Marble Sheet Cake and Whipped Cream Frosting!

As I had mentioned in my last post I am making cakes and crafts as a way to get some money during the summer. My first order was to make a 9x13 Marble sheet cake with Whipped Cream Frosting. I had never made a marble cake before so I was a little nervous... ^^; I found a recipe on BakingBites.com and it was a lot easier then I had originally thought, and I had a lot of fun making the swirls!

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1/4 cup of cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp water, hot
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups sugar*don't get confused. Will explain*
• 1/2 cup butter = 1 stick
  
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 cup milk

Start preheating your oven at 350 F, and prepare your 9x13 cake baking pan. First make the cocoa part of the cake. Take your cocoa powder, 1/4 sugar, 1.2 tsp vanilla extract and hot water. Whisk them together in a medium bowl. Once that is done set it aside for later use. In a larger bowl sift flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. *I personally love to sift* Get your beaters ready cause now it's time to cream your butter and sugar. Once everything is all creamy beat in your eggs one at a time. Now add the other tsp of vanilla extract and sour cream. When it is done take that batter and mix it together with the flour mixture. Put it in 1/3 of the mixture at a time, you don't want to put it all in at once. Now you're going to take a cup of the cake batter and mix it into the cocoa mixture. This is where it get's fun! Pour part of the white mixture in parts of the cake pan, and the cocoa in other parts also. Keep interchanging the batters until it's all in the pan. Now take a rubber spatula and make back and forth movements in the batter. Not only will this make the cake look nice but it also get's rid of the air bubbles. Place in the oven 32 minutes. Test the cake by putting a toothpick in it, if it comes out clean the cake is done!

Whipped Cream Frosting

Ingredients

• 1 cup of heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 cup powder sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 TBSP non flavored gelatin
  
• 3 TBSP hot water

take gelatin and hot water in a small pan and cook on low to medium heat for about 3 minutes. Use mixer and mix whipping cream until thicken, add sugar and vanilla. Mix again until smooth. Mix in gelatin.

Sadly my order got canceled in the middle of baking, but like they say in Broadway THE SHOW MUST GO ON!! ^^; The cake turned out great and I shared it with some of my friends.

Summer Business!

For the rest of the Spring and most of the Summer, I will be taking local special requests! This is probably the closest that I'm going to have for a summer job. Right now i'm preparing my first order. A birthday cake! I'll take pictures and post later on in the month, the due date for the cake is the 22nd. I have also been making and selling headbands, and other crafts. Please check my Deviantart page for details!

Mom's birthday cake!

My mom's birthday was a few days ago and I made her a Lemon mousse cake for her and her bible study group. The cake recipe is the same as my friend's wedding cake. I just changed the mousse, and I forgot to post the recipe for the frosting I used for the wedding cake, and so I'm going to do it here to! These are both very easy recipes and both taste amazing! And sorry I didn't take any photos this time!

Lemon Mousse- Recipe from Cooks.com

Ingredients

2 lg. lemons
4 eggs, separated
1/4 c. sugar
1 tbsp. Knox gelatin *one packet*
3/4 c. heavy cream

Instructions

Grate lemon rinds finely and reserve. For this you really need a zestier. Sadly I didn't have one, and there were a lot of chunks in the mousse but it didn't ruin it. Squeeze juice of lemons and reserve. I used a hand juicer cause that's all I had, but if you have a food processor or a juicing machine that's fine as well, but I personally like to do it the old fashion way. Combine yolks with the rind and sugar. Beat with whisk until light and lemony. Combine juice and gelatin and let stand in the pot for about 10 minutes.

Heat mixture over low heat. After it dissolves, stir in egg yolk mixture slowly. Then, beat heavy cream until thick, fold into mousse mixture. Whip egg whites and fold in. I let it sit in the fridge for a short while, but remember when you take it out to put it on the cake stir the mousse cause it might look a little curdy, you want it to look pretty!

Buttercream Icing Recipe

I got this recipe from one of my mom's old cookbooks. It was from her Wilton's Beginner's Guide. Wilton's always has great cake making tips, recipes, and accessories. It's interesting to look through this book, cause it is from the 1980's. I even wrote my name in the book when i was three so I guess it's fate that I come across it again after 21 years lol.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup Solid Vegetable shortening *I used Crisco Sticks*
• 1/2 cup Butter or Margarine *I used Blue Bonnet Regular*
• 1 pound *about 4 cups* of sifted powdered sugar *yes it's alot*
  
• 2 Tbl Milk or water *I say use milk*
• 1 tsp. Vanilla extract

Directions

Cream shortening and butter in a bowl, and slowly add the sugar, milk and vanilla. Blend on medium speed until all ingredients are well mixed. Blend an additional minute to make sure it's really creamy. If you wish to make it chocolate just add 3 ounces of melted Unsweetened Chocolate and 1 Tablespoon more of milk.

Yields about 3 cups of stiff buttercream frosting.

Time for some updates!

Today I am going to try and update blogs and pages! Wish me luck! and coming up here is going to be a recipe dump!

Ginger Green Tea

I'm sick with an ear infection, and drowsy from my medicine. But despite it all I'm still looking up recipes, trying them out, and updating my blog and networking while listening to Katy Perry! One I tried out today was Ginger Green Tea. Originally the recipe called for lemon, but I am lacking lemons...

