Brotherly Love

November 5, 2008 by Sharon Zambito 11 Comments

Family. Ya gotta love ’em. What would we do without them?

I was blessed (or sentenced, depending upon how look at it, LOL) to be born into a large family, the last of 5 siblings. The age gap between my older siblings and I was large enough that they really were too old to be my playmates. In fact, I think I was more an object for their entertainment by harassing and torturing me for their own evil pleasure. All of them but my brother Michael. He was never mean to me. He never stung me with rubber bands, beat up my teddy bear, or forced me to look at skeleton pictures. He never scared me with a vampire face, or tricked me by wrapping rocks to look like candy just to see me cry from disappointment. He never talked on the phone late at night when I was trying to sleep, pulled me off the desk chair to do “college work”, or eat all the fresh cherries at the beach so I got none. Nope, not Mike. (You others know who you are and what you have done. I wonder how you sleep at night.) Michael does not have a mean bone in his body. I don’t think I have ever heard him utter a cross word. He taught me to play chess, did word Jumble puzzles with me, and took me on vacation to the Grand Canyon. He is the most gentle, kind and selfless person I know.

Left to right: John, Mike, Janice, Barbara, and me.

And he’s good to me still to this day. Whenever my PC gets all bogged down with junk and viruses, and starts to run badly, I can always take it in to him for a full clean out and tune up. He gets it running fast and clean for me again. Just like he did this week. So how do I thank him for his help? By doing the only thing I know how to do: bake!

Mike can’t have sugar, so I make him sugar free cakes. Gives me a chance to try out some new recipes. He seems to like anything though; he is not picky.

This recipe I had saved on my PC, and I do not know the source to give credit. The cake was a tad dry to me, but I may have baked it a little bit too long. I would advise to take it out the oven before the toothpick comes out fully clean to prevent over baking. The icing was delicious. Squirt-the-piping-bag-right-into-your-mouth delicious. And yes, I did do that. 3 times. But not until I was finished with the cake.

Sugar-free Chocolate Cake

2 cups flour
1½ cups Splenda (granular no calorie sweetener)
3/4-cup non-dairy creamer powder
¼ tsp salt
1 ¼ tsp baking soda
½ cup + 2 Tbsp cocoa
¾ cup applesauce or vegetable oil
1 cup + 2 Tbsp milk
2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
1 ½ tsp vanilla

Measure the dry ingredients into a bowl reserving ¼ cup Splenda. In another bowl mix the applesauce (or substitute ¾ cup vegetable oil),Milk, vanilla, and 3 egg yolks. Beat the egg whites until fluffy, slowly adding the remaining ¼ cup of Splenda. Whisk together the dry ingredients with the liquid making a smooth batter. Beat for 2 minutes until color lightens. Then fold in the egg whites. Bake in two greased and floured 8 –inch cake pans, at 350 degrees about 20 – 30 minutes. When Baking with Splenda, products bake quicker so test to see when cake springs back or when a toothpick comes out clean. They also do not rise very much. Each layer was about 1-1.5 inches tall, so I torted them and filled.

Sugar-free Chocolate Frosting

1 Large box Vanilla or chocolate instant sugar free Jell-O pudding mix
1-cup low fat milk
2 cups heavy cream

In a mixing bowl pour the milk. Measure out the heavy cream and open the pudding box. Quickly pour the pudding into the milk beating just until absorbed, add the heavy cream and continue to beat until light and fluffy.(I doubled this recipe to fill and ice my cake as shown.)

It made a nice cake and I would make it again. Janice is the real sugar free baker in the family. She doesn’t know it yet, but I am going to recruit her to contribute to my blog when she tries out all her new recipes. It’s the least she can do after all that childhood misery she caused me. I know how much I love sweets and cannot imagine not being able to have them because of dietary restrictions. So from time to time I will post some sugar free recipes.

What mean things did your sibs do to you?

Happy Baking!

Sharon,

http://www.sugaredproductions.com/

Trick or Treat!

October 31, 2008 by Sharon Zambito 18 Comments

Happy Halloween everyone!

