White and Gold Gum Paste Roses

My class project this week required that I make all my decorations ahead of time because we wouldn't really have enough time in class to make them. 

I decided to make a cake that had gum paste roses on top. And never having made them before, I was excited for the challenge. 

I saw a tutorial online for making a gum paste rose with only a circle cutter, so I was prett confident that I could handle it. 

I started by cutting out my gum paste circles. I smoothed the edges with a ball tool and left them in a flower former to help them begin to dry. 

I found that working with them quickly, and not making too many up in advance, was best. Letting them dry too long would make them crack a little when I tried to mold them. 

I bought some simple rose cores from Wilton to make this process a little faster/easer. It REALLY helped! I highly suggest the splurge! 

I started with the small petals, applying them around the core until it looked like a small rose bud center.

I made sure to put the leaves in groups of  3 & 5 as I went around to help it look more like a rose. 

After I had a row of 3 and 5 small petals, I moved on to the medium sized petal. Placing 3, then 5 petals around the rose bud I had already created. Making sure to turn the petals out and shaping them as I went.

Then the largest leaves got put on (also in groups of 3 & 5). And I ended up with something that looked pretty close to a real rose. 

And I kept going until I had 6 roses finished. 

Then I dusted all over the petals with pearl dust and outlined the petals with a gold luster dust to give them dimension and make them look 'antiqued'. 

Excited to see how they look ontop of the cake tomorrow!!! :) 

Red & Gold Monogram Mini-Cupcakes

This was a fun little project of mine that was not related to my classes this week. This is a picture filled post :)

A friend of mine (and my wonderful hair stylist!) asked me to make 150 mini cupcakes for a party they were having at the salon. They wanted a "R" on the cupcakes for the name of the salon, and their colors were red and gold. So we decided on red velvet mini cupcakes and she told me to be creative the topper.

One thing I did know that I wanted was a nice gold (luster dust covered) 'R' made out of white chocolate.
So I printed out a paper with a bunch of 'R's on it, each about an inch long. I covered it with wax paper and started using a small parchment bag and melted white chocolate to pipe a bunch of cursive 'R''s.


It took me a while to get the hang of it, because the chocolate is much harder to pipe.

Then I waited for them to dry and dusted them with the 'Old Gold' luster dust.
 
















It worked pretty well as long as you didn't really handle them too much.

Next I had to figure out what I wanted the rest of the topper to look like.

I started with a homemade marshmallow fondant (just marshmallows, a few teaspoons of water in the microwave until it gets warm. Then a ton of powdered sugar until its workable) and rolled it out very thin. Using the bottom of one of my frosting tips, I cut out a few circles of fondant to work with.


I painted the first few with a combo of vodka/luster dust to create gold discs. Not really my favorite look for this project.

Then using some fondant that I dyed red to make a slightly smaller fondant disc to put on top. Then used the vodka/luster dust combo to paint the letter 'R' and other accents.

I also played around with a few white ones. And painting gold luster dust on them.


















And a red disc with a gold 'R' and dots

Then a combo of luster dust and the white chocolate 'R' which really looked a lot better.

So I tried it out with a red fondant disc as the back ground and liked that so much more than the white ones. 

After checking it out with the cupcake papers, I decided to go with this style.

I also decided to spruce it up a little bit and add some Ruby Red disco dust onto the red fondant before adding the gold 'R' on top. It really made the topper look finished.

So I started making 150+ toppers........

Rolling out fondant....

Cutting out so many fondant circles and allowing them to dry for a while.

Covering them with a mixture of corn syrup and water, before dusting them with disco dust so that it adhered and didn't fall off.

The disco dust is much harder to work with than the luster dust but really worth it! The visual impact that you get from the disco dust is just amazing! 

Then covered them all in Disco Dust...

After letting those dry for a while, I added corn syrup to the back of the white chocolate 'R''s and added them on top of the red fondant discs.


















