Look Mom & Dad! My Very First Wedding Cake!

Look Mom and Dad!

My Very First Wedding Cake!!!

For many, many moons friends and co-workers have been asking me if I "do" wedding cakes. Having never worked with fondant, with the excuse that it tastes like 'poodely oodely', I have always answered no. A couple of weeks ago, another friend told me about a couple that planned to marry & again asked me if I "do" wedding cakes. Again, I answered 'no.' But for some reason it really bothered me. Why DON'T I do wedding cakes?

The answer after 1/2 a second of deep soul searching... BECAUSE I'M-A SCURRED!!!!

Fondant is scary. It's so nasty tasting. It's the real 'white devil.'

But for some reason, I got it into my britches that I needed to change that. NO FEAR!! And thus... my very first wedding cake was born. It's not for anyone so I was free to make mistakes! It's been a painful, painful birth and yet my rather large baby wedding cake has been the light of my life!

**************IMPORTANT SIDENOTE*************

I actually HAVE done a wedding cake. My very first (and most important) wedding cake was for my two, dear friends Lisa & Robert. Here they are:

Awwww.... :)

I love them. :) They are both Wiccan and their wedding was one of the most beautiful ceremonies I've ever attended. It was renaissance/foresty-themed and they asked me to do a red velvet "magical-ish storybook cake... a la 'Lord of the Rings.'" And here she is:

So in NO WAY do I demean that experience because the ceremony was so moving and I was so incredibly honored to be asked to do their cake-- It meant the world to me. But in regard to 'wedding-y' standard fondant cakes, this was not it. It was made of buttercream frosting. I know! The sacrilege! ;)

******************SIDENOTE DONE*********************

So where were we? Ahhh, yes. I decided to grow a pair and make a wedding cake with FUN-DON'T-- err, I mean fondant. :)

To make this practice cake as successful as possible, I decided I would homemake the fondant. Homemake? Is that a word? It is now... ahem... with a marshmallow fondant recipe from Peg W.

It looked good? It's basically just melted marshmallows & powdered sugar kneaded together? That sounds delicious! How bad can THAT be? Answer: BAD. By itself, it's still pretty nasty. I know, right? How is that possible!?? BUT! It's MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better than any other fondant I've tasted. So, you go, Peg W.!!!! :)

So, ladies and germs... without much further ado... Here is my VERY LARGE baby. This picture is taken "Hallmark" style (you know those greeting cards with the kissing toddlers in wedding get-ups & and a single red rose?):

My very first wedding cake. I'm very, very proud.



And like any proud parent, I am going to show you 8 zillion pictures of her...





Here she is!







This was soooo funny. We put her on the table & she just sat there with this crazy "Do I have to take ANOTHER picture?" expression. SO CUTE!


















My 'followers' (that sounds so creepy to me) on Facebook have been very, very kind. Here are some of their comments:


"Wow"


"Wow. This is beautiful!"


"Holy Moses, this is gorgeous!"


"Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!"


"So impressed"


"Wow, Mandi! You are so talented!"



"Bleep, bleep, expletive, expletive, bleep!" (That was my roommate, Tim).




Granted, I'm very proud of this cake. But like Usher, I have a sad, sad confession to make.



She's ALL lipstick & rouge, folks.





Cause this here wedding cake?
She got a booty.
*GASP!*



Or a hunchback. It's a toss up.

The "Leaning Tower of Wedding Cake!" if you will.


She's like a little hunched over 'snowperson.'

"Booty, booty, booty, booty rockin' everywhere!" ;)

But I learned a TON. Like lesson one:

Watch the youtube fondant tutorial video BEFORE you start. ;)

And to celebrate I had some friends over to help me eat this thing.

I ripped out the flowers like a dainty southern belle.

"I do-ugh declay-ugh!" RRRRRIIIIP.

Purty. :)

And I began to make the world's biggest mess.

Karen didn't care. She was all, "I'm eating this red velvet cake & flower corpses can't stop me!"

Here is my friend Jon! I kept taking pictures of him because I couldn't stop my darned camera from taking fuzzy pictures. I kept shaking it & saying, "Darned camera!"

My friend Seamus (beautiful wife Candy missing- wah!) and his two gorgeous little twin peanuts.

I call this picture: "DIE, FONDANT, DIE!!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOM."

"Wow, this fondant gets shtuck in the gumsh."

I know, Miss. I know.

"Why did you do this to me, Aunt Mandi!!?? WHY???"

(I was worried there was going to be some serious barfage).

My roomie, Kelli, giving me the "spoon-bird" because heaven forbid she lets me TAKE HER PICTURE EVER.

That one? I sway-uh!!!

I was kinda hoping Miss Rylie would smear some red velvet cake into Aunt Kelli's hat after the "spoon-bird" incident but alas.... She just plopped it on her head & decided to look cute.

Those girls have soooo much to learn.

*sigh*

The girls with their daddy, Seamus (aka: The Sea-meister).

Then they decided to dance on Aunt Mandi's nasty carpet.

Right next to the garbage can full of empty champagne bottles.

Here's Jon again. And my friend Cherie! Cherie & I did the Mayor's Marathon in Alaska together last June. She's an awesome, awesome lady.

But for this occasion, I'm making them 'the married couple.'

