remember the remotes I've done, and the military was nice enough to give us all very nice jackets to keep from our visit, but what I really wanted was one of the chairs the players would later be sitting in during the game.

I thought these were pretty awesome, and if I could have figured out how to get one on the airplane home without getting caught or fired I would have done it. But, since I couldn't, I settled for a nice fleece jacket. It was really nice, the best swag I've gotten out of all the remotes I've done (10 if we're counting).

My view during the week wasn't quite as exciting as being in a hanger. The set for SportsCenter was inside a different hanger than the game (sorry, I didn't take any pictures of it), but since I'm not nearly important enough to put on TV, I get to sit in a chilly production truck, packed like a sardine.

A mini control room on wheels and pretty close quarters as you can see (I was the middle seat with the 2 computers). But, it's all part of the traveling experience, and though it's exhausting, stressful and a lot of work, it is a great experience. One I usually only appreciate after I'm home. This trip was no different, except that I appreciated it more than I normally would because of who we were there for. You stop complaining when you're in the company of the military because you realize that you're lucky just to be in Germany to make television. It's a tiny matter compared to the bigger picture of what they're doing and the sacrifices they're making everyday. I can suck up 5 days with minimal sleep because at the end of those 5 days, I get to go home to my house and my husband.

When the week was over I had a couple reasons to celebrate. It was a successful trip, I was getting to go home, and it was my birthday. On my birthday I woke up in Germany and went to bed in Connecticut, it was a very long day of travel, but I started it off like any good birthday should begin. With a German treat, and the only German cuisine I actually ate while in Germany.

It was delicious, and capped off a truly amazing experience and opportunity. Happy Birthday to me.

Angry Birds

When I was asked to make an Angry Birds themed birthday cake I wanted to say yes, but in my head all I was thinking is "what the hell is Angry Birds?" I'm usually pretty knowledgeable about what's "cool" but all I knew about Angry Birds was that Mike Tyson made a video about how to overcome your Angry Birds addiction. It's hilarious. You're welcome.

I asked some friends and learned that Angry Birds is a video game. At least I think it is. All I know is that you can play it on your cell phone, and I think on your computer through Facebook. In the game angry birds are trying to protect their eggs from green pigs that are trying to steal their them... I think. You can see that my research was very extensive. All I really needed to know for cake purposes was what the game and its characters looked like. Thanks Google images!

I was given about a week's notice for the cake, normally I prefer more notice, but I took it on anyway because my schedule would allow. There was a certain cake that I would have loved to try to do, but I just didn't have enough time. I looked through the images Google provided for me and came up with one that I thought was simple enough that I could get done in the amount of time I had, but it would also look cool to a 6-year-old. Kids are the toughest critics.

Making this cake was my first experience of having to really shape a cake because I wanted to make one layer of the cake look like the main character in the game. If you haven't already figured it out, I'm now an Angry Birds expert (not true). The base of the cake was going to be made up of 2 10-inch square cakes and I thought if I also made the top layer of cake there would just be way too much cake. Since I thought it would be easier to carve and shape, I made the top "bird" layer using 9 x 13 pan of rice krispy treats that I cut out into the shape of the bird. Then I just covered it with fondant and decorated to make it look like the main character. It worked out perfectly.

This was also the first time I used all my own fondant, meaning I made it and I colored it. In the past I've only done cakes where I've needed white fondant so I don't end up needing to color it. If I do need any specific colors I just buy the Wilton packages that have 4 colors in them and use those. They have a pretty good variety. However, the Wilton packages didn't provide enough quantity of the colors I needed in one package. Since it was cheaper (all about saving a buck!) to color it myself than buy multiple $10 packages of pre-colored fondant, I ventured out on my own and gave coloring fondant a try. I made the fondant one day, and used the Wilton jars of food coloring gel (they're awesome) to color it the following day when I was going to decorate the cake. While it's hard work, coloring the fondant worked out really well, it also worked out my forearms. Hooray for multi-tasking.

Putting the cake together was fairly simple. The hardest part was just working out all the decorating details on the bird. I used Wilton tube icing (have I mentioned that I like their products?) for all the black detailing, which was the most nerve-racking part. I was in the home stretch at that point and didn't want to mess up. I did a couple of practice runs on a paper towel until I felt comfortable (piping icing always makes me nervous) and went for it. I loved it, and Colby did too.