A Stately Graduation Cake

Doesn't my friend Danny look like an angel?


Well, he is. But this post isn't about him. So go ahead and forget about that note.

What this post is about is the cake in Danny's hands, so let's get on with it. A couple of weeks ago, my friend Alicia asked me to help her make a graduation cake for our friend Paul. He's the one in the middle there. His girlfriend, Ashley (on right), told us he liked fruit flavors and LOVED the margarita cupcakes he got as a reward for playing designated driver for Girls Night.


Well, I'm not one to mess with a good thing. (If you know me at all, you know how completely untrue that is. I mess with good things like it's my job. Hmm... and in a month or so it may be... but let's not get into that. Anyway... it was exam week and I had to make two cakes. For Friday night parties. So this one time, I didn't mess with a good thing.)


I made one - extremely level - 9x13 layer margarita cake, cut it in two halves, and layered them to make one 6.5x9 cake.


And remember when Alicia asked me to "help" her with the cake? Well... what we very quickly decided that meant was that I would bake the cake and she would decorate it. It seemed like the perfect arrangement. I got to do the fun part, and she'd do the pesky fondant, finishing stuffs.

Alicia has a different idea about what should classify as "the fun part," which is exactly why this arrangement worked like a charm.


So I got to play prep baker. I dirty iced, I chilled, and then I did a thicker layer of icing to cushion the fondant. And I chilled again until Alicia picked the cake up Friday morning. And what did the fondant fairy put together for the graduate?


The California flag. Yep. And a darn good one at that. And it only took her 40 minutes, start to finish. That's pretty dang impressive.


And... the celebrants agreed. Some of them may have even taken forks to the thing. But I can assure you that I was not one of those people. I am much classier. Related: That's also not my bedazzled flask in the background there, giving me away. I swear.

Alright, alright, it's in my closet!*

Anyways... collaborating with Alicia on this cake was too much fun. Baking and icing was a breeze since I didn't have to worry about the visual aesthetics. I just paid attention to baking and icing a delicious little cake. And I loved it. I foresee future collaborations...

*Family inside joke. Basically, me and Danny were the biggest offenders when it came to treating the cake as our own personal portion. Sorry, Danny, but I'm totally taking you down with me!

Canadian Maple Cupcakes

As you may or may not remember, I bought a tub of red fondant for a Valentine's Day cake. I remember because that red fondant has been haunting me for months! You can catch glimpses of it on the Red Sox and Hokie Hi-Hat cupcakes, but I still have about a quarter of that tub leftover. Ugh. How many things can one do with red fondant?

Another little factoid that you probably wouldn't know unless I told you: my Canadian Lit class is meeting for the last time tonight. This class has been rough-going throughout and Evan even wrote a post about the existential crisis it has thrown him into. However, what final class meeting would not be improved by cupcakes?!

(The answer is none.)

So, in honor of our class closing and our Canadian-ish professor who finally said "ay" in class last week, I used as much red fondant as I could to decorate these (now Canadian) Maple Cupcakes.


Aren't they just too cute? This line-up reminds me of the Target circles. :)

In case you were curious about technique, I made another of my only marginally helpful stencils for the maple leaves. The letters I cut out with the cookie cutters from my Wilton 100 pc. set. That was so unbelievably easy that I'm going to try to have cookie cutters for all fondant dealings from now on! (It's not a practical wish, but a wish nonetheless.) And I love that the cookie cutter letters are just the right size to cover the whole cupcake without hanging off. Perfect!

And now I have a question for those of you who work with the fondant. See how my fondant is all shiny and soft? It gets that way when I decorate the cupcakes and then leave them in their carrier. I thought I wasn't supposed to refrigerate fondant, but is it okay that my fondant has gone all slippery and wet? It's not traveling yet, but I don't want it to get that far. And I know that if I were using the fondant for anything other than flat letters laying on a cupcake, then I'd be in trouble.

I might have just answered my own question by remembering that I refrigerated the hi-hats and those fondant VTs kept their shape.

Anyway... anyone who knows about the optimal storing conditions for fondant, do let me know!

To the rest of you, good luck trying to go through today without singing "Oh, Canada..." It's already taken up sure residence in my head.

