Easter Dinner

Wow, it's been a while since I've updated this blog. Why? Because I did not attend Course 3 Final class because I went to NY and did feel like baking and icing the cake before class on the next Tuesday. I knew I would eventually complete a "final cake", I just needed to do it when I wasn't pressed for time.

This past weekend I hosted Easter Dinner at my house and it was awesome! I made a 2 tier cake, homemade pound cake, macaroni and cheese, stuffing, deviled eggs, cajun shrimp, string beans cooked in ham hocks, cranberry sauce, veggie tray, biscuits, gravy, tea and punch. We also had fried turkey and collard greens but I didn't cook those.

Here are pictures of the food from the shindig:

My Two Tier Easter Cake

Top Tier is Fudge Marble cake with chocolate filling
Bottom Tier is yellow cake with strawberry preserve
All tiers topped with butter cream and covered with fondant flowers.

Pound Cake Recipe ("Paula Deen's: Mama's Pound Cake)

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, plus more for pan

• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
• 3 cups sugar
• 5 eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

With a mixer, cream butter and shortening together. Add sugar, a little at a time. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Stir dry ingredients together in a bowl and add to mixer alternately with milk, starting with the flour and ending with the flour. Mix in vanilla. Pour into a greased and floured tube pan and bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

After the cake cools, pour on lemon glaze (1 cup of powdered sugar, 2-3 tablespoons of lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of water -- I pretty much made this "to taste")

The punch was awesome: Hawaiian punch, ginger ale, pineapple juice with sliced oranges floating around. Most of the serving dishes were house or apartment gifts! Glad I was able to finally use them.

I'm glad my first hosted dinner was a success and I can't wait until next time!!

Wilton Course 3, Class 2 - Fondant

I am now a fondant queen!! Well not really but I think I did a good job on my first fondant cake yesterday during class #2. This past weekend I made a Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting (per request from the guys at work). I honestly cannot remember ever trying a red velvet cake but it's actually really good and I can definitely see myself making another one day.

Here is a picture of my first fondant cake, I call it the "gift box".


I had a few issues on one of the edges and my bottom shell border could've been a bit more precise but I'm happy!

Here's a pic after I put some cut out flowers on it...


I'm not going to cut it and eat a "test piece" until people get to see it so hopefully it's still as good as it looks!

Cupcakes!

Since I've been bringing cakes to work for the last few weeks I decided to bring cupcakes for one of my cube-mates birthday today (I think she turns 61).

I used a Golden Butter cake mix and my normal recipe for butter cream. To add flair I sprayed the butter cream with purple color and added lavender sugar crystals on top. I'm proud of them because I saw some cupcakes from a professiona bakery 2 weekends ago and mines look better!!!

My Daddy's Teddy Bear Birthday Cake

Today is my dad's birthday and it only made sense that I baked him the bestest cake in the whole world. After my cake class last night I got home at about 9pm and immediately went to baking a yellow cake in my new teddy bear cake pan. The cake did not release from the pan like it should've so he came out terrible!!His legs were unattached and his heart was totally broken (haha). Have no fear, Danika is here! I decided not to get discouraged and continued trying to make the best cake for my dad. While letting the cake cool for an hour I went to work on mixing icing colors. The brown took forever to mix and I was so frustrated that I (again) almost gave up. I kept at it and finally got a light brown and brown that I was happy with and started piping the cake. Because the cake was a little jacked up (oops, I mean cracked up), I had to pipe white icing into the bad spots first.

I was up until 1am working on the cake when I finally dragged myself to bed - even though I desperately wanted to finish it. I decided to go home for lunch today so that I could finish this up on my lunch break. I had to roll, bake and ice cookies for the balloons and hat and finish his body. In all, the cake took me about 6 hours but it was worth it.


Check out the video too!!!

Wilton Course 1: Final

I am a February 23, 2010 graduate of The Wilton Method of Cake Decorating: Course 1.

In the final class we learned the final steps on how to make the Wilton rose. We learned a different step each class and thankfully I picked it up pretty quickly. I made 20+ roses that night and used my best 6 to make this cake. The actual cake was Milk Chocolate and I iced it (regular butter cream) almost perfectly and there were no chocolate specs on my cake... yayyyyy!!!

I made the cake that was pictured on the front of our book. My roses and cake were the best in the class! Here is a close up:

Course 2 starts next month but I want to go ahead and learn fondant so I am going to take Course 3 at AC Moore instead.

