Sharon Zambito, Author at Sugared Productions Blog

Gelatin Sequins by Kara’s Couture Cakes

August 24, 2014 by Sharon Zambito Leave a Comment

Today we have a guest post by the Amazing Kara Andretta of Kara’s Couture Cakes:

About the Author

I am a graduate of The Culinary Institute of America and have studied under some of the best pastry chefs and cake decorators in the world. I specialize in fondant covered cakes, gourmet cupcakes and cookies, custom designed to perfectly fit each client’s unique occasion. The only thing better than how my cakes look, is how they taste! Ask me about cake!

Kara’s Couture Cakes
making the world sweeter, one cake at a time.

Kara’s Facebook

Kara’s Blog

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Edible Gelatin Sequins

Oooh how I have been waiting for a project to use these beauties on! I first created these in January of this year while I was experimenting with gelatin for my She Dragon cake. It was a whim and mostly because I had some left over gelatin. But. BUT! I stumbled upon something awesome! Here it is 🙂

*** A side note before you begin: I used sheet gelatin simply because I have lots of it around. You do not need to have the sheet gelatin, it’s more expensive than powdered in general, and less available. If you have powdered gelatin readily available use that! I like to demonstrate how to use sheet because lots of people don’t know how to properly hydrate it. To substitute powdered gelatin click here for the how-to!

I’m using sheet gelatin so my method to hydrate will be different from the powdered. Begin with a bowl of cold water that is deeper than your gelatin is wide.

I used one weighed ounce of silver strength sheet gelatin. One weighed ounce of any strength gelatin will do.

I roll the sheets one by one and submerge them individually into the water so they don’t stick together and hydrate unevenly.

While your gelatin is hydrating (which takes about 7 minutes for sheets) gather the rest of your supplies. I used Americolor Super Black to match my fondant, American Silver Disco Dust, and Super Pearl dust. Now… Before anyone gets worked up about ingesting disco dust or petal dust (especially after the news story recently of the wack-a-doo selling plastic pieces as edible glitter) know that they are non-toxic and can simply be scraped from the outside of the cake at service if you use them in your gelatin mix. You DO NOT need to add them to get the shimmery quality of the sequins. I just go overboard. And to be honest, since the little gelatin sequins are flavorless and mildly tough, people will most likely choose not to eat them anyways. But hey. We don’t eat cupcake wrappers either. Just take it off. (The wrapper and/or sequins. I’m not asking you to get nakey. You can if you want. Just keep it yourself. 🙂 )

A number 1 Wilton tip will restrict the flow of the gelatin when you’re dropping it so you don’t get puddles. It’s still big enough, however, to allow disco dust particles easily through.

If you use sheet gelatin you’ll need to squeeze the excess water from it as best you can. In the end you get less shrinkage and curling in the final dried sequins if there is less water that needs to evaporate. The more water, the more the drop will contract causing irregular waves and curls.

Place your squeezed gelatin immediately into a microwave safe bowl and warm it until it is just melted and there are no lumps.

You’ll want to skim these bubbles off the top of the gelatin before adding your colors. They can get mixed back into the liquid gelatin and create a foamy look to your droplets if it’s not removed. Unlike water or thinner liquids, the bubbles will not just settle out. They get themselves all tucked in cozy and stay put. Kind of like the in-laws. And y’all know how much you LOOOOOOOVE that.

Add drops of color sparingly until you get the desired strength. It really doesn’t take much. Keep in mind that they will seem to intensify in color as they dry.

After stirring in your color add any other sparklies that you may want. Again, you don’t have to.

Stir it up.

Pour into your squeeze bottle and drop by single drop size onto a non-stick surface like a SilPat.

Fill your sheet with little droplets. The less water in your gelatin the more you can fit on each sheet without them running into each other.

Let the drops dry over night…

And by the next morning they will be dry and mostly flat; some will be slightly curved.

Use a thin metal artists palette knife to scrape beneath the sequins to gather them into a pile. Keep you knife as flat as you can to the sheet or they will jump up at you. Spritely little buggers…

Ta-da! Sequins.

These are light, sturdy, shimmery, and ready to use!

See Part 2 coming soon on how to use powdered gelatin.

Enjoy!

Kara

Transferring an Image Without a Projector

August 23, 2014 by Sharon Zambito 11 Comments

Today’s post is from the very talented Krista Heij-Barber from Cookies With Character. I am excited to share this with you, because it’s not only adorable, it’s a great tutorial on transferring images to cookies without expensive equipment! Take it away Krista!

Kopykake projectors are awesome, we all have heard this. However they are not cheap. If you are a hobby cookie decorator or just not ready to make that investment, but want an easy way to transfer images, I have one for you… and all I’m going to use is tissue paper and a sharp pencil or food color marker. Yep, thats it!

Supplies Needed for this Project:

Baked Heart Shaped Cookie

Icing in Red, White, Black and pink- 15-20 sec.

Sharp Pencil or/and Food Color Marker

Tissue Paper

For this I used plain tissue paper that you use to wrap presents etc. Just cut a small square just larger than your cookie. Trace your image from a printed copy onto the tissue paper. I used the food color marker to start with and I will show you more later. However, you can use either pencil or marker at this point, it doesn’t really matter.

** Don’t mind the “grey” print. Yours should be black. My printer was low on ink and well, I was a tad lazy. 😉

Start by flooding a red heart on your cookie. *Very Important! LET DRY AT LEAST 8-12 HRS. Since we will be putting pressure on the icing, we don’t want it to cave in.

