The day was gorgeous, the bride beautiful and the setting amazing.

I owe a huge thank you to Karen Leaf, photographer extraordinaire. Her photographs are incredible, as you can see.  I found her to be a genuinely kind and helpful person. A very important attribute to have I would think when you are having one of the most important days of your life. You can find her on line www.karenleaf.com. She also does affordable half hour sessions to take wonderful portraits of you or your children and even your beloved pets.

I was asked to make a birthday cake that mimicked a disco ball. It needed to be the approximate size of a soccer ball and have layers of vanilla and chocolate cake inside. A round cake that ended up being a learning experience from start to finish.

I was sure that doing this cake for me was what it must be like for those poor cake decorators that are invited to do the cake competitions on the food network. You know, the ones that might not have had time to do a practice run of their cake design before they arrived, but are sure with their experience and design ideas their cake will not only work but should also win the prize. Then however after the start of the competition they realize that the reality is things are simply not going as planned and a domino effect is beginning to take place. With the first disaster affecting the next part of the plan and so on and so on. This is how this cake felt to me as I worked my way through challenge after challenge.

I originally thought it would be just as easy and maybe safer to hang the disco cake than to have it sit on a table. I pictured one good unintentional hit to the serving table and there would go the poor servers chasing the cake across the dance floor. My plans for cake hanging lacked a true understanding of the weight of the cake and the strength of the Styrofoam expected to hold it. In hind sight, I still stand by that first idea to have it hang but would engineer the cake very differently this time around.

Disco cake is lit with sparklers.

Cutting the cake.

A real disco ball over the dance floor.

Incredible dessert station.

I was inspired to make this Van Gogh cake from a wonderful book named “Hello, Cupcake!” by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. If you are considering making a Starry Night of your own this book is extremely helpful. They make their design on 24 cupcakes instead of a single layer cake as I did, but it was such a wonderful idea I could not wait to give it a try myself.
A few helpful hints I would suggest before attempting this project is buying the plastic throwaway pastry bags. I used the Wilton brand. There is no need for pastry tips in the bags so when you are done with your cake clean up is easy. Another suggestion would be to mix the nine colors used to make this particular cake in paper bowls with plastic spoons again you can throw away the mess when you are done. To serve the cake I bought an inexpensive eleven by fourteen inch frame and the cake I baked in a nine by twelve inch pan and it worked out perfectly.
Like the book suggests the technique is so forgiving there is no need to sweat making an exact copy. I used Swiss meringue buttercream because that is my frosting of choice and I was afraid the yellow tinge of the frosting would affect the colors but it was fine. For the blue colors I mixed in a small amount of purple with the royal blue to keep it from turning blue green when I was done with the mixing. Remember to always start out slow and add your color a little at a time. Each filled bag in the photo was enough to finish the top of my cake no more than approximately a cup and a half of colored frosting was needed for each bag.

Easy disposable bags.

I brought my finished masterpiece over to a good friend who was having a birthday party luncheon and the cake was enjoyed by everyone however the guests were sporting blue lips and tongues after having their slice of Starry Night. After few laughs and a few sips of water the blue was gone, not to worry. If you feel inspired to make art and you like working in different mediums I would suggest giving this type of cake a try. There are so many paintings you could copy or of course you could always do something of your own creation.

Cupcakes from Sweet in Boston, MA

It was a gorgeous day yesterday. Warm enough to walk around in a light sweater bright and sunny. If fall is your thing you could not have been unhappy with a day like that in New England. My daughter, assistant cupcake tester extraordinaire and I headed north on our quest for one of the two  Sweet cupcake shops in Boston. Traffic was light conversation was snappy a fast trip down the Mass. Pike and we were in the city. We drove by the first Sweet shop in Back Bay, very easy to miss if you were not paying attention, so keep your eyes on the store signs. We headed over the bridge to Harvard Square after the typical challenge with parking we were finally on foot and enjoying the scenery. Crowded streets, music playing, a lot of people sitting outside, families, couples and students mulling about everywhere.

What shall we try next?

We walked through the square visiting a few fun shops, browsed some books while in the Harvard Coop. (The Ace of Cakes Book looked much better to read than I imagined, a fun book to skim through). Upon leaving the Coop we bought some sandwiches and ate outside, then decided to walk off lunch marching through beautiful Harvard yard. After that we were ready to attempt a glorious sugar overload. Once we spotted our Sweet destination we jumped in the door and were quick to scan the glass cases. The young girls working there were very helpful, friendly and quick to smile. The prices were $3.25 a regular size cupcake or four for $12.00, four sounded perfect for our tasting extravaganza. The pumpkin pie I wanted to try was all gone, so I am convinced it must have been wonderful. I would not let my assistant pick vanilla or chocolate she had to go for the seasonal cakes, actually it ended up not to be a problem she was immediately drawn to the wonderful looking s’more chocolate cupcake with the melted marshmallow on top and the red velvet with cream cheese icing. I chose the caramel apple, which was a vanilla cake with buttercream, drizzled with caramel then dressed up with a wooden candy apple stick and the molasses ginger, molasses cake with ginger buttercream and topped with a ginger crumble.

