Sugared Productions Blog

Give-Away Winners!

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Hello everybody!
 
Thanks to you all who have purchased your Flowers DVDs  on pre-order!
 
The duplicator is supposed to have them to me by November 5th, and we will ship them out as soon as we receive them.  All of the orders are boxed up and just waiting for the DVDs to be added and mailed. We thank you so very much for your patience; we know you are anxious to get them. And we are eager to get them to you!
 
 
 
By random draw, the three tote bag winners are:
 
Deb Werner
 
Dawn Beckley
 
Grace Hanson
 
Your tote bags will added to your pre-order shipments. Congratulations!!
 
 
 
And the winner by random draw from the sunflower tutorial post is:  
 
Rita Greer 
Rita please email us to claim your prize.
 
 
 
 Stay tuned as we will have another contest soon.
 
Thank you all for business!!
 
I hope you all enjoy  your Halloween festivities tonight. Then it is time for us to go right into Thanksgiving preparations! I have a few great blog posts coming up in the Turkey Day theme, so stay tuned!
 
 
Happy caking,
Sharon
 
 

Easy Halloween Cupcakes

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Halloween is almost here!
Are you ready? No?
Well I am here to help!

 

This post is for all you procrastinators out there. And I say this with the utmost love and respect. For I am a champion, card carrying, flag waving procrastinator. I even joined a support group, but it hasn’t been much help:

I feel your pain. You had all these great delusions of grandeur of all the amazing treats you were going to make for Halloween. Maybe a haunted gingerbread house. Or a topsy turvy Tim Burton style. Or a batch of fabulously custom decorated cookies. You had it all planned in your head. You laid awake at night with excitement thinking of the joy you were going to experience while creating your incredible Halloween confections.

 

And here we are, just a few days before Halloween and…… nothing….. nada…… crickets. Where did the time go? What will we do? The kids are looking up at you with those sad longing eyes, asking what you will be making for their class or neighborhood party. Crikey! Why did we wait so long? Your heart starts to race; sweat forms on your brow; the room is going white. Pure unadulterated panic.

Raise your hand if you are with me so far. I have been in this situation more times than I count.

Well, have no fear. Queen Procrastinator is here to help you.

Oops wrong queen. I will fix that. Later.

 

So let me share with you these super duper easy Halloween cupcakes that you can whip out in no time, but still impress even the most discerning goblins and ghouls.

Ghosts and skeletons and graveyards, oh my!

 

Let’s start with the standing skeleton:

 

You will need white chocolate covered pretzels, sucker sticks, and marshmallows.

 

Draw a face on the flat side of a marshmallow that has been cut in half with an edible food marker. Three of the pretzels need to be glued to the sucker stick with some melted chocolate to make the rib cage.

 

And that was the tricky part. I spent a good 20 minutes trying to get those finicky pretzels to line up correctly on the sucker stick without flopping over or getting out of alignment. I found the above method worked the best. I used gravity to hold the back edges of the pretzels onto the stick while the chocolate hardened. Worked great and was very easy.

 

You use another pretzel cut as shown above to make the arms. You use the piece on the left, and eat the piece on the right. It’s a win/win for everybody.

 

After you pipe your icing swirl, just stick the sucker stuck in and lay the arm bones into the holes of the upper rib cage pretzel. Done. Fast. Easy. Cute. ( I must give credit to Woman’s Day for this idea. I saw it online and copied it.)

 

Now to the spooky graveyards:

 

 

I found these adorable sugar skulls at Wal Mart In the Wilton isle.

 

 

They appear to me to be gumpaste, and they were a very nice shape with good details.

 

 

To kick them up a notch, bring out a couple of brown petal dusts and give them a roughing up.

 

 

That took all of about 30 seconds, and they look awesome!

 

 

To make the tombstone, just cut a rectangular piece of fondant (with tylose added) and impress the RIP with your favorite alphabet cutters.   The cute cupcake wrappers were also made by Wilton.

 

 

Once the tombstones dry, hit them with a little luster dust. Pipe a swirl onto your cupcake, and slap a tombstone and skull on top. Done. How easy was that?