Hokie Hi-Hat Cupcakes

I teased you yesterday Saturday with the lovely - yet naked - Carrot Cake Cupsters with Cream Cheese icing (CCCCCI). Now you get to see what great destiny awaited those CCCCCIs! Just kidding! I will never use that horrific acronym ever again.

Anyway... I've been wanting to make hi-hat cupcakes for a long time. Traditionally, the hi-hat cupcake is iced with a stiff meringue and then dipped in chocolate. The finished product looks like a DQ dipped cone. Done well and cut open, they look like this one from Melanger.



Though I could have gone traditional, I'm sure you know by now that I didn't. Since these cupcakes are in honor of Evan's bright shiny future at Virginia Tech, I decided to go all out.

I dipped the cupcakes (or their icing, rather) in orange candy melts...


spent some quality time dying some of my red fondant burgundy...


and the Hokie Hi-Hat cupcake was born.


And now for the dissection.


This cupcake is an interesting one. Alton's carrot cake actually did work and I'm pleased with the result. I don't like my carrot cakes too chunky. I get distracted and a little bit upset when there are too many things happening. This carrot cake is just how I like them - carroty and very very lightly spiced. I give it a B+. The icing, like I said before, is perfect. See the previous post for recipe link.

Now... I must admit that though really adorable, the candy melt coating might be a smidge too thick for hi-hatting. When I bit into the cupcake the candy broke in a couple of places and as I continued to take bites of the cupcake, the icing started to squeeze out from under the candy coating. That's awkward. And a little bit messy. I don't think these will make it upstairs to the English department.

So, will I be hi-hatting again? Absolutely! Will I use candy melts? Umm... probably. :) The colors are just too hard to resist. I'm thinking mini cupcakes would be perfect for candy melt hi-hats. I could pile the icing up tall, cover it in a variety of fun colors and they'd still only be a couple (or if you're like me, a few) bites each. For the big guys, I should probably stick to chocolate hi-hats until I figure out how to thin the candy melts a bit.

In theory, the cupcakes are perfect. In practice, not quite so. Here's hoping Evan's time at Virginia Tech is great in both theory and practice! Go congratulate him on his new Ph.D. program home at FatallyAmbiguous.

Red Sox Opening Day! Almost.

Well... this post is anticlimactic.

Today was supposed to be the Red Sox's Opening Day. They were supposed to play Tampa Bay at 2:00pm and we were supposed to have a viewing party at Evan's house. My cupcakes were supposed to steal the show.

I guess my cupcakes still stole the show, but really, what kind of competition does Neville Hall provide on a Monday?

I started with an uninspired red velvet cake and a batch of white velvet cake divided, half blue. I wanted stripes since stripes are oh-so-baseball, but the white velvet batter was far too thick for zebra striping. What I ended up doing was sneaking blobs of white and blue into each red velvet cupcake. Like a surprise.

Here are some in various stages of scoopedness...


and here is one baked and split.


Cute, no?

Anyway, I set off to redeem myself as a competent wielder of fondant with these Red Sox cupcakes. I knew the basic gist of the Boston B, so I figured I would ever-so-simply whip out about 24 of those B's and be done.

Oy vey. If you haven't tried to cut a Boston B out of fondant with only the most basic fondant skills and tools, then you'll just have to believe me when I tell you that this is easier said than done. I managed to cut out 4 successful Boston Bs before I switched over to the hanging socks. Sox? I don't know...


This is how the whole team turned out.

My colleagues assured me that I am now slightly compotent when it comes to fondant. The socks were a big hit and the cupcakes were all gone by 1:00pm.

However, the Red Sox game was postponed to Tuesday at 4pm because of the threat of rain. It was sunny here! 22 cupcakes went to campus today and another 10 will go to the postponed viewing party tomorrow.

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Now for a brief digression. You might have noticed that my computer died on Friday. It didn't ever come back. We had a brief moment of hope on Saturday, but even that was fleeting and really just a tease. So... I did what any good blogger would do. I gave my trusty laptop a big squeeze for all its hard work in the past and I let it go.


