Take a forkful of cake and call me in the morning.... Fondant Doctor's Coat Cake!

It's been a LONG time since I've used fondant.  Today I had the opportunity to use it to make a doctor's coat cake for the doctors at Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin, Maryland.  I was given a copy of the logo and a photo of a cake similar to the one I created.  Thought I'd share the process...

First, you have to ice the cake.  Even though it has fondant on it, the cake underneath is still iced as if it was not going to have fondant on it.  Some people don't eat the fondant.  This allows you to still be able to peel off the fondant and have the cake and icing underneath.  

I used a large piece of parchment paper on my work surface so I wouldn't have to dust the surface.  If you DID want to dust your work surface, I recommend either cornstarch or powdered sugar.

I started by rolling out the white fondant larger than the cake.  When it was completely rolled out, I lifted up the parchment and transferred the fondant to the cake.  Working with a smoothing tool and a knife, I smoothed out the surface and cut off the excess with the knife.  It took a little bit of effort to miter the corners.

To start the shirt, I took a piece of fondant and kneaded some teal color into it.  Once I got it colored to the desired hue, I rolled it out and started cutting the pieces for the shirt.  The body of the shirt itself came first, then the collar.

Kneading color into the white fondant.

Shirt and collar complete.

Next I went back to the white fondant and created the lapels of the coat, one piece at a time...four pieces total.

The right lapel, pieces one and two....

Left lapel, pieces three and four.

Up-close view of the "stitching" on the coat.

To create the "top stitching" on the coat, I used some of the wonderful tools Wilton has made available for fondant work.  See below for a photo of a few of the tools...

Tools for fondant work from Wilton

Rolling pin with silicone sleeve.

Next comes the pocket.  I used the wheel to do the top stitching on it too!

Pocket added!

Now some details...like buttons and top stitching on the shirt.

Buttons and stitching added!

Now for some sculpting and rolling to create a stethoscope.  Once each piece is created, a paint brush and some black icing coloring gel is used to paint the black pieces.  Then the silver parts are painted with the use of silver luster dust and some rum!  The rum and the dust creates the silver "paint."

Brushing the paint (icing gel color) on the stethoscope parts.

After allowing a little time to dry, it's time to place the stethoscope on the cake.

Stethoscope added!

Now a buttercream border completes the cake....

Reverse shell border added

To finish out the cake, the logo was recreated in buttercream.

Logo in buttercream

The actual logo...which looked teal on my phone but looks blue here!

And a few final photos of the cake once completed....

Done!

A closeup of the stethoscope!

Boxed and ready to be delivered to the hospital!!!

I've been having a rough couple of weeks, and I really needed the "shot in the arm" that this cake provided today.  I haven't played with fondant in a long time.  I went into it with NO FEAR and just enjoyed working with it.  Before I knew it, it was finished and I hadn't run into any stumbling blocks.  I just might rethink using fondant in the future....

Crochet Tutorial: The Temperature Blanket!

I decided I wanted to crochet myself a big blanket that would be large enough for two people to snuggle under.  Through Pinterest, I found a neat blanket called a "temperature blanket."  I set my phone to go off every day at noon with an alarm that says "temperature."  It reminds me to check my app on my phone and record the temperature at that moment wherever I am at.  I text myself with the temperature.

  
Here's a screenshot of my cell phone text messages to myself for the past few days.  By the way, this is a great way to remember other things as well.  I'm constantly texting myself with reminders!  It's just a great little life hack!

I have a guide I created that shows the temperature ranges and what yarn I have assigned to each temperature.  I taped a snippet of each yarn to it and also stapled a yarn wrapper from each color to it.  If I run out of a particular color, I have the wrapper with all of the important information I need to purchase more!

Yarn labels should be saved for future reference!

My temperature chart!

I have subscribed to Ipsy which is a makeup sample club. Each month you get five samples of makeup in a makeup bag.  I now have five bags.  They make GREAT project bags for my crochet!  I like to be able to pick up my projects and go out the door with them if I know I'm going to have time to kill somewhere.    

My tools for this project!

A few months ago I subscribed to a makeup sample club called Ipsy.  Each month you get five samples of makeup in a makeup bag.  These little bags are PERFECT to throw into your project bag so you can keep your project tools in an organized place.  My Ipsy bag for this blanket holds my scissors, tapestry needles for weaving in yarn ends, an ink pen, my written temperature guide, and my reference chart.  Now when I head out the door if I know if I'm going to have to kill time somewhere, I'll grab the bag with my blanket in it which also has this little Ipsy bag tucked inside and I'm ready to go!