 

Crazy easy ghosts:

 

A Dum Dum lollipop.

 

 

Drape a circle of white fondant over it.

 

 

Add two eyes made from either fondant or your edible ink pen. Stick into cupcake icing. Woooooooo.

 

And you are done!

 

Group shot!

 

 

Cuteness overload.

 

 
 
Tread only if you dare!

 

 

He is a happy little fellow.

 

 

I don’t know what came over me. I lost my head.

 

And you saved the day! You have created this wonderful spread of amazing cupcakes, and it was fast and easy. You can take convenient pre-made products, do a little doctoring, and turn them into a custom made and impressive result:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!

 

 

 

Happy baking,
Sharon
Visit the SugarEd Online School

Two New Flower DVDs!

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Sugarpaste in Bloom
Volumes 1 and 2
 
 
 
 
We have two brand new DVDS on the horizon for you!
 
Sugarpaste in Bloom  Volume 1  
Beautiful Blossoms
 
 
Learn all the basic techniques needed to make gorgeous sugar flowers, while applying those techniques to the 6 flowers taught in this DVD. Once you learn these techniques, you can apply them to making any kind of flower you desire.
 

Magnolia
 
 
 
 
Diva Flower
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Small Pink Lily
 
 
 
 
Large Pink Lily
 
 
 
 
Large Stargazer
 
 
 
 
Small Stargazer
 
 
 
 
Tiger Lily
 
 
 
 
Small Yellow Lily
 
 
 
 
 
Casablanca Lily
 
 
 
 
 
Daisy and Sunflower
 
 
 
 
 
Sunflower
 
 
 
 
 
Daisy
 
 
 
 
 
Daisies
 
 
 
 
 
See a video preview here:
 
 
 
 
 
Sugarpaste in Bloom Volume 2 
Fantasy Flowers
 
 
Learn 11 fantasy flowers that will add a 
custom touch to all of your cakes.
 
 
 
 
Fantasy Rose
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Bermuda Bling
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Lacy Flower
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ribbon Rose Topper
 
 
 
 
Ribbon Roses and Pinch Flowers
 
 
 
 
 
7 Petal Pinch Flower
 
 
 
 
 
Carnation Pinch Flower
 
 
 
 
4 Petal Pinch Flower
 
 
 
 
Bow Tie Pinch Flower
 
 
 
 
3 Petal Pinch Flower
 
 
 
 
5 Point Star Pinch Flower
 
 
 
 
 
  Stenciled Flower

 

 

 
 
 
 
See a video clip here:
 
 
 
 
SPECIAL PURCHASE: 
 
Purchase both DVDs and get a $13 savings plus a
FREE BLOSSOM CUTTER used in the DVD.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 And a Give-away!
 
 

All orders placed by October 28, 2011 will be entered into a drawing for three of these great logo tote bags:

BOTH OFFERS EXPIRE  10/28/11
 
 
We thank you for your business!
 
 
 

Halloween Marshmallow Pops

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Boo!

 

Did I scare ya?

 

Probably not, as you intentionally logged onto this post. 🙂

 

Monster Marshmallow Pops Tutorial

 

One of my very favorite holidays is upon us. Halloween is a confectioner’s dream, as it provides an opportunity to make some of the cutest tasty treats evah. Let me share with you some I made this week. These were a lot of fun, and not very difficult nor time consuming. They get extra points for that!

 

Halloween marshmallow pops

Meet Broomelda and Franque. (He is French).

 

 

Initial supplies used to make our cozy candy couple include yellow candy melts, green oil based candy color, marshmallows and sucker sticks. I highly recommend Merkens brand melts for optimum dipping performance. In this case I used the campfire roasting marshmallows. Have you seen those things? They are hugantic! They are as big as…..as ……as a giant marshmallow! I also suggest using the thicker sucker sticks, as these bad boys are heavy once they are done.

 

 

 
Big bowl of green melty chocolate.

 

 

 

Other supplies used will be these candies and pre-made googly eyes, that you can get at most cake decorating places.

