Environmental Science Thesis Cake

My friend Michelle just graduated with a Masters in Environmental Science. For her thesis project she studied the mosquito-spreading virus Chikungunya. I went to see a presentation of her work and on the title slide of her presentation she had an image of the earth with a giant mosquito sitting atop it. The mosquito was piercing the world with it's stinger and a little trickle of blood was oozing out. She really knows how to get your attention.

When I heard that her boyfriend was throwing her a surprise graduation party, I offered to make the cake. As I was sketching out ideas, I kept thinking of this mosquito sitting on and piercing the earth. So, I decided to make it the centerpiece of the cake and make the rest of the cake look very nature oriented with some grass and "twigs."

The "world" was made buy pouring cake batter into a glass bowl and covering with fondant. I began to cut out continents, but one look at it and Jon's expression said it all. I am not an artist. I can craft, I can sculpt, but I can't draw. That's his department. So, when he asked if I wanted him to do it...I said yes faster than you can say Antartica. He did an amazing job and it definitely made my world look realistic.

I sculpted the mosquito out of gumpaste and used wire for the legs and stinger. I made wings, but they were too heavy for the body and I ended up leaving them off completely. Who cares if my mosquito is anatomically correct? If people know what it is...then it's a success in my mind.

I had two tiers to the cake. Using 2 different piping tips, I created "grass" coming up the sides of the cake. I added a few flowers to make the lower parts of the cake a bit more pleasing to look at.

I wanted some wood to balance the grass (green, brown, and blue are the colors of the earth in my mind). I created "twigs" out of gumpaste and put them sticking out of the bottom tier of the cake.

Finished off the cake with the virus that Michelle was studying and VOILA! - my first disease oriented cake! (Given my profession...it probably won't be the last).

Liz's Birthday Cake

One of my best friends celebrated her 30th birthday this last Saturday, Valentines Day. Yup, she was born on Valentines day and her favorite color is pink (not sure if the two are connected). This was the perfect opportunity to test my cake decorating skills. So, I told her that if she was having a party I would make her the most fabulous birthday cake ever. (Talk about setting yourself up for potential disaster).

To design the cake, I thought of all the things that made Liz...well Liz. This wasn't hard: shoes, cosmos, and bubble baths.

Shoes: Liz has more shoes than I have clothes. And these are not your Payless/Target shoes, but Jimmy Choo, Burberry, and Kate Spade. While I don't think I'll ever be able to lay the money down for these type of shoes, they do look phenomenal on Liz.
Cosmos: Most of the fond memories between Liz and I involve alcohol. Yup, we drink to celebrate, we drink to ease a broken heart, and we even drink when I come over to her place to do laundry. Now, before you think we're just a pair of drunkies, you need to realize that we rarely drink enough to get tipsy and we are not having the drinkers drink of scotch on the rocks. Our favorites are the girly, cosmo-esque, yummy, tasty drinks that have so many calories in them it replaces the need to eat a gallon of ice cream.
Bubble baths: Liz is one of the few people I know that still takes bubble baths and goes all out when she does...candles, music, etc. This had to be a necessary component of the cake. Oh...and pink, the cake had to be pink. So with this in mind, I came up with the following:

Liz taking a bath in a cosmo glass and dangling her Jimmy Choo's over the edge.

(Click on image to enlarge)

There were small changes and developments, but overall the centerpiece on top was exactly as I had planned. For the rest of this post, I'll describe the different components of the cake.

The Cake

Since I was going to be spending a lot of time decorating this puppy, I opted to not make the cake from scratch. I took a basic french vanilla box cake mix and added buttermilk and eggs to give it a little oomph. The recipe is courtesy of In the Wabe, an american food blogger living in Italy (how awesome would that be??).