Place the traced image onto the dry, flooded cookie. Making sure it lines up with the bunny’s nose at the bottom tip. Now, you can choose either the marker or the pencil to trace. Just go over the existing lines that you just traced, once again.

You can see here that I did the bunny in marker and the wording in pencil. Since the red is considerably dark, the pencil “carving” shows up better than the marker. I was worried about the marker below bleeding into the white icing, so I tried using a pencil. Any sharp- yet not too sharp tool would work as well. Just make sure it doesn’t rip the paper too much.

Next flood the ears. While they are still wet, drop in some pink lines for the inside of the bunny ears. Let dry a while so you can get a nice definition between the ears and the head. Flood head shape, leaving a spot for the nose. While head sets up, place two black sugar pearls for the eyes or wait and pipe black dots later. I used these SUGAR PEARLS.

Pipe pink nose and one strand of hair a top his little head. While nose is still wet, drop a line of white icing into nose with either a scribe or a toothpick and pull it across.

Pipe paws in either two lines or one at a time. Leaving time in-between to dry.

Finish strands of hair and paws.

Now it’s detailing time. My favorite part! As you may notice in most of my artwork, I add eyebrows. It may not be needed most of the time, but I feel as though it adds just that little something. They can either be piped on or painted on. A lot of times when we decorate cookies, we use dot eyes for simplicity purposes. However, dot eyes can be very tough if you are trying to convey a certain expression. Without pupils to look to the left or up, it is the eye brows that can add so much!

*Although having said that, my poor little bunny looks more scared than innocent. Oh well, not every cookie is a masterpiece. Just eat it!

You can choose a lace border or dots. Its up to you!

As you can see from my supplies picture, I decided to challenge myself and NOT use any tips. I use these super soft decorating bags that were recommended to me by my friends Nadia (My Little Bakery) and Jill (Jill FCS). Nadi from My Little Bakery uses these bags exclusively and does the most amazing work!!! After decorating with these bags, I bow to her even more. They are fantastic if you want to throw out your 0 or 00 tip. I could never get them to work. But all this black piping was done with these awesome bags. So I will keep them for that and just choose to watch Nadia do her wonderful cookies!!!

Here is the printable template I used for the cookie:

Merging her lifelong love of art and baking with a career in illustration and design has given birth to Krista’s immensely popular cookie business and blog. After working in illustration for 15 years, she married that skill with her affinity for baking, and Cookies with Character was created. Krista’s fun yet refined designs have helped put her stamp on the cookie world.

Krista’s pages: Facebook, Website, Clipart and Tutorial Shop

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Grazioso Cake by Leyda Vakarelov

July 21, 2014 by Sharon Zambito 3 Comments

Hello everyone! Today we have a guest blogger! Leyda Vakarelov from Custom Cakes Atelier shares her gorgeous Grazioso cake!

Isn’t it stunning?

Leyda will share her technique on making this cake with Marvelous Molds’ new onlays, and a stenciled “sheet music” that encases the middle tier! Take it away, Leyda!

Below are most of the tools that I used throughout this project. In this photo you will see the two colors of the fondant/gum paste mixture that I used. I advise you not to use pure fondant with these onlays. Fondant can be a bit sticky and this will prevent it from dislodging nicely from the onlays. Use a 50/50 mixture of fondant and gum paste to give the fondant some stability.

*Please note that when I work with the onlay molds and I say “fondant”, I really mean the 50/50 fondant/gum-paste mixture.

If you are new to Silicone Onlays™ you can watch the free master class video here.

Fleur de Lis Pattern Silicone Onlay™
Bird with Blossoms Silicone Onlay™
Rise Silicone Onlay™
cornstarch
black royal icing
edible glue (3 parts corn syrup to one-part water)
purple music sheet mesh stencil
Pasta Rolling Machine
pizza wheel
large dusting brush
small paint brush
wax paper
scissors
food safe blade
food safe pins
small roller
small spatula
rubber scraper
extruder
wooden skewers

I pre-made these fleur-de-lis with a single onlay (you will see the onlay later on), and then I airbrushed them in gold. These can be done a few days ahead.

SECOND TIER:

This is an 8’’ by 6” double cake tier covered with fondant. Here I used the Bird with Blossoms, and Rise Onlays.

I began by dusting generously the entire onlay with cornstarch. Then, I removed most of it by shaking off the onlay. You just need a thin layer of cornstarch to prevent the fondant from sticking. It is crucial not to rush this step if the onlay is new. The fondant will stick less to the onlay after using it several times.

The fondant needs to be thinned down before laying it on the onlay. I used a pasta roller to get it very thin consistently throughout. But first, I used a rolling pin to thin it enough to get it through the lowest setting of my pasta roller.

I started with setting 0 and past the fondant through to level 5. The fondant needs to be thick enough so that it is at the same level as the edges of the onlay once it is pressed down. It shouldn’t be below the edges, because otherwise it will not be high enough to touch the surface of the cake to stick to it.

I took the sheet of fondant and carefully laid it on the onlay. First, using my fingers, I gently pressed on it throughout the surface to secure the fondant to the onlay.

With a small rolling pin, I gently rolled on top of the fondant. I rolled through the entire onlay working on sections at a time. Don’t go from one end to the other in one shot. Take your time to work the fondant in every single grove in sections.

I removed the outer excess fondant once it cut through the edges of the onlay, and then I continued rolling the rest.