 

 
For Broomelda, we have to cut angles off each side of the gargantu-mallow. Run your knife under hot water, and dry it off before each cut. This will make the cutting of the freakishly large marshmallow much easier.

 

 

Stick and dip. Place on wax paper to dry fully.

 

 

Let’s do Franque first:

Cut out a circle of black fondant and cut out notches along the outer edge. Do not cut them evenly or symmetrically. Franque does not have the most couture coif I have ever seen. Just sayin’.

 

Lay the toupee over his head and just press down all around the sides. (Hint: use shortening as your glue. Trust me. You will thank me for this later.) Glue on his googly eyes with melted chocolate. Cut a white Good & Plenty in half and glue in place for his bolts. Give the rest of the box to hubby because he loves those nasty candies. Oh wait, that is my hubby. Ignore that. Next use a paintbrush to drop a dollop of the same green chocolate on his handsome face to make a nose.

 

 

Next we need to bring out the big guns. OK just one small gun. Anyway, get your clay gun out, and using the smallest size circle disc, extrude a string of black fondant. Use that to make eyebrows and mouth. Again, using shortening on his face as glue will save you many bad words. And if you just cannot help yourself (like me), use silver luster dust mixed with vodka to paint his bolts. An edible marker (not shown) can be used to make his scar.

You mad confectionery scientists will have
created a marshmallow monster!

 

MWAHAHAHA!

Now on to Broomelda:

 

Marshmallow pops

 

As with all ladies, we need to spend some time on the hair. Use your clay gun with the largest muti hole disc.

 

 

Extrude a length of purple fondant and apply to the side of her head.

 

 

Repeat process on each side until her head is covered.

 

 

Cut a few short pieces to make her bangs. The bob is very in this season in the witch world.

 

 

Now to make her face. Clay gun string again for the brows and mouth. Half of the green Mike and Ike candy for the nose. (Keep that box cuz we like those.) Another pair of google eyes.

 

 

Well hello my pretty!

 

 

To make the pointy part of her hat, start with a ball of black fondant.

 

 

Roll it into a cone shape initially, and then continue to elongate and shape it into a witch hat shape.

 

A circle of black fondant laid on her head, and then the cone part of the hat is attached to the top of that. A couple of purple clay gun strings will create a perfect hat band.

 

 

marshmallow pops

 And they are done!

 

marshmallow pops

Franque: Hey good lookin’. You want to go for a drink?
Broomelda: Why yes, thank you. I will have a Bloody Mary.

 

 

marshmallow pops

Double date!

 

Happy Halloween everybody! Send me pics if you make these and I will post them on Facebook. Please tell all your friends to like our Facebook page.

Sharon
Sugared Productions Online School

visit our online school

 

 

 

 

Basic Buttercream Class

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Hello Sugar Friends!

A couple of months ago my BFF, right arm, crazy talented cake artist, and all around superwoman, Wendy, hosted a  basic buttercream class at her shop. It was a wild two days of flying powdered sugar, flinging icing, bench scrapering, smoothing, and all around good clean fun.  I would love to share some photos with you of this rip roaring event!

 

(You can click on the photos to view them larger)
 
 
Here are all the stations set up and the eager students ready to hang on my every word. OK, maybe not that last part, but they were ready to get started.
 
 
 
 
First we learned how to make smooth as silk and totally airless icing in both the 5 quart and 6 quart mixer.
 
 
 
 
Here is the mixer beating the 5 quart bowl full of icing into airless submission.
 
 
 
 
Take a look at THAT! Not. One. Air. Bubble.
 
 
 
 
 
Next Wendy showed us how to make a big ole batch in the 6 quart mixer.
 
 
 

                            

Serious students scribing scintillating synopses.
 
(OK, I admit I had to use the thesaurus for that one.)
 
 
 
Each student then went back to their stations to make their own batch of icing. You have to do it to really get the feel for it.
 
 
Then it was time to fill the cakes.
 
 
 
 
 
Here is a student’s filled cake waiting to be iced. No cake dummies in our classes; always real cake!

