Connecticut Cake Competition

1st Place- Special Occasions

2nd Place- Foreign Method

The month of February was a busy month! I had the pleasure of attending and competing in the Connecticut Cake Competition. I had two cakes in the competition. One in the Special Occasions category and one in the Foreign Method category. To my surprise and delight I took first place in the Special Occasions category and 2nd place in the Foreign Method category. 

Betty Van Norstrand and I

I also attended the Connecticut Chapter of ICES; evening of sharing. What a great group! They had a mini live challenge with 4 teams competing against each other to create the most amazing cake in a timed challenge. They had 1.5 hours to complete there cakes, and it was a true challenge for one team, whose cake fell apart out of the gate. But they rebounded nicely and took 3rd place. Lots of fun was had! The live challenge was followed by a wonderful sit down dinner. 

Dianna Lopez and I

After dinner we had two 55 min demonstrations. The first was by Burton Farnsworth who is an award winning sugar artist and has competed on the Food Network. He gave us some great insight into making hand modeled figures. Burton has a mild-mannered secret identity as an illustrator and graphic artist. He designed the packaging for several fragrances commissioned by Lucas Films for their Star Wars Celebration V convention held in Orlando Florida. He is not only extremely talented but very entertaining as well.

Marissa, winner of Next Great Baker & I

The second demonstration was by Vanessa Greeley. I adore Chef Greeley. She is one of the nicest people you will ever meet and has such a passion for this industry. She competed on a live challenge for Wedding Cake Wars on WEtv. Her work has been feature in a number of publications and in the Chocolate Fashion show in NYC. Chef Greeley also consults for Dove Chocolate (how awesome would that be!!). She gave us so many wonderful tips and showed us how to work with acetate sheets as well as chocolate transfer sheets, which was my personal favorite.

Nadine, runner up and I

My evening ended with a midnight madness class with Dianna Lopez. She is a hoot and has been on the Ultimate Cake Off twice and works at the Cake Boss's bakery in NJ (Carlos Bakery) on Saturdays. By the time 1 am rolled around I was ready to collapse! I found out the next day she had also judged my Special Occasions cake! She spent sometime giving me some tips for next as well!

The last day of the show started with a breakfast with the winner and 3 finalist from TLC's Cake Boss: The Next Great Baker. My dad and I tuned into that show each and every week, calling each other after each show to weigh in on what had gone down. It was a blast to visit with the winner and the finalists, and find out what they've been up to since the show ended. Still wish Nadine had won, but Marissa was very nice. 

"Mello" & I

I ended my day with a walk through of the cake salon, looking at all the cakes that had entered the various categories. I found myself standing in front of the most amazing wedding cake with another gal. I commented on how beautiful the cake was and wondered out loud how she had done a few things on the cake. The gal standing next to me started telling me how and as I looked over at her I thought she looked very familiar. I couldn't put my finger on where I'd seen her before. One thing led to another and she was showing me some of her work on her phone when she scrolled past a picture of her with Buddy, the Cake Boss. Then it hit me, this was the gal that had taught buddy how to make sugar flowers. Turns out she was also one of the judges. I told her I had entered two cakes, she had judged one of mine and wanted to see the other one. I was in shock! We spent the next half hour walking from table to table and she showed me all the do's and do not's of competing. An amazing half hour, with a legend! 

Ryan & I

I have to say, cake decorators and confectionary artists are some of the nicest people! What a wonderful weekend! Be sure to check out my Facebook page for more picture from the Connecticut Cake Competition at www.facebook.com/epicdelights

Looking forward to a busy week! My store will be opening April 2nd! Lots to do to get ready for opening day! I look forward to seeing all my students this week as well!

Happy Caking!

❤❤Michele❤❤

Valentine's Day

Heart shaped cookies flooded and decorated
with icing and airbrushed for shimmer.

Valentine's Day is next week and it's a busy week for bakeries all around the world! Cupcakes, layer cakes, heart shaped cookies will all take center stage! Those of you new to cake decorating should think about practicing your new found skills on sugar cookies. You can bake up some heart shaped sugar cookies and outline them with a border of shells, zigzags or dots. Add a little luster dust from cupid and you've got a sweet treat for your Valentine! You can even write cute messages on them!

