Showing posts with label how to. Show all posts
Showing posts with label how to. Show all posts

Disaster!



I think the biggest disaster is that I always spell it "diaster."



Nah, not really. I think a volcano being attacked by a shark, giant octopus, wolf, The Cold, and an encroaching ocean is pretty disastrous. Oh! Don't forget the meteor and wrecked helicopter.



See, this is a cake that I was planning for Hillary's 19th birthday, and now it's 2 months past her 20th birthday, so to say this is belated is quite an understatement. Anyway, we love watching cheesy corny disaster movies together ("The Day After Tomorrow," "Absolute Zero," "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus," "2012" for example) so this cake takes its inspiration from all of those movies and more.



The cake turned out a little more cartoonish--maybe it was the fondant octopus or the light blue icy lava-- than I was originally picturing in my head, but it turned out really great. The "lava" and ocean are made out of royal icing, which made cutting into the cake a little more difficult than originally planned, and the meteor, octopus, and shark fin are all made of out Wilton fondant (why Wilton? Because it's cheap and no one was going to eat the pieces anyway). The volcano is chocolate buttercream, and the cake is coffee flavored.







Shout out to Sarah! For telling me how to make coffee cake, and to pass it on, I'll tell you now! (Because have you ever tried to google "coffee flavored cake recipe?" It doesn't work, I tell you!) OK, so you take your cake recipe (or box mix) and instead of putting water or whatever liquid, use double-brewed coffee instead. And my dad says there's some secret "thing" about double brewed coffee, like it will break the coffee maker or something...so I just asked him to brew the coffee for me.



So there you have it! The Disaster Cake. While not as epic as the end of the world, this cake was pretty grand, and according to Chris, the best tasting cake I've ever made!





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More Cake Balls and Disasters

Thanksgiving is coming up, and if all the holiday specials on the Food Network weren't enough of an indication, 'tis the season for delicious food!



Last week I made two different kinds of cake balls: I tried banana again, this time with a dark chocolate coating (not almond bark) and vanilla/candy corn.



The candy corn was interesting, to say the least. Joy and Haley helped me make them, and honestly, I don't think I would've ever tried if they hadn't suggested it. We made a plain ol' vanilla cake but chopped up candy corn pieces when we rolled them into cake balls. Then we tried to melt the candy corn to use as a coating, instead of chocolate.



The first problem was that the melted CC was very thick and difficult for dipping. Honey to the rescue! I suppose corn syrup would've been a good thinner too but we didn't have any of that.



The second problem was that the coating never really hardened. We put them in the freezer and everything but once they were sitting out at room temp, they got all mushy and sticky.



The solution? Coat the balls again in chocolate. The chocolate helped retain the moisture, and the candy corn took on an almost caramel-y texture and taste. The double-layer of candy coating actually turned out well. This is definitely an experiment I want to explore more.



And let me just say that tempering chocolate? It's magical. It's also pretty difficult, and I ended up with a lot of streaky chocolate, but thanks to my friends Hillary (for giving me the directions and confidence to try tempering) and Grant (who loaned me the all-too-important thermometer), I think I did pretty good.



I got some more cake ball requests from my family for Thanksgiving, so I'll try pumpkin or something equally delicious and festive. And Wednesday is the Disaster Party (an excuse to get together with friends and watch horribly corny apocalyptic movies and eat cake) which Hillary & I have been planning for a year, so I'm making the cake for that this afternoon.



So there's my baking update! I'll have lots more to share this week! :)






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