Baking: Not for the faint of heart

Because let me tell you, my normal "type A" self just about has a heart attack every time I'm in the middle of a baking project:

(Warning: may cause convulsions in those who like neatness & order in their lives)

Pretty scary, huh? I always feel like if anyone saw my kitchen in the middle of a project, they'd RUN! RUN AWAY AND NEVER LOOK BACK! KEEP THE BAKED GOODS, LADY!!!!! The thing is: I HATE a messy kitchen! And I do actually clean up as I go (I swear!) but for this project, I had 55 cupcakes to bake, fill, frost, and embellish. The request was for any old simple cupcake, but they specifically wanted them to be numbered 1-55, in honor of the birthday girl's 55th birthday.

Of course I couldn't just go the simple route. That would be waaaaay too easy. Nope. I had grand plans for 6-7 different varieties, but ended up with 4:

1) White cupcake with fresh strawberry cream cheese filling & strawberry flavored buttercream
2) White cupcake with mini chocolate chip/cream cheese filling baked in, chocolate buttercream
3) Chocolate cupcake with cream filling a la Hostess style, with regular buttercream
4) Chocolate Frappuccino cupcake with a Frap cream cheese filling & hint of Frap in buttercream

Sooooo, I had like 850 bowls, 10 tons of powdered sugar, both the Kitchenaid stand mixer and hand mixer in use, food processor for the strawberries, and approximately half a million other ingredients littered about the kitchen. It was touch and go for a while there. My heart palpitates a bit just reliving it through the photo.

In the midst of chaos, I did discover a funny thing...but first a quick foreword. I love to bake cakes from scratch, but have found that more often than not, they simply are not as moist as boxed mixes. I've experimented with applesauce, mayonnaise, coconut milk, you name it. If I'm just putzing around making something for the family, I still try homemade recipes, but for actual orders, I'm sticking with the sure thing until I find the magical homemade recipe that lives up to the moistness of mixes. So there. My secret is out. Anywho, I made one batch of dark chocolate as the package instructed, and for the other, I used bottled Starbuck's Frappuccino in lieu of water. It might be hard to tell from the photo, but the ones made with Frappuccino baked up higher, rounder, and moister than the ones using water (Frap version is the one on the right):


Weird, huh? I detected just a hint of the Frap taste, and others might not have even noticed if not informed of the switch, but I'm convinced it made for a better overall cupcake.

On the flip side, I discovered that mixing fruit puree with traditional Wilton buttercream is NOT a good idea! The result was something that tasted fine but resembled congealed strawberry barf. Sooooooo not good!

I used the good old chocolate melting wafers method to form the numbers, and here's the overall result:

My current cake obsession

For quite a while I searched & searched for a frosting recipe that would be light, airy, and yet still delicious, flavorful, and easy to work with. I wish I could tell you I was one of those kitchen magicians who could throw together a pinch of this, a dash of that and Voila! But alas, I am not. I am pretty darn good at googling, however! You would think with the billions of things one can find on the internet, this would be an easy task. Not so! For months I searched with no luck, but then I noticed the more forums I went to, a certain name kept popping up: Whimsical Bakehouse.
Intrigued, I began seeking out websites, examples, reviews, you name it. Upon seeing some stunning examples of cakes made using techniques found in this book, I decided it was worth the purchase. Words cannot describe how glad I am that I found this book! Seriously, I've been known to take this book to bed with me in lieu of a good fiction novel!

The book is packed with some great cake recipes, but what I absolutely am loving are the filling recipes, the chocolate transfer method, and most of all, a recipe for buttercream that whips up light & creamy, similar to good bakery frosting, but a little lower key on the sugar front (don't get me wrong, frosting is supposed to be sweet & all, but I like to be able to eat it all without getting a sugar buzz! Nothing sadder than having to throw out that last bit of frosting because it's just. too. sweet!) .

And here's a funny thing: Men love it. I don't know why, but I can't tell you how many times now I've gotten compliments along the lines of: "My (husband, boyfriend, fiance) usually doesn't like frosting, but when they tasted this, they said it was the BEST CAKE THEY'D EVER EATEN." Hmmm. I dunno what it is, but maybe the sweetness being toned down appeals to them more? Never fear though, the women and children have responded just as well! I overheard this comment last weekend, made by a woman who had no idea who I was or that I had made the cake she was eating: "I usually don't like frosting, but this is really good!" Score!

It's a little tedious to make (20 minutes in the mixer!) but it's so worth it. One thing to beware of: If you're used to stiffer frosting, such as the classic Wilton recipe, it is a little alarming to work with a frosting that does not harden! A little bump on the old stuff and no worries. Nudge this frosting at all, and plan on reworking that area of the cake!

The cookies & cream filling is good enough to eat with a spoon. I had to physically dump out the leftovers last time because I kept sneaking over to the bowl and swiping little bits here and there, which is fine, but had I eaten the whole 2 cups or so remaining....yikes.

Delicious frosting and filling aside, the book spends a good length of time detailing the chocolate transfer method. The concept is simple: Place any image on the counter. Cover it with parchment paper (I prefer wax) and basically outline, then color it in-using colored chocolate.

This cake was my attempt at one found in the book:

The author's looked more like a piece of artwork than stained glass, but working with this medium takes a little bit of practice.

So when my daughter declared she wanted a Finding Nemo birthday cake, I used this technique to create the characters:

The whole cast:
And the finished product:

Since the chocolate can be done up to 2 weeks in advance, a TON of stress is taken off of the cake preparation the day prior/day of. All that was left to do was fill, frost, and attach the cast! The truly beautiful thing with this method is: You can customize it any way you like! This last cake was done using the invite, so the cake tied in nicely with all of the party decorations.