1 box cake mix (any flavor, chocolate, vanilla, etc.)
1 cup buttermilk
amount of vegetable oil as listed on box
4 eggs

Put the cake mix into a bowl. Break up any large lumps with a fork. In a separate bowl beat together the eggs, buttermilk and vegetable oil. Make a well in the dry cake mix and pour in half of the liquid ingredients. Mix well, pour in the other half. This method will ensure the least lumps. But if you don't care then you can just toss everything into the bowl and mix. I've done this before and it turns out just fine. Bake following the instructions on the box.

For Liz's cake I filled 2 10" pans and 2 6" pans and had to triple the recipe. I also had to cook mine for much longer because I had all the pans in the oven at once. Probably better to just put 2 in at a time.

The Fondant

Wow, fondant is a bitch. Sorry for my language, but I have the bruises on my forearms from rolling this out about 6 times. During my cake class in December, I got a recipe for rolled buttercream, which is similar to a fondant and it tastes much better than any other fondant that I've made or bought. Unfortunately, every time I placed the rolled buttercream on my cake, the weight of the overhanging edges would just tear it apart. Because I'm still a newbie I have no idea whether this is because it needed more sugar or more shortening or more water. I have no idea and if anyone has any insight I'd love to hear it because this recipe is too good to give up on. I know it's just something about the proportions that is off.

So, after wrangling with the rolled buttercream for hours, I ended up running to the store at about 10pm on a Friday night and bought the ingredients for a marshmallow fondant. Marshmallow fondant definitely tastes better than store-bought fondant, but it's not quite as good as the rolled buttercream. I knew that it would be tougher and would at least look good. I'll give you both recipes below and let you decide which to use...taste vs. asthetics. :) And if I ever figure out how to improve the rolled fondant recipe I'll update this post.

Rolled Buttercream
courtesy of Marian, my 80-year old cake instructor

1/3 cup crisco
1/3 cup white corn syrup (i.e. Karo)
1 tsp powdered vanilla (you can subsitute 1/2 tsp of liquid vanilla)
1 lb powdered sugar
dash salt (optional)

Mix all ingredients but the powdered sugar. Add 1/2 the sugar and mix till thoroughly. Continue to add the sugar until you form a dough. When you pull on the dough, it should break cleanly. If it stretches and is stringy, add more sugar. Depending on your humidity, you may need to add more sugar than specified. Also, there will likely come a point where the mixer just won't cut it and you have to knead with your hands.

Marshmallow Fondant
courtesy of Peggy @ What's Cooking America

1 package of mini-marshmallows
3 Tbs water
1 cup crisco
2 lbs powdered sugar

Put marshmallows in a bowl. Add 3 Tbs water and microwave for 30 seconds. Take out and stir. Put back in microwave for 30 seconds. Take out and stir. Continue this process until the marshmallows are completely melted. May take about 2 1/2 minutes. Add 1/4 of the sugar and stir it in. Now, take a gob of the crisco and rub it all over your hands. Yes, you heard me. Every, nook and crany of your fingers. Pour in another 1/4 of the sugar and begin kneading with your hands. When the goo sticks to your fingers, add more crisco to your hands. Continue adding in the sugar and kneading until you get a firm, but still malleable ball. It should be able to stretch without tearing and it should no longer stick to your hands. If it tears add a little bit of water and work it in. Once finished, coat the outside of the fondant with crisco, wrap in saran wrap, and then put it in a ziploc bag. Let it sit overnight before using. Fondant can be stored in the fridge for several weeks. So, feel free to make large batches at a time and store.

If you want to color your fondant, do not use liquid food coloring from the grocery store! Go to your local craft store and buy special food gel colors. These are a lot more concentrated and a little goes a long way.

Fondant covered cake.

Fondant covered cake with fondant cutouts and piped writing.

I found a shoe cookie cutter for the shoe cutouts, but had to free hand the martini glasses. I think there are ways to make/design your own cookie cutter. In retrospect, I would do this instead. Anything to save time.

