M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

This Mickey Mouse cake was made for my nephew Luke's 2nd birthday. Luke is a big fan of Mickey. He is also a big fan of Buzz Lightyear so I'm just glad my sister went with the Mickey theme for his birthday. I can't imagine putting together a Buzz cake. Don't' get me wrong. I would've accepted that challenge.

My husband and I just got home from his birthday party. Oh it was so much fun. I just have to say that I went in full spirit with my Minnie Mouse shirt on. Luke saw his cake got the cutest little smile on his face and kept saying over and over, "Mickey cake!" while gave Mickey a little pat on the cheek. Thank goodness fondant can maintain the integrity of the cake. I wish I had a picture of him and his cake. I'm sure my sister does. Too darn cute. I asked his older brother Rhett what he wanted for his birthday thinking that he might have changed his mind, but he hasn't. He still wants a repeat of his last birthday cake... a Nemo cake which can be seen in an earlier blog post. Of course at the end of the night I turned to my sister and brother-in-law and asked what the theme is for their next son, Owen's birthday who will turn 1 in June. I just love those three little boys.

I'm so sad to say that I didn't have Jess helping me on this project. I really missed not baking and assembling with her. I really could have used her help. In the end the project turned out quite well. Someone even told my sister at the party that I should start selling them. At that time my sister informed her that I (we) do!

To make the Mickey cake I made one 10 inch cake and two 6 inch cakes. I cheated just a little and made the ears from 2 boxes of vanilla cake mixes and store bought frosting. The 10 inch cake was homemade. I used the chocolate cake recipe from the chocolate cake with PB frosting that Jess blogged about in an earlier post. This chocolate cake is so moist and delicious. The only problem is that it is so moist and delicate that it can be challenging for a novice to assemble a layer cake using this recipe. For the filling on all of the cakes I made whipped ganache and to it I added finely crushed mint oreos. I covered the chocolate cake with a really delicious chocolate frosting. I will blog about the frosting in an upcoming post. It sure was a find!

Everyone loved the taste! I got many compliments on the great moistness of the chocolate cake. While people could tell that the filling was mint they couldn't quite put their finger on what it was. The combination of the mint oreos and the whipped ganache made a really yummy filling. It certainly helped jazz up the plain boring boxed vanilla cakes.

Another Sweet Escape success.

Bake on!

-M

More of Michele's Halloween Treats!

Jess and I made plenty of Halloween cupcakes this year. She has already posted some of them that we created together. I made more the next day for my nephews' Halloween party. Here are some featured creations that are a bit different that those that she has already posted.

This walrus cupcake was created on top of a chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache. I dyed some cream cheese frosting blue to create his face. I pipped on some black eyes. His mouth is made out of a halved peach ring and his teeth are candy coated licorice bites.

This spider and web was created on top of a chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache. I piped cream cheese frosting to create the web. The spider's body is made out of a milk dud, chocolate licorice and an m&m.

This little blue monster was created on top of a chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache. I dyed some cream cheese frosting blue to create his face. Mini marshmallows were used to create his eyes and teeth. I quartered the marshmallows for his teeth. I created lips using chocolate licorice.

These cupcakes were inspired by a picture I saw in the MixingBowl.com Fall/Winter 2010 magazine. I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache. Then I piped on the mummy's wrappings using peanut butter cream cheese frosting. M&ms were used for the eyes.

Justin called this one my "Elmo" cupcake. It is a pumpkin cupcake that is layered with a mini pumpkin cupcake. I used pink dyed cream cheese frosting and gave this little guy a furry look. The orange nose is made out of a gum drop. The eyes are 2 large marshmallows with blue m&ms.

These cupcakes were loved by everyone at the party. I have a picture of 2 of my nephews standing on a chair next to the kitchen counter just staring at all of them. Priceless. I think my brother-in-law ate 3 of them that day. His favorite were the chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache that had cream cheese skeletons piped on them. Of course the kids at the party went crazy for all the monsters that were loaded with lots of delicious frosting. Another attendant of the party said that these were cuter and tasted better than a cupcake shop in the Twin Cities that charges $3-4 per cupcake. Kudos to us.