Here's my written chart for March.  You can see I've crossed off March 1 through 4 since I have crocheted those rows.  It is March 27 as I write this, so I'm a little behind!  I'm hoping to catch up tonight!  I also wrote the reference chart on the right-hand side.  I recently added white after the red and changed up the temperature ranges for pink, orange, and red.  I need to update that on my written chart here!  I already did it on my color guide!

To create this blanket, I started by chaining 265 plus 2 for a total of 267.  Then I started crocheting a half-double crochet in the second chain from the hook and in each chain after. Each row of this blanket is 265 stitches wide.  Every now and then I count as I go so know my blanket isn't getting more narrow or wider.  

I'm using stitch markers to mark the beginning of each month.  I'm considering embroidering the abbreviations for the months in white yarn on the blanket to indicate where the months begin and end on the blanket.

Stitch markers to indicate the start of a month.

When the blanket is finished, I plan to put a border of some kind on it.  Most likely it will be a shell border as that is my favorite.  I am not sure what color I will choose.  Perhaps white.  Perhaps a variegated color.  I'll wait until it is done and make up my mind at that point.  I might even do an interactive poll online and see what others think or go ask the crochet community online what their suggestion is.

See below for a quick video that shows how to do the half-double crochet stitch!

I can't wait to see what this blanket will look like after a year and 365 rows of color!  I'll be sure to update the post to show the finished project!!!  To all of my fellow crocheters, happy hooking!

Fun with Chocolate: Orange Bunnies

Easter is almost here, and that means bunnies are very popular....especially at the bakery.  I saw the neatest pin on Pinterest that showed how to take orange-colored chocolate and turn it into a really cute little bunny.  Here's the link to the pin so you can see the original idea...

Click here for the link to the original pin....






To start, I drew an outline by hand on a piece of parchment paper.  When I was satisfied with the shape and size, I outlined it in black Sharpie marker to make it stand out.  I then traced it multiple times on a larger sheet of parchment until I had 12 outlines on the paper and taped a blank piece of parchment over it.  You don't want the food touching the ink!  The black Sharpie stands out so well underneath the blank parchment.  You can see right through it!

My original artwork

Next I melted some white chocolate that I colored with special orange candy coloring.  You can't use icing colors to tint chocolate because they are water based.  It would cause the chocolate to seize up.  The candy colorings are oil based!  I placed the melted orange-colored chocolate into a piping bag (without a piping tip).  Just a quick little snip of the scissors at the tip of the bag gave me the perfect tiny opening to pipe out the chocolate.

I first traced the outline that I could see showing through the parchment paper.

Outline piped in first

Next, on a diagonal, I piped lines to roughly fill in the bunny shape.  I didn't worry about them being even or if they were spaced apart differently.  Just zigzag back and forth on a diagonal!

Zigzag piping!

Next, continue to fill on but in an OPPOSITE diagonal direction.  Again, don't worry about being even or spacing things out the same....it's supposed to look a little messy.  That's the whole idea.

Finished bunny!!!

Once you are done, pop these in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes so they will harden.  You can do it in the freezer if you are in a hurry....should only take about 5 minutes in the freezer!

Once finished, it's time to get the cupcake ready.  I chose to do both vanilla and chocolate cupcakes today.  After coring them out and filling them with vanilla buttercream, I piped chocolate buttercream in the classic cupcake icing swirl on top of each cupcake with a Wilton 1M icing tip.  Then, using the Wilton #233 multi-opening tip (for grass and fur...see pic below), I piped a round area of grass (piping about 7 or 8 little tufts of grass in a circle).

Wilton #233 tip

Tufts of grass in a circle

Once the grass was piped in, it was just a matter of placing a hardened chocolate bunny in the center of the tuft of icing grass.

I am anxious to try this same chocolate-making techniques with other holidays.  I have seen hearts with pretty filigree designs inside.  A Christmas tree would be cute, or perhaps a Halloween pumpkin.  So many possibilities!

Icing Technique Tutorial: Multiple Colors in One Piping Bag

Have you ever wondered HOW they got multiple colors of icing to come out at once and look so pretty?  

Let me show you a NEW way to do it that is mess free and super easy!

The OLD way is messy.  You basically take a piping bag and using a knife or a thin spatula apply stripes of colored icing inside the bag, filling in the bag with either white icing or another color.  You can also paint the actual gel food coloring in stripes inside of the piping bag as well before adding a base color of icing.  The NEW way is so simple and much less messy!

http://www.bakedecoratecelebrate.com/techniques/bagstriping.cfm

The photo above shows the striping technique where you paint in the gel colors.  Follow the link in the picture caption for full instructions on this technique.

http://the-best-recipes-of-cupcakes.blogspot.com/2014/10/cotton-candy-cupcakes-for-elizabeth.html

The photo above shows the striping technique where you fill in the actual icing colors in stripes inside of the bag.  Follow the link in the caption for the instructions on this technique.