 

 

 
Pipe the dam.
 
 
 
 
 
Fill ‘er up.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ice that puppy.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Work that top edge.

 

 

 

Students’ turn!
 
 
 
 
 
Melissa’s finished cake. Wowee girl!
 
 
 
 
 
 
Day two. Oh yay, we get to ice square cakes now! And first thing in the morning, too. Whose bright idea was that? Oh yeah, mine.
 
 
 
 
Ice the sides.
 
 
 
 
Smooth with bench scraper.
 
 
 
 
Make those corners so sharp you have to register them as a lethal weapon.
 
 
 
 
Scrape, scrape, scrape.
 
 
 
 
Never saw a camera lens I do not like.
 
 
 
 
 
My finished demo cake.
 
 
 
 
Beautiful Donna working her magic.
 
 
 
 
Bridgette getting her smooth on.
 
 
 
 
Nikole admiring her kick butt corners.
 
 
 
 
Deneise is workin’ it baby!
 
 
 
 
 
Wendy, Melissa, and me.
 
 
 
 
Wendy, Mimi, and me. No, I am not pregnant despite how this photo looks.
 
 
 
 
Mitzi in the smoothing zone.
 
 
 
 
Candi. The most perfectionist student I have ever had. And her work shows it.
 
 
 
 
Lovely Dee.
 
 
 
 
Mattie is as sweet as her cakes.
 
 
 
 
This is Kim. She is my number one student. She has attended every single local class I have given since the beginning of the universe. She is a total sweetie and a fabulous cake artist as well.
 
 
 
 
Here is me pretending to show the talented Myrtis something important. No really, it was important. Whatever it was.
 
 
 
 
This is the only picture I have of Heather. Sorry Heather. Heather looks like Leah Remini. Gorgeous.
 
 
 
 
Leticia making her icing.
 
 
 
 
 
This is Lauri. She was at the buttercream class, but I don’t have a photo of her. So I used this one from the topsy turvy class instead 🙂
 
 
 
 
Oh yeah, we have fun. And lots of it!
 
 
 
 
Melissa’s square cake. Ouch!
 
 
 
 
 
As if all of that was not enough, we then did a little lagniappe. (Bonus stuff.) Some good old fashioned piping.

 

 
 
And stenciling on buttercream. Yes, red on white buttercream! Do not fear.
Wait for it…..
 
 
 
 
Wait for it…….
 
 
 
 
 
Ta dah!!
 
 
 
 
 
And a few lagniappe things on the round cake as well. Impression mats, some airbrushing and my custom top border.
 
 
So that was it! Two jam packed days full of buttercream fun. We were pooped but happy.

 

 
And then……
 
(Cue the Jaws music)
 
da  nutt 



da nutt



da nutt   da nutt     da nutt

 

 
 
 


 
AHHHHHHHHH!!!
 
 
 
 
OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
 
 
 
IT’S SO SCARY!
 
 
 
 
 
 The dreaded blow out! Ruined my cake!!
 
 
 
Heck no, I was not going to let a blow out ruin my cake! And this was a great opportunity to show the students how to repair one. The reason why I got this blow out was because I  had iced my cake the day before right after I unwrapped it from plastic wrap. I did not take the time to let the condensation dry off the sides. Moisture is a main factor in the development of blow outs. So let’s fix it.

 

 

Take your exacto knife or palette knife and surgically remove the blown out icing.

 
 
 
As you start to cut it away, you will be able to see in there where the icing is no longer touching the sides of the cake. Keep carving all of that away until you get the entire area of non adhered icing off the cake. Then let that air dry out for 20-30 minutes in the A/C.
 
 
 
 
                             
Lawsy that sucker was big!
 
 
 
 
Then I fill in the opening by piping buttercream in with a large round tip or the open coupler. (not shown).
 
 
 

                                      

            Then gently smooth that out with a hot palette knife or small spatula.