I turned to baking to help me destress, and I realized that though I lift weights and play racquetball, my right arm gets quite a workout mixing some of the more stiff batters.


Look at that tension! There is no flab there!

Like a kharmic slap in the face, my mixer gave up the ghost as I was finishing the icing for the Red Sox cupcakes. So, I did what any good baker would do. I kissed my ever loyal and blissfully cheap handmixer and I let it go.


And then I realized, maybe it's not so normal to hug a crashed laptop or kiss a handmixer that smells that burning plastic.

So what do you think? Do you feel a little bit sad when an appliance or electronic kicks the bucket? Is it just me?!

The Morning After

Ugh. I don't know about Big E and the roommate, but I am feeling a bit of a cake hangover today.

Allow me to explain why.

Last night I threw a haphazard yet killer party for my roommate and Big E. Big E fixed my computer (and earned my undying devotion) while we watched a Peanuts Valentine's special and the 2nd installment of the Grey's Anatomy/ Private Practice crossover.

Here's the part that you might care about.

We also cut the cake.

Oh... what cake? I'm sorry. This one.


As it turns out, the roommate, Big E, and I were no match for the overwhelming sugar-ness of all that red fondant. Not one of us finished a whole piece.

But didn't she cut up well?


And I managed to take a picture of a white chocolate cake truffle in slightly better lighting. Notice how the truffle is enjoying some modern art.


Such a sassy truffle.

All present for last night's celebration of Saint Valentine agreed that the cake was cute and a good effort; however, we also agreed that actually eating the cake was a bit of a struggle. Too much sweet.

I woke up this morning feeling sluggish and well...heavier than I did yesterday.

So, what can one do when suffering from a cake hangover?

Well... two things.

1. Hair of the Dog - I dumped the cake leftovers last night, but there are still quite a few cake truffles (or balls, as I lovingly refer to them) and I think I've had three so far today. Can't promise I won't have more.

2. Indulge on the Savory Side - I've decided on a menu of Celery Soup (one of Pat's Failures of the Week) and Paula Deen's Tuna Burgers.

This should do the trick.

I'm currently ignoring the third option of time at the gym. I don't think shaking the cake around is the best idea right now.

Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Cake!

(I feel like I'm blogging on borrowed time, but I'm going to keep doing it as long as my ailing computer allows.)

Today I scrambled to get my work done in the office so I could leave campus promptly at 1pm. That done, I told myself that I would start slow with the baking. Take it in shifts. I'd do part mid-afternoon. Another step Friday night and then I'd do the rest on Saturday before people show up.

Sure. Good plans.

And then I just did everything.

I've been baking and chilling and icing and dipping and decorating and rolling and crying (not really, but almost) since 3 o'clock today. And I have to say, I'm tired. My back is sore and my arms feel jelly-ish.

But! I don't think I completely failed.

My goal was to recreate Bakerella's Valentine's Box of Cake. If you check out Bakerella's site, which I highly recommend, you'll notice that her box of cake is... well... perfect.

Mine is not.

But without further ado, here you go. Judge for yourselves.


I'm fairly pleased with my fondant first run. The top and bottom are not bad, but the side pieces got pretty dry and corn starched by the time I got to them. I should have scrapped those pieces and used new, but live and learn! I might go back to the cake and redo that part tomorrow, but I couldn't face any more fiddling tonight. The arms, remember.

The cake balls (also Bakerella's recipe - you can find them linked on the same page) are so cute and quite delicious, but, alas, I failed a little bit making them too.

I read Bakerella's suggestion to add a little bit of icing at a time to avoid putting too much. And I took that in. And then I put too much icing in the cake right off the bat. So, they are stinkin' moist and heavily cream cheesed, but still tasty. Next time I'll be more careful.


Honestly, how can you stay mad at anything that looks like this?

Okay, so maybe the lighting in that picture fails too. I promise the cake balls are ridiculously tasty.

Retroactive New Year's Resolution: Take one picture for the blog of a home-baked good in proper lighting.

Well, now you know what the red fondant was commissioned for. And now you know the highlight of my Valentine's weekend. So, if you are around, I'll see you tomorrow night, 8ish.

If you're not around, then feel free to be jealous all day.