How to make your own Leaf and/or Petal veiner!

I'm actually really proud of myself for this one, lol!  I was making some practice flowers the other day and lamenting the fact that I only have a few, cheap petal veiners and how expensive it is to buy them.  But they give such a great and realistic effect to gumpaste flowers!  Then I was walking through the cake supply aisle at Michaels and saw that Wilton has a new line of silicon molds out and how I also wish I could build a supply of those.  Then it hit me!  Modeling compound!  I remembered seeing a tutorial on Cake Central about making a beautiful lace mold to match the lace on a brides dress.  If you can make a mold of delicate lace, then why not make a mold of a flower petal, and voila... a home-made veiner!!  The product used in that tutorial was fairly pricey, but I knew there must be other products out there...  So I headed over to the Sculpey/Polymer clay aisle where I thought I'd be likely to find something, and I did... Amazing Mold Putty!  So, here is my tutorial for making your own petal or leaf viener- you can use either a real flower petal or leaf, or silk ones as long as they have a well embossed veining pattern (below is information for several different products you could use).

Flexible Mold Products
Amazing Mold Putty (recommended) food safe, can buy online or at your crafts store ($20 for 2/3lb - $11 with coupon at Michaels)
Sculpey Mold Maker non-toxic, but not rated food safe can buy online or at craft stores ($10 for 8oz)
Make Your Own Molds food safe, available online $37 (+ shipping) for a beginner kit

I hope you enjoyed the video!  It's so easy and you'll save a bundle of money.  I paid $11 (after coupon) for my Amazing Mold Putty and so far I've made 6 veiner sets (approx. $150 to buy) and I'm not even half-way through my supply.  Which is great because I have some ideas for other kinds of cool molds that I can make, so stay tuned!!

Happy Caking :)

Tie Dye Fondant Tutorial

As promised, here is a tutorial on how to make Tie Dyed Fondant!  This is a technique I used on my 70's Cake.

I'm sorry there has been such a delay, I've been super busy and the audio on this video had been giving me a hard time!  There is also a bit of a demonstration for using The Mat by Sweetwise, since that is the product I used to roll out my fondant.  If you haven't heard of The Mat, check out my blog post review on it here.

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial (or at least learned something!).

Happy Caking :)

CakeFu Masters Series: Susan Carberry

I've already made a couple of posts about the CakeFu Masters Series and I am really enjoying it!  I just wanted to post again as a reminder to sign up!  Their next guest instructor is Susan Carberry...

A little about Susan from the CakeFu website:

Susan Carberry enrolled in her first cake decorating class over 12 years ago and after that the "Game Was On!" She just couldn't get enough of this wonderful world of "Sugar Art".

Susan's "Edible Works of Art" have won numerous awards and have been featured in magazines and TV show's including two episodes of TLC's Ultimate Cake Off in which she won one.

Susan Carberry is a world class decorator and instructor and we are excited to have her share her knowledge with us.

If you haven't already signed up for this FREE training series, I highly suggest you do so!  There have been 4 sessions so far and all have been fantastic.  When you sign up you can watch the replays of the previous webinars.  The last one featured Rebecca Sutterby and she shared her method for designing and sketching cakes.  I found it very fascinating and informative.  I know it will help me when designing future cakes, I can't wait to try out some of the tips I picked up!

So head over to CakeFu to register for this amazing and generous free training to learn from "the pro's"!  Oh!  And they want to spread the word about this web series, so feel free to forward the information on to your friends!

Happy Caking :)

Disco Ball Cake Topper

Well, I'm back from my trip to Florida and finally getting back to the swing of things!  I posted the pictures for my 70's Birthday Cake in a hurry before I left, but I wanted to share how I did a few things on that cake.  This post is a tutorial for the Disco Ball cake topper I made.  I used Rice Cereal Treats to form the ball so it wouldn't be so heavy sitting on top of the cake, and I also wanted to make sure the ball would hold it's shape.  I used Disco Dust for the first time to give it it's shimmery sparkle and I LOVE the stuff!  You can buy Disco Dust from Global Sugar Art or your local cake supply store.  So, here are the instructions if you want to try this cake topper for yourself!

First make your "mirror" tiles so they can dry thoroughly before assembling the disco ball.

Roll out a small amount of gray fondant on a lightly dusted surface (I used a piece of acrylic I got from the hardware store so I don't cut my table later!)

Trim the sides so you have an even square/rectangle with straight sides

Brush your entire fondant piece with gum glue (you can probably get away with using water, but I used gum glue so my disco dust would adhere well)

Work quickly to dust the entire surface with disco dust (I used Hologram silver)

When your surface is thoroughly coated let is sit a few minutes so the gum glue dries and the fondant hardens a bit, it's easier to cut that way

Cut across one way with a wheel/pizza cutter (I suggest measuring first, I didn't and my tiles weren't as even as I would have liked)

Then cut across the other way (again, measuring would be a GREAT idea!)