The Centerpiece

The glass is just a basic martini glass bought at the store. I tried to find the shortest one I could, but it was still tall. I used a glass paint marker to paint the inside of the glass pink. This would help me hide what was going on inside. For the Liz figurine, I used gumpaste. While edible, I doubt anyone will ever eat the figurine (except the dog...which you can read about below). So, it doesn't really matter what it tastes like. You can buy a dry gumpaste mix from any craft store. Just add water and sculpt away. Unlike fondant, when gumpaste dries it becomes very hard. (The flowers used to decorate my Chocolate Bourbon Cake were also made of gumpaste). Since, my figurine was going to be in a "bath", I decided to make it into three parts: the head, the torso with arms, and the legs. The head was fairly straight forward. Roll a ball. Add a nose, eyes, and mouth, and voila! The hair was a bit of a challenge, but it all came together in the end. The torso was also pretty straight forward. I originally made a rectangle of gumpaste, cut slits on both sides to form the arms. Unfortunately, the arms wrinkled quite a bit when they dried (not sure why this is), so I ended up cutting them off and attaching a new set of arms using toothpicks and sugar glue. I also gave Liz some cleavage and was going to make sure it was mostly covered in the glass. But then, I knew that someone would "peak" to see what was there and decided I'd better give her a little bikini top.

The head was so heavy that it wanted to hang off the edge of the glass. I used a small piece of cardboard to keep it propped up. If I was a bit more professional, I would have designed an inflatable pink back rest that Liz uses in her baths. I also thought about painting the fingernails red, but I was getting tired by this point. The legs were also pretty easy. I formed them around the glass then gently took them off and let them dry in that shape. Each leg had cute little black strap shoes on the feet.

Once dry, I put it all together. I originally had Liz swimming in a bunch of pink and red M&Ms, but I found these darling flower petals at the craft store and thought they were perfect for hiding "the body" of the figurine.


Probably the worst part was transporting the super-heavy cake. I made it all the way to Liz's apartment and got about 2 feet in the door when, I swear, the figurine jumped out of the glass and crashed to its demise on the floor. Benson, a liitle pup visiting for Liz's b-day, came running over and would have eaten Liz up had it not been for some quick maneuvering to hold the dog off with my feet (I was still carrying the cake) while someone scooped up the pieces. I put her back together and the show went on!

Liz posing with her cake. I found these super tall candles to go with it.

All in all, everyone loved it. No one wanted to cut into it, so I got the biggest knife I could and....

Happy 30th B-day Liz!!

Chocolate Chocolate Bourbon Cake... with Chocolate

A friend of mine convinced me to sign up for a cake decorating class with her. There were only going to be 4 classes, the cost was minimal and since I'm self-taught, I thought a little formal training would be good for me. Unfortunately, the last class was the Tuesday just before Christmas and I would have to miss it because I was going to be in Utah visiting my family. To make up for it, I decided to test my new skills and create a wonderful cake for our Christmas Eve party. The question was...what would I make?

A couple weeks before Christmas, the New York Times published a recipe for a Chocolate Bourbon bundt cake. One of my favorite food blogs Simply Recipes tested it out for me with rave reviews. Being that my mom is from Switzerland, she is an avid chocolate lover and we grew up with it all around. Now that we are all adults, throw a little bourbon into the mix and it's a sure winner. To incorporate my new cake decorating skills, I changed it from a bundt cake to a layered cake and decided on a chocolate ganache covering.

Chocolate Bourbon Cake

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups all-purpose flour
5 oz bittersweet dark chocolate
1/4 cup instant (or liquid) espresso, or instant coffee
2 Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup bourbon whiskey
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 Tbs vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
1 tub of store-bought dark chocolate frosting (or about 2 cups homemade)

Chocolate Ganache

9 oz bittersweet dark chocolate
1 cup heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 325° and grease/flour two 8 or 9-inch round cake pans. Put the chocolate in a bowl and microwave until about halfway melted (about 2 minutes). Swirl the bowl until the chocolate is completely melted. (In one of my preliminary trials, I found that the chocolate burned on the bottom if I tried to melt the chocolate completely in the microwave. This method works a lot better). Set the bowl aside to let it cool.

