Call Me Amaesing A Niche of Tasks and Inspiration

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I found this cool recipe online on how to make Cookie Monster Cupcakes. Me and my brother decided to give it a shot.

All you need is a batch of cupcakes (chocolate preferred), mini Chips Ahoy cookies, frosting (powered sugar to stiffen if you get store bought frosting), piping bag, coupler, piping tip #233 (grass tip), and some food coloring.

Bake a batch of cupcakes according to the box. I suggest adding an additional tablespoon or so of batter to each tin to make the cupcake more rounded. I'd say about more than 3/4ths full. So when they come out they should have a dome on top. Not like these cupcakes. My brother made them.

When completely cooled, begin to frost each cupcake with a thin layer of frosting. This helps the blue "hair" of Cookie Monster stick better to the cake. Use a sharp knife to cut out a wedge of where the mouth would go, and be sure to eat all the scraps.

Then stick a Mini Chips Ahoy cookie in each of Cookie Monster's mouths. If you find any broken pieces, be sure to eat all the scraps.
nom nom nom..
Take the remaining can of frosting and use your blue icing color to mix in. Add about six tablespoons of powered sugar to thicken the frosting. Fill piping bag with coupler and tip #233, then add your blue frosting.


Begin frosting all around the cupcake with the grass tip, making sure he's covered thoroughly.

Cookie Monster sure is shaggy...

Note: I've also seen Cookie Monster cupcakes made with dyed sweet coconut shavings instead of frosting. Since I'm not a huge fan of coconut, I decided that frosting was the right way to go. Plus you get to lick all of the scraps..


Now he just needs some eyes.


Wilton white candy melts are perfect for eyes. Take each disk and use chocolate frosting for each pupil. Then place them on the cupcake, making sure that each eye is facing a different direction. it's weird to say but it's true. Cookie monster doesn't look right with sane eyes.


One down, many more to go...


All done!!!






Happy Baking!

For my own 23rd birthday, I decided that it would be only best if I made my own cake. It was a good excuse to bake something that I haven't made before, and in this case, I've never made a two layer cake. Usually cake making comes in the form of cupcakes, or a cake made in a 9''x13'' pan with frosting on top. I decided to get away from this childish practice and make a two layer cake. This would involve baking in two round cake pans, leveling them with a serated knife, decide on what type of filling for the middle, and what type of frosting I woud make. With several hours to think about this, I settled on:


A 11'' funfetti round cake
cream cheese filling
vanilla buttercream frosting (from scratch)

Fast forward a few steps (I didn't take pictures of the baking process. But let me tell you, it was delightful. Just added some sour cream in the batter to heighten the moisture of the cake, and after cooling, I leveled both round cakes with a serated knife. Then I began making the frosting.

I had so many icing colors that I had purchased from the Wilton Tent Sale. I didn't know what color to choose. But after browsing the web and finding some inspiration, I settled on a teal icing color, which when mixed, turned more into a light blue. I love it.

Buttercream frosting, with a little more vanilla extract added. I love frosting. But whisking by hand really sucks. Let me tell you. It really sucks. I need a Kitchen Aid stand mixer. STAT.

Fast forward. This is my cake, with the cream cheese filling, and the beginning of the vanilla buttercream.
This is me trying to level the frosting with my 9'' spatula.

Viva baker's secret. It's not really a secret, but I think it should be sacred for bakers only as how to get cake icing this smooth. Literally almost flawless.

I had no more patience to try and get all the bubbles out, time to take out all my piping tips.

Ahhh Wilton 56 piece set in carrying case. (with 20+ more added to collection). Let's try the star tip.
Braided edge.
Let's do shells for the top border.
Don't touch... not done yet...

Ooooooh this is starting to look good. I love the color combination. Light teal with white.