Lay out your tiles on a flat surface to dry completely

Make your Disco Ball out of Rice Cereal

Make your rice cereal treats, just used the recipe on the box (you can half or quarter the recipe to make an approximately 4" ball)

Form the Rice Cereal Treats into a ball, mine was about 4-5 inches

Use a lollipop or cookie pop stick up through the bottom, this will help to stabilize it while working on your Disco Ball and will help attach it to the cake later

Poke a hole in the bottom of an upside-down plastic or styrofoam cup and use it as a base for your Cereal Treat Ball.  I let my ball dry for a day so it was hardened and easier to work with

Roll out a piece of gray fondant, the same color as you used for the mirror tiles

Coat your cereal treat ball to adhere the fondant.  I used piping gel, you could used royal icing, shortening or buttercream as well

Lay your fondant over the ball

Smooth as best you can, but the majority of the surface will be covered by the mirror tiles so a few lumps or bumps are OK

Since I was attaching fondant to fondant I just used water as glue

Stagger the tiles a bit and just place them around the ball, use a pair of sharp scissors, if necessary, to trim the dried tiles to fit

That's it!  Let your ball dry a day or two so the tiles don't move around on you when you place your Disco Ball on your cake.  The disco dust is so sparkly, it's a really neat effect!  Have fun :)

Happy Caking :)

70's Cake!

Finally!  I have pictures of the cake I was working on last week and I've finally gotten the chance to post them!  It was a 3 tier cake for a 50th birthday party.  The bottom tier was Strawberry Shortcake- vanilla cake, strawberry buttercream w/ fresh strawberry filling.  The middle was chocolate cake with peanut butter filling.  And the top was WASC with raspberry filling.

I hope you enjoyed these pictures!  Check out these posts on how I tie-dyed the fondant and how I made the disco ball!!

Happy Caking :)

CakeFu Masters Series: Rebecca Sutterby

I have been very busy this week with a cake (and trying to get my house back in order after a long weekend away).  I'm busy documenting some things I am working on, so I can share with you how I did it...

But I wanted to take a quick minute to post about the next CakeFu Masters series training!  If you haven't seen my previous post, this training series is a FREE web series running about every 2 weeks with various guest teachers.  The last one was with Sharon Zambito and she shared her method for icing and smoothing buttercream on a cake (if you missed it, you can watch the replay and get her recipes for a limited time here).

The next guest is going to be Rebecca Sutterby and she'll be teaching cake sketching and design.  You can sign up for the next webinar on the CakeFu Website.

A little about Rebecca (from CakeFu):
Rebecca Sutterby is the master of cake perfection. She has managed to do some amazing things in her cake decorating career.
With a Commercial Graphics major and one basic cake decorating class, Rebecca has proven that her natural talent knows no bounds.
She has received 3rd, 2nd, and 1st runner up and the Grand Prize at the Grand National Wedding Cake competition. She has appeared on Ultimate Cake Off and Food Network Challenge, not to mention winning Bride Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful Cakes" in 2008 and 2010.

Check out her beautiful creations on her site Sugar Creations!

I've only seen the webinar featuring Sharon Zambito, but I am very excited about this series.  It may be pretty basic information for some, but I find it fascinating to learn from "the masters."  So go ahead and check this free training out!  They want to spread the word about this series, so feel free to share the info with others!!

Happy Caking :)

Raspberry Fruit Filling Recipe

When it comes to fruit fillings, you have several options.  You can use canned "pie" filling, but to fill a cake that tends to be a little too runny- so use it sparingly, and would not recommend it for a stacked cake.  Or you could use a sleeve filling, like the ones you can get made by Henry & Henry.  But those tend to be very sweet (and often a bit artificial tasting).  I have used them in the past, but I added quite a bit of chopped fresh fruit to get a flavor I was happy with...

So I have started to make my own fruit fillings, this way I control the sweetness and quality!  Here is my recipe for a great raspberry filling, though you can use just about any fruit in place of the raspberries!

*I should mention, that fruit fillings in general are a bit "slippery" so be sure you don't add a very thick filling layer (this is a great place to torte your cake, it makes it pretty and you get more filling because of the layers) and also use a nice thick icing damn to avoid your cake "bulging".

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 Cups Raspberries (fresh if available, but frozen work just fine!)
• 1/2 Cup Water
• 1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar
• 1 Tsp Lemon Juice
• 3 Tbsp Corn Starch

Directions

1. Add 2 Cups of raspberries to a pot, add 1/4 Cup of water and all of the sugar and lemon juice, Stir to combine...
2. Cook the mixture on med-low to low until the berries all burst and the mixture looks mostly liquid, about 5-10 minutes
3. Remove the mixture from the heat and push through a sieve to remove the seeds, I like to really work to get as much pulp through as I can
4. Add the mixture back to your pot and return to med-low heat.  Simmer another 5 minutes or so to reduce slightly then add reserved berries...
5. Add the corn starch to the remaining 1/4 Cup of water and whisk with a fork to make a slurry, stir the slurry into your simmering berry mixture and stir constantly for 5-10 minutes.  The mixture will go from runny and opaque to translucent and thick, almost like a melted jam.  When the mixture is thick and all of the berries have burst, remove your mixture from the heat.  (At this point, if you would like a seedless filling, you can push the mixture through a sieve again... I like to leave the few remaining seeds so it has the "look" of a raspberry filling.)
6. Allow your filling to come to room temperature, and then you can put in a container and refrigerate until ready to use
7. Makes about 2 Cups of filling

It sounds like a lot of steps, but this filling is really quick and easy to make.  You can add more or less sugar if you prefer a more tart or more sweet filling... It's really delicious and you can feel proud that you made a fruit filling from scratch!  Enjoy!

Happy Caking :)