Sunday Sundae

As she often does, my former coworker Melanie inspired me.  She was telling me that she really enjoys photos of cupcakes that have a "sundae" look with a cherry on top.  I had a customer who ordered "The Ashley" (dark chocolate cupcakes - and this particular customer asked for the Swiss Meringue buttercream) and of course there was some leftover batter.  I was super excited with the new boxes that I ordered online from bakeabox.com - they are so pretty and the inserts are perfect!!!!

I really like the new swirl I've been doing, too!

Anyway, for the leftover batter, I decided to use some "nut cups" which are really trendy right now as cupcake liners.  I also thought it would add some vintage cuteness to the "ice cream sundae" inspired mini cupcakes.  Here they are:

So cute, right?  And never fear - they are SUPER tasty.  Melanie asked me, somewhat bewildered, if I have cherries just sitting around the house.  I said, "of course!"  :)

Professional Cake Pop Pictures

Here are some great shots of the Cake Pops that I took to work on my 2nd to last day.  My great friend Melanie Busbee took these - http://melaniebusbeephoto.com/ - check out her other beautiful pictures!

Cake Pop Extravaganza!!!

Well, this week was my last week at my job, and next week I start a new job!  (We're talking DAY job here - not the cupcake thing.)  My supervisor's daughter had requested more of "Miss Jenna's cakepops" having deemed Starbucks' cake pops "gross," and I also wanted to bake one last batch of something for my coworkers, so I thought this would be a perfect goodbye gesture.  I also had an amazingly large quantity of frozen cake balls in the freezer after the Mexican Chocolate Pudding Filled Cupcake Disaster of 2011.  (LOL)


My amazing friend and baking partner Marlo agreed to come over and hang out with me and make some cake pops of her own. We had to do it on a weeknight after she'd finished report cards but that was no problem.  I recently joined www.mycakeschool.com and watched a fantastic video about making cake pops that gave me a lot of great ideas.

First, mix in 4 tablespoons of vegetable shortening with 1 regular bag of Wilton candy melts, to help get the very thin consistency you want for cake pops.  Second, if you have a warming tray, keep your bowls on it to keep the candy coating nice and warm and thin.  Third, dip the sticks into the chocolate and then push halfway into the ball, and leave on the tray.  Here are some pictures:

I was inspired to make abstract cake pops that aren't "faces" or "objects" which tend to take a lot of extra supplies, time and patience.  I found some pictures online to help inspire me, and Marlo and I set to work.  We made a ton!  We had so many cake balls and not enough sticks, too!

Some obviously turned out better than others of course!  We had decided to make a flower design on the cake balls with no sicks, but it just turned into a huge mess.

First, I think the candy coating was too thick for the balls.  Second, it was too thick for the piping tip I had set up, and it made this huge mess.  It was too runny for the plastic baggie I tried next, but we got it to work.  They are so ugly!  But they were made with lots of love and fun. 

Wilton Cake Class

One of the first lessons in the cake world that I learned was "Wilton Sucks."  However, since I am a sponge who wants to soak up as much cake knowledge as possible, and I had a friend willing to attend with me, I signed up for the Wilton beginner class at Micheal's.  It was pretty cheap and spanned 4 weeks (Tuesday nights) and was close to work, so it seemed simple enough.

The first class was pretty disappointing.  The instructor was late, she spent a long time talking about herself, looking at the spoiled icing that everyone but me had purchased, and didn't really do anything productive.  This is how terrible my 6 cookies turned out:

Lucky for me I already have *some* experience - but she didn't even teach us how to color the frosting or anything.

The second day we had to bring a cake.  Of course I broke one of the layers of cake, and I was all stressed.  We also had to make the Wilton frosting and I was NOT wanting to do that, with all of it's shortening and artificial flavors, but I went ahead and made it.  The class was a bit better.  Dawn and I were pretty late but we sort of just took it upon ourselves to color our frosting and go ahead with our cakes.  I even ran out and bought some sprinkles, to make the cake super cute.  I copied it directly from the picture in the instruction manual.

The third night we were instructed to bring cupcakes, and that we only needed 6 each, and that we were going to fill them so to bring some kind of filling.  Since Dawn made the cookies for the first week, and let me have 6 of them, I made the cupcakes for the 3rd night.  I found a recipe for jumbo cupcakes that made 12 which was perfect, 6 for her and 6 for me.  Again, I just sort of started going during the class since the instructor was so distracted and not very organized.  Here is what I came up with for my cupcakes:

For the last class, she told us we didn't even need to bring anything if we don't want to, so I decided to skip it.  I would spend the time practicing roses and flowers and other techniques:

Overall, I did learn a lot from this class, even if I did spend a lot of money on all of the supplies and even if the instructor was very unorganized.  I wish I could remember everything I learned!  LOL.  Luckily I still have the instruction manual so I can just pull that out for any reminders I might need!