Hope you have a wonderful day with your kids and families. Don’t get sick eating too much of their candy like I always do!

My sister Barbara, who has never decorated a cake in her life, came over for me to help her make a cake for her office Halloween goody contest. She has been a huge help to me with SugarEd over the last year, and has come with me to several of my demos and vendor shows, so she has been exposed to a lot this last year. (Some of you have met her! I also have another fabulous sister that you will meet later on.) She baked the cake herself and brought it over. I showed her how to do each technique (basically off the cake) and then she did the rest herself. She was quite a quick learner. She colored and rolled out the fondant, applied it (I helped her smooth one side while she did the other in the interest of drying out time.) She airbrushed it, made her own leaves and stem, piped the grass, and made the words. I helped her just a little bit with the face and spider.

We used 2 bundt cakes and spackled the seam with stiffened buttercream. Cream cheese filling was piped down into the center hole and a circle of cardboard sits on the top to support the stem.

Here is Barbara airbrushing her masterpiece. Do you dig the fancy taped up towels?

Piping the grass.

Finished!

Hers came out better than mine! And she won first place too! I am so proud, congrats Barb!

I also want to share with you the cookies I did yesterday for my bestest client.

All flooded with royal icing and candy eyes.

These were huge! The web was about 6 inches across.

The big bats are royal icing stenciled onto royal.

Pumpkins are royal stenciled on royal, ghosts are royal with fondant face.

Fondant face on airbrushed royal icing.

These were my favorite! They make me giggle.

Have a nice night everyone; have fun and stay safe!

Sharon

http://www.sugaredproductions.com/

Pizza! Pizza! Daring Bakers Challenge

October 27, 2008 by Sharon Zambito 16 Comments

Happy Fall Everyone! I am just loving the crisp low humidity days were are having. Too bad we only have about 3 of those a year down here in the swamps! LOL. Perfect days to fire up the ovens for some baking for fun.

My beautiful friend Jacque has inspired me to join a monthly baking group called The Daring Bakers. Every month someone hosts the challenge and picks a recipe. Everyone in the club bakes that same recipe some time during the month, and then on the designated “reveal” day, everyone blogs about it, as well as posting in the Daring Bakers forum. I have been hooked on reading baking blogs as of late, and it looked like so much fun, I decided to join. I needed something else anyway to fill all of this free time I have on my hands (wink). OK, OK, I will fess up. One of my real motivations was that if I fill up my schedule with other very important commitments such as this, then I have a really legitimate excuse not to get to the housework and laundry (which BTW I loathe.) To make up for the dirty house and lack of clean clothes, my family gets to taste test lots of great new recipes. And if those perks are not enough, I also get a chance to practice my new mad photography skills. (Because you see, taking great photos of the food is just as important as the food itself in the blogging world.) So I see it as a win/win for everyone involved.

I have to admit that I was a tad disappointed when I read that my first challenge would be a savory recipe of pizza dough. I am not a cook by any stretch of the imagination. I am into sweets. Period. End of discussion. But, we love pizza in this house, so I embraced the challenge and gave it my all. In the end, I had a ball with the pizza variations and the photo taking. You would have thought the Food Network was in my kitchen with all the light stands and tripods set up in there. Of course I had no clue what I was doing, but it was fun anyway.

This month’s challenge was hosted by Rosa of Rosa’s Yummy Yums. You can find the dough recipe on her blog. The rules stated that we had to try to toss the pizza dough; which I did and failed miserably; hence no photos of that. But I took a couple of hundred shots of everything else! (Don’t get nervous; I am not going to post them all.) But almost all, tee hee.

I made one long rectangular pizza for hubby and I to share. His section was pepperoni, black forest ham, green and black olives with red sauce and mozzarella. My side was Canadian bacon, black olives and pineapple.

I baked it on the back of a cookie sheet at 500 degrees as the recipe stated, but found that temperature to be too high. The top was cooking too fast and drying out, while the center of the dough was not fully cooked. It could have used a few more minutes in the oven.

