Mooooo!

Well, this one would take quite alot of explaining, so I think I'm better off just showing you my masterpiece:That's right, it's a cow cake. A beautiful cow cake. Why?, you might ask. Well, I'll just say this.
My good friend Sarah was leaving the country for a few months, so at our gathering the night before we left, we celebrated/commemorated it with cow cake! No more questions.
This is a layer cake with Paula Deen's 1-2-3-4 cake recipe that I've used before, sandwiched together with chocolate frosting. Then I covered the outside with vanilla frosting, and then with rolled out white fondant.
Then I had to dye some of the fondant black - boy was that messy. Sure, you can buy black fondant, but where's the fun in that! Anyway then I cut out the shapes and stuck them on with a little bit of water, made the eyes and voila! Cow Cake!
You may all now envy my creation.

Tip of the Day: When dying fondant (or anything else) dark colors, wearing gloves will prevent your hands from taking on a similar hue.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Aren't they just beautiful? Cupcakes: food's miniature canvas.
Recently my friend Esti - for whom I made Peanut Butter Cookies a while back - had her birthday. What to make? Why peanut butter cupcakes of course! This recipe came from allrecipes.com, another good resource. It was pretty simple to make and they all came out nice and golden brown looking. Next of course, came the decorating. First I frosted these, using half chocolate and half vanilla, so everyone could have their preference. (Esti's is vanilla). Then of course, came those lovely fondant decorations. I had some fondant that i died the pale blue you see here, then I took some of that and added a little more blue to make the darker shade, kneading it in so it was all even and not marbleized. I cut out hearts in three different sizes, I have some fondant cutters but most cookie cutters will work as well, and arranged them in pretty patterns across the cupcakes. Voila!
I know, I know, you're going to tell me that why bother to put the fondant on when you're going to take it off before you eat anyway. Well, I think it looks pretty. Ok? I knew you'd see it my way eventually.

Tip of the Day: When frosting cupcakes without a piping bag, dollop some first in the middle and then use a flat edged knife to smooth it out in a circle motion.

Oh, this is hard

Oh, the wonders of cake decorating. If you do it right, the payoffs are huge.This is a cake I decorated for my friend Racheli's birthday. This was my first experiment with using fondant for decoration, a thick, creamy white frosting like substance that is popular among cake decorators because of its professional looking finish.
Throughout this process I learned many things about fondant.
1. It doesn't taste very good.
2. It can be quite difficult to work with (and dye).
3. If you pronounce the word a little funny, your friends will make fun of your for weeks.
Anyway, back to the great cake decorating adventure that is this post. And yes, I know there isn't really any baking involved here, (there was at the time - no store bought or mix cakes here) but bear with me.
Well anyway, I decided to purchase Wilton pre-made fondant at my local craft store, and dye it the colors of my choosing. The main covering is dyed a light pink, and, if you couldn't tell from this picture, the cake is covered in what is meant to be a string of pearls (see the clasp at the top?).
Well, this process began by dying most of the fondant pink, which took quite a while, resulted in sore arms, and dyed my hands red for a couple days. Beauty is pain people. Cake beauty that is.
So once the fondant was dyed, I rolled it out into what I determined to be a large enough size to cover the cake, and gently laid the fondant over the cake.
Problem number one: despite my eyeball calculations, the fondant came until just a centimeter off the cake board one on side, leaving a sliver of naked cake. Uhoh.
Now, if you look closely you can see the nice ring of fondant balls around the base of the cake. Yup, not in the original plan. Improvisation is the mark of all good cake decorators, no? Thats my motto anyway.
After that the remaining dying and decorating went relatively well, though I heartily recommend if you're not strapped for cash to buy black fondant pre-dyed if you need it. That food coloring definitely took its toll on my poor hands.
Well, this was experiment number one with the wonder that is fondant, and thank goodness the picture isn't good enough to show the lumps and bumps and imperfections.
Plus it's gone and eaten now - no evidence!

Tip of the Day: When working with fondant, make sure your hands, countertop and rolling pin are liberally covered with powdered sugar - you don't want your decorations to stick!