What's new, Cupcake?

Crazy as it may seem, the vast majority of my emails come from baking sites - either blogs or online stores. I know, shocking, right? Just before Easter I got an email from a store that featured the new book, "What's new, Cupcake?" The email featured a photo of the cutest flower cupcakes I had ever seen and I just had to make them. They were a bit time consuming but as far as the skill factor? As long as you could use a scissors and arrange things in a circle, you were good to go!

You don't even need a recipe to make these cuties. All you need are cupcakes, frosting, mini marshmallows, colored sugar, and either chocolate coated sunflower seeds or mini chocolate chips. Frost your cupcakes and set them aside. If you need to, feel free to do a taste test. You know, just for quality control.

Pour your colored sugar into some bowls or saucers - 1 color each, and snip some marshmallows diagonally over the bowl and let them fall into the sugar. The cut side will be coated with the sugar and just arrange them, sugar side up, onto the cupcake in circles. Once you get to the middle, you can either use the sunflower seeds or the chocolate chips for the flowers center. Or just stick another marshmallow in and you're done.

Cute and easy!

Feeling lucky?

Yes, once again I am behind the times but I actually made these way ahead of St. Patrick's Day. I was getting another care package together for my brother and thought the shamrocks would be great and since he's in the military, why not camouflage them? After all, sometimes you need a little help getting *ahem* lucky.

I'm sure he opened his box up and thought to himself that he has a weird sister...and it's probably not the first time he thought it anyway. But what the heck, they made me laugh! What about you?

Wedding Favors!

In case you've been wondering what's been keeping me away, take a peek into my freezer.


If you're wondering what's hiding in there I can put you out of your misery right now. Those containers hold 498 wedding cake shaped cookies. Frozen dough, not baked or par-baked cookies (I prefer to bake my sugar cookies frozen.) The containers represent what I have been focused on for the past 3 weeks. Remember the easy plan that I had? To cover the cookies in MMF with Fondarific accents? The ones that would have taken me 5 minutes per cookies? Yeah, these aren't them. These are the result of my insane thinking process that took me from easy to disaster. The end result?




3" cookies flooded with Antonia74's royal icing, then painted with gel color. FYI, these are more like hours. Not minutes to complete. We ended up losing a few...maybe about 30 give or take a few, but my boss lucked out since he got to eat them. There was a bit of a disaster with a good portion of them smudging their color onto the bags once the were sealed. I saved what I could, tossed a few more, and am chalking it up to a learning experience. As in, do not paint cookies ever again! LOL


Now cross your fingers that they survive the plane ride tomorrow because the wedding is on Saturday and I am not packing any supplies to remake these cookies should something happen. Foolish? Yes, probably so but what can you do? Besides cross your fingers, of course!

Oh, and someone check on that pilot okay? Tell him no partying tonight because he's transporting important stuff in the morning!

Tsunami warning?!

Whew what a weekend! Who would have thought that an earthquake in Chile (or Chili if you're my MIL. Seriously, I'd show you the FB post but I think that would put me on the bad daughter-in-law list,) could cause tsunami warnings in Hawaii? And that the warning would extend to Japan AND Russia??? Regardless, my thoughts do go out to you, Chile! At the very least, I spent a relaxing day with the hubby at the park while waiting for the all clear and updating my mainland friends via FB.

In case you want to move to Hawaii, be warned that our weather is sometimes wacky. When you live here you may experience among other things:

• Trade winds
• Blue skies
• Hurricanes
• Tsunami
• Earthquakes
• Erupting volcanoes
• Snow
• Vog
  

So I've been a busy bee and I have a lot to catch you (two?) up on. If I only had the time! I promise to try and be a better poster next week unless I can squeeze something else in this week but with 500 cookies to prep for my HUGE project in a couple of weeks and a ton of fondant to make, it may be slow going. I can say though that at least half of the cookies are cut out and hanging in the freezer. Yay!

Be back with more later...

