Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate...

...boy oh boy do I love chocolate! And now I know where I get it from! (Not that it was ever that big of a mystery but now it has definitely been confirmed) :)

So in the past week, we celebrated 3 birthdays and an anniversary in my family...more accurately they happened in the last 4 days but we all got together last night for the big celebration. Since I took cake decorating class last month, I felt like I should try to flex my decorating muscles (they need a little toning) and see what I could come up with for the official celebration dessert. Mom's birthday was the closest to our celebration date, so I let her pick what she wanted for dessert. Her request: chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate.

Hmmm....So I did a little searching. Sure I could whip up a chocolate cake with some chocolate pudding for the filling and chocolate icing.....boring. This needed to be something special. And who is my new, latest favorite person to turn to for baking ideas...Bakerella, of course! Cake pops were the first thing to cross my mind but then I decided not to get too crazy since I haven't attempted these yet. I need an opportunity to mess them up once and not worry about it...maybe I'll attack those soon. BUT I did find some interesting cupcakes on her website that got me thinking.

So I started with some basic devil's food cake cupcakes.

The cupcakes that inspired me were a little crazy for my taste...goat cheese icing on chocolate zucchini cupcakes. However, the chocolate ganache filling sounded divine! Now I've never filled cupcakes before so this was new to me but I figured I could make it work and cover up and "uglies" with some chocolate icing. Yumm? You bet.

Here's the recipe for the ganache...

Chocolate Ganache from Bakerella

2 oz. semi-sweet chocolate bar, chopped in chunks

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

3/4 cup confectioners sugar

Place chocolate and whipping cream in the microwave. Heat in 30 second intervals, stirring in between until melted. Blend thoroughly. Add sugar and stir until thoroughly combined. Pour ganache into a disposable decorators bag (I used Wilton tip #12), insert tip into center of cupcake and, using gentle pressure, squeeze filling into the cupcake until you start to see it coming out the top.

Here I am filling the first cupcake...next time I want to follow the step-by-step directions in the link above instead of using a decorator's tip cause I have lots of extra ganache that I'm now trying to find a use for.

Here's what they looked like after being filled...yummmmmmmmmmm! See the little glossy spot at the top? That's the ganache! Peek-a-boo!

Then a colleague of mine, Tracy (thanks Tracy!), sent me a new baking website (well, new to me anyway) for The Cake Mix Doctor and I was able to find the inspiration for some amazing chocolate cream cheese icing. Holy smokes it was good...the only change I plan to make next time is just to use 1/2 tsp. of almond extract. I think the 1 tsp. the recipe called for was just a tiny bit too much and you lost a lot of the cream cheese flavor.

Here's the recipe for the icing...

Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing from the Cake Mix Doctor

Makes 4 cups, enough to frost a 2- or 3- layer cake

(or in my case, 12 cupcakes with a bunch left over) :)

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, at room temperature

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon pure almond extract (I'm using 1/2 tsp next time but go with whatever you like)
4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

1. Place the cream cheese and butter in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed until combined, 30 seconds. Stop the machine. Add the cocoa powder, extract, and confectioners' sugar and blend with the mixer on low speed until the ingredients are moistened, 30 seconds. Increase the speed to medium and beat until the frosting is fluffy, 2 minutes more.

I'll be honest it took a little bit of extra mixing to get it to "do its thang" and become icing, which kind of freaked me out at first. It looked like dry little hunks of chocolate dough for the first 30 seconds or so (which felt like an eternity while I thought I had somehow messed it up) and then all of a sudden it turned into beautiful, creamy, fluffy icing...delicious too!

Another decorator bag came out, this time with Wilton tip 2D and voila! Finished cupcakes!

Here's a close-up to really get you drooling...

Thank goodness I made them the same day they were to be served to the family or they might not have made it to the party! And sharing them with family turned out to be the absolute best part...just ask my niece, Haedyn. She started out with a fork....

...but quickly ditched that...

...do you think anyone noticed?

Nah. :)

Who knows what I'll be up to next but tonight I'm taking the night off from cooking and enjoying the last of our Homemade Gourmet leftovers from last week. Then I'll need to figure out what's for dinner for the rest of the week so check back later tonight for the meal plan!

Check out my cake!!

So last night course one of my Wilton Cake Decorating class series came to a conclusion. I must admit, I am kinda sad it's over. As crazy as it was to try to bake and frost a cake every Monday night then go to class with said cake every Tuesday night, I will definitely miss it next week. I REALLY learned a lot, and not just about decorating! It's definitely not a baking class but Linda, our instructor at the Michael's in Des Peres, taught us all kinds of tricks to making your cake bake nicely so you have a good "base" for your decorations. I think I touched on these in an earlier post but check these bad boys out...Wilton Bake Even Strips claim to help your cake bake nice and level and evenly throughout. I haven't bought them yet but Linda says she always uses them and her cakes all turn out great! Instead, I use the Wilton Cake Leveler to knock the hump off my cakes. Works like a charm...wastes a little bit of cake. Wait, take that back, Tom eats the cake I shave off the top so I guess its not really wasted. Lucky boy. :)

So, last night we got the chance to decorate a cake any way we wanted using any of the techniques we learned over the past several weeks. I am SUPER proud of how my cake turned out...check it out!!!