 
 
 
 
Let the patch crust well, and then come back with a small piece of smooth food safe paper, and smooth it with your spatula or palette knife over the paper, only over the patch. Do not put pressure on the rest of the impressed pattern. Then let it crust for a while longer before you finish the impression.
 
 
 
                         
It is hard to see in this photo, but I have  a small portion of an impression mat in my hands. (I have an extra mat or two that I cut  up for this purpose.) Match up the pattern and then impress the patch. Just be careful, and you will have a seamless matching of the pattern.
 
 
Then I piped  the missing little crosses on the sides.
 

                                        Before.

 


After.
 
 
 
 
You can do it!!

 

And they all lived happily ever after in buttercream land. 

You can learn all of these buttercream smoothing techniques and more in the   Perfecting the Art of Buttercream DVD.

You can learn how to make airlessly smooth 
icing in the Back to Basics DVD.  

Happy caking!
Sharon

 

 

Long Time No Talk

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Hello Sugar Friends!
 
 
I have missed you all so much! I apologize for neglecting  the blog these last few months. We have had so much stuff going on behind the scenes at SugarEd, (and some of them unexpected  and rather complicated), that it has taken all my time and attention.  We have filmed (and are presently editing) our two new gumpaste flower DVDs. We have rebuilt the entire website and shopping cart for better performance on both ends. We are now able to process credit card orders directly on the website. You can still use Paypal to checkout if you choose to do so. We are also planning a  big website expansion that will include a lot more goodies for you. We are brainstorming and developing that as we speak!
 
I thank you for your patience as we work on all of these projects, so that we can continue to provide you with the best service and products we can produce.
 
I will have another blog post for you in a few days. In the mean time, please enjoy these fabulous cakes submitted by our readers:
 
 
 
 
 This stunning topsy turvy was made by  Karen in Australia for her son’s 21st birthday. Perfection!
 
 
 
 
 
This sassy fish cake was made by Mari in Florida.  Love it!
 
 
 
 
 
Katherine C made this buttercream beauty. Can you believe she has only been decorating for one year?  Unbelievable!
 
 
 
 
 
 
Lucy made this wonderful version of the Sweet Luxuries cake. Bravo!
 
 
 
 
 
 
Esther S shows her mastery of image transfers with her cute Cuban drummer. Maybe that is Ricky Ricardo? ( Love Ricky!)
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jaycee made this beauty as a 10th anniversary gift from a husband to his wife. Now that is flawless fondant!
 
 
 
———————————————————
 
 
 
 
Gorgeous work guys!  Feel free to submit your sugar art, recipes, tips and questions to this email address. You might get it published on the blog or newsletter.
 
 
Thanks again everybody! I will see you in a  few days with a post about our last buttercream basics class. I will show you how I repaired a HUGE blowout!
 
Happy caking!
Sharon
 
www.sugaredproductions.com
 
 
 

 

Sunflower Grad Cake

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Graduation season is here! Are you guys making a lot of grad cakes right  now? I had the opportunity last week to make a cake for my son’s best friend. She is a very sweet girl, and I was happy to make it for her. I included the elements in the cake that she requested: the colors of red and black, a sunflower (her favorite flower), and paw prints to represent her desire to open her own small animal care business. And of course we had to include the grad cap and tassel to represent her school. (Instructions on how to make the cap and tassel can be found  in our Book Smarts DVD.)
I took some photos of the process I used while making the sunflower and thought you might like to see them, so here we go:

I used yellow gumpaste (Wilton premade works very well) to cut out two of the sunflower shapes.

Putting the petal on my cel pad, I used my ball tool to thin the cornstarch dusted petals. I put most of the pressure on the middle of the petals, because sunflower  petals are a little bit wider in the middle than they are on the two ends. I avoided thinning too much where the petals join the center portion, because sunflowers (and daisies) are notorious for breaking in that vulnerable spot.

After the thinning was done, I used the veining tool to add some vertical lines to the inside of the petals.