Temperamental macarons

When I say macaron I don't mean the coconut macaroons the you find in the grocery store bakery. I mean macaron - the classic French version that is made with just 4 ingredients and is very temperamental. How can a cookie be temperamental? Let me show you.


Batch 1 came out pretty darn good for a first timer. No cracks and cute baby feet. (If you're sitting there asking yourself what feet have to do with a cookie, well, in this case it has to with a ruffle that forms around the base of the cookie. My cookies don't have the full ruffle but they do have a cute little one so I'm calling that baby feet.)

Batch 2 - Blah. I piped it as I would frosting on a cupcake and it shows...including the peak! #2 did not rise very well, if they did at all. I think I may have beaten the egg whites too stiff which is why you see lines of the piping.

Batch 3 - Cracked. No feet. Not even a baby toe.

Batch 4 - Okay, to be completely honest here, what I've labeled at Batch 4 is actually batch 6 but that's only because the real #4 & 5 were given away as small Valentine's gifts to co-workers. Regardless, #4 -6 came out along the same lines as #1 so I am content with that...for now.

Here are their close-ups - don't let the rise on the pink one fool you. That only went halfway around the cookie!



If you want to attempt your own macaron (read this first), here are some tips that I learned through trial and error:

• Patience. Seriously. Just because it came out good once doesn't mean it will happen again. This isn't a chocolate chip cookie. This baby is about technique. Not that mine is perfect. I have a long ways to go!
  
• Almond meal is expensive. Buy some slivered almonds and toss those in the food processor to make your own. If you want, you can sift the meal/sugar mixture before adding it to your eggs to make sure there are no lumps.
  
• Regardless of the recipes that say to use aged egg whites, if you are worried about bacteria (like I am) you can use room temperature whites. I asked my company's pastry chef (who is VERY patient with me,) and he does not recommend it either and does not follow that step when he makes macarons.
• When adding color, regardless of whether you are using gel or powdered colors, don't be afraid to go heavy! Batch 1 was a pretty pink before it went into the oven and #4 was a nice bright blue. When they came out of the over, #1 had become beige and #4 looked green. The insides, however, were the right colors. #2 pre-baking was almost a day-glo pink and ended up being the exact shade of pink I wanted when it was all said and done. Go figure!

Good luck!

Who Dat, Baby!

I have no words...just cookies.

Kung Hee Fat Choy!

Happy New Year!

Yes, I am aware that it is February and no, I am not late on this. In addition to being Valentine's Day, February 14 is also Chinese New Year this year and brings with it the year of the Tiger. I myself am a Horse but you didn't ask my sign, so let's move on, shall we? Here in Honolulu the festivities have already begun. Yesterday the husband and I went to Chinatown to watch the parade and to feed the lions hong pao (minus the envelopes) for good luck. We also saw a spectacular dragon who was 150 ft long that I had never seen before. Sorry, no pics. I was too busy watching all of the lions.

What does this have to do with food? I had to attempt a cake for the occasion. If you know me then you know that my caking skills leave a lot to be desired but hey, I'm still trying! In my attempts to teach myself to cake, I purchased Confetti Cakes by Elisa Strauss. Elisa was the mastermind behind Charlotte's wedding cake on Sex in the City and in her first book, she features a Chinese Take Out Box cake. Seems simple enough in theory. How hard is it carve a take-out box and cover it? Answer: harder than you think. Here are my clumsy attempts:


You are supposed to see the seams of the box but I obviously didn't cut my pieces to the correct length. The overlay on the sides and top of the box are gum-paste over fondant and I hand painted the pagoda and the wording with gel color thinned with vodka. Definitely not my best work, but I do have high hope for Valentine's Day. Hmmm, maybe I should rename this blog "Clumsy Cakes?"

The inside was good though - yellow cake with a praline buttercream with a crumb coat of cream cheese frosting. Don't ask where I came up with that combo. I just went with what was around. Now back to the cookies drying on the counter. Hopefully they work out better than this cake!

BTW, never let it be said that I don't show you the screws up I make along that way! =o) Oh, and no one tell Elisa about this. I think she'd sent me a cease and desist letter post haste!