My assistant hard at work

We found a window seat and dove into our newly acquired treasures. The s’more was fun, the marshmallow on top with the chocolate cake was such a good taste combination and  the surprise was the graham cracker bottom. The frostings were delicious.  The candied apple cupcake had apple preserves in the center of the cake just as their apple pie cupcake does. The apple preserves were scrumptious. The caramel drizzle and caramel buttercream so very good and the wooden stick for a decoration was fun. The molasses and ginger together were also a classic and another dreamy tasting combination the ginger crumble on top just added that little extra something. We could not pick our favorite each cupcake was wonderful in its own way. We were in a silly sugar-induced stupor as we stumbled out of the shop back onto the very busy, sunny street leaving behind a fun experience and a shop full of what looks to be devoted Sweet cupcake fans.

Or whip it with some heavy cream for the top of anything really, wonderful on pies, cakes, you can make a yummy swirled caramel buttercream for the chocolate, pumpkin, apple or gingerbread cakes you make. If you have never done give it a try. Best done however when you will not be distracted so that you can keep an eye on your sugar because it darkens quickly and it will become more bitter the darker it gets you also need to be able to focus on what you have going on so that you are careful when pouring the cream, so delicious.

Caramel Drizzle

• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 1 ¼ cups heavy cream
• Pinch of salt

Cook sugar in heavy bottomed high-sided pan on medium heat, until it begins to melt around the edges, about 5 minutes. Continue to cook and stir with a wooden spoon until the sugar is melted and has turned golden amber about 3 minutes longer.
Carefully pour the cream down the side of the pan in a slow, steady stream, it will bubble and splatter. Stir constantly until completely smooth. Stir in salt; pour into heatproof bowl to cool completely before using.
It can be stored in airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week; bring to room temperature before using.

Caramel Swirl Buttercream

2 Cups of your favorite basic white buttercream recipe,? without flavorings added, including vanilla.
Add 1 recipe of caramel drizzle and mix only until swirled.

Yummy Halloween cupcakes

Halloween is over and Thanksgiving is just weeks away. Cool weather outside, pumpkins and apples are back in season, change of seasons, inspired cooking. It does not hurt that I absolutely love all the flavors this time of year offers up.

A road trip to Sweet in Boston is on the agenda. A cupcake shop in Boston’s Back Bay and also in Harvard Square I have got to try that looks fabulous on line. I plan on trying quite a few of their small cakes. I hope they are so incredible that when I get back I cannot wait to start baking my own versions of these small autumn cakes. Sweet’s fall cupcake menu includes, pumpkin, pumpkin pie, s’more, caramel apple, apple pie, molasses ginger, chocolate orange, chocolate cranberry, and brownie caramel. Where do you start? I am also not without thinking this might get fairly expensive by the time I make my way through the menu. No prices where listed on the site. I will write again and let you know very soon how everything I tried tasted and tell you about the flavors I am baking now.

Halloween cupcakes

I searched for fun and maybe something a little different in the way of cupcake ideas for Halloween. I was doing cupcakes for a friends dance class, tween age girls so I was not going for the super adult gore. I did not see one thing where I said, that is it perfect, just the usual constant reoccurring themes. So I decided to latch on to one idea and see what I could do to make it fun. My muse? The expressive, spooky eyeball with its limitless creepy possibilities.

You can make it very gory, eyes cut in half sitting on your cupcake with blood oozing out (raspberry sauce, corn syrup with food coloring, red piping gel). Or you can go in the way of monsters, fun, brightly colored, silly one-eyed monsters. I made the eyes and monster parts from fondant and applied them just before the party because fondant can get very sticky, droop and fall apart with the moisture from your refrigerator. Perfect project for doing with your kids, making eyeballs and monster parts and then just before or during the party creating their own silly faces. I know you can do this with candy, but I think they look very different with your own personal hand sculpted parts, whatever they might be, big noses, horns, hair. I also think it ends up being cheaper than buying so many different bags of candy and you are only limited by your imagination not by which candies are on the table at the moment. Wilton fondant works fine colored with food coloring paste. Both the fondant and food coloring can be found where cake-decorating supplies are found. If you prefer a sweeter tasting fondant you can order fondants on line or make your own.

Your kids can make their own.

Making fondant eyeballs

What you will need:

• Corn starch, confectioners sugar or Pam spray (to keep your fondant from sticking)
• Fondant, a small box or and including a small box of already colored fondant (extremely helpful since a dense black is difficult and a little messy to achieve doing it yourself.)
• Rolling pin
• Piping tip (for cutting small circles)
• Toothpicks (for coloring fondant)
• Small paintbrush

Here's what you'll need.

To begin

1. Roll your white fondant into a good eyeball size. You can trace the top of a cupcake liner on to parchment paper as I did to see if your designs are going to fit.
2. Roll out and cut your colored fondant with a piping tip. Gently poke it out with a toothpick then apply a little water to the back of the circle. Stick it to your ball and you have your iris.
3. Roll a small black ball and squash it with your finger to make the pupil, dot the back with water and then apply to your iris. You can do the same technique again to apply a small white highlight to your eye.
4. If you prefer your eye a little more real looking, a little glossy, you can paint clear piping gel with a little water on the top of each eye.
5. Use your creativity and remaining fondant to make accompaniments for your wonderful eyeballs or just use as is.
6. Store in a covered container in a cool part of the house, if you leave the piping gel off until you decide to decorate your cupcakes your eyes and monster parts they will stay good for a month easily. Wonderful for busy Moms or rainy day projects well before Halloween.