Ingredients

• 2 cups water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 6 green tea bags

In a pan boil the water, sugar, and ginger. When it gets to a good boil lower heat and let it boil for 7-8 minutes. This makes the water thick and kinda creamy lol. Take off heat and put in the tea bags. Let them stoop for 10 minutes, and stir mixture every so often. The tea should be ready! If you want you can add ice and cool it off, or put it on a container and let it sit in the fridge. One thing you should be aware of when trying it is that the ground ginger will give it a kick! But since I don't have the lemon it's probably making it more spicier. I suggest only using a half a teaspoon of ginger for this.

The Wedding Cake!

My best friend's wedding was very beautiful! For being a small wedding that was thrown together in under a week, it was very well organized. My roles in the wedding were the maid of honor and cake maker. This was my first time making a wedding cake, and first fancy cake i've made. I have made cakes from scratch before, but this was the first one that turned out right. I found a wedding cake recipe on allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• i cup butter *two sticks* soften
• 3 cups white sugar
• 7 eggs *yes that's alot of eggs!*
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract * i like to add a couple of drops extra*
• 3 cups all purpose flour * i used Swan's Down cake flour, and with cake flout for every cup you have to add 2 tablespoons extra*
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 baking soda
• 1 cup sour cream

The cake will turn out more moist if you let the ingredients get to room temperature.

In a large mixing bowl cream together the soften butter and sugar. It'll be a little lumpy but that's fine. Next you add the eggs, but you have to add them one at a time. Crack an egg mix the batter with an electric mixer till it's mixed in completely, and repeat six more times. Then stir in the vanilla. In a separate bowl sift the cake flour, baking soda and baking powder.

Once that is done combine the two mixtures. Mix well and make sure all of the flour has been absorbed. The last step is to add the cup of sour cream. Mix for 1 or 2 minutes till there are no lumps. Make sure you have big enough cake pans greased and ready. I used two 9 inch pans for the first cake, and place in the oven at 325 F or 165 C. You can bake the cake for 45 to 60 minutes but i baked for 30. The smaller one got done at 30 and the bigger took about 40-45. To check that the cake is ready, stick a tooth pick in, if it comes out clean it's done. Let the cakes cool and rest them on a wire rack.

I made up a second batch of the cake batter and used it to make cup cakes.
I used a Wilton mini bunt cake pan to make the cup cakes.

No cake would be complete with out the filling and frosting! The filling was a raspberry mousse and the frosting was butter cream. My mom helped me out by making the butter cream frosting so I don't have that recipe on me right now, so I'll just give you the Raspberry Mousse! This recipe I got from Cooks.com

Ingredients

• 2 (10 oz.) pkgs of frozen raspberries, thawed.
• 2 env. of unflavored gelatin
• Sugar
• 1 tsp. lemon juice
• Dash of salt
• 4 egg whites at room temp.
• 2 cups of heavy or whipping cream
• 1-3 tbsp. Raspberry liqueur * I didn't use that for this recipe*
  

In a blender at a low speed, blend the raspberries until smooth; strain into a medium saucepan on low hear; discard seeds * i used a wire drainer* Sprinkle gelatin evenly over liquid: cook over the low heat until dissolved. Remove from heat, and stir in 1/4 cup of sugar, lemon juice and salt. Chill in refrigerator for about 20- 35 minutes and stir occasionally, until the mixture mounds when dropped from a spoon.

While the mixture is chilling start working on your eggs. In a bowl mix egg whites at a high speed until soft peaks form. Gradually sprinkle in a 1/4 cup of sugar: beat until sugar is completely dissolved. With a rubber spatula gently fold raspberry mixture into beaten whites. In a small bowl, at medium speed beat the whipping cream until soft peaks form, take this and fold into the raspberry mixture, and refrigerate until set. *it takes about 4 hours*

Now comes the fun part! Putting it all together! I cut each layer in half, but parts of the layers fell apart cause i'm still working on getting better at cutting layers. After the layers are cut examine them and see which ones will be your bottom, middles, and top. Once that is figured out start putting the mousse on your cake, and stacking. The butter cream frosting can now be spread on the outside. I put fondant on the outside of the cake, and painted it pink with sparkling pink icing, and on the top made a heart with the butter cream and wrote the couple's initials on it.





For the cup cakes I squirted raspberry mousse inside the holes and topped the holes with butter cream frosting. Those seemed to be a huge hit at the wedding. That concludes my wedding cake blog post! Wow for my first real blog post this sure was a long one! Feel free to try the recipes listed here!

Working on my friend's wedding cake!

My best friend is getting married on Friday, so i've started working on her wedding cake. I know it's a couple of days early but i'm going to be busy most of Thursday, and plus it's always best to start working on these days in advance! Right now I'm working on the bottom level of the layers of the first tier. I'm using a floating stand so the plate on top is going to have mini bunt cakes with the cake's filling lodged inside. But before I can do that I need to go to the store and get some more eggs... this recipe calls for a lot of eggs!

My first blog post!

This is my first post on my cooking blog. I was originally planning on doing this blog when i start Culinary School this fall, but I was to excited. I was inspired to do my cooking blog from the movie Julie and Julia, and by all of the other amazing food blogs I've read on here! If you wish to follow me you can see recipes, photos, tips, ect. I hope you all enjoy!