Once all fondant has been worked in to the same level of the onlay, then you can start removing elements of the design if you desire. A good way to know that you have rolled enough is when you can see and feel all of the teeth of the design. Here I am removing some strips and I will replace them with new ones.

For accent purposes in my design, I am replacing some strips with some gold ones that I prepared and airbrushed ahead of time using the same onlay. Right after I replaced these strips, I brushed the entire surface of the onlay with the glue solution and then I adhered the entire onlay onto the cake. I will show this step on a later photo.

On this tier, I used two different onlays: The one with the stripes and the one with the bird on the branch. I created this template and I placed it on the cake with pins to save the space for the bird onlay, and to also use it as a guide for cutting the stripes that will surround the bird. You will see this on the other photos.

Here I am laying the stripes that will surround the entire tier. This cake is 8’’ tall. So, two applications upwards of the onlay are required to reach the full height of the cake. Once you apply the first set of stripes, it is important to match up the second application lengthwise as close as possible with the first. In order to be accurate, I placed a pin that marked the end of the onlay during the first application. You can see this pin on the right side of the photo.

With a sharp blade and the template as a guide, I cut the strips on both sides into perfect curves.

With a straight edge and a sharp blade, I cut the strips on the back to fit nicely. Note that since the cake is covered in fondant and this adds thickness to the surface of the cake, it will almost always be necessary to make your own adjustments at the end. If things do not match up nicely, you can make this the back of your cake.

Here I am working with the bird onlay. I followed all of the earlier steps as with the stripes onlay. I am removing excess fondant and I am just leaving the shape of the design. It is important to roll the fondant carefully into the onlays that have more intricate detail so that you don’t distort your design when you are removing the excess.

If you look at the bird, you will see that I removed some segments of fondant to create more interest. This of course, is optional!

In order to place the onlay on the cake at the proper height, I used a strip of wax paper as a guide. I pre-cut this strip to my desired height (5 cm.) and I adhered it to the cake with shortening (not with glue). I also placed a mark on the side of the onlay and on the wax paper strip to keep everything centered.

You can see the final image on the cake. If it is a bit shiny where you had the wax paper strip, you can gently wipe the area with dry paper towel, and then you can mildly buffer it up with cornstarch.

FIRST (BOTTOM) TIER:

This is a 16” by 4” cake covered in fondant. Here I used the Fleur de Lis, and the Fleur de Lis Medallion onlays.

With this tier I wanted to add more interest to my onlay design by “printing” musical notes onto my fondant before laying it on the onlay. First, I rolled the fondant as before on the pasta roller through setting 5. Second, I used the sheet music mesh stencil to print the notes onto the fondant with black royal icing. The consistency of the icing should be thin, but still of piping consistency.

First, I applied the icing generously with a small spatula, and then I scraped most of it with a small rubber scraper.

I removed the mesh stencil gently, and then with a medium pizza cutter I removed the messy edges.

You can see the clean image on the fondant. The onlay is already dusted lightly, but thoroughly with cornstarch.

As I stated earlier, press the fondant onto the onlay with your hands first and then use a small rolling pin to work it all the way in. Make sure to do this all around the onlay.

After rolling everything nicely in the silicone onlay, I applied the glue all around.

After applying the glue, I removed parts of the design that I did not want. You can also apply the glue after you remove these parts out, but I find it easier to remove fondant once the glue has been applied even though you end up with some sticky fingers!

Here I am just doing some final touch ups before adhering the onlay onto the cake.

I am replacing one of the large fleur-de-lis with a pre-made gold fleur-de-lis. Again, this step is optional! If you do this step, remember to apply glue to this new fleur-de-lis too. If it is a bit stiff, microwave it for 15-20 seconds to make it a bit bendy.

This bottom tier is 4’’ tall like the height of the onlay. Notice how the bottom of the onlay has to be in direct contact with the table.

Note how the wavy edge of the side of the onlay fits nicely around the fleur-de-lis that is already on the cake. It is important to do this alignment carefully so that you do not end up with obvious gaps from one application to the next. Practice on a different surface before you do this on the cake. You can use the little openings on the onlay to guide you with this alignment. Before you remove the onlay, with your fingers press all around the surface of the onlay to force every piece of fondant to adhere to the cake.

Slowly take one end of the onlay and start removing it from the surface of the cake. Again, try not to rush this step and watch what is happening with the design the whole time. I found it helpful to exert some pressure on the onlay with my left hand as I remove it with the other hand. By doing this you are securing the covered part of the design to stay in place.

THIRD (UPPER) TIER:

This is a 6” by 4” cake covered with fondant. Here I used the Fleur de-Lis Medallion onlay.

I used this single onlay to make the gold fleur-de-lis.

I also used the single onlay to attach the fleur-de-lis properly on the cake. If the fleur-de-lis tends to dislodge from the onlay as you lift it up, dab a little bit of shortening on it just to help it stay in.

After pressing the onlay for a bit on the cake, the fleur-de-lis adhered perfectly.

FINAL TOUCH-UPS:

Here you can see the designs and minor alterations on the back of the bottom and middle tiers.

I extruded a thin fondant string to close the gap of the second tier. I did the same thing with the small upper tier with its respective color.

SHEET-MUSIC WRAP:

I created gum paste sheets (9” by 6”) with the pasta roller, up to setting 5. I printed the same notes design with the mesh stencil (surrounded with paper to prevent leaking). Then, I frilled all of the music sheets that will embrace the second tier. I chose gum paste (colored off-white) so that the strip they will make stays in place with very little support.