Bake on!

M

GANACHE!!!

Chocolaty Cupcakes Dipped in Chocolate Ganache!!!!

aka "Heaven on Earth".

I have been eager to try making cupcakes that are dipped in ganache. Talk about chocolaty goodness. Just look below at my pics. My mouth is watering already. A few weeks ago, I gave it a try. It was a Monday when I brought them to work with me...boy, did my coworkers love me!!

I found my recipe at the following website: http://www.recipegirl.com/

Always on the quest for the perfect chocolate cupcakes, I baked these cupcakes up according to the recipe, with high hopes. I think that I was so focused on the ganache and the toppings that I didn't stop to make a decision on the cakes themselves. Sadly enough, these days I don't really try much of my own baking. Maybe a bite here or there. So, I really rely on the opinions of those eating my treats. Though nobody has complained once about having to test them for me. Weird, huh? With 50lbs down, I'm just not willing to sacrifice my success to try all my goodies. Yeah, me! So, taste-testers of my baked goodies...start commenting on the treats you like and the treats you don't via our blog. We would love to hear from you!!! Just hit the comment link at the bottom of our posts.

Jess and I have been talking about chocolate cupcakes a lot lately. Many recipes leave us very disappointed. They are dry, tasteless, and do not dome up nicely. Like I said earlier, I can't speak much for the taste of them, but these did seem moist and they domed up perfectly. When I make these next time I will definitely make 1 cupcake at a time until I find the perfect about of batter that will make the dome raise just about the cupcake liner. Or I will peel the liner off once they are cooled. When you apply the ganache you dip the cupcakes in the bowl of chocolaty goodness. So if the dome isn't just right you ended up with a liner that is full of chocolate...not very picturesque. You can see from my picture below that some of them turned out really well and others not so much. This only had to do with the height of the cupcake itself in relation to the liner.
Once the ganache dried I decided to take some creative liberties to add that special Michele touch. On recipegirl.com, she suggests putting some to leftover ganache (that has thickened a bit) into a plastic bag and piping on some decorations. This is what I did below, but not before I took my food processor to some Snickers and Peanut Butter Cups to add a little POW! Some of these cupcakes don't have liners as I pulled them off when they were covered with the ganache around the rims.


This next little guy is probably about the prettiest cupcake I have made to date. So proud of it. So, after the ganache dried, I swirled on some peanut butter buttercream and add a few chocolate sprinkles. I used a "Fluffy Peanut Butter Frosting" recipe from http://www.allrecipes.com/. Complete heaven. Even the name is mouth watering. Chocolaty Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache, Topped with Peanut Butter Buttercream and Chocolate Sprinkles. Delish! Who's hungry?

Bake on!

-M

THE NEMO CAKE!!!

Ahhhhh. The long anticipated Nemo cake!!! What a fun, yet challenging project. This is one of the first projects that Jess and I took on for an actual "customer". We made this cake for my nephew's 4th birthday party. I found my inspiration from a cake I had found online while "googling". My biggest inspiration came from my nephew and his love of the move "Finding Nemo". His birthday was this past July and I believe he started telling me about his Nemo birthday cake around January. He knew exactly what it needed to have. Some of his requests included: a diver, boat, propeller, net, Nemo, Marlin, Bloat, Dori, Squirt, the mask which has P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney on it.... you get the picture. He knew what he want and it was my quest not to let him down. While my original plan was to try to create the "Nemo" characters out of modelling chocolate, I soon discovered that this project was going to be big enough without trying to create the detailed characters on my own. For this part of the cake, I opted to go to Disney.com and purchase a set of figurines. My nephew loved that these figurines were his to keep once the party was over. He likes to create little imaginary fish tanks with all the characters...how cute! I was going to fondant both tiers of the cake, but honestly, fondant tastes gross and I started to run out of time. I opted to make a buttercream frosting dyed a nice sea blue. To create the coral and seaweed, Jess and I sculpted gum paste that we had purchased at our local Michaels.