Champagne Sugar Cookies

For super easy decorating, bake up your sugar cookies and make up a batch of buttercream icing with your favorite Valentine's Day flavoring. Take your 1M tip, load you pastry bag up with your buttercream (but remember not to over fill like I showed you in class) and start at the middle dip of your heart and move your bag around the edge of the cookie. When you get to the other side of the dip in the heart move your tip past the dip and end with a nice star in the middle of your cookie. Take some Valentine's Day inspired Wilton sanding sugar and sprinkle on your cookie. So cute!

Rolled Fondant Sugar Cook

For those of you that have taken my gumpaste & fondant class you too can bake up some heart shaped sugar cookies, ice them in a delicious buttercream icing ( I love pink champagne icing for Valentines). Then roll out some red or pink fondant, cut out hearts with the same cutter you used for the cookie dough and place the fondant hearts on top of your iced cookies. You can also use the Wilton Impression mats on your fondant prior to cutting out your hearts for some beautiful textured hearts! Or you can take one of the wheel rollers and roll a quilted pattern on the fondant and embellish with Wilton edible pearls. They are just beautiful with the pearls.

Lastly for those you looking for CAKE, whip up your favorite chocolate cake recipe or fudge cake recipe and bake in a round 8 inch pan. Followed by a recipe of strawberry buttercream (use fresh strawberries or a really good strawberry preserve). Thin some of it out to icing your cake, then using the 1M tip, border the top and bottom with either shells or rosettes. If you are feeling ambitious, prior to adding your borders you can shave a good quality chocolate and add it to the sides. Add your borders and some chocolate shavings on top for a beautiful presentation.

Strawberry Chocolate Fudge Cake, perfect
for Valentine's Day!

Here is a simple sugar cookie recipe for your Valentine's Day cookies!


Courtesy of Wilton:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon no-color almond extract
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Makes:

Makes about 3 dozen 3-in. cookies.

Instructions:

Step 1

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Step 2

In large bowl, beat butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and extracts. Mix flour, baking powder and salt; add to butter mixture 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Do not chill dough. Divide dough into 2 balls.

Step 3

On floured surface, roll each ball into a circle approximately 12 in. diameter x 1/8 in. thick. Dip cookie cutter in flour before each use. Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet 8-11 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Happy caking!

❤❤Michele❤❤

Quick Hello!

Greetings Everyone!

Sorry I haven't posted in a bit but I've been trying to get ready for a cake competition at the end of this month along with developing some exciting new class offerings I will be rolling out in April! For those of you that want to learn specific techniques drop me an email and I will tell you if its one of the new offerings coming up.

On another note, for those of you in NH that do not belong to ICES and haven't joined because MA is to far for you to travel please email me! And for those of you in NH that do not know what ICES is but you love cake, email me too and I will tell you more!

In the meantime, keep caking and look for more exciting news from me soon!

Happy caking!

❤❤Michele❤❤

Flower Power!

Flower Power Cupcakes!

I had several topics to write about this week, but things have been so busy I haven't had a chance to sit down and put my fingers to the keyboard!! However, as I was frosting cupcakes this morning, I was thinking about this past week and how excited my basic students were with making drop flowers. "I love drop flowers" as you all heard me exclaim in class on Wednesday and most of you probably thought I was nuts! But then as I walked around the room I kept hearing, "Oh I love these"!  So for my Wednesday Basic Evening class students, these cupcakes were made with you all in mind! I will share the how's with you in class next week. 

Happy caking and TGIF!

❤❤Michele❤❤

Dancing the Merengue with Meringue Powder...

Every time I hear the words Meringue Powder I think about dancing and that's exactly what meringue does...it dances around in the bowl forming graceful peaks that look like a couple floating around the dance floor. And when the song ends (that would be the humming of my mixer) and I lift the whip attachment up I'm always amazed by the transformation that's taken place.

I’ve talked about shortening in your buttercream, so let's waltz right into meringue powder. Sorry, I couldn't resist! I know a few of you have commented on how meringue powder looks and smells etc. but more importantly you’ve asked why we need it in your class buttercream recipe....so what the heck is it?

Well....Meringue powder as you know from looking at it is a fine white powder. It’s made primarily from dried egg whites…..it does have cornstarch in it, to keep it from clumping while stored and some food gums. Food gums, what the heck? The food gums help the meringue bind together easier when your whipping it up. Once reconstituted with water and beaten at high speed, you get fluffy meringue.

The primary advantage of meringue powder is that it is pasteurized. Pasteurized equals less potential for food borne illness such as salmonella, or "sammynella" as my little sister use to call it growing up. This trait makes it ideal for recipes which call for uncooked egg whites.