Here is the famous "Wilton Rose!" We learned a new step for the rose each night of the class so it took us 3 weeks to learn how to do the whole thing. They are tricky!!!!! Also notice the fancy leaves and vines.

For the border I used my 2D tip to make large, white drop flowers and then sporadically put pink spiral flowers on top using tip 16, I believe. Had some extra green from the leaves and vines so I gave them contrasting centers.

One more shot from above...

It's a shame course two isn't being offered until November but that will give me a chance to practice everything I have learned so far! Don't worry, hubby, the cakes won't stop here! And Michael's will have to find someone else to terrorize the cake decorating aisle for a few weeks...maybe. ;)

Anyone have any ideas for a cake for me to decorate? I love a challenge!

Cake Decorating!!

Well folks, last night was my first cake decorating class. I must admit, I have mixed feelings. For the most part, I am so excited about it all!! Looking through the Course 1 book and seeing what all I can do, plus all the little tricks our instructor, Linda, already taught us has me itching to go bake a cake right now! However, I did have a few disappointments. First, we didn't get to really do anything the first night except watch...and realize that I need to start collecting Michael's coupons. We just need to buy a bunch more stuff than I was banking on. It will all be great to have but I'm really starting to wonder where I'm gonna store all these nifty tools. Hmmm. Third, and this one is totally my own fault, I got "courses" and "classes" confused when looking into signing up. Turns out I need to sign up for 3 or 4 different 4 week courses to learn everything I thought I would be learning just in September. Each "course" has 4 "classes" that cover all the topics listed for that course....is that clear as mud to you too? I'm hoping I wasn't alone on this one.

But I promise not to be "Debbie Downer" this whole post (whom whom) cause mainly I'm just super excited about it all! So let's see what I can tell you about. First, I'm taking official Wilton Method Cake Decorating Classes at Michael's. Our class is HUGE! Apparently there were only 8 of us signed up (still a large class according to our instructor) but then 8 more signed up Sunday and Monday and we were suddenly up to 16. One didn't show up, three got up and left about 45 minutes into the class (I don't know if they got overwhelmed or were just mad there wasn't room for them at the table...who knows) so now we're down to an even dozen. Hopefully next week when we're actually decorating there will be enough room.

So, this week, we learned some tips and tricks to baking a nice, iceable (did I just make up a word?) cake. Such tips include things like allowing the cake to cool completely before trying to ice (duh) AND flipping the cake over and icing the bottom! Who knew?! This drastically reduces the amount of crumbs you get in the icing...a problem I ALWAYS have. Next, she showed us all kinds of tools like this nifty cake leveler which you can use to level out a lumpy cake top (which remember, is actually going to be the bottom!) OR it can split your cake in half, allowing you to add filling!!!

Speaking of cake filling, Linda used a single serve pudding cup (chocolate...yumm) to fill her 8" round, 3" deep yellow cake last night. That's one very easy option but you can also use icing of any flavor or fruit preserves (or several pudding cups...heehee!) to fill your tasty treat. I have my eye on some raspberry preserves for my first cake next week...oh buddy!

And how do they get the icing so smooth?! Hint: you don't have to use fondant to get a nice smooth look to your icing. Spread your buttercream icing over the cake and wait for it to be dry to the touch, you don't want it tacky! Then lay a sheet of wax paper over the cake and use a spatula to help smooth it. I'll try to take pictures when I do it for the first time...I know my mouth was hanging wide open when she did this. Why didn't I think of that?! Oh and if you're not a fan of typical buttercream icing, did you know you can add vanilla or almond extract to change the flavor? I sure didn't. Just make sure you use clear extracts so your icing doesn't end up looking kind of funky from using dark extracts. Wilton makes some terrific clear extracts you can try. Something else about icing...we can either make our own from scratch using the Wilton recipe (which would make me feel kind of guilty giving out on the blog...ah morals!) or you can buy Wilton premade icing for quick and easy icing you know you can trust to give you a perfect finish.

Wow I really have a lot to tell you about icing...I guess that makes sense since that's what I'll be using to do all the decorating! :) Decorating takes different consistencies of icing for different tasks. There are three consistencies to work with: stiff icing is for making roses or other flowers or decorations that have to stand up off the cake on their own; medium icing is for stars, piping, borders, and flowers with petals that lie flat on the cake; thin icing is used for icing the cake, writing, vines, and leaves. Whew...had to consult my official Wilton book to make sure I got all that right. Guess I have some studying to do this weekend!

Next week we get to start decorating...that is, if I don't make a practice cake this weekend! Stay tuned to hear more about it as I destroy, er, decorate round cakes, cupcakes, character cakes, and more!! Maybe if you're lucky (and you work or live with me) you'll get to benefit from some of my creations...we'll see how it goes.

In the meantime....I'll be searching through the grocery ads for sales on cake mixes cause I think I'm gonna need quite a few over the next few weeks. Good for my hubby and his sweet tooth, bad for me getting on the bathroom scale. Oh well. :)