That being said, it was still really delicious, and a very easy dough to make. You do have to make it the day before so it can ferment, but it took no time at all to do. My pizza was just as yummy reheated in the oven the next day.

My son J formed and topped his own pizza: pepperoni and tons of cheese.

Little chef hands at work.

Ta daaaaaa!

His was cheesy and oozy and gorgeous.

His baked up beautifully and while I did not taste his, he enjoyed it a lot.

Then I also saved 2 portions of dough to make dessert pizzas with. J wanted chocolate chip like they serve at Sicily’s Pizza. Do you guys have Sicily’s? If not, too bad cuz it’s yummy. I made a crumble for the top out of flour, sugar and butter

This time I baked the dessert pizzas at 350 and let them go a while longer, and the crust and top baked up better that way. It was good, although personally I would have preferred a thin layer of peanut butter under the chocolate chips. J dusted the top with powdered sugar and went to town on it, so I think it was a thumbs up.

Here are two of my artsy foody photographer wanna be pics:

For hubby I made a blueberry crumble pizza:

I use canned blueberry pie filling (gasp!) and made a crumble topping from flour, oatmeal, cinnamon, brown sugar and butter.

I overcompensated for the undercooked dough in the savory pizza by keeping this one in the oven a tad too long. But it really only affected the very outer crust, so all was fine.

This was really yummy, I think my favorite of all the pizzas.

More artsy shots. How am I doing?

So, all in all I would say my first Daring Baker’s Challenge was a success. And really a lot of fun. My friend Heather has joined also, and I am trying to convince my sister to join too. (Come on Barb, you know you want to.) I am looking forward to next month already. If you would like to see what other Bakers did this month, check out the blogroll.

Happy Baking Everyone!

Sharon

http://www.sugaredproductions.com/

Making a Gumpaste Crown

October 21, 2008 by Sharon Zambito 19 Comments

Raise your hand if you love princess cakes. Yes, yes, I see a lot of hands going up! We love princess cakes! And our customers do too!

When I say Princess, you say Cakes…..

Me: Princess

You: Cakes!

Me: Princess

You: Cakes!

OK, so I get a little excited about cake. And princess cakes have been a very popular design for a few years now. I have made more than I can count. I get asked quite often how I make the gumpaste crowns, so here are some step by step pictures I took many years ago. The pictures are rather craptastic, due to the fact that I had a craptastic camera at the time, and had no idea how to take a good picture back then. But I think you can get the idea of what I am doing in them. (PS. Craptastic = if crap was fantastic, this would be it)

MAKING A GUMPASTE CROWN:

Paper template:

Cut the metal rim off one end of your can (like a shortening can; I use the gumpaste mix can):

Wrap parchment paper (or wax paper) around your can and tape it in place. The end with the metal lid still on goes down on the counter:

Tape parchment or wax paper down well on counter (you do not need the blue mat under it) and grease it well with shortening:

Roll out gumpaste onto the wax paper and lay the paper template over it and trace over it to cut out the crown shape:

Apply shortening to the surface of the cut out crown with a brush:

Cut the wax paper with a knife along the bottom edge of the crown, and proceed to cut out the rest of a rectangle around the crown. Do not cut out the wax paper along the exact shape of the crown, except along the bottom edge:

Take the can and roll it onto the crown, lining up the base of can with the bottom edge of the crown. The greased side of the crown is sticking to the parchment paper wrapped around the can:

After crown is in place, wrapped all the way around the can, stand it up. Wax paper is still in place on top of the crown:

Gently peel off the wax paper from the top side of the crown. The side of the crown that was face down on the counter, touching the wax paper, is now the upside of the crown and exposed to the air:

Let that sit and dry for 1-2 days. Do not rush it or you will surely break it. (Ask me how I know):

When the crown is dry enough to hold its shape, grab the top of the parchment paper extending above the can and gently slide all of it together off the can:

Sit that on a board and then gently peel the parchment paper off of the inside of the crown:

Let that sit and dry for a few more days. When the crown is really firm you may need to wipe the excess shortening off the inside of the crown, and then dust it with a tad of cornstarch:

When fully dry, you can airbrush or paint it silver or gold. (This photo below is a lie. I was not actually airbrushing it at this time because I had to hold the airbrush with my left hand while my right hand took the picture. Impressive, eh?):

Then you can add plastic craft jewels, or even better, make edible ones!:

Pretty easy but you have to plan a few days ahead at least. Make 2, because if you make only one I guarantee you will break it. (Ask me how I know.) I like to use the Wilton gumpaste mix in the can for these because it not very elastic and rubbery, and that cuts easier than other types I have tried.

