So for breakfast this morning I had a cup of instant oatmeal and a lean cuisine for lunch – needless to say I needed something sweet. Every once in awhile, I head across the breezeway to Community Canteen – a little lunch/coffee shop in the bottom of the building across from mine at work – and grab a cookie. I like their cookies because they are super thin which makes me believe they have to have at least half the calories as a normal cookie their size. A huge plate of cupcakes usually sits in the display – but seeing as how I make cupcakes for a side-living, I usually never have any interest in them. Today was different – I was craving a chocolate cupcake. And that is when I came up with my new blog addition concept – why not try other company’s cupcakes and rate them! It would give me to do a little “market research.”
Cupcakes will be rated based on 4 things: appearance, the cake, the frosting and overall. Each cupcake will then be awarded one of the ratings below:
One Cake: Not impressed at all!
Two Cakes: Average – nothing special
Three Cakes: That’s a good cupcake!
Four Cakes: Wow that’s an amaazzziinnnggg cupcake!!
And feel free to comment if you have tried the competitor’s cupcakes!!
Yes I’m finally back from my Vegas, beach, wedding extravaganza vacation. After cleaning up my WP dashboard (aka marking 67834567 comments as spam) here I am to write a new post – which I’m sure you’ve been eagerly awaiting. I don’t have a Useful Tip Tuesday (other than don’t spend more than 3-4 days in Vegas at a time) so here are a few cakes I’ve seen recently that I’ve liked. All have one thing in common – original textures. By this I mean home-made looking cakes. The first one is from a wedding that the The Bride’s Cafe covered:
I think the textured chocolate frosting makes it more yummy looking! Next up is a cake I saw on Project Wedding:
I’m going to be honest.. I’m not sure how I feel about this one. It is one of those cakes that you can’t tell whether they whipped it up in 5 minutes or slaved over it for hours. It reminds me of a komondor for some reason – but I’m sure it was delicious! The last one is a cake from CakeLove (whom I’ve dubbed the mall cake place). I was looking for one very similar and couldn’t find it but this one will do.
The cool thing about these cakes is that you don’t have to spend so much time smoothing the buttercream out. Yes I know – you can use the Viva paper towel trick (when you were younger and pretended to care about your weight when you ate pizza, did you ever lay a paper towel on top of your slice to soak up the grease and then it gave it that weird textured paper towel pizza look?) or you can use this nifty tool!
Keep your eyes open for a really neat looking wedding cake I’m working on in the near future…
Unfortunately there will be no new Kara’s Cakery blog posts for the next two weeks – as I will be on vacation! But I promise to make up for it when I get back! Happy Memorial Day!
photo from HD Wallpapers
In addition to the coconut birthday cake, I also made a baby shower cake for my best friend. Rachel was headed up this way for her cousin-in-law’s baby shower and requested a cake. I immediately thought ducks, blocks, diapers – but this cake would be slightly more original. Rachel sent me the invitation and told me that Carrie wanted a sailboat on the cake – with lots of fish – in pastel boy colors. Given my fondness for sailing and sailboats, I was particularly excited to decorate this one!
The cake consisted of a chocolate layer and a vanilla layer, seperated with my raspberry brandy filling and covered in vanilla buttercream. I toyed with the idea of a buttercream transfer, but decided to stick with just piping the design free hand. I was very happy with the end result!
I think the fish were my favorite part! (… besides the fact that the shower gave Rachel and Drew an excuse to stop by!!)
I was certainly not as busy as I was last week (martini cake, birthday numbers, etc), but I loved these newest cakes. The first was very simple – a coconut birthday cake. So do I make coconut cake with vanilla buttercream? Vanilla cake with coconut buttercream? Both? I added a small amount of coconut milk to my vanilla cake recipe and a delicious cake with a hint of coconut flavor resulted. I finished it off with a layer of coconut buttercream in between the two layers and then covered it with vanilla buttercream. And what would a coconut cake be without coconut?
… added a birthday wish to the top
… and voila! A coconut birthday cake!
I love the texture of coconut on cake!
If anyone needs a birthday cake (or any cake for that matter) and loves Lady Gaga… I am dying to make my own version of this cake!! She did a pretty good job… not gonna lie!
Want to treat your pooch to some Kara’s Cakery Doggie Muffins? The verdict is in and they are very tasty…
The creamy cheesy frosting seemed to be a big hit!
A much needed nap for Aries and Nola after enjoying some tasty treats!
Mini Kittie Cupcakes available as well in delectable flavors such as tuna and catnip!
thank you Mike Ciota for the photographs!
There are a few instances in baking and decorating when a dam is extremely helpful.
One: When filling and frosting a cake. You have the bottom layer of your cake and you would usually just spread your filling over the top then place the top layer of cake on top of that. Well… what if you press down too hard and your filling oozes out – and it is something colorful such as raspberry and your icing is white! You want to keep that lovely red goo in its place and not mixed into your white buttercream! The solution? A frosting dam. Before adding the filling, just pipe a thick dam of the same frosting you will use to ice your cake.
You can do this with something as simple as a ziplock bag! Then fill with your filling and add the top layer of cake. A quick shortcut to keep your frosting the color it should be without any filling peeking through.
Two: When flooding cookies! If you know how to flood cookies, you probably already know to use a dam. Using your royal icing, create an outline. Let dry for about 20 minutes, then flood your cookie. Some use a thinner consistency icing to flood, some don’t. But the semi-hardened dam will help keep the flooding icing in and a clean outline on the cookie!
When I was little, I think I owned every Eric Carle book there was. Even if you aren’t familiar with Eric Carle, you’ve probably seen the Very Hungry Caterpillar in one form or another. Last year, Google celebrated the book’s 40th anniversary by changing the logo on it’s search engine page:
Why is this relevant? Well other than the fact that I love his books, I came across a post on the Craftzine.com blog that featured this wonderful cupcake arrangement. It made me smile!
I was very busy this week! First, Friday was the pick up day for the Mother’s Day Cupcake orders. I decided to go with a purple theme – with purple cupcake liners and shades of light and dark purple fondant flowers. I was very happy with the result and hope the mother’s are as well!
I was honored when my good friend Nan asked me to make cupcakes for her Art Exhibit as a part of FIRSTfridays of Falls Church. Many of her works feature primary and secondary colors, so she wanted cupcakes that did as well. Keeping with the fondant topper theme, I created multi color discs. (You should buy some of her amazing art work here!!)
And perhaps one of my favorite cakes is this batman cake! A friend of mine asked me to make a batman cake for her son’s birthday and I was obviously excited to do so! The only thing she specified was the flavor and that she wanted the bat sign on it!
And finally a weekend free of baking and traveling! Happy Mother’s Day everyone!!
