Baking, Baking, and More Baking

So all day Thursday and Friday I baked with my friend Anna (who wants to be a pastry chief too). On Thursday I was at Anna's house and we made cake pops (recipe below), Butter cream (again see below), and Chocolate Ganache. I needed the last two for my cake decorating class that I have been taking at Hobby Lobby. The cake balls were really good and the Ganache was perfect in my chocolate chili cupcakes which I forgot to blog about. Then on Friday we made 2 recipes of Butter cream, a lemon cake for my friends mom's birthday, a raspberry butter cream to fill the lemon cake, a Apple and Blackberry Pie for my Papos Birthday. The raspberry butter cream was perfect not to sweet, not to tart, and it tasted like raspberries. I was not able to taste the lemon cake so I will let you know how it turned out taste wise. On Saturday I went to my friend Karlyn's house to decorate the cake. Unfortunately the cake sunk in the middle so I cut it in half put the raspberry butter cream in the middle and put the other half on top. The middle sunk! The cake was like sloping in the middle. It was terrible but with ALOT of help from Karlyn we turned it in to an amazingly unique cake. I will get pictures up as soon as I get them.

White Butter cream


You will need the following ingredients


500g (4 cups) of icing sugar (confectioners sugar / powdered sugar)


250g (2 sticks + 2 tablespoons) of Butter (You can't make quality if you don't buy quality ingredients, go for Real Butter, Organic butter etc)


2 Tablespoons of Boiled - Cooled water. (Water that has been boiled then left to cool)

Use a beater tool in your mixer to beat all of the butter with a little icing sugar,

Continue to add the rest of the icing sugar while still beating, and add the water to soften.



Beat for approximately 5 minutes until light and fluffy.





Hint the longer you beat it the whiter it gets.


Cake Pops

Start by baking you favorite cake. It can be any flavor you want. Then when the cake is cooled crumble it up into a bowl then mix it with your favorite icing just enough to form it. (If you are using store bought icing then use a whole container) Freeze the cake mixture until it is cold to the touch. Roll them into a ball and stick a Wilton candy stick or other small stick. Freeze them again because the icing will melt when you roll it. While it freezes and firms up melt some chocolate again any kind you want. It would be best if it was candy melts from the craft store because it sets better. When the cake pops are firm dip them in the chocolate and set them up right to set. You can drizzle caramel on top or sprinkle some colorful sprinkles the possibilities are endless, just use your imagination.

Finish

Sorry I have not blogged but I forgot. So the cake turned out beautifully. Picture below! I ended up making marshmallow puffs instead of doughnuts. It was 7:00 pm when I finally finished baking and Icing the cake so I decided that logically I could not make doughnuts. My Aunt and Uncle helped decorate the cake by rolling the fondant and cutting the flowers. Everyone at the party loved it. I am sooo happy. On Wednesday I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate chip cookies in the middle for school. They sound weird but they tasted really good. My class enjoyed them. I just finished decorating Jack's (my little brother) cupcakes for school tomorrow. I was going to make a swirl on each cupcake and then put sprinkles on them but my bag had a hole in it so I ended up spreading the icing on there then rolling it in sprinkles so it made like a crust. They look ok. Alright I better go to bed before I get in trouble. Night everyone.


Mary and Alex's 18th b-day cake:
This is Mary's side of the cake.

Another view (Alex's side).

Yet another view of the cake.

Update

Ok so I finished the chocolates, and my grandmother came and picked them up. I couldn't use the filling because it was like hard candy. I don't know why. Anyway, the vanilla cake is in the oven and almost done. I made the marshmallow fondant and it turned out really good (and it taste good too). I have not even started the doughnuts. I will keep you updated but right now the timer is going off.

Cake

Ohhhhh!!!!!!! I am soooo excited. My friends Alex and Mary are having an 18th birthday party (coincidentally they were born on the same day of the same month of the same year :) if tha makes any sense) and they said I could make the cake!!!!! I am soooo excited but a little stressed. For the first time I am doing a cake that like alot of friends will see it is not just for my fam. Anyway I also have to make 7 bags of chocolates, doughnuts, and cupcakes...oh wait I forgot my grandmother does not need them any more. The chocolate is for my grandmother to give to the pastor and his family and the doughnuts are for my aunt and uncle who are coming in to town. I am so excited for them to come. We will be running around all day Saturday just hanging out them at about 3ish we will rush to Alex's house (out in the middle of no where) where the party is. And then have even more fun. My friend Anna is coming over on Friday to help cook. She wants to be a cake decorator too. Isn't life full of coincidences? Anyway, I got to go I (hopefully) will post pics of the cake and chocolates and doughnuts.