The bottom tier of the cake is a white cake with a blueberry cream cheese filling. Oh, yeah...forgot to mention. My nephew also insisted that it be a blueberry cake. While I could have just told him that the blue frosting was blueberry, I chose to try to get these buggers Incorporated somehow.

Jess and I made just a basic cream cheese frosting and combined that with a blueberry puree that we had created. For the blueberry puree we combined blueberries with lemon juice, corn starch and a bit of corn syrup. It didn't have quite the consistency we were hoping for at this point so we whipped up some heaving whipping cream and added a bit of flour. Tada! We had found our filling! It was quite tasty!

Right Jess?!?!?!

For the second tier, we chose to go with a classic chocolate cake. Jess and I decided to get a little creative and come up with our own recipe. While we both LOVE chocolate!!!! we agreed that chocolate cake always seems to be lacking. We made it our mission to create a moist yet super chocolaty chocolate cake. We started with a basic vanilla cake recipe and adapted it to create a crazy good chocolate masterpiece. What we ended up doing was omitting some of the vanilla in the vanilla cake recipe and trading that for some melted Baker's semi-sweet chocolate. We ended up using 8oz or 8 squares of Bakers to the get the perfect chocolaty flavor that we were hoping for. We were sooooooooooooooo happy. It was a shining moment for us! We were so proud of our little chocolate creation. It was sooooo good! My mouth waters just thinking of it.

To fill the chocolate cakes, we made a whipped chocolate ganache with a raspberry filling. Take about heaven!! Yum-O! To make the ganache we heated semisweet chocolate on the double boiler till melted. In a separate saucepan , we heated heavy cream. Once this was ready, we whisked the two together and let it chill in the freezer for a few hours. Once we were ready for the ganache I put my kitchen aide to work and whipped the chocolate until it was stiff. In the meantime we prepared the raspberry filling. I started by boiling the raspberries with some lemon juice, water, sugar. I boiled this mixture for about 15 minutes and then strained the mixture with a fine sieve. I put the mixture back on the heat. I then dissolved about 5T of cornstarch into about 1/2 cup water. I mixed this in with the raspberries and boiled it for about 5 minutes more. Let me tell you... the kitchen was smelling pretty good by then.

Now that the cakes and fillings were all set. We had to work on the decor of the cake. We had a lot of fun doing this. We made the coral and seaweed out of gum paste. We simply dyed the gum paste and used our gum paste tool kit to shape it the way we wanted. We then let the pieces sit out to dry and harden.

Now all that was left to do was assembly. After making about 3 batches of buttercream, the cake was assembled and decorated. The figurines, coral and seaweed were put in their place. They stuck to the cake just perfectly with the buttercream frosting alone. I added some brown sugar around the bases to function as sand. It turned out better than I had hoped. I even think I met all of my nephew's criteria. The guests at the party loved it! I don't think my Mom could quite believe we put this all together. Job well done!

Guess what my nephew is requesting for his birthday next year...

a NEMO CAKE!!!

Deliciousness!

These are devil's food cupcakes with reese's peanut butter cup ganache buttercream! There aren't even words to describe how delicious the frosting is! I might have ate all the leftover frosting and licked the bowl clean! :) The frosting recipe is from one of my absolutely favorite blogs oh, just put a cupcake in it.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Ganache Buttercream
24 oz chopped up mini reese's peanut butter cups1 ½ cups cream
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 - 2 cups powdered sugar sifted.
Night before or earlier in day, put chopped up candy in heatproof bowl. In a small saucepan heat cream to simmer, pour over candy. Let sit for a few minutes, then stir until chocolate is incorporated. You will have peanut butter lumps...that is a desirable trait! Put in fridge and let firm up overnight.

Cream butter and 2 cups ganache in mixer until well blended. Add 1 cup of sugar and blend well. If frosting is too soft, add some more sugar...remember it's sweet though. Careful not to over beat or it will get grainy. This frosting is soft and silky!

After adding the cream to the chopped peanut butter cups, but before stirring!

Look at those yummy chunks of peanut butter!! Time to put in the refrigerator to get firm!