The process of creating meringue powder starts by drying egg whites, then mixing them with cornstarch and gum, creating the white powder we know as Meringue Powder. Flavorings like vanilla are often added, partially to cut down on the slightly starchy taste of the meringue powder. If you don’t like the flavor of meringue powder you should play around with how much flavoring you add because sometimes depending on the brand you are using the flavor of the meringue powder can be very strong.

With regards to your class buttercream recipe, we are adding meringue powder because it acts as a stabilizer, keeping the shortening in the recipe (or half shortening/half butter depending on how you made it) as well as the other liquids in the recipe from breaking down. You can also use the meringue powder to add body to boiled icing and regular meringue (think pie...mmmm pie sounds good right now! Blackberry cream pie....). Oh, sorry! Back to meringue powder...

It can also be used in place of egg whites in most recipes, but only when the recipe calls for egg whites; it cannot replace a whole egg. You can also add a tablespoon or two of meringue powder to your cake mix or a cake batter recipe to add volume to the cake. 

I was asked about a “natural” substitution for the meringue powder....there is no substitution for meringue powder it's self. However, you could use fresh egg whites or pasteurized egg whites but you would have to make a boiled icing recipe to use that method. Boiled icing....that's a whole other topic! One of which I will delightfully cover at some point! ;-) But for now, let's stick to the basics!

Happy Friday and happy caking everyone! If you aren't a fan of ours yet on FB be sure to check us out!

Cheers!
❤❤Michele❤❤

Shortening- Not all are created equal

Each week I will pick a topic from one of my classes to focus on and go into a little more detail then we have time to in class. This week I'm going to be talking about buttercream icing which is a staple for our class and when prepared correctly will save you much frustration and allow you to focus on the techniques we are learning in class. If your buttercream is made incorrectly you will spend the entire class time fighting with your icing rather than being able to focus on piping beautiful art!

Shortening

Shortening usually can be purchased in your local supermarket two ways... White shortening, which is unflavored shortening or yellow shortening which has been flavored to taste like butter. If you are making white icing you will want to make sure that you do not use butter flavored shortening otherwise your icing will not be white.

I will tell you that since Crisco changed their recipe in an effort to cut out trans-fats it has effected the way the buttercream icing tastes and feels. The trans-fat found in the original Crisco is what made your buttercreams tasty and didn't leave a greasy film on the roof of your mouth.

There is also another type of shortening that will make your buttercream tasty; High Ratio Shortening. which is a little harder to find but whips up smoother, creamier and is less greasy than traditional shortening. What's the difference you ask? High ratio shortening contains emulsifiers that allow your buttercream to hold more sugar and liquids before breaking down.

I will tell you that High Ratio Shortening is very expensive compared to Crisco but you will use less in your recipe and once you've tried it you'll have a hard time going back to Crisco. Use 2/3 cup of high ratio shortening for every 1 cup called for in the icing recipe.

Where can you buy it? Well that can be a little tricky. It's not readily available at the grocery store and if by chance your store does carry  it, it will be packaged as just "High Ratio Shortening". It can be found online at CK products (packaged as High Ratio Shortening) or through a bakery supply as Sweetex. I have been told by other decorator's that a less expensive route is to purchase store brands of shortening. Just check the label and if it contains trans-fats then that shortening will be like the old Crisco before they changed the recipe. However, keep in mind this route will not have the same flavor as a Sweetex, but it will be easier on the pocket book and give you some of the other qualities that the new Crisco recipe no longer has.

The other thing I wanted to say when making your buttercream icing is that you don't have to use 100% shortening in your recipe. If you want to make it a little tastier, you can take the shortening amount called for in the recipe and split it in half using real unsalted butter for the other half. Just make sure that you do not omit meringue powder!!! Why? Because you will have a mess on your hands if you don't and you will be super upset about 15mins into piping! I will get into meringue powder this week as I continue my focus on buttercream!

Happy caking! If you aren't a fan of ours yet on FB be sure to check us out!

❤❤Michele❤❤

Greetings!

Greetings fellow cake lovers!
I'm looking forward to sharing advice, tips and ideas with my Wilton students and anyone else that loves caking as much as I do!!! Please post any questions you have and I will be happy to create topics on them and give you some good ideas, tips and feedback! 

Happy caking everyone! If you aren't a fan of ours yet on FB be sure to check us out!

Cheers,
❤❤Michele❤❤