Sad Day

So my dear readers so few and far between we must morn the loss of Sunny's Dounuts which closed down due to financial issues. Lets all take a moment of silence for Sunny's......ok so now that I've done that let me tell you some amazing news. So there is a bakery called Chef Sugar's and they offer classes!!! Yes real baking classes form a VERY talented professional baker!! Isn't that awesome, and they are pretty cheap too. I also want to apply for a job there washing dishes or something. Hey you got to start somewhere right. Ok well I got to go oh and I just started another blog check it out the web address it http://learningaboutnaturewithoutevolution.blogspot.com/.

Speech

Ok guy I have some VERY exciting news! As I said in my last post I was busy preparing for a speech tournament and I just got back late Saturday night. I am acting as a stand in partner because the person I was standing in for was in Mexico on a missions trip and his partner wanted to debate at the next tournament. With me so far??? Ok so our debate coach called me and asked me if I wanted to debate at the next tournament and having so badly wanted to debate said yes. I had three weeks to prepare and the rest of the debate teams were so helpful. My partner and I debated 6 times then were told we broke to octos (all 3 team policy teams in my club broke) and we went up against a very hard team. 16 out of like 25 teams broke to octos. The night of the award ceremony my they started naming the placings of the teams (who broke to octos of coarse) and we were not last finally she said and receiving a check mark....our names were called. We were 12th and the first recive a check mark. I was so happy but I could not have done it with out my partner who came up with some of the most damaging arguments or my club. Instead of it being team policy it was club policy. You need two check marks to go to Nationals and the fact that we got a check mark is amazing. You may be wondering what this has to do with food. The answer is NOTHING!! But I will be making a sweet treat for my fellow debaters to say thanks!!!!!!



P.S I will be surprised if you understand any of what I just said.

PPS If you are wondering I compete in a league called STOA.

P.P.P.S. In case any of you are wondering STOA is a national speech and debate organization for home schooled Christians!!

P.P.P.P.S. And in case you are wondering.....yes I am a nerd.

P.P.P.P.P.S. ........

Banana Fritters

Sorry Guys I have not posted in a while but I have been super busy trying to get ready for my next speech tournament. So on Sunday after church one of my friends came over and we made another Harry Potter recipe. Banana Fritters!! They were not hard to make but they were not like super easy. The tricky part was the Carmel. We had all sorts of problems. Turns out that they say stop stirring constantly after it starts to boil for a reason (If you do not the sugar dries up and clumps then you have to wait for it to melt into liquid form again) interesting thing sugar. It was interesting the first time that happened we threw it out thinking it was bad. Well now we know. The fritters them selves were easy but lacking a little flavor. I think next time I will roll the bananas in cinnamon or maybe add mint extract to the batter. Who knows? I guess that is part of being a chief, experimenting. Finding out what works and what doesn't. Well I better go, I have school tomorrow and need to finish the rest of my homework.

Eclairs

So yesterday I made eclairs from my Harry Potter cookbook. They were so good and every last one of them were gone. My first batch I made too skinny but the second batch was perfect. Nice an puffed. I put the filling in the big ones and mom came up with the idea of dipping the little ones in the cream. Mom says I can start baking whenever I want (after school of course) all I have to do is tell her what ingredients to stock up on. Now I am hopeing to do at least one new recipe every other week. So check in soon for updates and pics. I will post the recipe soon.

Cake

My Granny's B-day is on Saturday and I am making the cake. Now she asked for a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting nothing fancy, but I have decided to make that and put on top a ball of yarn make out of rice crispy treats and fondant. Wish me luck. I also want to report that I found a cookbook I am really excited about. The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook!!! It has recipes for the food mentioned in the books it tells you where it shows up in the book down to the chapter. Can't Wait to try it.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year filled with family, fun, and of coarse food. My cosin came into town an I made him a birthday cake in the shape of a Texas Longhorn (his favorite football team). Well I guess you couldn't call it a cake considering it was made purely out of rice crispy treats. This is because I used the wrong kind of cake pan on accident and it would not come out and yes I greased and floured it. My original plan was to make the head out of cake and the horns out of rice crispy but due to the blunder I mentioned a few seconds ago I was forced to used rice crispy treats for the whole thing and for the first time. It was a lot of fun but they harden pretty fast so you have to work with it quickly. I will post pictures shortly.