All the sheets were prepared just like this one. Note that I cut the sheets into trapezoids before frilling.

The sheets were joined together with glue to form a long arch that will then fold into a cone on the cake.

I placed some supports to hold the cone formed by the arch until it dried completely overnight.

Flawless!

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Leyda Vakarelov is the owner of Custom Cakes Atelier, located in Chapel Hill, NC. This small cake atelier specializes in unique artistic cake design with strong emphasis on artistic composition and detailed work.

— Leyda’s website

— Facebook page

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4th of July Round Up

June 29, 2014 by Sharon Zambito Leave a Comment

Hey y’all! It’s finally summer and with summer comes, picnics, barbeques, pool parties, and beach parties! What is more “summery” (if that’s even a word) than the 4th of July to celebrate our Nation’s Independence Day? And, well, you can’t just arrive empty handed to one of these functions, right? So, we’ve decided to help you with some fabulous ideas and tutorials from some of our valued contributors and some other neat ideas so that you will look like the hero of the party! Enjoy!

From Hungry Happenings:

Red, White and Blue Tie-Dye Cake

Red, White and Blue Fudge Stars

From Haniela’s:

Patriotic Star Cookies

4th of July Cupcakes

From The Partiologist:

Firecracker Cake!

Star Ice Cream Bars

Uncle Sam Cookies

From Woodland Bakery:

July 4th USA Flag Cupcake Cake

From Cookin’ Cowgirl:

Firecracker Cookies

From A Farmgirl’s Dabbles:

Patriotic Ice Cream Sandwiches

From Bakerella:

Snow Cones

From The TomKat Studio:

Patriotic Pinwheels

From Blooms Designs:

Patriotic Popcorn

And for my Canadian friends celebrating Canada Day on July 1st:

From Multi-Testing Mommy:

Canada Day Sugar Cookies

I hope this helps! I’m off to watch more fireworks! 🙂

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Standing Letter Cake

May 27, 2014 by Sharon Zambito 13 Comments

Hello everyone!

I want to share with you this cake I made for my son’s high school graduation. I was very pressed for time in getting it done, as well as preparing for the big party we threw for him, so this is not a high quality professional photo tutorial by any means.

It is more of an explanation of how I created the cake with a few craptastic photos that I took added in. This in no way represents the quality of tutorials I deliver in my online cake decorating school, LOL.

The method that I used would not apply to every letter of the alphabet, but hopefully you will be able to take away some techniques from this tutorial that you can apply to other cakes. So here we go!

(click to enlarge:)

The diagram above basically shows how the cake was constructed. The very bottom portion was Styrofoam cut from a 2 inch thick sheet cake dummy. Because the bottom of the letter has those cut angles on each side, I wanted to be sure that the base was strong enough to support the weight of the tall side of the J. I put a piece of regular cake cardboard on top of the Styrofoam for food safety reasons. Then I built the cake above that. This cake was about 17 inches tall, and after it was ganached and covered in modeling chocolate it was about 3 inches deep, (front to back). So it was basically a very tall and skinny cake. (caps and I would say it served 15 – 20).

I baked 2 inch high dense chocolate cakes in two pans: a 9 x 13 and a 12 x 18. I overfilled the pans so the cakes would bake over the top, so that when I leveled the cakes they would be as close to 2 inches tall as possible. I then cut pieces from those sheet cakes as I built the cake.

I used ¼ inch foam core to support the “tiers” of the cake. I did not want to go any higher than 6 inches of cake without internal support. I used bubble tea straws for support as indicated in the diagram above.

NOTE: I built the cake while it was actually lying flat on its back on a big board. Then I ganached it, partially covered it in modeling chocolate. And not until then did I stand it up, secure to the base board and finish it. You will see more of this process in the photos that follow.

I made a paper template in the actual size I wanted the finished cake to be. (photo above). I then used this as a guide to to make the foamcore ganache templates, and also used this as a guide to build the cake.

The photo above shows the section of Styrofoam cut out for the bottom of the cake. IMPORTANT: the size of this Styrofoam base is about a1/4 -1/2 inch smaller all the way around than the paper template itself.

The reason for that is that there has to be enough room around the cake, once built, to apply a thick layer of ganache. If you cut this Styrofoam piece exactly the same size as the template, and build the rest of the cake to the exact measurements of your paper template, you will have no room for ganache later when you use the cardboard templates.

Above you see two templates made from one quarter inch foam core. These were my ganache boards. These were covered in press and seal plastic wrap, and used as the guide for the bench scraper to ganache the cake after it was built.

This next portion I am going to explain, I do not have process photos of:

I built the cake lying flat on the bottom foamcore template. I had the entire thing lying on the larger foamcore board (that you see in the photo below). Once the cake was all “stacked” and built, I then put a layer of ganache on the entire top surface of the cake. While the ganache was still very soft, I put the top foamcore template (covered in press and seal) on it and pressed firmly down. I used a level while pressing down on the top template to get it as level as possible. I then left it alone for a while so the ganache would firm up. Then I took a larger foamcore board and put it on top of the entire cake and flipped the entire project over. I removed the previously bottom, but now on top, foamcore template. Repeated the process of applying a layer of ganache, putting the (press and seal covered) template board back on, pressing firmly and getting it level. I left that to set up until firm.

Then I ganached the sides of the cake and used the edges of the two templates on the top and bottom of the cake to guide my bench scraper, to give me the sharp outline of the letter. (We have instructional videos in our online school on making spreadable ganache, as well as using two template boards like this to create a perfect shell.)

