Cookie Stencils

Have you ever seen cookies that a beautiful design that is so detailed you wonder how they decorator created it? I've seen them too and learned that some decorators use stencils to create their images so of course, I had to try it too.

Stencils can be used on cookies or even cakes such as the gorgeous damask cake from my friend Martha...maybe you've heard of her? We're pals but please, don't spread that around. I don't need any crazed fans hounding me for an intro.

Photo of Martha Stewart Damask Cake from Martha Stewart Weddings & Culinary Stencils

These stencils are made from food grade plastic and can be used on BC or fondant covered cakes using an off-set spatula and stiff royal icing. I tried stencils recently on 2 different projects, with 2 completely different results.


Project #1 - Cookies for a friend's event, using her company name.



I used a metal stencil for the hula dancers. Definitely very sturdy and easy to use. Since the metal didn't bend, I had crisp outlines as long as my stencil was clean of any other icing.

Project #2 - Wedding favors

These cookies were made using the plastic stencil below. Obviously I need a lot more practice with this type of stencil (sorry Tiff!) I don't know if it was the way the cookie was iced or because of the font on the stencil which allowed the upper right portion of the S to wiggle (and was probably just my own inexperience) which made it hard to keep the stencil from moving.

The cookies look good from a distance but when you get closer, you can see that the edges are rough. Note to self - ask CookieMookie for tips since she is the stencil guru...



Regardless, I have an amazing cherry blossom cake stencil that is just begging to be used on a stacked cake so I will definitely need to practice again...after my next few projects of course. Next up - gumpaste!

I'm seeing spots!

Polka dots are back! Well honestly, I don't think they ever left. They just fade into the solid color from which they came until they are ready to stand out again. What am I talking about? I have no clue. It's been a long week and I'm pretty sure my brain is broken and I am just talking bubbles. Oh no. Bubbles - spots - I really do think I broke my brain. Thanks goodness the weekend is almost here!

First I have to get through Friday. The good thing about Friday? It's a CW's birthday and that means cake! More specifically, it means cake that I made. My inspiration cake was this:

(Photo and cake by lara3teach)

I love the bright colors on it - it's a very happy cake. If this were your cake, you wouldn't even care what was on the inside. Okay, I'm lying. I would care what was on the inside. I knew that with my limited experience my hope of recreating this cake was slim to none. Sure, the circles are fondant and heck, even I can do that! But the cake isn't covered in white fondant. Nope. That is buttercream all the way.

Let's start by saying that I've never covered a cake in buttercream. Sure, I've used SMBC as filling and under fondant, but I haven't tried to cover an entire cake with a crusting BC. Oh, well, time to learn and it was harder than I thought! Smoothing buttercream is hard. Try it sometime and we can compare notes. Luckily I had already ordered the funky letter tappits and they came in on time. After playing with everything tonight and altering some recipes along the way I ended up with my own polka dot cake.

I don't know why the name looks blue. I really isn't, I swear and you can see the pic below. No blue. Go figure!

I ended up with butter vanilla yellow cake (boy that's a mouthful!) with a nutella mousse-y filling and of course, the buttercream...that didn't really crust but I did alter the recipe a tad so who know what sort of chemistry I created or deleted. I tasted each component separately and I liked it but we'll see how it all works together tomorrow for breakfast.

Breakfast?! Um, yeah. I had some spare parts so I put together another cake. But it's not really for me. It's quality control. ;o) Then maybe I'll be up for practicing smoothing again.

A cake, a milestone, and lessons learned

It's been an interesting week filled with baking and (apparently much needed) lesson learned. In addition to the Cinco de Boy's Day fish cookies there were also mojito cupcakes (which will make it here eventually,) and a last minute cake order.

Order?? Yes, order. Someone actually paid me to make a cake for them which was the milestone. Get it? A CAKE, A MILESTONE? If you don't, got back and read the title again please and if you still don't get it, get some ice cream. That fixes just about everything.

The cake request came from a woman whose daughter was having a Sweet 16 tonight with a bit of an Alice in Wonderland theme. While I had some great ideas - okay 1 idea - tumbling around my head, 2 days was not enough time for a novice like me to try it out. I ended up compromising and offered a blue fondant cake with white diamonds. I don't know why but diamonds seem to go with Alice. As you can tell, it's been quite some time since I watched the cartoon version and I sure didn't watch Johnny Depp's.

A couple of late nights resulted in a cake that I was "eh" about but I had no time to go back and start over and several lessons learned.

1. When committing to a design, make sure you have the right dang cutters - both size and shape. I suggested diamonds. Did I have a diamond cutter? Nope. Had to bend a couple of squares. Where they the right size? No, AGAIN They were too big for the cake so I had to cut everything down with a ruler and a knife. But I do like how the tips of the diamonds are higher than the cake, giving it a slight rabbit ear look.
   
2. Remember drastic temperature changes! I tried left the top tier out too long after I covered it and it developed a huge bubble that I couldn't get rid of. I had to cut the fondant off, re-frost, chill and cover again which brought me back to cutting the diamonds.
3. Allow yourself creative liberties. When asked about design, the client basically left it up to me and while searching for diamonds I found a heart shape that wasn't a typical rounded heart but instead more narrow. I tried it out and decided that I liked it. It still had an "Alice" feel to it.
4. Don't take an order 2 days before the cake needs to be done. Especially if you have a full time job and you know the next 2 weeks are going to be busy and stressful. It's not fun to go to work on about 4 hours of sleep. Even more so when your boss is having a bad day.
5. Remember that you do this because you enjoy it and your next cake will be better.
   
6. When all else fails, remember that you have a mojito cupcake hiding in the fridge!
7. The most important lesson of all - find a cleaning fairy! Then send her/him over here!
   

Happy Cinco de Boy's Day!

May 5 - known all over the world as Cinco de Mayo is also known as Boy's Day here in Hawai'i, and in Asia. Since I'm not much of a drinker, or Mexican for that matter, the victory of the Mexican militia over the French army at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862 holds no special place in my heart. Boy's Day however, I grew up. A separate occasion from Girl's Day on March 3 (otherwise known as Hinamasuri,) Boy's Day is a day to celebrate a child's happiness. Drive around any neighborhood in Hawai'i in the weeks leading up this day and you will come across carp flags flying in the breeze. Normally, you would see 3 carp - 1 each for the father, mother, and the son but some houses have a carp for each son. Where am I going with this? Fish cookies, of course! A CW (that would be co-worker for all of non board members,) asked me if I could make a dozen fish cookies for her babysitter. Sure, I said. Not a problem. Except I didn't have a fish cutter. And I was stymied on how to make it look like a carp instead of just a regular fish. So I bought a cutter and figured okay, bake a cookie, flood it, dry, then add detail. Small problem. That would be a lot of icing on a cookie. Then I thought, why not flood the cookie then do some run-ins? Okay, not that's plan but I didn't count on white fish looking quite so blah and unhappy. See?


I woke up this morning and I still didn't like them. Luckily, I still had some dough so I made up another dozen and although they aren't white with color like the flags, they are much happier fishies.



If you ask me, I think kids would want to eat these little guys much more than the others. Plus, the icing will turn their tongues blue or red so that just an added bonus. The boys can even pull of the candy eye and chomp on that which will raise the gross-ness factor just a smidge.

No matter what you're celebrating this week, have fun!

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!