Here is a template for the crowns shown above. This is only one half of the crown. And you will have to enlarge this template to the right size for your cake:

Here is another template, the first one I ever made, an older design:

So there you have it! Now go get to making crowns!

Lots of crowns! All kinds of crowns!

We love Princess cakes!!

Happy crowning!

Sharon

http://www.sugaredproductions.com/

Mystery Project Revealed!

October 15, 2008 by Sharon Zambito 15 Comments

Hello Sugar Friends!

I am so excited to let you all know what our lagniappe release is! Since I get tons of emails asking me what techniques I have used on many of my cakes, we thought it would be a good idea to put together A Design Gallery. This DVD is a video slide show of still pictures of over 100 of my personally decorated cakes. The photos are set to nice background music, and I give a very short narration on each cake, describing some highlights of each. I point out some techniques and tools used on each one, and throw in a few helpful pointers. The cakes are grouped by category so you can watch just the section you want to at that time. It is not an instructional DVD, and does not give a complete description of every technique used on each cake. It is intended to be an idea source for cake designs, to help you spark ideas for your own creations. ( However, I have no problem with the designs being copied exactly if you wish to do that.)

We are hoping to release it next month, as long as my video guy’s editing schedule goes as planned. A great stocking stuffer! I truly hope this is something you guys will find interesting and helpful.

I am so happy with the response we got to our contest! No one guessed the correct answer, although a few were close. So I put all the guesses into a hat and picked 2 random names. And the winners of a free copy of A Design Gallery are:

Chris- South Texas

Kdweir

(I need you two gals to email me to get your shipping info.)

As always, the SugarEd staff and I thank you for your wonderful support and enthusiasm for our products. If you guys enjoyed this contest, maybe we can have another give-a-way for the Boxes and Bows DVD. Would you all like that?

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Happy caking!

Sharon

www.sugaredproductions.com

Behind the Scenes

October 10, 2008 by Sharon Zambito 17 Comments

Well, as they say in Hollywood when they finish shooting a movie, it is “in the can!” We spent this week filming our next DVD, Boxes and Bows. It was a crazy busy week, and a bit of a wild ride, but we had a great time getting it all done. We are planning for a January release of this one, and a November release of our “bonus” project. (to be revealed very soon!) We plan to film a DVD on topsy turvys in January or February for a spring/summer release. All dates are still tentative at this point, because all kinds of variables can come up that delay the process or affect the schedule.

This will be our longest DVD yet, probably a full 2 disc set. It is jam packed with tons of information. I show you 4 completely decorated package cakes from start to finish. A different box technique and bow is presented in each design. And of course we have some lagniappe items thrown in too! I put my heart and soul into it, and I think you guys are really going to like it. It will be a very complete lesson on everything boxes and bows!

Let me take this opportunity to introduce you to my wonderful Wendy. There would be no SugarEd DVDs without her. She is an amazing cake decorator and a wonderful friend. She has been here for every minute of every one we have shot. She takes 12-15 hour days away from her family to help me. And help me she does. She is invaluable to me in the shooting process. She runs around like a nut behind the scenes to get things ready for me, clean up my messes, feed me, provide me with a steady infusion of Diet Coke, make sure I have lipstick on, give me pep talks, and generally keeps me going. In addition to that, she sits at the monitor with Todd to watch all the scenes being filmed, and see how they appear on screen. She makes sure the camera angles are good, and that what I say makes sense. She helps to assure that everything is visually and verbally clear from a decorator’s point of view. Her assistance in direction and production is absolutely critical to the success of our videos. There is no way I could do this without her. And to top it off, she does it for no payment, no recognition, no glory. She is a true and genuine friend, one of the treasures in my life.