I put a very thick layer of ganache on all sides of the cake, because I wanted it to be super stable once I stood it up. I wasn’t sure how the cake was going to react to standing up straight, so I went really heavy with the coating of ganache. (You can see here why it is important that the Styrofoam base and the entire cake once built, was smaller than the actual template boards. It left space for ganache to be applied around the outer perimeter of the cake.)

Remember that the top and bottom templates are covered in press and seal plastic wrap. The smooth sides of the plastic wrapped templates are against the ganache. Once the whole cake was covered in ganache, (as you see in the photo above), I left it overnight to totally set up. The next day, the templates popped right off and I repaired any divots in the surface of the ganache with some fresh ganache and let that set up totally before starting to cover the cake.

Next came the covering of the cake. I decided to use modeling chocolate so that I would have more workability time and be able to blend seams and such better than if I had used fondant. In retrospect, I’m not sure I would do that again. The modeling chocolate showed a lot of blemishes and was rather “delicate”. I wonder if I could have gotten a cleaner looking surface using fondant with tylose. (I realize that these photos do not show the imperfections in the surface of the cake, but there were many.)

Back to the covering of the cake: I first covered the sides of the letter. I rolled out strips of modeling chocolate and wrapped them around the sides of the cake. I did not cover the whole perimeter of the cake in one strip of modeling chocolate. I did it in sections and placed the seams in the inside corners of the letter as indicated in the photo above. Next, I covered the top surface with modeling chocolate, trimmed it, and blended the seems joining the side strips to the top piece with my finger.

Note: notice in the photo above that I did not cover the Styrofoam at the base of the cake. I did not want to stand the cake up onto modeling chocolate, because the weight of the cake would have caused it to squoosh out the bottom and not given a clean look.

Then it was time to stand the cake up. I slid the cake a bit so that the bottom edge of the Styrofoam was even with the bottom of the rectangular cardboard you see in the picture above. Then I put my hand under that cardboard and used that to stand the cake straight up onto the wood grain fondant covered baseboard. I put some melted white chocolate on the cake board where the bottom of the J would be standing on it.

Here is the back of the letter, right after the cake was stood up onto the board. Two wooden dowels were then driven through the cake and down into the baseboard as indicated above. I decided not to put a long wooden dowel down the tall side of the J because I was not traveling with this cake. If I were going to have to bring it to another venue, I would recommend doweling that side too. That being said, the cake was pretty stable once it was all assembled. I think the ginormous amount of ganache surrounding the cake made it very stable.

To cover the back of the cake: I rolled out modeling chocolate onto a piece of foam core, popped that into the freezer for about 10 min., then cut out the letter shape using my paper template. I popped that back into the freezer for another 7 min. or so to get it super firm. I used shortening, applied liberally, (as you can see in the photo above), as the glue to hold the back panel on. The back panel was very firm from being in the freezer, so I just stood it up and attached it to the back of the cake, being careful not to put too much pressure onto the precariously standing cake. I then used my fingers to smooth the seam where the back panel and the side strips of modeling chocolate met.

Here is a photo of the cake after it is standing up and doweled into the baseboard. The holes on the top of the cake created from the wooden dowels were plugged with little pieces of modeling chocolate and blended in as well as possible. (However, they were visible.)

NOTE: I wanted the front of the cake to have some dimension and have that “collegiate font” look. So I actually created another panel with red modeling chocolate in the shape of the J, but made it a bit smaller then the front of the cake. I applied that to the front of the cake, then I outlined that with black fondant using the semicircle disc of my clay gun.

NOTE: the woodgrain fondant board was made by putting fondant onto a cake drum. I scored it to create planks, used a wood grain impression mat, and painted it with airbrush color diluted with vodka. Once that was dry, I dusted it with brown petal dusts to give it more dimension. Glued a 5/8 inch black ribbon around the side of the board. (We have video tutorials on woodgrain boards as well in our online school. Shameless plug #2, LOL)

This photo shows the (broken) tassel laying on the board after we cut the cake. The tassel was made using a clay gun. I built it on an 18 gauge wire in the shape of an upside down L. That allowed me to insert the wire into the front of the cake, to give the illusion that the tassel was actually dangling in front of the cake. ( The wire was coated in white chocolate before being inserted into the cake.)

The bulldog was simply an edible image applied to a piece of fondant, and allowed to dry to create a plaque.

Now to cutting and serving:

The first piece was cut where indicated.

Then cut horizontally right along the top of the ¼ foamcore board that was holding up the top portion of the cake.

Continued to serve the top portion.

Then after the top foam core support board was removed, I just cut across to create pieces from the tall side of the cake. You can see the wooden dowel sticking out on the shorter side. All the cake has been served on that shorter side and right under that little bit of brown is the Styrofoam.

(I call this an action shot. I was moving so fast, the camera couldn’t keep up with me!) Terribly blurry picture, but you can see me removing a bubble tea straw as I came across it while serving.

Cake to ganache ratio is ridiculous. I did have emergency syringes of insulin on standby.

And in case that wasn’t enough sugar, I served it with whipped cream and caramel sauce 🙂 I had 911 on speed dial.

If you look close enough, you can see the patch on the top of the modeling chocolate where the other wooden dowel was inserted. They were visible and it did bug me LOL. The way to avoid that would have been to stand up the cake and dowel it to the baseboard before any modeling chocolate was applied. But I did not want to cover the entire cake with modeling chocolate in the standing position, so I chose the lesser of two evils. (But the patches still bugged me, LOL)

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And so that is it! I hope that this gave you enough information to help you to try to create your own tall, skinny standing cake.

