Royal icing butterflies

I followed the Wilton's royal icing recipe but cut it down to 1/4 measure as I was going to try this icing for the first time. I took 1 cup confectioner's sugar, 1 tbsp meringue powder, 1 1/4 tsp + 2 tsp water(for thin consistency) and mixed this with a hand-held mixer for around 7-10 mins. I wanted it a bit flowy so I went on adding water 1/4 tsp at a time till I reached the desired consistency.

For the butterflies, I drew a template of the butterfly and then copied it on several wax papers. For the colors, you divide the icing into three parts and color them yellow, green, and blue. Be sure to cover your icing with damp cloth to prevent it from drying. Fill out the decorating bags with respective icings with the tip# 3 attached. Once you have filled out the icing into the decorating bags, keep the bags inside the damp cloth and covered continously. Then pipe out the icing on the butterfly with one color at a time. Once you have done that, using a toothpick run it along the wings in outward direction to get the design on the butterflies.

As I had not used any molds for butterflies, they are a bit out of shape I guess and also I needed a more flowy consistency of the icing to give more smoother effect for the wings. Will do that next time for sure!! Enjoy decorating your butterflies!!

Baker's Play-Doh - The Modelling chocolate

Modelling chocolate is prepared from two ingredients, chocolate and corn syrup. Its like a play-doh which can be molded into any shape you want and can be generally used to decorate the cake accessories. It is a very good alternative for fondant and it tastes good though its very sweet. I had researched a lot of things about modeling chocolate on the internet and then gave it a try for the first time. I had a few difficulties, but the outcome was okay I guess. I had used the white modelling chocolate recipe for this one so that I could color the jungle animals in the color I wanted (It needs around 8 oz of white chocolate chips or chopped white chocolate and around 2 to 2 1/2 tablespoons of light corn syrup). I will be working with this more now as I am really happy I found something for my cakes that I will be able to play with however I like and create some wonderful designs.

Hershey's Snacking Brownies

This is the recipe I have adapted from the Hershey's site..The brownies turned out awesome. I had to send them in to my son's school and everyone, including his teachers, munched on them and said that they really tasted divine!! It is a very easy recipe without any mess. I used my brownie pan which I had got recently and I just love the pan looking at the results!!

INGREDIENTS:

4 eggs
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1-1/2 cups Hershey's Chocolate Syrup
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup chocolate mini morsels or chips

DIRECTIONS:

1. Heat oven to 350°F.
2. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl. Add the chocolate syrup, eggs, and flour; beat well. Stir in chocolate morsels. Pour the batter into brownie pan.
3. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

This batter made around 24 brownie pieces of 2x2 inches each.

Chocolate Chip Mini-Muffins

I just prepared these muffins for our local library kids craft session. Since the craft was for Mother's day, I decorated them with flowers. This was my first time try for all these buttercream flowers but it was really fun. I got this recipe from the Taste of Home magazine.

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:
In a large bowl, combine the first four ingredients. In a small bowl, beat egg, milk and oil. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in chocolate chips.
Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Bake at 350°F for 15-20 minutes or until the toothpick inserted comes out clean.

For decorating the muffins, I used the buttercream frosting. I used the Wilton's buttercream frosting recipe. For the different flowers, I watched the videos on youtube and frosted accordingly!!

Eggless Pineapple Pastries

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 can of condensed milk
1/2 cup melted butter (you can substitute it by 1/2 cup veg oil)
1/3 cup crushed pineapples
1/4 cup pineapple juice (from draining 1/3 cup crushed pineapples)
1 tsp pineapple essence (you can use vanilla also)

FILLING AND GARNISHING:
2 cups whipped cream for filling and frosting
1 to 1 1/2 cups of finely chopped pineapple for filling and garnishing

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line one 9- inch cake pan with parchment or wax paper and grease it with cooking spray. Sift and mix together the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Add the condensed milk, pineapple juice, and melted butter. Mix well with a whisk and then add the crushed pineapples to the batter and mix it again. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 30-40 min or until the toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool.

For assembling the pastries, cut the cake midway and spread the whipped frosting on the lower half of the cake. Then cover it with the finely chopped pineapples all over. Place the upper half of the cake over it. Then cut into 2 inch x 2 inch pieces. With the fresh whipped cream, decorate the pastries as per your choice of decoration and garnish them with pineapples. Let it refrigerate for around 1 hour before serving.

"Tom and Jerry" Birthday cake

This was my first time doing the edible cake image frosting. I had done a lot of research on the frosting to be used on the cake for this as we prefer whipped cream over the buttercream or any other icing and the cake image does not come out good on the whipped frosting. Most of them had the opinion that the colors in the image run out and fade away because of the high water content in the whipped cream. The buttercream was the best to use. I did not want to take any chances with this image as I was doing it for the first time, so I did the combination of both the frostings. I frosted the cake with buttercream just under the image and rest all the cake was done with whipped cream frosting. The image blended well after putting it over the cake in about 10-15 minutes. This was pretty easy to do and I followed each and every instruction on the instruction sheet provided with the cake image.

 The cake was two layered, the bottom layer was chocolate fudge and the top layer was vanilla with strawberry mousse as the filling. I used the star tip on the sides of the cake and tip #195 for the flowers on the borders. As there was not much place for the borders on the top of the cake after putting the image, I just decorated with sprinkles. The birthday boy had a blast cutting into it and his friends loved the cake a lot.

Captain Huggy Face Cake

There were a few "first times" while baking this cake..It was my first dairy free cake (the basic recipe), my first experiment with frozen buttercream transfer, was trying out the roses after a very long time..so I was a bit tensed as to how everything will turn out. I was pretty happy with the outcome..My son wanted the "captain huggy face" cake for his 9th birthday so I made the image of the charachter out of frozen buttercream transfer. This was a vanilla cake with mango cream as the filling and whipped cream frosting. I had searched this recipe on internet and decided to try out. It was a bit oily, so next time may be I will add less oil. Also, I have made changes to the original recipe.

INGREDIENTS:
3 c flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp vinegar
2 c water
2 c sugar
3/4 c oil
4 tsp vanilla

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and keep aside. Mix the wet ingredients in another bowl except the oil. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and mix well with a whisk. Then add the oil and mix again until smooth batter is formed. Pour this batter into 2 8-inch greased pans. Bake for around 30 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean. Let them cool completely before frosting the cake.

For mango cream filling, add around 2/3 cup mango puree to 1 cup heavy cream and 4 tbsp sugar and beat on medium speed till you get stiff peaks.

For the frozen buttercream transfer, follow this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFx38a7Bjfw .  The design I chose was bit small so it was a bit tough for me to get the exact details..but for larger designs, the technique will be more easy I guess.