My Wendy, who refuses to have her picture taken during filming. Can’t you tell she is gorgeous inside and out?

As promised, here are some behind the scenes photos we snapped during filming. I apologize for the bad quality of these photos, but they were taken in a rush between segments, and the lighting in the room was altered for video and not conducive to camera shots.

A cool shot from behind the middle camera , the one I speak into.

Close up camera on my right side as I work on a bow.

This view is from the “command center” where Todd sits and flips all the switches and thingies to make the cameras work and stuff. This monitor shows what the shot looks like on TV, and Wendy sits here with Todd to make sure it all comes across clearly.

Todd filming me very close up from behind while I was putting little pearls on the edges of a bow. Only my hands will be seen in this shot.

A bow done in Lagniappe.

Me with the finished Valentine gift.

No, we did not drink it! ( Although at times we wanted to, LOL).We used it on the cake!

Me primping the wedding shower gift box.

We did it! All 4 finished cakes at the end of the shoot.

Here are some shots from previous DVD productions:

Todd sitting at his “command center.” The lovely striped sheets cover the windows to block out light.

Me finishing up the stenciling on the stacking DVD.

Todd doing a close up.

This shot shows how the 3 cameras are set up.

Trish normally works the (my) right side close up camera.

From the fondant DVD.

So guys, I sure hope you all will be happy with this DVD. (I think you will.) I cannot wait to get to the editing part and watch it all come together! Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think.

I thank you as always for your support of SugarEd.

Now I am off to clean the horrendous mess we made of my house!

Happy Caking,

Sharon

http://www.sugaredproductions.com/

Back from NY and busy schedule!

October 1, 2008 by Sharon Zambito 5 Comments

Hello Sugar friends!

I am back from the New York ICES mini classes and what a great time I had. The other teachers were Chef Toba Garrett and Beth Parvu of Sugarpaste, LLC. I had a trying trip up there, as I got stuck in the Philadelphia airport all day due to bad weather. Flights just kept getting cancelled. I finally got on the last plane to NY City at 11PM. That was my last hope to not have to spend the night in the airport and be late for the classes! I made it into NYC a little after midnight, but alas, my luggage went to Long Island, my original destination. We picked up my bags early morning before the classes started and all was well.

I had the honor and privilege of spending the weekend with Toba Garrett, who is my cake idol. She is the quintessential cake artist in my mind. Just as I had hoped, she was very warm, gracious, giving and encouraging to all skill levels. A truly wonderful lady, and of course an exceptional talent. I highly recommend all of her books. She mentioned that she has a new wedding cake book coming out soon, that will include cakes with more bold colors and modern designs than she has done in the past. I can’t wait!

Chef Toba Garrett

I also met for the first time, the very talented Beth Parvu. Another wonderful artist. She too was as friendly and sharing as could be. I was thrilled to discover that her company carries a fully FDA approved, truly edible line of petal and luster dusts! No more worries about putting “non toxic” (but truly not food safe) dusts on our cakes! I bought several and cannot wait to try them. Sugarpaste also offers powdered flavorings for icings and batters, as well as a gum blend that can be added to royal icing for elasticity. (which makes string work easier). It can also be added to fondant to create a gumpaste type product. I am anxious to try that out as well!

I have a very busy schedule the next 2 weeks, as we are filming our next DVD next week! I am in the process of getting everything ready now. I am so excited! I will post some behind-the-scenes pictures at the end of next week. Keep your guesses coming for the contest; I will reveal the correct answer soon!

Well, back to work for me!

Happy caking everyone,

Sharon

http://www.sugaredproductions.com/

What could they be working on?

September 25, 2008 by Sharon Zambito 57 Comments

GUESS THE PROJECT CONTEST!