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Happy Caking!

Sharon

Modern Mother’s Day Cake by Lisa Bugeja

May 5, 2014 by Sharon Zambito Leave a Comment

Today we have a guest post by the very talented Lisa Bugeja of Flour Confections:

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Make Mom something special – something she will remember. This modern Mother’s Day cake features a sophisticated houndstooth pattern created with my new houndstooth cutter set from my Flourishes line. It’s adorned with fabulous sugarpaste poppies – also made with my new life-sized poppy cutters.

Want to know how it was done? Here is a quick tutorial for you to learn & share! Enjoy

All supplies for this project can be found at our store www.flourconfections.com

You will need:

Black Confectioners Choice Gumpaste

Red Confectioners Choice Gumpaste

Groove Board

Poppy Cutter Set

Houndstooth Cutter Set

Corn Husk Veiner Set

20g White or Green Wire

Variety of Petal Dusts: Red Velvet, Red Rose & Poppy

Gum Glue & Glue Bottle

Small Scissors

Gelatin tinted with Red Velvet Dust

Fondant covered cake

For centres, use #9 ball of black CC gum paste & 20g wire – create a hook on the wire, dip in glue & wipe off excess, secure ball of paste to wire by inserting hooked end into paste.

Pinch a star like pattern on top of ball of paste using tweezers. Apply glue to pinched areas and dip into a mixture of gelatine and red velvet dust to create pollen centre.

Tape bundles of stamens around the dried centre – it’s easier to control smaller bundles at a time rather than the entire amount. When all taped, trim off excess at base to avoid build up and tape to completely encase stamens and wire.

Roll out a sausage of Red CC gumpaste and place along grooves of the groove board. Roll out until it’s thin, then flip over and cut out petals ensuring that the groove is 1/2 – 2/3 up the centre of the petal. You will need 4-6 petals per flower depending upon the variety of poppy you are creating.

Using 24g white wire, dip wire in glue, wipe off excess and insert into petal 1/3 of the way in. Thin edges on foam pad with a ball tool.

Place wired petal on one side of corn husk veiner, place other side on top and sandwich together, pressing firmly to get impression. Remove from veiner, place on foam pad and go over edges with ball tool to ruffle. Place petals in flower former to dry.

Using floral tape, tape dried petals tightly around centres. Adjust petals as you go to create the look you want.

Using petal dusts – colour petals front & back paying attention to highlights and shadows. Steam flower to set colours when done colouring.

Left: dusted & steamed completed flower. Right: un-dusted flower

Modern Mother’s Day Cake

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Lisa Bugeja is the award winning artist & creative force behind Flour Confections Inc. in Toronto, Ontario. Her work has been featured in numerous publications such as Brides magazine, Toronto Life, Fashion Magazine, American Cake Decorating, Bakers Journal, People.com and many more. She has also been seen on CTV’s Canada AM; and as assistant to Ashlee Perkins on Food Network Challenge, and assistant to Matthew Somers on Cake Walk.

Flour Confections

Easter Round Up

April 12, 2014 by Sharon Zambito 1 Comment

It`s Spring! It`s Spring! With Easter a bit later this year, we`ll finally have a chance to see the flowers and trees in bloom while celebrating! Speaking of celebrating – I`ve rounded up some super cute ideas that I`d like to share with you to make your Easter table very festive! Please enjoy!

From SugarEd Productions:

butt2s2

Bunny Butt Cupcakes

Blossom Bunny Cake

From The Partiologist:

Mini Easter Basket Cakes

Easter Bunny Cake Pops

Chick Magnets

By Montreal Confections:

Easter Cookie Bouquet

Fondant Easter Egg Cookies

From Taste Of Home:

Folded Bunny Napkins

Traditional Hot Cross Buns

From Hungry Happenings:

Easter Cheesecakes

Baby Chick Cheeseballs

From UncommonDesginsOnline.com

Carrot Patch Easter Treats

From Kailo Chic

Easter Egg Popsicles

HAPPY SPRING!

Easter Bunny Cake by Ashley Verhagen

April 11, 2014 by Sharon Zambito 1 Comment

Happy Easter everybody!

Today we have a guest blog post by the very talented Ashley Verhagen. She shows us how to make her precious Easter Bunny cake:

What’s more fun than sweet little bunnies lounging near Easter eggs? Perhaps they’re all dreaming of the lovely Easter candy to be had soon? Let’s learn how to reproduce this cake, shall we?

Supply List:

Cake: 9” round iced in yellow, 6” round iced in white
Skewers
½ ” Foam-core board, cut in a circle with a 14” diameter, covered with wrapping paper of your color choice and food safe cellophane
Icing
Piping bags
Tip 5, 104, 233
Various round tips
Fondant tinted in your desired colors
Gel colors (pink, lime green, purple, yellow)
Exacto knife
Clay extruder
Gum Glue
Paint brush
Dresden Tool
Toothpicks
Small Daisy gumpaste cutter
Small rolling pin
Floral Wire
Plastic Wrap
One larger and two smaller styrofoam egg shapes
FMM ribbon cutter
Edible glitter
Shortening
Decorative ribbon to match your cake
Styrofoam Dummy
Hot glue gun

After you’ve assembled all of your tools and supplies, it’s time to decorate your cake board. Take your ½ ” foam core board and rest it on your counter top. Roll out a small fist sized ball of pink fondant thinly (I like to do this ON the board). Using your exacto knife, trim the fondant in an undulating pattern around the edge of the cake board. Then, using the fondant extruder and a small round disk, extrude a band of hot pink fondant and attach it to the undulating edge with gum glue. Tip: to make the fondant easier to extrude, knead some shortening into it.

