Mickey's Clubhouse Cake

A few weeks ago, I got an order for a Mickey's Clubhouse cake through a coworker.  I'd never actually heard of Mickey's clubhouse before this, and was worried I may have to sculpt an actual Mickey out of fondant, but this wasn't the case :)



The customers were very specific about what they wanted, so my coworker provided me with this sketch.

They were going to provide figurines (Mickey, Minnie and Goofy) to place on the cake and wanted a non-edible topper to have as a keepsake on top of a 9" confetti cake.











I started my research by looking up what the clubhouse actually looks like.

 

Once I got a feel for the proportions I needed, I bought various size styrofoam balls for the body, head and ears.

As I don't like the taste of store bought fondant, I decided to make my own marshmallow fondant (mmf).  I've had some problems before with marshmallow fondant, finding it difficult to roll out, so I tried a new recipe...Elizabeth Marek's Fondant Recipe (lmf).  The only difference between the two is, adding a little bit of store bought fondant to regular marshmallow fondant.  This makes it much more pliable and easy to work with it, but with a much better flavour than store bought!

For the fondant, I made four different batches...white, green, black and red.  I find adding colour to the melted marshmallows is much easier than kneading it in, so although I had to do several more dishes to make multiple batches for different colours, it is still easier than making one batch of white and kneading in the colours after.  For the black fondant, I used melted chocolate, cocoa powder and black gel colouring to get it dark.  For the red fondant, I used red candy melts and red gel colouring.  I found that it still wasn't as red as I would like, so I painted the 'body' of the clubhouse with a little vodka and red gel colouring.  For small details like the yellow shoe or blue windows, I mixed gel colouring into the white fondant batch by hand.

Well before the cake was due, I put together the topper parts and left them to dry.  To make the parts I covered styrofoam with shortening and then covered them with fondant that had been mixed with some gum-tex.  For the fingers, I free formed fondant with gum-tex and attached it with toothpicks to the styrofoam palm. 

A day after, I covered a 6" cake board (in the same colour that the cake was going to be in) with fondant and assembled the parts.  This was left to dry even further.

The next day, I added some more details.

A day before I was going to deliver, I made a batch of white chocolate ganache and left it to set.

The evening of delivery, I torted, filled and covered the cake with ganache, then left it in the fridge to set for about an hour.  During this time, I kneaded and rolled out the fondant.

Working quickly once the cake was out of the fridge, I misted it lightly with water to help the fondant stick and covered it with the rolled fondant.  Then I went to work smoothing it out with a fondant smoother. 

I placed a small round of parchment on top of the cake (so the customer could easily remove the topper), then placed the topper on top.  I used a fondant border to hide the edge of the topper's cake board. 

To make the letters, I used Tappits, which allowed me to cut the letters out of thinly rolled fondant with gum-tex. 

To make the grass, I pushed some green fondant through a mesh strainer and cut off little chunks.

For the toodles, I printed out a picture and stuck it to some gumpaste.  The fence was all hand cut from rolled fondant.  

This cake was a lot of work, but I'm glad that it turned out well and the customer enjoyed it!

My Sister's 30th Birthday Cake

A week after my boyfriend's birthday, it was my sister's birthday :) She turned the big 3 - 0! So obviously I decided to make her a cake in the shape of a '30' for her birthday BBQ. She wasn't too fussy about the flavour of the cake, so my mom suggested a pound cake as a lot of our family likes that. I mixed up her classic recipe by separating the eggs and whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks before mixing it into the batter. This made the cake less dense but kept the rich buttery flavour.

To make the '30', I doubled the recipe and filled 3 - 6" round tins and a loaf pan. I used two of the 6" rounds for the '3' and the other 6" round plus a bit of the loaf pan for the '0'.  I torted the cakes and used a circle cutter to cut out the centers.  This pick was taken before I removed some of the burnt parts on the '3'. :s  I did it in the toaster over, but with a tall cake, that gets pretty close to the element. 



