Baptismal cupcakes
I had a request for baptismal Cupcakes. They wanted something that was elegant but also special for their little girls Baptism.
So I came up with yellow, green, and white cupcakes, with marzipan crosses, and little flowers on each on.
The icing is buttercream, ad the flowers are buttercream.
Fall butterfly and flowers cake
Here we have a stacked cake decorated with buttercream, marzipan, pulled sugar, pastillage and royal icing. I made this while in Baking and Pastry school at CIA.
(note: pastillage is a special type of sugar dough. http://www.pastrysampler.com/Questions_and_Answers/pastillage.htm
The cake was a vanilla chiffon cake, Chambord syrup, and raspberry mousse filling. (note: Chambord is a liquor made of black raspberries, and very tasty)
The ribbon and flowers were made out of marzipan that i colored red, orange and yellow.
This was my first buttercream stacked cake, or wedding cake. For the basket I use a balloon and royal icing. I made a base and made intersecting lines, once the royal icing was dried, I popped the balloon, or you can try to ease the basket off of the balloon.
For the butterfly I used sheet gelatin. I knew it would curl up as it dried, I was hoping for a good curve and not a complete tube when I came back to it. I made sure to cut out the wings, and pipe the royal icing on to the outer part of the gelatin sheet. You can see its “natural” slight curve. (I say “natural” cause gelatin sheets are not natural and are man made, but they tend to have a curve to them after manufacturing.) I left some of the wing clear and some of the wing area I colored in with different color royal icing.
The base of the topper, I made a pastillage disk and let it dry over night before assembling.
Image of the middle of the cake. The springs/curls are pulled sugar strings that were wrapped around a plastic tube. Also known in this case as a sharpie marker.
Pastillage Recipe:
1 package of plain gelatin
1/2 c water
1 t cream of tartar
5 c powdered sugar
1 c cornstarch
Sift the powdered sugar and cornstarch together. In a small saucepan, place water and cream of tartar in, then sprinkle the plain gelatin over the top. Stir over low heat until dissolved. There may be an amount of cream of tartar that doesn’t dissolve, just be sure no amount of gelatin is left undissolved. Remove from heat and add to bowl of stand up mixer, like a Kitchen-Aid. Put on a paddle attachment and with low speed, add in the dry ingredients mixing spoonful by mixing spoonful (couple of tablespoons at a time or so) at a time. When all is incorporated, switch to medium speed until mixture is lightened and very white, about 3 minutes. Remove from bowl, wrap in plastic wrap and let sit for half an hour before rolling out. Can be frozen; place in refrigerator overnight to thaw. Roll out with cornstarch.
cakesplosion 