Put instant espresso and cocoa powder in a 2 cup measuring cup. Add boiling water up to the 1 cup line and stir until all the powders are completely dissolved. Add the whiskey and the kosher salt and set aside to let it cool.

In your mixing bowl, beat the butter until fluffy. Add sugar and beat until well combined. Add eggs one at a time and beat between each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract and baking soda. By this time, the chocolate should be fairly cooled, add it to the mix and make sure to get the majority of the chocolate into your mixing bowl by using a spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl. Add 1/3 of the coffee/whiskey mixture and mix thoroughly into your cake batter. Now add 1 cup of the flour and mix thoroughly. Add the next 1/3 of coffee/whiskey mixture and mix. Follow with another cup of flour and mix. And finally add the remaining coffee/whiskey mixture and mix.

Pour batter into your cake pans and put in the oven for about 45-55 minutes. I made this cake in both Philadelphia (humid climate, elevation 39 ft) and in Utah (dry climate, elevation 5100 ft) and the baking time was shorter in Utah (as might be expected). So, check your cake around 40 minutes for a Utah-like climate and more around 50 minutes for a Philly climate. The easiest way to check if a cake is done is to put a toothpick in the center. If it comes out clean (no batter-like residue), then it's done. Let your cake pans cool for 15 minutes, then invert the cake pans onto wire racks and carefully remove the cake from the pans.

When the cakes have cooled completely, assemble your cake onto your decorating surface (I just used a flipped over 10" cake pan). If you have a lot of doming on your cakes, you may want to trim the domed part off. My cakes didn't dome that much, so I used a clean dish towel to gently compress the top of the cake immediately after I took it out of the oven. Place one cake layer on your surface with the domed side up. Add about a 1/4" thick layer of frosting to the top of the cake and then gently place the second layer on the cake with the domed side down. Use the rest of your frosting to add a crumb coat to the cake. A crumb coat is a THIN coat of frosting that just adheres all the crumbs to the cake. It helps achieve a smoothed look when you add the ganache. This layer of frosting should be thin enough that you can actually see the cake through the layer. The only place where you may want to add more than just a thin amount is at the frosted middle layer between the two cakes. You want to fill (spackle if you will) all the holes in the middle region so in the end you have a flat surface for the entire height of your cake. Place cake in fridge for 30 minutes until the crumbcoat hardens. You can leave it in the fridge overnight if you'd prefer.

When the crumbcoat is hardened, start on your ganache. Place the chocolate into a bowl. In a sauce pan bring the 1 cup of heavy cream to just below a boil. You need to stir constantly to prevent the cream from sticking (and burning) to the bottom of the pan. The goal here is to get the cream extremely hot so that it melts the chocolate. When the cream is just about to start boiling, take it off the heat and pour it directly into the bowl of chocolate. Using a spatula, stir and fold the cream into the chocolate until you have a nice, smooth thick chocolate syrup. In the end, if you have small bits of unmelted chocolate, just pop the bowl into the microwave for about 30 seconds and stir again. Let the ganache cool before applying to the cake.

Place a wire rack onto a baking sheet. Take your cake out of the fridge and place on the wire rack. Pour the ganache onto the top of the cake and allow it to drizzle down the sides. When I've used about 1/2 of my ganache, I get a spatula and start working on the sides of the cake first. You want a nice even coat of ganache on the side. There is likely an excess of chocolate on the top of the cake, so if I need more chocolate on one side of the cake I use my spatula to push the chocolate off the top and onto the side I'm working on. I continue to take chocolate from the bowl and the top of the cake until the sides are nice and flat and smooth. Don't worry about the very bottom of the cake where the chocolate is dripping off onto the baking sheet. We can fix that later. Once you are happy with the sides, clean up the top of the cake to your liking. Place in the fridge until you are ready to decorate.