Now that we’ve got the housekeeping out of the way, it’s on to the fun part… the cake! Take your 9” yellow round and transfer it carefully to your board. Dowel, then stack the 6” white on top of this centered evenly. Take your piping bag fitted with the 104 tip and fill it with yellow icing. Beginning at the back of the cake, begin to pipe the border. The technique to make the border is basically the same as that of piping rose petals… just repeated across the bottom edge of the cake. Do this for the base of both cakes. Now, fill a piping bag with white icing and fit it with a 5 tip. At the top of the petal border, add small dots of icing. Tip: For a polished look, go back with a finger dipped in powdered sugar and touch the top of each dot lightly to knock down any icing tips that may have formed.

Let’s make flowers, y’all! Rub a small amount of shortening on your work surface to ensure the fondant doesn’t stick. Roll a small ball of white fondant thinly. Using your flower cutter, cut several blossoms and set them aside to air dry for a few moments. Take a good bit of your plastic wrap and bunch it up tightly, then open it back up a bit. Shape is not important, we’re just using it as a flower former. Using your Dresden tool (or a toothpick), draw a line down each daisy petal. Roll a small ball of yellow fondant and attach it with gum glue into the center of the flower. Lay it carefully to dry somewhere in a crevice of the plastic wrap.

It’s on to the eggs now! Take your egg and rub it with a bit of shortening so that the fondant adheres well. Roll out each base color of fondant to less than ¼” thickness. Lay the fondant over each egg, working it down the sides. Don’t pull the fondant, just guide it down the sides. If you end up with too much excess fondant along the bottom, trim it away with your exacto knife. Since covering round 3D shapes with fondant is tricky, you might have to use scissors to trim away some of the side excess as well. When trimming with scissors, try to get close to the edge of the egg. Continue smoothing your fondant over the egg until it is all covered and trimmed.

To make the bows for each egg, roll out and cut 4 strips of fondant in your desired width and several inches long. Using two of the strips, cut your bow tails into the desired length. Notch the ends of one side of the bow tails with your exacto knife, then pinch the opposite side. With the remaining two lengths, cut each one to 1 ¼” long. Pinch each side of each strip, then fold the strip lengthwise, bringing the pinched ends together. You’ve got your bow loops. Set them aside to dry for a few minutes while you decorate your eggs. If you find they’re getting too ‘set’, put them under plastic wrap as they still need to be somewhat elastic.

Using your FMM ribbon cutter and your various round tips, decorate each egg with stripes and/or dots. To attach them, use a small it of gum glue and your paintbrush. Vary up your design and be creative! Use different sizes of round tips to get smaller or larger circles. Use the straight ribbons or the wavy… or even the ones with stitching. Carefully attach each bow tail and bow loop to your egg using small dabs of icing. For the center, slightly flatten a small ball of fondant and attach it to the center using icing or gum glue. There’s no right or wrong way to decorates these cuties!

Now, let’s move on to the bunnies, shall we? They’re actually really easy to do, as long as you can master some basic figure modeling techniques. Most of the techniques used involve forming fondant into ball shapes, then tapering one end of the ball shape into a carrot shape. I do most of my modeling on a styrofoam dummy since I can stick my skewer into the dummy and hold the figure still as I model it.

Let’s start with the yellow bunny for the cake topper. The instructions will be mostly the same for each bunny, with possibly a few exceptions in the way we pose them. Take a small bit of yellow fondant and form it into a 2” round ball by rolling it around in your hands. After you’ve formed the ball, taper one end of the ball by rubbing your hands back and forth along one end of the ball. This will be the body of the rabbit. You’ll want to flatten it a bit so it doesn’t look like a fat little bunny. At this point, stick a toothpick through the body of the rabbit, leaving approximately 1” protruding through the tapered end. This is where we’ll attach the head in a few moments.

For the rabbit’s appendages, you need to shape small balls of fondant into carrot shapes. At the rounded ends of the carrot, you can pinch around the edges to flatten it a bit. Make four of these roughly the same sizes. For each arm, roll a small ball of white fondant, then flatten it out into a small circle. Use gum glue to attach the white circle to the rounded end to make the ‘hands’. For each foot, form three teeny pieces of fondant into round balls, flatten them slightly, then attach them with gum glue to the rounded end to make the ‘feet’. Attach the arms and legs to the main body using gum glue. For the arms, it’s sometimes helpful to flatten the tapered end a bit so you don’t have a lot of bulk at the shoulder Don’t forget to give them some personality when you position them!

For the rabbit’s head, roll a small ball about ½” in diameter into a ball. Taper one end very slightly to almost get a rounded triangle shape. Stick it on the toothpick protruding from body and attach it with gum glue. For the ears, take two ¼” balls of fondant and form them into a carrot shape. Slightly flatten each carrot shape along then entire length of the piece. Take a 1” piece of floral wire, brush it with gum glue, and insert it about halfway into each ear. Stick each wire onto either side of your tapered head and attach it with gum glue. You can position the tips of your ears so one is sticking up and one is curling over. For the cheeks, take two small balls of white fondant and flatten them slightly. Attach them to the face using gum glue near the middle of the face. Use a toothpick to poke small holes in them to simulate puffy cheeks. For the nose, take a very small ball of pink fondant and attach it using gum glue above the cheeks. Use your toothpick to poke small holes for the eyes. You can also use your exacto knife to make eyebrows and eyelashes.

