Fondant Fun

This week is another busy week. Packed with fun, two cooking shows, a baby shower I am helping put together, a preschool field trip, and now a sick toddler who I think may have shared her bug with her big sister. They share so wonderfully.... sometimes.
For the baby shower, this Saturday, I am making two cakes. A diaper cake and an edible cake. This is my first adventure in the diaper cake category. I feel it was a success. I have decided to go into further detail on how to make that tomorrow.
Today I made tasty fondant. Really, it is very tasty. It isn't the tasteless box stuff you can buy at most places, although if you use flavor oils you can make it taste better. It is a very simple recipe (thanks to google.) I don't know what website I got the recipe from but there are many places that show this recipe, and now I will share it as well.
1 2lb bag of powdered sugar
1 bag of mini marshmallows
3 tbsp of water
that is it. If you take the time to make it, it is much cheaper. There are other recipes, but this is the most basic.

Take your bag of marshmallows and dump it into a microwave safe bowl with 3 tbsp of water, then nuke for a minute. Stir, then nuke about 30 more seconds, but be sure to watch it or it will make one heck of a sticky mess in the microwave, trust me, I learned this lesson.

Then begin to add the powdered sugar. Little by little. Once it gets to stiff to stir in the bowl dump it out on the counter with a coat of powdered sugar on the counter. Then kneed the rest of the powdered sugar into the marshmallows.

And Vala! Fondant! Just wrap in Saran wrap and let sit for at least an hour to overnight. When you are ready to use it, nuke for 10 to 15 secs to make it workable.

I actually made two batches today for the baby shower cake. I also attempted to make some of the cake but I managed to mess that up, so both attempts collapsed in the middle and ended up in the trash. So now I have to make all the cakes tomorrow. Without messing them up. Because people will actually eat this one.
Speaking of no one eating cake, this is my finished cake for last weekends competition. I got no feed back, so I don't know how bad they really thought it was. Please no comments on how much you like it, I was happy with it, however I was completely out of my league on this one. The cakes that won deserved to win and I am happy for them. Including my step sister who won 3rd.

Cheetos

There are a couple problems with having snack food in this house. First is that I have no self control when it comes to junk food, mainly sweets. Second, neither does Big Girl J. She may have gotten that from me.
I don't usually buy chips to go with lunches. For some reason I did a couple weeks back. Since we usually have gold fish or wheat thins or an orange with lunch, this one bag of Cheetos has lasted two weeks. For that I am proud of myself. If I really caved to my weaknesses that bag could have been gone with in hours. I also don't usually buy sweets because I really have no will power towards that evilness. However I bought a box of rice crispy treats to be part of my cake. I only used two from a box of 8 or 10. I have really tried to keep away from them, except for that one that I ate the other night. Anyways, when the girls eat well I have offered them after they are done with their food. It isn't a bribe for finishing their plate it is a treat for being good at the table.
Yesterday, the girls are eating PB&J and the last of the Cheetos. The bag is thrown away, any left on the plates will be tossed, not eaten by me. I already had some.
Little Miss O hands me her plate, empty. Actually she threw it off the table, but we are working on that. So to keep them busy while I finish cleaning the kitchen, I give her one of the said treats. Now, my mistake, Big Girl J still has 7 Cheetos left on her plate, but no longer wants them now, that the treats have come out. So I put one on the furthest corner of the table from her. I told her to finish her Cheetos and she can have one. I turn around to put Little Miss O's plate in the dish washer, and turn back around to see Big Girl J with only one cheeto left on her plate. And Little Miss O has 6 Cheetos on her plate.
I just stand there, trying not to laugh out loud. I keep my composure, and ask, "Really?!"
Now Big Girl J stares at me, with a wonderful, 'what are you talking about' smile on her face. As I continue to stare at her, waiting for a real response, she just stares back.
All the while Little Miss O is eating away at the Cheetos.
Big Girl J finally speaks up and says, "She likes Cheetos."
I decide to make a very important decision that would make the rest of my day or ruin the rest of the day. I gave her the treat and walked away.

Progress... I think

The cakes have been baked, the icing has been made. The cake boards have been assembled. The candy light bulbs have been molded and the visions of cake hitting the ground in a parking garage by the convention center has flashed through my mind about once an hour, for the last week.
Alas, I started to cut, trim and assemble the cakes. I found with a blog, using a google search for 'star cakes', that demonstrated how to make the shape with two circle cakes. So I will show you since I cannot tell you what blog it was that showed me. First make two round cakes of the same size. In my pictures they are double stacked so I have made 4 cakes for each level. Translates to 12 cakes total, I would say yum, but we are not doing a calorie break down. That was just gross.
Back to your round cakes. Take the first cake and cut it into 8 pie pieces. Like so:

Mmmmm, Pie.

Then trim the round edges and make them triangles. Next take the un-cut cake, and make it an octagon. Just trim the round off the outside, don't cut too far into the cake if you want to keep the size. Then put your triangles trimmed sides to the octagon trimmed sides.