The flower was  placed into a cupped former lined with foil. I pinched the tips of the petals to give them  some movement and make them more life-like. Petals were propped with paper toweling in a random pattern to give the petals a natural look.
I repeated the exact same process with the second layer, but I did not glue the two pieces together. The reason for this is because I wanted them to dry in the proper shape together, but I needed to be able to  separate the pieces later for dusting.
In order to speed up the process of drying, I placed them into my dehydrator. (I made two flowers; I always make extra for breakage.)
This is Bessy. She may be old, she may be ratty and held together with masking tape, but she is a faithful and loyal friend who always gets the job done. She is a Nesco food dehydrator that I got at Walmart years ago for about $35. I use her constantly for so many items. I could not live without her. If you invest in one, I recommend that you get one with a temperate regulator. Always use the coolest temperature setting so that your items do not melt.
After the flower was fully dry, it was time to dust. The best part!  Dusting the flower just makes it come to life, and is so much fun! My dusting process was as follows: The entire flower got a light dusting with buttercup yellow. The lower portion of the petals were dusted with a combo of sunflower and pumpkin. The centers of the petals were hit with some daffodil yellow. The tips also got a little bit of the sunflower color. Then the entire flower got a very very light dusting with yellow luster dust, just to brighten it up a bit.
Remember  that I said this type of flower is known for petal breakage? Yep, happens almost every time! ACK! Here you see a petal glued back on with just a little bit of melted white chocolate. The break was low enough on the petal that it will be covered by the center once applied.
I used a silicone push mold to make the center. Brown gumpaste was pushed into the mold, and popped right out. So easy it feels like cheating.
A little bit of dark brown petal dust was applied to the center. Then I brushed the center with just a little bit of  shortening to give it a little sheen and wake it up. We don’t want a sleepy sunflower! 🙂
Now onto the cake for a minute:
I wanted extra height on the cake tiers, so that the sunflower and stem would be in the correct proportion. We did not need any more extra servings of cake, so I increased the height by using fomecore under the tiers. I used  pieces of  1/2 inch  fomecore taped together, and then covered that with Glad Press and Seal.
I used three pieces of fomecore for the lower tier, and 2 pieces for the upper tier. Then I proceeded to ice and stack  per my normal techniques. (You can learn my technique for smooth icing and stacking in our DVDs available here.)
The finished flower was then attached to the side of the cake with a little bit of melted chocolate. Ta da!! Isn’t it pretty! I love how the yellow pops against the red and black.
And the finished cake. Nicole was thrilled with it, and I was very happy that she was happy.
We will be shooting our next DVD in a few weeks. The topic will be gumpaste and fondant flowers. Do you think we should include this sunflower in the DVD? Leave a comment here and tell me what you think, and you will be entered into a drawing to win a free flower DVD when it is released in the fall. Woo Hoo! Free stuff!
Happy caking everyone!
Sharon
http://www.sugaredproductions.com/

25th Anniversay Cake

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26 years ago today I married my college sweetheart.
One year ago we had a nice party for family and friends to celebrate our 25th.  I have not published the photos of the cake to date because I thought they were going to be featured in a prominent cake magazine. Well, that never happened, so I thought today would be an appropriate day to share them with you.
I chose black and red with touches of silver to match the decor of the venue we had rented for the party. I did make my own cake, but I cheated. It was all stryo dummies, for two reasons. I wanted to be able to save the top tiers as a keepsake, and I wanted to be able to work on the cake early, since I would be so busy with party preparations in the days before the event.
I made my fantasy bling flowers; the same ones I made for our TLC cake, but smaller and in red this time. (We will be teaching this flower in our next DVD release, yay!) The 25 topper was made by gluing Swarvoski crystals to jewelry wire I bent into shape.
I used the diamond impression mat for the sides of two tiers. Black fondant swags and bling roses for the bottom petal tier.
I also made a small monogram Z for the center of the bow from crystals. This was my favorite part of the whole cake.
Purchased beaded ribbon was glued to the separator drum and the presentation board. You can’t see it in the photos, but there is silver in the beading. The sizes of the tiers were 6,9,10,13 and 16.
Here are a few casual shots of the party:
Hubby and I toasting to 25 years!
We also celebrated Paul’s 50th birthday that night, so I made a toast to him….
……. and I got a little choked up.
My two wonderful sisters and my youngest son, J-man.
My men. The lights of my life.
My beautiful Italian mother in law.
Paul’s brother, and yes they do look a lot alike!
 It was a wonderful night to celebrate my blessings with my family and friends. Thank you for sharing it with me too!
Happy caking!
Sharon
http://www.sugaredproductions.com/