A day before decorating the cake, I made a batch of Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC) and put it in the fridge.  When I was about to decorate, I realized I'd forgotten to let the icing defrost to room temperature :(  I thought I could just whip it to room temperature and ended up with a weird separated mix with a pool of liquid at the bottom of my mixing bowl.  Luckily, I kept whipping it for a few more minutes and it all came back together, but not exactly to the original consistency of the fresh batch.

I covered the cake with yellow tinted IMBC and started rolling out the fondant.  Decorating with fondant circles didn't actually take too long, attempting to get smooth IMBC, that was the difficult part, but I just strategically placed the fondant circles over the messier parts and I think it turned out pretty well.

The fondant was all coloured with Wilton's gel colours.  I did that a few days before decorating, because when I work colours into the fondant, I find it makes it quite wet and sticky, so resting for a few days makes it easier to roll out.    

My inspiration for this cake was:  Kendal - by The Pastry Studio.  I liked the style and colours, but changed them slightly and mixed it up with the shape.

Lion Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

 

Last week was my boyfriend's birthday :)  So for his birthday, I decided to make him some lion cupcakes :) 

I got the idea for decorating them from this video, which gave really good detailed instructions on how to do it.  The face was hand shaped out of a softened caramel candy with details piped in with black icing.  I used a Wilton's grass tip to make the 'hair' for the lion's mane.  

Since his favourite chocolate is Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, I decided to make Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes.  They are just as they sound, a chocolate cupcake with a Peanut Butter Cup inside!     

These cupcakes were moist, similar to the cake from the cupcake tower, probably because they both contain sour cream.

The peanut butter cup makes them very rich, but delicious :)

For the icing, I made a peanut butter frosting, which is like an American buttercream but with some of the butter replaced with peanut butter!  It had a nice flavour without being overwhelmingly peanut buttery.

Since I was just making 6 cupcakes, I got a new 6 cup muffin tray.  I could have just used the full 12 cup tray and filled the extras with water, but with this smaller size, I could do my baking in the convection toaster oven :)  I tend to do as much baking as I can in the toaster oven, so I can conserve energy.  I've done cakes, pies and cookies in it and they have all turned out well.  If what I'm making fits in the toaster oven, I'll bake it in there :)


Recipe:
Adapted from Cooks Illustrated

Yield: 6 cupcakes

Cupcake:
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa
6 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 large egg, at room temperature
6 tbsp granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sour cream
6 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

Peanut Butter Frosting:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup of cream peanut butter
1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1 tbsp heavy cream

Decoration:
12 soft caramel candies
black icing

1.  To make the cupcakes: preheat the oven (toaster oven in my case) to 350 degrees F. Line a 6-cup muffin tin with paper liners. Set aside.

2.  Place butter, chocolate and cocoa powder in a medium heatproof bowl.  Microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring in between, until butter and chocolate are melted and mixture is smooth.

3.  In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and baking powder.

4.  Whisk the eggs in a medium bowl to combine, then add the sugar, vanilla and salt and continue whisking until fully incorporated. Add the cooled chocolate mixture to the bowl and whisk to combine.

5.  Add one-third of the flour mixture into the bowl and whisk gently to combine. Add the sour cream and whisk to combine. Finally, add the the rest of the flour mixture into the bowl and whisk until everything is well combined.

7. Place a spoonful of batter into each cupcake liner. Place a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup on top of the batter. Cover the peanut butter cups with remaining batter, filling each about 2/3 full. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes. Remove the pan to a wire rack and let the cupcakes cool for a few minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely.

8.  Beat butter and peanut butter until creamy. Slowly add in powdered sugar. Mix until combined and add the heavy cream. Mix until frosting is fluffy.