For the pink and purple bunnies, form them roughly the same as you did the yellow one with a few exceptions. Instead of using a toothpick for the body support on the pink bunny, use a skewer cut to approx. 7” long. An easy way to do this is to poke a hole in your dummy and insert your skewer all the way through. Make sure it’s loose enough so you can pull it out easily as you will remove it later. When you insert the body into the skewer, leave approx. 1” of it poking out of the tapered end. If you end up making a larger body and there’s not enough room for the 1” of clearance, you can always insert a toothpick into the body, as well, to hold the head on. Continue making your pink bunny in the same method as the you used with the yellow bunny. For the purple bunny, form it in the same manner as you did the yellow bunny using a toothpick. Since it’s resting on the cake board, it doesn’t need the long skewer. You may simply use a toothpick to hold the body and head together.

For the cute little chicks, take a small amount of yellow fondant and form it into a ball. Taper one end very slightly into a rounded triangle as you did for the rabbit’s head. Take two very small pieces of yellow fondant and form them into a carrot shape. At the tapered end, flatten it slightly. Attach the wings with gum glue to the body with the tapered end towards the top and the rounded end pointing down. Take a teeny bit of orange (or pink) fondant and form a small, small carrot for the beak. Attach it with gum glue. Use your toothpick to punch holes for the eyes. Voila! Cute baby chicks.

Now that everything has been made, let’s assemble our decorations on the cake. Fit a piping bag with a tip 233 and fill it with lime green icing. Oh the top tier of your cake, pipe a small circle of grass a bit wider than the largest egg. Take the large egg and place it on the top tier. You might want to anchor it with a skewer for support. Take the yellow bunny and attach him to the cake using a bit of icing, as well. You can choose to stick a small toothpick into the cake and into the underbelly of the bunny if you’d like to further anchor the bunny to the cake. Use a small dab of icing to attach one of the small daises and one chick next to the bunny.

Use the green icing bag to also pipe grass on top of the bottom tier where you’d like to place one of the smaller eggs and the pink bunny. Place the egg in the grass, then take the pink bunny skewer off the dummy carefully and stick it into the cake, as well. Use a small bit of white icing to attach several flowers and a chick around the pink bunny and small egg.

Pipe green grass in a circle shape on the cake board, then place the egg in the grass. Place the purple bunny near the last egg, anchoring it with a small bit of icing. Attach the last chick to the bunny’s tummy with icing. Scatter the remaining daisies around the cake, using icing to attach them.

If you’d like, you can hot glue coordinating ribbon around the ½” cake board lip to complete your cake. Sprinkle the cake with edible glitter for a little sparkle.

You’re done! So simple!

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Ashley has enjoyed being in the kitchen from an early age, especially baking with her mother and grandmother. She’d always been intrigued by beautiful cakes, and took her first leap into the world of cake decorating 13 years ago. Currently, she lives in Frisco, Texas with her husband and four lovely daughters. Pictures of her work can be found on her Flickr photo stream.

Celebrating Mardi Gras Round Up

February 24, 2014 by Sharon Zambito 2 Comments

Hey y’all! happy Mardi Gras!

It’s time for Mardi Gras down here in New Orleans! Another excuse to indulge in yummy treats ;)! This year, I have found some really great recipes to help you celebrate!

This first one is from my very own big sister, Barbara!

From SugarEd Productions:

Mardi Gras King Cake

AND we have a full length video tutorial on how to make this iconic cake in our online school. Here is a preview:

From Amanda Rettke of The Food Network:

Mardi Gras Hi-hat Cupcakes

From Baked Bree:

King Cake Cookies

From Catch My Party:

Mardi Gras Printables

From Spicy Southern Kitchen

Mardi Gras Monkey Bread

From Dixie Delights:

Throw Me Something, Mister! Cocktail

From Sweetopia:

Mardi Gras Mask Cookies

From Sweet Pea’s Kitchen:

Mardi Gras Cupcakes

From NOLA Mommy:

King Cake Cookies

From Plain Chicken:

Easy King Cake Knots

From Myrecipes.com:

Mini King Cupcakes

From Bakingdom:

Topsy Turvy Mardi Gras Cupcakes

Wow! So many cute (and yummy) ideas! I hope you are able to try a few of these and have fun celebrating Mardi Gras! I’m off to another parade!

Happy Mardi Gras!

Sharon!

Rebecca Sutterby Gumpaste Flowers Class

February 6, 2014 by Sharon Zambito 2 Comments

Hello everyone!

I’m so excited to announce that my dear friend, Rebecca Sutterby of Sugar Creations, is hosting a gumpaste flowers class. If you have not attended one of Rebecca’s classes, you are definitely missing out!

Rebecca is an award-winning sugar artist and instructor. She has been a Food Network Challenge champion as well as the grand champion at the world prestigious Oklahoma Sugar Art Show. She has a special expertise in gum paste flowers, and her classes are highly coveted and rare. If you have the opportunity to take this class, I can wholeheartedly recommend it without reservation. You will not be disappointed!

E-mail Rebecca at rebecca@sugarcreations.com to reserve your spot!

Happy caking!

Sharon