Easter Egg Basket Cake

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HELLO SUGAR FRIENDS!!
I know it has been a long time. I apologize for my neglect of the blog. We have been so very busy behind the scenes, working on new and exciting projects for SugarEd that have been very time consuming. We are planning our next DVD releases, a website upgrade and expansion, and more fun surprises that you will learn more about at the end of this year. (Good things come to those who wait, LOL)
Things are starting to settle down just a bit, so I am going to do my best to get back to blogging regularly. And I thought you might enjoy a tutorial on the basket cake I made last week for an Easter order. I know Easter is over, but you can use these techniques for many types of other cake themes.
Disclaimer: There seems to be something amiss with my camera (or there is the very remote possibility it is user ignorance), so the quality of these photos is not great, but I think you can still see them pretty well. I so want to take photography classes but there is just no time!
Today we are going to make a big ole beautiful Easter basket full of pastel chocolate eggs!
The basket handle was made about 5 days ahead of time. I used half chocolate and half white fondant, adding a very liberal amount of powdered tylose. I formed two thick sausages, then twisted them together, and curved them into the shape I needed for the handle. Make a wire handle that custom fits your cake in width and height, and use that as a guide to form the shape of your fondant handle. Insert sucker sticks into the two ends of the handle. I put it on a cooling rack so the air could get to the under side to aid drying. I have done this many times with success, but I think next time I might try 50/50 gumpaste. More on that later.
Now to make the chocolate eggs. I like Merkens brand super white candy melts. I used candy colors to tint it a few pastel shades. I used a large 3D egg chocolate mold to form the eggs. The molds are clipped together with strong office clamps, and the chocolate is poured into a hole cut out on the underside of the mold. The mold was put in a small cup to hold it straight and put in the freezer for about 15 minutes. Then the mold was removed from the cup and placed back in the freezer, allowing the cold air to fully reach all sides of it. It was ready to be unmolded at about 20-25 minutes total freezing time.

Here are some eggs fresh out of the molds. Oh no!! Look at those ugly seems! What shall we do?? No worries, we can clean that up easily.

 

 