6. Pipe cooled cupcakes with the peanut butter frosting and decorate as shown in video link above.

Rosette Cupcake Tower

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me to make her birthday cake :) I was excited as this was my first actual cake order!  She requested a chocolate cake with vanilla icing and red velvet cupcakes.  She asked that the cake be green and the cupcakes to be blue, yellow and green, other than that she's really easy going and gave me a lot of freedom with it.  Here's how it turned out.

The cake was 3 layers of Extreme Chocolate Cake with Italian meringue buttercream icing.  The 24 cupcakes were Red Velvet with cream cheese icing. 

The cakes and cupcakes were all decorated with rosettes.  If your remember, I like the rose cake and have made it before in Week 4 of Baking Arts.  I tried to improve on it by making the colours have a gradient, with a darker green on the bottom, but it ended up looking like the middle colour was the same as the bottom colour :( I still think it looks pretty though.

I had some problems with the cream cheese icing for the cupcakes holding it shape when it was piped because it was too soft.  If you look at some of the cupcakes, there isn't too much definition on the rose, so I think next time I make this recipe I will use more powdered sugar to stiffen it.

The cake turned out very moist, I find the sour cream really makes it almost a fudgey consistency :)   

Caramel Crunch Cake

I realize I haven't posted anything in a while, its not that I have stopped baking since class ended, just that I haven't been taking pictures and writing!

This week, I had an order for a Caramel Crunch Cake :)  I made my own spin on the La Rocca Caramel Crunch Cake (see pic below) that are in most grocery stores which consists of layers of almond meringue, caramel and whipped cream.

I started with the meringue.  I ground up a mixture of almonds and pecans in the food processor until it was a fine powder.  It wasn't getting as fine as I would like so I further pulsed it with cornstarch.  Once this was done, I put it through a medium strainer to get out any remaining lumps.  With the mixer, I whipped the egg whites to stiff peaks, which actually took almost 8 minutes on high to get the right consistency.  After folding in the nut mixture gently, the mixture was divided and spread into three 11" squares.  It's easiest to get the dimensions right if its marked on the underside of the parchment you are spreading it on.

While the meringues were in the oven, I started on the butterscotch caramel.  My first batch actually didn't turn out well since I burned the caramel and it crystalized...so I started again.  The second batch worked out much nicer, but I forgot to take pictures.  I made it fairly light and added a bit of salt at the end to give it a salty caramel flavour.

Next, the whip cream...such a simple thing, yet it tastes so yummy.  I added a pack of Whip-It to the cream just to make sure it was stable enough to hold up during the travel and until the next day.  Also, I switched out the traditional vanilla with cognac, since I've used it in ice cream before and found it really elevated the flavour. Although I only used one tablespoon, I think I went a little overboard with it, one teaspoon is more than enough. 




Once the meringues were out of the oven and cooled, I assembled the cake by layering one of the meringues, a thin layer of butterscotch caramel, a layer of whipped cream and repeating until all of the meringues were used.  Its not a big deal if the meringue cracks or breaks during assembly since the cream covers all of that.  Overall this cake wasn't too difficult and was easily done in one night with no previous prep work.  I think I will make this again as everyone seemed to really like it :)

Inspired by: http://gnufmuffin.blogspot.ca/2006/03/cakes-ctom-1-crunchy-caramel-cake.html

My Modified Recipe

Meringue

100g almonds
20g pecans (any mixture of 120g of nuts should work)
8 egg whites
30g cornstarch
450g sugar
1 tsp vanilla

1.  Draw three 11" squares on parchment paper
2.  Grind almonds, pecans and cornstarch in food processor until a fine powder and sift through a medium strainer
3.  Whip egg whites to a foam, then slowly add sugar.  Continue whipping until meringue forms stiff peaks
4.  Mix in vanilla
5.  Gently fold in nut mixture by hand
6.  Spread meringue onto the prepared parchment paper
7.  Bake at 250F for 90 minutes until meringue is dry
8.  Turn off heat and let cool in the oven for 30 minutes