Cake Decorating Class #3

I am so excited!! Yesterday I finished Wilton Course 1 Class 3 and my cake turned out great :-) I tried out a new white chocolate butter cream recipe for the icing and baked a white cake, no fruit filling this time - all icing. I call it my White White Chocolate Clown Cake.


I am really proud of the cake and the decorations. This first course has been really fun and I've already decided to take another! I haven't decided if I want to take Course 2 which is more flowers or Course 3 which is fondant and tiers. I want to jump right into fondant and tiers but I feel like if I want to learn everything I should probably take them in order. The courses aren't expensive but all of the tools to create my cakes has cost a pretty penny. So far it has all been worth it and since I'm having fun, I'll keep at it.

Here are some closer pics of my clowns and the flower border. My clowns need to be made with thicker icing next time and had to be reinforced with dry spaghetti on this cake.




Last week I started reading about starting a small business and understand what licenses, fees, education, etc, I will need to start baking commercial cakes. I want to do this right so I am going to use all that MBA knowledge to create a sound business plan and see where this takes me...

For now, I will focus on class 4 of this first course and try to continue gaining the experience I need to design some fabulous cakes!!

Danika Crocker!!

Cajun Jambalaya

No more quick meals, I am learning to cook more hearty and family friendly meals. I search delish.com and other websites for recipes that interest me and then I'll add my own little twist. Last week I made a jambalaya that would make you slap yo momma :-) Here is the crock pot recipe:

1 lb of chicken (cut into bite sized pieces)
8oz smoked sausage (I use the 14oz Hillshire Farm Beef Smoked Sausage, sliced)
1 lb of shrimp
1 large green bell pepper
1 medium onion
1 cup chopped celery
1 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes
1 can of chicken broth (16 oz)
2 tablespoons oregano
2 tablespoons parsley
2 tablespoons Cajun seasoning
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper (red pepper)

In crockpot: place chicken and sausage in the bottom of crockpot, add vegetables and diced tomatoes with juice. Stir in spices and cook on low for 7-8 hours or on high for 3-4 hours. Add shrimp during the last 30 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve over rice.

Crochet anyone?

I have no idea how I decided on my hobbies but I really like making something that would be useful to me in some way. My mom crocheted me the coolest blanket before I started college. It was on my twin sized bed through 4.5 years of college and I still use it on my king size bed, although it is way too small for the bed. I always wanted to crochet something of my own so I went to the library and checked out a crochet book, bought some yarn and a crochet hook from Wal-mart and got to work with some youtube videos. Gotta love youtube!

Here is my first project.
I plan for it to be a placemat in my den to protect the table from my remotes. The colors match perfectly and after I make it a little bigger, I'll be ready to flatten it and place it out for the world to see!

Sewing 101

In December 2009, before I finished graduate school, I decided that I wanted to take a sewing class. I found a perfect 8 week course at Durham Tech for $65. I did not get around to registering until a week before class was to start in January and the class was full :-(

I was a little bummed but decided to teach myself how to sew. I like to think that I can teach myself anything so I went to the library and checked out some books and started using youtube. I watched a few dozen videos and borrowed my mom's sewing machine (I bought her the sewing machine for Christmas one year, I will return it - no Indian giving lol!) and bought a beginners pattern - an apron.


It took me a few weeks to start and finish the apron because I enjoyed laying around the house the first few weeks of January but when I started, I loved it!


I bought a few more patterns to make myself some clothes (ambitious huh?) and I will hopefully buy a dress form this weekend and get started. Cross your fingers!!

Cake Decorating Class #2

I began Wilton's Cake Decorating Course 1 on February 2, 2010 at one of my new favorite stores: Micheal's. The class cost $22.50 and consists of four 2 hour classes until February 23. Class 1 we learned how to level a cake, make butter-cream frosting, stack a cake, frost a cake, color the frosting and fill decorating bags.

For class 2 we were to bring in a frosted cake, 3-4 cups of different color butter cream frosting so that we could decorate our cake. I made a yellow cake (Duncan Hines) with strawberry preserve filling. I will learn how to make a cake from scratch one day soon :-)


During class 2 we learned how to make stars, leaves, and write on the cake. There is an art to holding the decorating bags to get the best decorations. Valentine's day is this coming Friday so I decided to stencil hearts and fill with stars. I also tried my hand at vines and leaves. The hearts came out great but my leaves need some work.

Here's my first decorated cake!

I took the cake to work and it was a hit!! It didn't last 15 minutes, everybody said it was really good and they started placing orders for cake #2. This is great!