To decorate the cake, move your cake to it's final resting place. For me that was a glass cake pedestal. To transfer the cake I use two wide metal spatulas. The cake will be very heavy, so you need to support it underneath as you transfer it. Once placed on the cake pedestal/plate, use a sharp flat edge knife to trim the bottom of the excess chocolate from the bottom of the cake. For my decorations, I made 3 gumpaste carnations and dipped them in an edible gold pearl dust. I learned how to make these flowers in my cake decorating class and perhaps that's a post for another time. In fact, that's the only part of my class that I'm using for this cake. Initially, I wanted to add a satin ribbon to the bottom, but was convinced that an all edible cake was better. So, I created a pink fondant ribbon for the bottom that I shimmered with the gold pearl dust.

All in all this cake tasted and looked just like I wanted it to. It was very rich and chocolatey, but the addition of the bourbon and the espresso added a hint of uniqueness to the cake. Don't hesitate about the amount of bourbon used, it's perfect and melds nicely into the cake. I think this cake is a great crowd pleaser for parties. Because of it's richness, partygoers will likely only have one slice, but that's perfect when there is a lot of people.

A Cake Only a Mother Could Love

Jon's mom recently asked me to make a flip-flop cake for her birthday (see pic). I got really into it and decided that I wanted to try another fun cake for the next occasion. That occasion happened to be Brian's b-day. Since he and Jon are both lego-fanatics, I decided to make a cake that looked like a bunch of lego blocks stuck together. To pull this off I was going to need fondant. In my past attempts with store-bought fondant, the cake came out looking great, but the fondant was disgusting. I found a recipe for marshmallow fondant online from Peggy's Baking Corner. Her website has a lot of information about cake decorating. It's also the site that I get my buttercream recipe from.

Here are the basic steps that I followed in the creation of the cake.

Just the Cake

I used a basic white cake recipe that I found on online. I actually thought it was too dry, so I'm not going to repeat the recipe here. Peggy's Baking Corner had a butter cake recipe that was so much better. I made two 9"x9" square cakes. Brian wanted strawberry in between the layers, so I put a layer of buttercream with some strawberry preserves. After stacking the layers I put a really thin layer of buttercream and let sit in the fridge for 20 min. This serves as the crumbcoat and prevents the crumbs of the cake from getting into the frosting. I then applied about 1/4" layer of buttercream on all sides and cooled in the fridge for about 30 min. This layer is necessary for the fondant to adhere to the cake.

Fondant Creations

The beauty of the fondant is that you can store it in the fridge for weeks as long as you wrap it with saran wrap AND store it in a ziploc bag with the air pushed out. I've read several websites that put a thin coat of crisco on the fondant in addition to the saran wrap to help maintain its moisture. I made mine about 5 days ahead and it was just fine. The marshmallow fondant was basically melted marshmallows with a lot of powdered sugar. It did taste much better than the store bought kind, but it was very sweet. If I were to do this again I would make my buttercream layer a little thinner. As it was, the fondant+buttercream combination was too sweet for me.

After coloring the fondant the classic red, yellow, green, and blue lego colors, I went to work creating the lego "bricks". Unfortunately, I didn't have a ruler, so my lego bricks were not very consistent. In addition, I should have made the fondant a little stiffer. They were pretty flimsy when I tried to apply them to the cake. To the right is the beginnings of my creation. After a while I realized that there was no way to get it perfect and just kind of gave up. Hence...only a cake a mother could love.


Once the cake had all the "bricks" in place, it was time to make it really look like a bunch of legos. The key to this was to add all the "bumps" that connect each lego together. Again, I was ill-prepared and didn't have anything to make uniform bumps. I ended up taking bits of the fondant, rolling them into little balls, and then pushing them with my finger to make little mini cylinders. I estimated that I must have made about 250 of these "bumps". However, in the end I took a poll and everyone could figure out what it was...success! If I were to make again, I would definitely try to get more of a professional quality rather than a homemade quality.