Butterscotch Caramel

900g sugar
200g water
350g 35% cream
110g unsalted butter
8g salt

1.  Heat the cream just until scalded; set aside
2.  Cook sugar and water until light golden colour (wash sides of pot down with a brush to prevent crystalization)
3.  Remove from heat
4.  Mix in cream until blended
5.  Mix in butter and salt until blended
6.  Pour caramel onto baking tray to cool


Chantilly Cream

1000g 35% cream
50g sugar
1 package Whip-It
1 tsp cognac (can be substituted with vanilla)

1.  Place sugar and cream in a mixing bowl and whip to medium firm peaks
2.  Add Whip-It and mix until blended
3.  Mix in cognac


Assembly

1.  Place a layer of meringue on the cake board
2.  Spread a thin even layer of butterscotch caramel on the meringue
3.  Spread an even layer of cream on top (can use a #9 plain piping tip for this)
4.  Repeat steps 1-3 for 2nd and 3rd meringues
5.  Drizzle extra butterscotch caramel on top

Week 12: Strawberry Shortcake

It was the final week :( I'm really going to miss class and baking every Wednesday.  I've learned a lot, so I'm definitely going to take more classes, just not sure which ones yet, maybe Cakes I, Pies or Pastry?

The "Strawberry Shortcake" we made this week was really more of a yellow sponge cake with strawberries and cream, since traditional strawberry shortcake is more of a biscuit with the strawberries and cream.  Even though we made a simpler version of the traditional cake, it still turned out pretty nicely. 

We started out making the cake, which was an egg foam batter, similar to the swiss roll recipe.  I learned from the swiss roll that egg foams can tend to be a little dry, so I made sure I remembered to use lots of simple syrup when layering.

While the cakes were baking, we made whipped cream, sliced strawberries and dipped strawberries in chocolate.  Once the cakes were baked and placed in the blast chiller for a few minutes, we cut each cake into 3 layers and started layering.

The layers were yellow sponge covered in rum flavoured simple syrup, a thin layer of whipped cream and then an even layer of sliced strawberries.

We decorated the cake similarly to the black forest but learned to use a comb on the side.  The metal comb was used to create ridges.  The comb is kind of tricky to use as you need to have a thick coating of cream on the side so when you pull the comb through, you don't see cake, but when there is too much cream, it makes it a little difficult to the make the ridges look even.

Since class has ended and it may be a little while until I take another one, I will keep baking and posting about what I make...so feel free to make suggestions on things you would like to see :) Thanks for reading!

Week 11: Fruit Flan Tart

This week was fruit flan tarts.  The class ran a little differently since we had a substitute instructor.  Our instructor for the day usually teaches apprentices and ran the class on a much stricter schedule.  She had set times for demos and was very particular that our tarts look professional.  Here's how it went...

We actually started this a few weeks ago during cookie week.  We made the tart crust in advance so it would have time to chill.

A trick the instructor taught us is when you are going to put anything in the freezer that you want to eventually defrost, flatten it out first so that it'll thaw out quicker.

While the crust was thawing, I started on the pastry cream.  I boiled the milk, sugar and vanilla bean for a while.  To start, I used a rinsed saucepan since the water helps the milk not to burn.

I tempered the eggs and cornstarch with the hot milk then brought everything back to a boil while continuously whisking.  Once it had thickened, I cooled it in the fridge and started rolling out the dough for the crust.

I rolled it fairly thin and placed it into shells.  I covered it with plastic wrap and filled them with navy beans.  The navy beans could be replaced with almost anything dry.  They are there to make sure the tart shell doesn't collapse on itself while baking or puff up too much.

Once the shell had finished blind baking for a few minutes.  I removed the beans and chilled the shells briefly and then coated the insides of the tart with melted white chocolate.  The white chocolate helps prevent the bottom from becoming soggy.

I whipped the chilled pastry cream again and filled the tarts.  After slicing fruit, I arranged them on the top then brushed some apricot glaze on the top.  There was an option for sliced almonds as well, but I decided to go simple this time.