Special note, making a star this way give plenty of extra snacking pieces of cake for the baker!
Then use your icing as glue to hold it all together. Then ice!
But prior to icing the cake you will want to color your icing. This is easy to do in the blender while making your icing, unless you have 9 batches of icing in a 5 gallon bucket. Then you will need to use a concrete mixing drill attachment and an electric drill.

Thanks to Wonderful Husband for mixing, although I think he really wanted to be the first to use the mixing bit, icing or concrete.
Of course icing is much thicker than concrete, or can be, and was. The picture I should have got was the smoke billowing out of tired drill, that was laid to rest in a snow bank after the mixing was done.
Next, first layer of butter cream.
Side note, Gaynell the butter cream icing is just what it is called. technically speaking you don't have to use Crisco, you can use butter, or butter flavored Crisco. Although it tastes better with the butter flavor, for the sake of color the plain Crisco is best.

I really like the technique I have decided to use. It really cuts down on the need to make the icing perfect. I actually need it very thick and messy! This is also a good thing when I messed up the cut on one of the small cake. Just a little bit of tricky trimming and the extra icing and fixed! Of course that is an easy fix because I know that no-one will be eating this cake. That has also help me slip back into the bad habit of licking my fingers....

Butter Creamy!

The time has come. The days are ticking by. The cake needs to come together, tomorrow. Today however was for the icing. Time to dig into the 6lb bucket of Crisco. Time to break into the 25lb bag of powdered sugar. Time to test my blender.
I am using the basic Wilton butter cream recipe.
1 cup Crisco
2 tbsp milk or water
1 tsp vanilla
1 lb Powder Sugar (roughly 4 cups)
1 tbsp meringue powder  
TIMES 14!
I was able to do 3 batches at once in the blender. Then I dumped it into a 5 gallon bucket. In total I put 9 batches into the bucket. This will be the dark green base color and the glue to hold the cake together.

Like my models?

I made 5 more batches for the lighter color that will be the thinner top layer.

I will need the bucket to color this batch also, but the dark green needs to be done first, as in tomorrow. If you look close, but not too close you will see a small child licking a beater in the background, the giant mess that comes with mixing this much icing. But now if you look very close, by the blender, toward the edge of the counter, notice that very clean spot. Like maybe a little tongue 'cleaned' that area that had some powdered sugar dusting.

And of course after each batch, the question was asked, "Can I lick the beaters?" "Not yet," I said multiple times, to which the response was "Are we ever going to be able to lick them?"
This was only a 2 hour project from start to cleaned up, but to them it was pretty much a week of torment.
I had been trying to do the math on how much icing I really need to make. When I got to the second to last batch and realized I was going to run out of Crisco soon, I decided that would be a good stopping point.

Yum. 6 pounds of lard. 110 calories per 1 tablespoon, about 227 tablespoons in the container. Plus the 14 pounds of powered sugar. 467 calories per 1 cup, unsifted. 4 cups to a pound. 56 cups. That is only 26,152 calories from powdered sugar. Plus the 24,970 calories from the Crisco, it's only 51,122 calories in all that butter cream frosting. YUM! Of course you can take out the 200 I probably took in by licking my fingers randomly!

Preparation and Supplies

The cake competition is right around the corner, one week and one day away. Unless you read this tomorrow then is will just be one week, of course if you read this next week it will be less.
I have been buying supplies, stocking up. Knowing I have planned a very large cake. We not talking Cake Boss type of cakes. This will be quite mediocre in comparison to professional cakes, and should not be compared to what you see on TV.  But it is a cake I have envisioned, thought about, and built in my head for over 3 months. Now it is time to start putting all the supplies together and see what happens.
When making cakes for friends or my family, I try to make a cake from scratch. Good flavors, real fruit, internet recipes... Since this cake will require 12 different cakes, and will not be eaten, but simply on display for a weekend. Or crumbled on the driveway... a fear I have. A few weeks ago the store had a sale on box cake mix. A buck a box. Works for me!

I actually bought 12 boxes, but have determine I will only need 8. But I bet I can use all of the boxes with the mess ups that are bound to happened. Like dropping cake on the floor or forgetting them in the oven.

The on-going pre-cooking project has been the candy light bulbs.

I bought the light bulb candy molds online, they accidentally sent two. I am thankful for that now that I have been making these little candies for about a week. This is a first for me. I bought the bottles I thought I needed for this project, to help me squeeze the melted candy into the small molds. However these cheap little bottles didn't have a secure cap. The bottle flex too much for having one turn for the lid to be secure. I had many experiments on filling the cavities that ended with me flustered and with a mess. The caps popped off too easy with a little pressure. A couple days ago I used the last of the ketchup shortly after actually breaking one of the bottles. Then it happened. My Ah Ha moment. I cleaned the ketchup bottle and combined the soy sauce bottles and ditched the cheap annoyances. The last couple days I have made very good progress on what I was considering a bad idea. Now I am happy with them again.
This last weekend I went to Sam's club with wonderful husband for his work needs. I looked for more supplies. A 25lb bag of powdered sugar and a 6lb tub of Crisco. Hello butter cream frosting, to be mixed 2 batches at a time in a small kitchen mixer. But will need to be colored all at once, probably in a five gallon bucket, with a mixing drill bit. Wonderful husband recently bought one for concrete, however, that has not been used, yet.

