The Cake of Your ..:**~DREAMS~**:..

...So, who doesn't like cake, amiright?!?!

(This guy and the Cabbage Guy were my favorites from the show, beeteedubs)

My dad got me the coolest baking tools gift basket recently, and it came with some awesome stuff to work with (FINALLY, A REAL PIPING KIT!!).  So naturally, I've been hard at work playing around with it to see what does what, what I'm good at, what I'm decent at, and what I just plain suck at.

Experiment 1: Portal Cupcakes

I spent last week with mah boyfriend, and during those magical seven days, I got heavy into the gorgeous gameplay and compelling story that are the makeup of Portal 2.  The first one is one of my favorite games ever, and the second one (still not finished, DON'T SPOIL IT GUYS) is blowing my mind.  Anyway, I thought I'd channel my Aperature Science Labs spirit and frost my cupcakes with a Portal color scheme.

I had two major problems with these: one was that the longer I piped, the warmer the frosting got, thus melting and not retaining shape too well (see: top leftmost cupcake).

The other was that I didn't realize I forgot the EGGS in the batter until it was too late.  My cupcakes sank in the middle and crumbled at the slightest touch, and had no weight or richness at all.  Needless to say, I haven't forgotten to double check my ingredients since.

My favorite of this cupcake bunch are actually the front three: the one on the left is because I was able to see the beginnings of two-toned frosting at work.  The middle, just because those pearls are so gorgeous and classy looking.  My dad got me four bags of those bad boys, and they just add such a delightful pop of color to anything!  And the rightmost is because I love the layered tier look (which, coincidentally, came from trying to cover up the giant frosting blob mess that was my first attempt at piping a buttercream rose.

Speaking of which...

Experiment 2: Rosy Spice Cake

Determined to make a beautiful frosting rose for once in my life, I spent one morning watching YouTube tutorials for making them.  Turns out, my hamartia* was not having a flower nail.

For those of you who don't know (just as I didn't), a flower nail is basically a flat circle with a long stem handle underneath it (like a pizza cutter, but with the blade horizontal instead of vertical).  As it turns out, the flower nail is invaluable for making roses because you can turn the handle effortlessly while you work, instead of rotating your whole hand.  That's what allows the petals to form a proper shape, instead of being stretched and warped.

Seeing how I still don't have a flower nail, I became the Kitchen MacGyver and used my cooking thermometer instead.

The result?

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!

Man, oh man, the sheer pride I felt when I finally made a real frosting rose.  I imagine it's a lot like curing a disease or having a child, except way less important.

As for the cake itself...

(Someday, I'll figure out how to make the pictures appear larger on the blog without consuming the whole page)

My largest obstacle with this cake was the roses, obviously.  Because the thermometers have very small heads, getting the roses off (which is normally done with scissors) cost me half of the flower's base.  I piped the others directly onto the cake, and some of them turned out better than others (namely, the front three).  However, some green frosting trails not only helped cover up the problematic bottoms of the roses, but also gave the appearance of leafy tendrils as added to the overall aesthetic pleasure of the cake.

Experiment 3: The Rainbow Cake of Your Wildest Dreams

My inspiration for this cake actually came from a fellow food enthusiast that I see a lot on YouTube and Facebook: Ann from How To Cook That, who did a killer Rainbow Heart Cake tutorial.  The technique she used was randomly piping brightly colored frosting into a prepared pan, which I decided to replicate here (except I just drizzled it in with a spoon, it was easier than piping, plus my batter was runny anyway):

And if you think that looks cool, check them out after they bake:

The photos actually do a lot of justice to the bright hues.  I loved the way they turned out!

The external decoration was a bit of an improvised challenge, if you will.  I wanted it to have color, but I didn't want the whole outside to be a rainbow, too.  So I came up with a basic plan: most of the frosting would be white, but I would pipe on some colorful swirls as a pretty accent.

 And I was pretty satisfied with my results, actually:

The green and blue were a bit overpowering, however; I globbed spoonfuls of different colored frosting into one bag, except the green and blue kind of went in side-by-side, I ended up with way more of those two than the pink and yellow.  BUT, when I got to the border, the other two not only starting bleeding through, but the colors began combining and produced purple as well (I didn't even have purple)!  As I got closer to the end of my frosting, the colors began melting together and becoming dull, hence why the bottom border isn't quite so eye-catching.  The beads were spur-of-the-moment, and I feel like they help balance out all the green and blue.

 As for the inside...

BAM!

BAAAAAM!!

CHECK.  THAT.  OUT.

I couldn't even contain my delight as we cut into the cake.  The colors just explode against one another, and both the outside frosting and the rainbow inside really compliment each other!  Seriously, it looks so magical, I'm beaming with pride while I type.  I don't like to be conceded, but I was really, really proud of this cake.  Overall, it's one of my favorite creations so far, mostly because I just went crazy with the creativity.  Most of it (even the rainbow inside) was planned as I went, and it was actually pretty liberating, and highly rewarding upon getting the finished product.

BONUS ROUND: COOKIES

My dad and I were hankering for a late night snack last night, so I took the opportunity to play around with some cookie decor.  The bottoms got a little dark around the edges, but overall, they were nice and buttery (it was just Betty Crocker mix, anyway).  I piped some of them with an open circle tip, and others I just spread the icing on.  The ones that got piped came out a little flat and mushy, because I made such fat icing lines which were squished when I pressed them into sprinkles.  However, I really liked the polka-dotted ones, and the ones with pearls (again, obviously).  The colors also stood out really nicely against the plain backdrop of the frosting and the cookie.

Fun Fact: the middle cookie with a red sprinkle symbol and the yellow sprinkle one near it both have Japanese Kanji on them.  The red one says Ka (火), which means fire, and the yellow one says Kin (金), which means gold or wealth.

Man, I miss Japanese class.

If you're from any of my Japanese classes and you're reading this (and you all know who you are), talk to me in the comments: suggest my next project/recipe, tell me what you think of this one, write me a whole paragraph in 日本語 if you want to.  #レプリセント~

ECHO out.