Wow. Talk about my favorite things taking a backseat. School is kicking my butt, but I am in love with it! After this first three weeks, we should be in a better schedule and an easier place to bake! My gosh, we have a lot to catch up on!
Light years ago, I took upon myself to make cupcakes for my best friend Nicole's bridal shower! Should be easy, right?! I then started to get creative (and perhaps too crazy) and wanted to bake a cake! With fondant! What better practice than my brand new apartment's oven and invite her and her fiancée over for dinner? Well, the cake was too crumbly and apparently you need frosting to go under the fondant! Whoops! So, I tried again, and the cake was a little better, but the fondant was way too thick! Darn! I guess I should stick with what works best! Also, check my new cake stand! My boyfriend's mom, Kathy, gave it to me for graduation! LOVE it!
So before this cake-escapade, I was designated to make some cakes for a dinner party with friends from school. This seems like so far away, how sad! I had a clever idea spoofed from my oreo cakes (which I apparently have deprived you of, as well! So sorry!) The oreos in this recipe go soft, and makes the cake amazing! But I thought it would be fun to use the whole cookie rather than crumbles of it!
Pre oven:
Post oven:
It sort of worked, but it was mostly just fun to experiment! The oreos ended up at the top of the cake, which was opposite of what I wanted! Oh well, good thing I have friends who don't judge me based on where the oreos end up in my cupcakes!
Soon after all of this, I started graduate school, and there was NO way I could bake during that time. In the middle of the first term, I got together with my girls from high school. For some reason, we never miss a beat when we get together. It's pretty fun to think that we have been friends since my sophomore year! I was requested to build dessert for them. In my flip flopping of whether to make a cake or cupcakes for my best's bridal shower, I thought I would try a cake, again! While mixing things together, this happened:
Have you EVER tried to mix batter without a whisk?! I do not recommend it!
It was a vanilla cake recipe I had found online. I was going to make two cakes for a double layer cake. Until this happened:
(See bottom of oven)
Is that supposed to happen?
So I figured, one layer is enough! I strawberry frosted it and it was super pretty!
Not to mention: delicious! Aside from the minor emergency in the oven, this cake was a success!
I still couldn't bring myself out of the disaster that cake-baking has been for me, and decided that with my crazy schedule, my bad cake adventures, and what Nicole deserves for her bridal shower, I should just stick with cupcakes. And my favorite one to bake: Champagne cupcakes! I began baking the Monday before and froze a batch so I wouldn't run out of time. And that STILL wasn't enough time for me! I woke up very early on Saturday and frosted 51 cakes with vanilla frosting.
Then I rolled out the white fondant and cut out the circle shapes to place on top of the cakes. WOW. I had NEVER played officially with fondant, and overall, it went well, but I was stressed to the max with this step. I finally finished half the cakes with white fondant, and began with the blue. I got in the hang of it, but it still was VERY time consuming. I found these cool stencils for desserts, and they matched the idea of the bridal shower, so I thought it would be super easy to design. That was a joke. I used gray powdered sprinkles. It was just so hard to get the sprinkles to stick and to stay in the design once I removed it. I brushed the cakes with water and tried, but it turned into such a sticky mess =( I did what I could and went on with the blue cakes, which I had bought white edible pearls for them. And yet again, the sprinkles did not stick. I pressed the cakes upside down on a pan of the pearls and that helped a little, but I still was not too happy with my creation. Everyone loved the cakes at the shower, and it was a wonderful, fun party full of wine and fun conversation! I just can't wait for the wedding! The night before the shower, Nicole and I went on a double date to dinner with our gentlemen. She had no idea of my whisk breaking apart, but somehow knew! For my birthday, she gave me a new whisk, spatula (both with cute pigs on them!), a NICE new bowl, and a bunch of cute cupcake books/cards! I like to describe her as my biggest supporter of this hobby, tied with Jon's Mama, Kathy!
Oh, and this was the mess I came home to:
Recipes used today:
Champagne Cupcakes (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)
Vanilla Frosting (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)
Simple Vanilla Cake (http://recipes.kaboose.com/vanilla-cake.html)
Red Velvet Cake (ala my sister!)
Cookies and Cream Cupcakes (Crazy about Cupcakes by Krystina Castella)