Yesterday I spent the day at the office studio of my video production company, Video Specialties. We are working on our next release, to be ready within about 2 months we hope. This is not one of the two instructional DVDs we have in progress. This is a “lagniappe” (or bonus) release. Can anybody guess what it might be? I will take all the correct guesses and put them into a hat for a drawing. The winner will get a free copy of this project. Put your thinking caps on and email or submit your guesses right here in the comment section at the bottom of this post!

Working hard, trusty Diet Coke at hand.

My hero, Todd. The best video guy out there!

I do not let many people see me with no makeup,
so don’t show these pictures to anyone ok?

Tomorrow I am off to New York to teach ICES mini classes. Have a great weekend and I will check in with you guys next week!

Happy Caking,

Sharon

http://www.sugaredproductions.com/

I have fallen and I can’t get out.

September 23, 2008 by Sharon Zambito 9 Comments

It sure did not take long for me to be sucked into the powerful vortex of blogging. I am rapidly learning that there is an exciting new world, a whole blogging culture out there, that I had no idea existed. My dear friend Jacque is a cake buddy of mine from way back. She has a gorgeous baking blog that has opened the floodgates for me. I am now addicted to reading baking and food blogs. One blog links to another, and before you know it, you have spent hours looking at beautiful food pics, saving recipes and reading the wonderful stories that accompany them.

I am also learning that the food photography is just as important as the recipes themselves. The photos on many of these sites rival those seen in magazines. I have wanted to improve my cake photography skills for years now. I have a nice camera my hubby bought me that I have no idea how to use. Well, I have been inspired. I have committed myself to learning how to use my camera properly, and I strive to take quality photos like I see out there on these beautiful blogs. So I have ordered a few books, a couple of DVDs, and am taking an online course now. My main interest is macro (close up) food and cake photography. But I hope to improve my picture taking skills overall.

So the other night I dug up a few cookies in my pantry and clicked a few photos, using the new skills I have learned so far. ( Which is not even the tip of the iceberg.) This a huge learning curve.

One of my favorite cookies, Fig Newtons. Best eaten cold. YUM!

Here is the exact same photo but lightened.

Which do you like better?

And a chocolate biscotti close up. I love the crumbs!

So what do you guys think of my cookie pictures?

—————————————————————————

I got an award !!

It is also a common practice in the blogosphere for people to pass different awards along to blogs that they like. Jacque was so sweet as to bestow the I Love You This Much award upon me. Thank you Jacque, you are the best! I would like to pass it along to the following blogs that I love:

Cakes, Kids, and a Lens: This is the blog of my BFF Heather. She blogs about the 3 big loves of her life: her kids, her cakes, and her photography.

Mata Mania: One of my very best friends on the planet, Carla, writes about her beautiful family. I only wish they didn’t live so far away.

Amber’s Delectable Delights: Amber shares easy and yummy food recipes that every busy family can enjoy, as well as showcasing her gorgeous photos.

GiGi Cakes: Stunning photos and recipes of delicious baked treats. Also the home of The Cake Slice Baking Club.

So that is it! Another obsession. Or two. Like I needed another one right? Thanks a lot, Jacque. (wink)

—————————————–

Tomorrow I am off to see my video production guys to work on our next release. It is not one of the 2 instructional DVDs we are working on. It is a lagniappe project. Hope to have it ready within the next 2 months. Hmmm…. wonder what it could be? Anybody wanna guess?

Happy caking everyone!

Sharon
http://www.sugaredproductions.com/

Cute Chocolate Cut Out Thingies

September 19, 2008 by Sharon Zambito 6 Comments

Yay for homework!

Two of our readers have sent in their chocolate favor projects, and I am excited to share them with you all.

Christie H. writes: While I haven’t made individual favors, I’ve used a similar technique to cut out plaques for a few cakes. I’ve added photos of two of them. In the first one, I melted white chocolate, then swirled black candy coloring to get a marbled effect. I love the layered look of yours and will definitely be trying that in the future!

Very clever technique, don’t you think?

Kim B. whipped out these beauties one evening after work for an office party. (Told ya no way she is a newbie.) Aren’t they gorgeous? She used the Funky Tappit cutters for her monogram.