Oh yeah, I will need most of it... Hopefully not more than that. I do not have the set up for this quantity of cake!

Eating Dirt

Remember when I made the comment about using Barbie's to re-enact what my wonderful children do? Well I do and I guess that is what matters.
Funny thing about where we live. It snowed last week and this week, today specifically, we are enjoying the 60's. I decided to send the girls outside after quite time/ nap time. They were having a blast, what a great day to get out and enjoy the sun, the outdoor toys and the dirt.
Let's flash back to the last time the girls played outside, it had snowed, a lot. I bundled up the girls and myself since it was at warmest in the teens, and we headed out to the great 5 inches! Big Girl J loves to eat the snow. She loves it so much she calls it ice cream. Apparently I don't give my girls ice cream often enough! As any good big sis would do she taught Little Miss O how to eat the snow. Now you can't just eat snow from anywhere. There are very special, very specific places, like the ice cream shop. The large whiskey barrel planters I have place on the patio. All the way across the patio from 'home,' the play house that consists mainly of a slide and boxed in area with 1 door. So the girls spent about 10 minutes, that translates to hours in freezing temperature time, going from home to the ice cream store getting yummy, fresh and Delicious ice cream. After the fingers froze we returned to the warmth of the fire place, hot chocolate and blankets.
Back to current day. Big Girl J and Little Miss O, getting their shoes on while drinking after nap chocolate milk. I send them outside and sit down at the computer to do a little work. With in minutes Little Miss O comes toward the door crying, but not to hard just enough to make me think her sister knocked her over. But when I turned in my chair and looked at her, I knew what had happened. She had gone to the ice cream shop, and ignored the out of ice cream sign. Little Miss O had dug in the planters, in the dirt and decided to taste the chocolate ice cream, only to discover that it is the worst ice cream in the world. No wonder her big sis wasn't joining in the fun with her. It wasn't fun, it was grainy and gross and when she tried to brush it out of her mouth she only added more dirt. Since she was a bit distraught over eating dirt, I decided not to take a picture. But after she was cleaned up, back to the chocolate milk and had a smile back on her face, I decided to use Barbie to show you how she looked. Now keep in mind Little Miss O was not wearing an evening gown, nor does she have long blonde hair, or any hair for that matter. However to give you an idea, she looked just like this:

Ok, maybe not just like that. Little Miss O only had dirt from mouth down, but I hope this illustration helps to see what I saw.

At least they WANT to help clean

I have a video http://qik.com/32032533/fe26a169 , but I am not sure how to actually insert this video. I used the app 'quik' on my 'new' phone. It works well, but I obviously don't know how to use it!
Back to the video. There are so many aspects of this video that make me laugh. I think I will start with Little Miss O. About a half hour before the 'mess', Big Girl J was asked to put away her pearl necklaces. She decided to put one on herself and one on her sister instead of putting them in her jewelry box. Shortly after Little Miss O decided to try on her sister's shoes. They are only 5 kid sizes too big... but she did a very good job walking around in them.
Now to what happened. Big Girl J is very into being independent and doing things on her own, this includes feeding the animals. She loves it, one could say it is her favorite part of the day since she tries to feed them multiple times every day. She thinks it is most awesome to feed them 'cupcakes', this is when she puts so much food in the bowl that is has a hump on top that makes it look cupcakey. It seems inevitable that there would be a spill of cat food from this style of feeding. But really she usually does very good, holding the bowl very still, and walking up two steps and navigating around a crazy cat who thinks she will never get fed again.
As you can tell in the video, Little Miss O didn't think holding the pan still would work very well. Now Big Girl J has had a little practice with the broom. And has witnessed mommy start from the top step and work down. But to my defense I have never picked up pieces and thrown it to the lower level only  to sweep it up later. But this method apparently worked very well for Big Girl J. In her process of sweeping and throwing cat food, Little Miss O was trying to catch the pieces in the dust pan. Now not all the pieces landed in the pan, so she felt it would be more effective to pick up the individual pieces and set them in the pan. The pieces would then fall out when she bent down to pick up another one.
The wonderful craziness was just great to watch. I had no urge to help. I guess I knew that when the dog came in the problem would be solved. Shortly after taking the video and trying to figure out how to share it, Little Miss O gave up on helping her sister. And only minutes after that Big Girl J asked me to hold the dust pan. I grabbed the pan, turned around and was very surprised to find an actual pile of cat food pieces in a nice pile on the floor. It may have take 20 minutes, more or less. But Big Girl J got the job done!