Let's add some flowers. Fast forward a lot. My first time doing hydrangeas. Harder than I thought. I don't know how they make the rounded tips and perfect lengths for each level. But not bad for first time right? I didn't want to use another piping bag for green leaves so I just cut ziplock bag and it turned out just fine.
The almost finished product. I added some daises and other flowers, along with some green leaves. Just need to write my name and "Happy Birthday" and it will be done. Ignore the frosting dent on the top left of the cake - I had a piping bag-to-icing accident. There was skipped heartbeats and watery eyes. Not really - more like loud cuss words.
Fast forward: a rosebud vine. I've never done this before either! the best part is that you use the same piping tip (#104) that you use for full roses.
I think these are adorable.
I also like the colors I used for the flowers. I kept some flowers white to go with the borders of the cake, but I used a light pink from a pastel set from Wilton, and also the Leaf Green color, a MUST for cake/cupcake decorators.
hmmm.. what else can I do...

DROP STRING BORDERS! This was really fun doing. The only problem I had with drop string was that my consistency of my buttercream was too stiff, I should have thinned it out a little. But it wasn't bad at all.

Last but not least, "Happy Birthday Diana". It felt very weird writing this for myself. It's my birthday cake. I made my own birthday cake, and wrote happy birthday to myself. Weird? nahh.
The finished product.


Where did this cake end up? Good Question.

Placed in a cake carrying case.
8:00am: in the car
8:15am: On the train
8:50am: in the fridge at work
4:00pm: back on the train
4:30pm: on a table at the Palomar hotel
7:30pm: all around Jewel Osco in Chicago
8:40pm: in the fridge at Bucca de Peppo
9:00pm: dining table at Bucca de Peppo, accompanied by a plethora of candles
9:10pm: in the stomachs of my wonderful friends
10:00pm: leftovers back on a table at the Palomar hotel
11:00am: leftovers back on the train
12:00pm: leftovers back at kitchen table, where they first took shape in becoming a cake.









P.S. Sorry for the lack of updates. I still have so much to write about. But right now I'm in Maui on my birthday. Yes. Maui. It's actually 2am in Chicago right now, which makes it officially my birthday (only 9pm Maui time here) !Then when I get back home I will have much more to talk about. But until then,



Happy Baking!!

Hi everyone! Sorry I've been lagging on my posts but there's been so much going on I can't wait to talk about it all!

But first off here is the main event of tonight: Sugar cookie pops!

I haven't made sugar cookies in such a long time, and with the time you have to make the dough, let it chill, bake, then prepare icing and then ice and wait for them to dry.. phew. I spread the process out in two days so I wouldn't be so overwhelmed. But nonetheless it was certainly fun. It was also my first time making Glacé Icing for decorating cookies - so please forgive me for all the icing run-offs and lack of professionalism. Only with time...


Let's start with all our materials. Measuring spoons and cups, lollipop sticks, eggs, rubber scraper, butter and cookie cutters. Not pictured: flour, baking powder, vanilla extract, sugar, wax paper, mixing bowls, and lots of paper towels. Also not pictured. Extra sticks of butter. And extra sugar. Sorry. It's all part of the ingredients list. I didn't make it up.

I decided last week that I was gonna make some cookie pops for my work. "Cookie pops", is a term for a cookie on a stick. (Cake pops = cake balls on a stick.. get it?) Wilton, the company that makes all things for bakery utensils (and gladly takes half my paycheck), manufactures these 6'' lollipop sticks. They also have 4'' lollipop sticks, and 12''... and cookie sticks, which is a different post in itself. Since our company, Launch, is based on a paper plane, I decided to make airplane cookies. And look what I had in my hobby chest: an airplane cookie cutter. I haven't really reached outside the realm of cupcakes recently, and my level of cookie cutter experience is limited to Christmas trees and failed gingerbread men, why not give this one a shot. This was going to be an interesting task. New cookies and new icing.


I'm not going to post pictures on the dough making process. Although it's not hard to make, let's just say there's a few ingredients, but a lot of it. And since I made two batches of sugar cookies, it was double the sugar, double the butter. Not that there's anything wrong with butter. I mean, Julia Child based her whole career off butter. So does Paula Dean... but hey, back to cookies. I had to separate the dough into four batches, and wrap them individually with wax paper.