To do this NEW method, take a piece of plastic wrap and lay it out flat on your work surface.  With a spatula, roughly lay out stripes of icing side by side.  See photo below...

Next, grasp the plastic wrap and roll the icing into a sausage shape, twisting the ends of the wrap.  See photo below...

Cut the twisted end off of the "icing sausage" and drop it down into a piping bag fitted with a decorating tip, and you are ready to go.  You may need to squeeze out a little icing before it actually starts coming out in multiple colors.

Cleanup of the icing bag is easy because all of the icing was actually encased in plastic wrap.  You should be able to reuse the piping bag!

Below are some two-toned roses I made using the striping technique from the second picture where I striped the bag with icing in blue and then filled it with white:

So easy!  Now mess free!!!  A great use for plastic wrap!

Cake Tutorial: The Frozen Castle

What a fun cake to make!  Who doesn't love the movie "Frozen???"  When a good friend of mine wanted a castle cake for his granddaughter, I was all over this one.  Do you want to know a secret?  It was SO easy!  Wilton has an amazing castle kit that makes it so simple.

The kit runs $24.99 at Michaels, but it is RARELY EVER on sale.  What does that mean?  It means you can use the 40% off coupon and get it for about $15!!!

I got the Frozen Jelly Belly jellybeans which were very pretty "frosty" looking colors in blues and purple and white to add a special touch to the cake, and I was fortunate to find a play set with both princesses and Olaf on clearance at Wal-Mart.

The best part about this cake is that the kit takes all of the work out of it.  Here's a photo of the parts I was using...

all of the towers, turrets, doors, windows....it all comes in white plastic pieces.

Each of the towers has a cone piece to place on top.  The cones get coated with icing, and you can pipe icing anywhere you want as well. You can make royal icing and coat the pieces.  I've seen some really neat designs like the sandcastle which gets coated completely in a sand color and left to harden before using.  I chose to keep all of the parts white except for cones which got coated with buttercream icing.

The cake only needed to feed about 20 people, so I went with a sheet cake in 9 x 13 size.  I cut the sheet cake in half lengthwise, and then I layered it so I ended up with four slabs of cake.

Next I iced between the layers, stacking the cake as I went.

Finally, I iced the cake smooth with first a coat of icing to catch the crumbs (we call that dirty icing!) and then iced it again a second time smooth.

To do the final layer of icing, I piped some blue around the bottom and iced the rest of the cake thickly with white icing.  I took a long flat metal scraper to go around the cake and scrape it into a smooth side on each side.  This allowed the blue and white icing to come together as one.  It turned out really nicely!

Once iced, it was time to put the pieces of the kit on it.  I chose several different sizes of towers and placed them straight into the cake in some cases and in others "glued" to the sides of the cake with the help of some icing.

I think the worst part of using this kit is that you have to worry about the customer getting all of the pieces back to you.  I've used this castle kit twice now, so it has probably paid for itself now, but it would be heartbreaking to have to buy a new kit because pieces were missing!

After placing everything where I wanted it, I piped a border around the bottom of the cake and also piped a border around the base of each tower or part to hold it in place.

For this cake, I striped my icing bag inside with blue and white so when the icing came out it was a blue/white combined color.  It came out beautifully.

Next came the cones on the towers.  I removed each one and using a spatula coated them in baby blue icing, striping the spatula down the sides so there were "lines" in the icing.  Each cone got "cemented" in place with white icing.  I also used the blue icing to make some accent piping around the tops of the towers, and white icing with a round #3 tip made icicles in many spots.  I placed the characters where I wanted them and used icing to keep them in place.

Aren't these jellybeans beautiful???!!!  I used them to accent the cake, cementing them on with icing.

  Melted white and blue chocolate in piping bags allowed me to pipe out little accent pieces and snowflakes.  While the chocolate was setting, I sprinkled it with sugar crystals in blue and white.  They were then placed in the freezer for 10 or 15 minutes to set up.  Once done, they were placed on the cake in random spots to really make the cake sparkle.

The finished product with all of the embellishments!  I chose to write on the cake board instead of on the cake for the birthday message.  

I took a multitude of pictures when it was finished from various angles....

In the end, a little girl had a beautiful cake in her favorite theme.  She is truly a little princess, and she deserved to celebrate her third birthday with the cake of her dreams!

On a hilarious side note....the grandfather commented on Facebook that it was overwhelming trying to figure out how to deconstruct it and that they almost sent out for Tastykakes to get them past the humger while they figured it out!  LOL.  Seriously, it was as easy as just taking the towers off one at a time and washing the icing of of them.  It all came down to one sheet cake layered into four layers.

Wilton made life very easy with this one....a great kit that makes it look like you did a lot of work when in reality the kit did the work for you!