Here they are all cleaned up. Use your palette knife or exacto knife to scrape off all the excess. Then use the heat of your gloved hand to smooth and buff out any lines and imperfections. This will cause the egg to lose its shine from the mold, but I have never seen a super shiny dyed Easter egg anyway. We are going for realism here!
However, we do want just a little bit of sheen to bring our eggs up a notch in elegance and refinement. So I used the edible lacquer spray an gave them 2 or 3 thin coats, allowing them to dry in between coats.
Here are the eggs right after spraying. Once dry, they will not be nearly this shiny.
Then the fun part of decorating the eggs! I used a variety of pastel colored fondant, strip, circle and flower cutters to decorate them in a variety of designs. You can use water, piping gel, or shortening as the glue for your fondant trims.
Aren’t they pretty? Try to get your fondant thin, as thick bulky appliques do not looks a nice on the eggs. Now back to the basket….. ( after a fountain Diet Coke run, of course.)
Ahhhhh, now that we are all refreshed, it is time to carve the cake into a slightly tapered basket shape. I have three 2 inch layers of cake here with one layer of filling. The cakes are 12 inch diameter. If you need to see the detailed method for carving this shape, you can check out our Tosy Turvy DVD.
Once the cake was carved, I used the thickened ganache method (also shown in the Topsy Turvy DVD) to coat our cake. Here it is shown all nice and smoothed. The top edge of excess ganache is removed the next day after the ganache has set up to a nice firm shell.
Now we have time to go play on Facebook, have some coffee and a snack, watch tonight’s rerun of the Young and the Restless, and then go to bed. Tomorrow we put our basket all together!
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Good morning! Did you have a nice rest? Oh, who am I kidding. I never cake in the morning. I never cake before 3PM. Not a morning person, it takes me half the day to get fully awake and functioning.
So now we must roll out a very long piece of fondant (half chocolate and half white for this shade of brown) that is long enough to wrap around our cake, with a little extra on the end.
I used the PME basketweave roller to make the basketweave impression. I. love. this. roller. The end.
Measure how tall you want your piece of fondant to be and cut a strip that exact height, and roll it up bandage style.
I smeared shortening all over the ganached cake (with a gloved hand) in a light coat for glue. Shortening is excellent glue. Then I started at the back of my cake, and unrolled the wrap as I went around the cake. (I was taking my own photos, so I had to step away from the cake to take the picture.)
Do not pull or stretch it as you unroll. Just gently unroll it as you smooth it onto the cake with your hand. You do not want to erase or distort the basketweave pattern.
I used a clay gun to make a rope border for both the top edge and the bottom of the basket. Here you can see two large bubble tea straws inserted into the cake where the sucker sticks at the base of the handle will go.
I filled the straws with melted chocolate using a piping bag.
Then the sucker sticks were inserted into the straws . I propped the handle in place with a roll of Viva until the chocolate set.
I added more chocolate around the base of the handles to add more stability to them and let that fully firm up. Lookin’ good!
Now I have to insert four support straws…..
………that will hold up the cake circle that will support the weight of the heavy chocolate eggs.
Looks like an Easter basket now! I just added pieces of rolled out ivory fondant in a free form blanket shape and placed the eggs on top. So pretty! But hmmm……. that handle does not look quite as straight as it did when I put it in. Oh well, I am sure it will be fine.
I added a pink gumpaste ribbon and bow, and piped buttercream grass to complete my project. Boy, that handle is getting wonkier looking. I checked it; it seems solidly in place and stable. Well, it is time to go deliver. I am going to drive because hubby has been banned from driving with cakes after that last episode we will not speak of.
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As I pull into the neighborhood of the client, I hear a big thump in the back of the vehicle. I knew what it was. I knew what had happened. I could not look. I said to Hubby, it happened didn’t it? He said, Yep.
Ok, now what to do? Surprisingly , I did not freak out. I called the customer, explained to her what happened, and that I was going back home to to do repairs. Unfortunately I had only one handle (I always make two, always…. but not this time for some unkown reason). I explained to her that it will not have a handle, but it will be a pretty cake anyway. She was incredibly understanding and not upset in the least. Thank goodness for easy-going clients , right?
So back home we go. I should have taken a photo of it with the broken handle. It broke off clean on both sides, about 6 inches up from the blanket. There was no fixing it.
Here you can see where I clipped the broken handle down as low as I could to the top of the cake without disturbing the other decorations. I dare not attempt to take the pieces out of the cake that were embedded. My plan was just to cover these spots with a little bit more blanket, that is until a lightbulb went off! I had an idea!
I would make small side handles! I could do this over wire, and it would not require the handles to have any drying time before I applied them. I bent some floral wire into the desired shape, and simply wrapped a clay gun string around it.
I coated the ends of the wire with chocolate, and after that was dry, I inserted the handles into both sides of the cake. I used melted chocolate to close in any holes or gaps where fresh cake was exposed, and also to secure the new handles in place.
I added some more blanket pieces to cover all the oopsies, and here is the final product:
What do you think?

I think I might even like it better than the first version. Whew, so glad that worked out, because who ever heard of an Easter basket with no handles?

So all is well that ends well! I hope you guys give this basket technique a try. I would suggest using a lot of tylose or gumpaste in your handle, and give it at least a week to dry if not longer. Or possibly even form it over very sturdy wire that can provide some support. I have made large handles using this method many times with success; I think this time it had not dried long/hard enough.

 

Oh and make TWO of everything!

Happy Caking Everyone!

Sharon
http://www.sugaredproductions.com/

 

 

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Back to Basics DVD
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