Then they go into the fridge for at least a good hour to chill. Working with warm, soft dough is a big no-no with sugar cookies. And since they warm almost instantly the time they get out of the fridge, you must work fast when you roll them out to bake. I chilled my dough for a good two hours while I went to the store for corn syrup that I needed for the frosting. Actually it took me 2 minutes to buy corn syrup. The craft store was next door.... that's what took an hour and a half.

I rolled out one batch of dough at a time, leaving the rest to still chill in the fridge until I was ready for them. Roll the dough out till they're about 1/4'' thick, and use your cutter to punch out shapes. Lay them out on a cookie cutter and bake them at 350F for about 8-10 minutes until the edges of the cookies are a golden brown.

I realized that I didn't want to make all the cookies a "pop" so I left a majority of them as just a cookie. No stick. But they do look pretty neat on a baking sheet. Looks like a Boeing traffic jam.

I also found a flower-shaped cookie cutter and decided to also make some flower pops. Before putting them in the oven, insert the lollipop stick halfway into the cookie. They won't burn in the oven. I also was a little skeptical on how well this will hold upright so I took some extra dough and covered the top of the stick so they would stay secure after baking.

Fresh out of the oven.. Oh and that "extra dough" didn't flatten evenly as I wanted. No worries though, they will be covered up with icing.

Random note: Baking these cookies made the whole house smell like.. well.. sugar cookies. It was so overwhelming that I thought I was back at Magnolia Bakery. Not that it's a bad thing.. at at all. I like the smell of hard work mixed with warm baked buttery sugar goodness. It's just. I think I have 5 more cavities from just inhaling it. It was so hard not to eat them when they were cooling....

don't.. eat...not done yet..



Here are the airplane cookies. Right off the oven on my cooling rack. So warm...

Must resist..


Ok, well maybe I ate all the broken pieces.

Ok fine. Maybe I ate all the broken pieces AND purposely broke some pieces to eat.

But let the rest cool. I put these aside and let them cool in the kitchen for a full 12 hours while I dreamed of sugar plum fairies.

ICING SUGAR COOKIES


Now here comes the fun part. The next day you grab all your supplies for Glacé Icing.

Powered sugar, Wilton disposable bags, Food gel (I prefer the concentrated ones from Wilton), Light corn syrup, whole milk, a coupler, and a small piping tip. I used a #4 and #2.
Mix the ingredients according to the instructions. I tried to mix half of my icing to match the green that we have at work.

Fill the decorating bag with the piping tip and secure with the coupler. Then pour in the icing and twist bag to secure. Pipe outline on cookie, then fill in the cookie with icing. This is called "flooding", it prevents the icing to drip off the edges. Ignore image above. That was a failed attempt to properly hold piping bag in one hand and shoot a picture with the other. Use both hands! Stability is key.

Now look at this picture. It's better. Kinda..

I outlined all the cookies before I flooded them, to make sure the outlines had a little time to dry.

Flooded.

mmmmmmmmm..... cookie.

To flood, use squiggle icing in between the lines. No need to fill in all the negative space, if the consistency is right, they will flood in the space on its own. If not, then use the back of a spoon to help fill it in.


After all the green was put on, I had to let them dry for another few hours to make sure the icing was hard enough to pipe another color on top. A good tanning session and shopping trip definitely helped pass the time.

I made one more batch of icing, only this time I didn't color it and left it white. Also, I used a #2 piping tip instead of #4 for thinner lines. With the white, I put "windows" on one side of the plane and outlined each wing and tail.


Excuse my lack of line making skills. It wasn't helping that my coupler was malfunctioning and icing was coming from all sides of my bag. But not bad!

Oh - here's how the flower cookie pops turned out. I wasn't happy with the icing job, but after I outlined the petals with white I was a lot more content of how it looked.

But now I have to think about how I will carry them to work. And by "carry them" I mean eat them all. And by "to" I mean during.





Happy baking!