 It was a rather tedious task since the white chocolate 'R''s were very fragile and tended to break.

I did make a whole bunch of extras for this purpose but next time I will definitely make these out of royal icon or something else a little harder than the chocolate. 

After finishing all my toppers, it was time to start the cupcakes.

I gathered my ingredients and began mixing.

I used a extra small ice cream scoop to make sure that all of my cupcakes were the same size and all cooked evenly.



After I had them scooped, I baked them for 18 minutes...

Let them cool for 10....

And placed them in the sheet boxes (with card board on the bottom to help support the cupcakes), and wrapped them with plastic wrap to make sure that they didn't get dry overnight. 

While I was baking the cupcakes I made the frosting. It was equal parts butter an cream cheese, with as much powdered sugar as needed to get the texture you want.



The next morning, I unwrapped the cupcakes and got them ready to frost. 

Using the largest round tip I could find. I added small dollops of frosting on top.

Then carefully added each topper, trying to not get all of the extra disco dust on top of the pretty white frosting.

This is all 150 after they were finished. Really beautiful! I loved them!

And this is a picture my friend sent me afterward to show me how the cupcakes looked on the cupcake stand at the party. Everyone loved them! Yay! Super successful party! :) 

Sunflower Fondant Cake

My class this week focused on fondant. I had worked with fondant before but I had never covered a whole cake with it. Only to make small things (like cupcake toppers). However it turned out well. I was just playing around. There is no real occasion for this cake, but my friends are going to enjoy it. :)


I started out with two 8in (vanilla) round cakes, cut to be even on top, and then cooled.

I then used a simple ziplock bag (this was such a small area I didn't feel the need to dirty a pastry bag) to pipe a little barrier to help hold in my ganache/buttercream mixture.

Then filled it with a yummy combination of buttercream frosting and a ganache that I just couldn't get to set up (and I didn't have time to melt more chocolate into it either). But it tasted really yummy and it spread onto the cake very well.

After stacking the two cakes, I used a thinned down buttercream frosting to crumb coat the cake. Because we were adding fondant to this cake I did add a little more buttercream than I normally would to help it taste better for those that hate (and pick off the) fondant.

I was going to make my fondant but due to a crazy schedule this week, I just bought a tub of it. Much easier. A little more expensive. But for my schedule this worked best.

Once I got to class, I kneaded my fondant (using a little shortening to help keep the fondant from sticking) until it was nice and pliable. I used this time to add a little cheesecake flavoring, the oil based flavors used for candy making. Awesome! Now I have a yummy flavored Cheesecake Fondant! :) Then I rolled it out large enough to make sure the top (8in) and both sides (3-4in each) of my cake were properly covered. And flipped it on top of my cake.

Slowly, working from the top to the bottom, I rubbed the cake and helped it stick and smooth onto the buttercream below. Once I reached the bottom I used a pizza cutter to remove any excess fondant that remained around the bottom of my cake and smoothed it down.

After coloring my fondant blue, yellow, and orange, I started decorating.

I used some molds (pearl border and swags) to help make decorations for the cake. Using a lot of corn starch on the fondant and dusted on the mold. I had a few places where the swags stretched and ripped a little but they turned out alright as long as you don't look for a long time.

And the yellow pearl border across the bottom of the cake was simple, easy to add more or to fix if I messed it up, and stunning!

I made fondant flowers by using a silicone mold and two different colored fondants. The center of the flower was a cute little button.
I also dusted the swags with a white pearl luster dust. And I dusted the flowers with a gold luster dust all over to give them a warm feeling.

I made a sunflower cake topper to help make the cake look a little more finished. And added two simple leaves. All made using a plastic mold, cornstarch, and fondant.
To help complete the look I also dusted the sunflower with luster dust. I used Gold on the yellow, a cantaloupe colored luster dust on the orange, and a pretty green shimmer on the leaves.

And it's finished and ready to eat! :)