Island Cake

This week Aerie decided to play with her Wilton Cake decorating tips, so we didn't focus on fondant. Instead, we practiced writing letters on a plate, then made a cake to look like an island scene. The big question came with how to make the beach part of the picture. We decided it might work to crush up some life cereal until it was nearly powder, then sprinkle it on. It worked out quite well we thought. The water/waves we did with one of the angled tips. Aerie couldn't entirely avoid the fondant though, so she made the sun. We touched up the waves with a little white frosting for a more realistic look. The end result is what you see above.

Top o'the Mornin' to ya! Leprechaun Hat Cupcakes

We decided that just in case anyone wants to use the ideas from the blog, we should make things at least a few weeks in advance. So in honor of St. Patrick's Day we created Aerie's Lucky Leprechaun Lids. We started with a couple of different sizes of baking cups. In the largest we put only a thin layer of batter. These are what we used to make the brim of the hats. The bowl of the hat was just a slightly smaller baking cup. One piece of advice, it is best if you use a significantly smaller cup for the top than the brim.
After the baking things had cooled, we frosted all the cake parts green and stuck brim and bowl together.
The hatband we made with rolled fondant (of course) we cut strips with the pizza cutter, then hand cut the buckles and shamrocks for the top.

Viva la Pizza! More fun with fondant.

It took Aerie a little while to decide what she wanted to bake this week. We are going to be making a wedding cake next weekend for some friends, so she decided to make something just fun. Suddenly, it came to her...PIZZA!
Thus began the quest to make a pizza cake. Naturally, we had to use fondant (it is Aerie's favorite thing, and Dad's too probably). For the cake we went with the classic Sicilian style Party Rainbow Chip. After baking it into a couple of 9 inch rounds, and cooling we spread on the secret recipe sauce (buttercream frosting with a little extra milk to make it spread easier).

Next we made the different colors of fondant toppings. One tiny drop of yellow for the cheese, quite a bit of red for the pepperoni, medium amounts of green for the peppers, and a little cocoa powder for the mushrooms.
For the cheese, we used a pizza cutter to cut thin strips of pale yellow fondant which were then added to the pizza.
After the cheese we added mushrooms, which were half circles with hand cut stems.

Next the green peppers...
And finally, the pepperoni's which ironically were cut out with the top of the pepper shaker, since it was the right size circle for our pizza.


And now time to dig in!

Sweet Heart Cupcakes

Sunday February 1, 2009
This project is pretty simple. We decided that we wanted to make some cupcakes look like the conversation heart candies. We decided to use fondant for the hearts, and write on them with regular icing ( Aerie says that she just really wanted to play with fondant again since the blue ribbon cupcakes were so much fun).








We started by baking the cake and cupcake. Pretty much standard following directions here. Then we covered the cupcakes in white frosting, and colored the fondant pink and purple. In case you have haven't yet played with fondant, basically you can buy or make white fondant and then simply add a few drops of food coloring to a small ball and knead it in your hands until the fondant (and your hands) are the right color. As a quick tip, you can achieve a neat marble look to the fondant if you just stop kneading while the color is still partially mixed.
Next we rolled out the fondant into a thin sheet. You really can get the fondant quite thin and still get a cool result. We have found that for small shapes, it works well to make it about the thickness of a dime.
Once the fondant is rolled, take a heart shaped cookie cutter and cut out the heart shapes, place them on the cupcakes, and using the smallest tip from your cake decorating set (we use a Wilton's set that Aerie got from her Grandma Sally) write the classic heart candy phrases.
For the cake, we just frosted it and used various tips to add edges, and writing to the cake.
Nothing too fancy, but just right for some February fun.

Welcome to BakeAerie!

This blog is for recording the adventures of Aerie and her Dad as they explore the wonderful world of food.