Easter Cupcakes (March 2012)

 

Flourless honey almond cupcakes iced with poured buttercream and topped with 50/50 gum paste/fondant calla lilies.

Calla lily dusted with yellow pearl dust for added realism.

Lesson learned:

• The Wilton Impression Mat adds beautiful details to the flowers and leaves, making them look even more real. I love making gum paste and fondant flowers!

Cake Pops Galore! (March 2012)

 

Chocolate cake pops covered with poured buttercream and decorated with coloured sugar and sprinkles.

Chocolate cake pops covered with poured buttercream and decorated with sprinkles. Green & white for St. Patrick's Day.

Lessons learned:

• Poured buttercream works so much better than melted chocolate for covering the cake pops. I still need to try the chocolate with Crisco method though. And when doing chocolate cake pops covered in white icing, two coats of icing are better than one (notice the difference between the two pictures).
• If the buttercream is too runny, it just pools up at the bottom of the cake pop. Still need to find that sweet spot between too runny and not runny enough ...
• The coloured sugar seems to be absorbed by the icing and you can't really tell it's there. Maybe I need to wait for the icing to cool down a bit before rolling the pops in sugar. Sprinkles work great though!

Million Dollar Championship Belt (May 2011)

This cake was supposed to be the Million Dollar Championship Belt: yellow cake carved to look like the belt buckle, filled with Nutella, iced with poured buttercream, and decorated with sugar pearls for the diamonds.

Lessons learned:

• Poured buttercream does not work well on a carved cake that has small, fragile pieces on it, like the points of the dollar signs. The poured buttercream tore off all the small pieces and made a big mess. If I had to do this cake again, I would probably try fondant.
• Placing all those sugar pearls was quite tedious. I lost my patience half way through so that's why they don't look quite right. However, the cake recipient is a huge DiBiase fan so he figured out what it was supposed to be right away! Once again, fondant would have probably made life a lot easier here.