This cake has to be for SOMEBODY people!!!

None of these people ate nearly enough.

Chocolate amaretto cake with a chocolate filling & chocolate cream cheese frosting. And guess what? Marshmallow fondant isn't nearly as bad once it's melded itself onto frosting! Who knew!?

It melds to fondant like toxic chemicals eating itself through a brick wall.

And then we had visitors from the apartments next to ours. And they took up where the party left off. They were mucho thrilled!

P.S. Martha Stewart's wedding coconut cake recipe? DRY. I watched it in the oven & everything, even brushed it with sugar water. Hmm... I'm beginning to think Martha hates me.

With the flower corpses and a cereal bowl, I made this. Just call me MacGyver!

?

It makes me happy every day I see it!

Pretty, pretty!

May Jon & Cherie live happily ever after. ;)

Blogspot has a tendency to screw up my spacing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I've tried html, etc. If you're reading this & it happens to be a jumbled mess, I apologize. I try!!

*********************************************************

GINGERBREAD

CAKE TRUFFLES

Yo, yo, yo, Martha Fockers!!! It's Father's Day !!!! YAY!!! Props to all you dads out there!!! YAHOOEY!!!! :) :) :)

Okay, so Father's Day was about 12 years ago... but alas, here I am STILL having not sent my Father (The Popskies) anything. I'm the worst!!! :( I DID send him an e-mail telling him something was coming and hopefully sooner than later. So I'm makin' it right! (I'm gonna do it right here & now. It means everything).

Dads are so hard to shop for and my dad isn't a big sweets guy. But I do remember once upon a time that he said his favorite cake was gingerbread cake with homemade whipped cream. So! I've decided to make some gingerbread cake truffles (aka: cakeballs) and ship them off to Florida asap.

Would you like to come along on this cake truffle adventure!!??

Your answer: "Would I!!?? OH BOY!!!!"

This is wildly exciting. Hold on to your knickers...

INGREDIENTS:

I'm using the Gingerbread Cupcakes recipe in Shelly Kaldunski's book "Cupcakes." It rules. It uses FRESHLY GRATED GINGER. That's fancy for me which is probably pathetic to you. But seriously, ginger root is scary lookin'. I's was scared. But now, I'm rockin' the microplane like a vandal. Bring it, ginger root.

GINGERBREAD:

1 1/4 cups flour

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground allspice

Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/3 cup light molasses

4 tbsp unsalted butter (room temperature)

1 large egg (room temperature)

2 tsp freshly grated ginger

1/3 cup whole milk

FROSTING:

4 cups powdered sugar

4 oz. cream cheese

1/4 cup butter

1/4 tsp vanilla

1/8 cup milk

CHOCOLATE:

14 ounce bag of white melting chocolate

Preheat the oven to 350.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, ground ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and salt.

I didn't have fresh nutmeg so I used a pinch of already ground nutmeg.
It was fine. Not one fairy died in all of Neverland!

I truly enjoy whisking!
*whisk, whisk*

Next, beat together the brown sugar, molasses, and butter for 2-3 minutes until the mixture is light & fluffy.

And THIS... is fresh ginger root. The stuff Halloween nightmares are made of:

TWISTED.

To grate ginger, first peel away the outside layer with a paring knife. I found it easier to chop it into chunks first.

Now they're nekked... hee hee!

And microplane away!
*grate, grate, grate*

And vway-oh-lay... fresh ginger!

If you have leftovers, feel free to put them in the freezer well wrapped. They like it. They hang out with Lean Cuisines. Ginger & Lean Cuisines are like peas & carrots.

Except they're ginger & Lean Cuisines.

So add the fresh ginger & egg and beat until well combined.

Now we're gonna add the flour & milk alternately with each other- starting & ending with flour.

Flour. Milk. Flour. Milk. Flour.

On the final flour addition, only mix until JUST combined.

Dump the batter into a greased 8x8 pan.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until it looks like this (minus the nibble in the middle).

Gingerbread... Mmmm.... :)

While the cake is cooling, mix up all the ingredients to the frosting.

Crumble up the cake into itty bitty baby bits.

Add the cream cheese frosting.

Mix well so there are no dry crumbs left.

Roll the dough into balls & have way too much fun with it...

...until all of the dough is rolled into small balls.

Put the truffles in the fridge for an hour to solidify.

Next is the tricky part- dipping the balls into chocolate. I've tried toothpicks, I've tried spoons, I've tried dipping forks and they've never turned out smooth- especially while using white chocolate. So I double dip. A suggestion by one of my culinary chef friends. Bakerella uses spoons & hers come out fairly smooth. I can't even tell you how many times I've tried this to know avail. It drives me BONKERS!!! I'm sure it has something to do with the quality of the chocolate & the tempering.

This is the best way I know how to do it although keep in mind, white chocolate is a thicker substance & different texture than standard milk chocolate. It's trickier so these still clump.

Here it goes! :)

Melt the chocolate in a double broiler. Keep the heat on low and stir every minute or two. Once most of the chocolate has melted and there are only hints of chunks still waiting to melt, remove the broiler from the heat. Stir with a spoon to smooth out the remaining chunks. Any longer and your chocolate could burn, become too hot and not temper properly.

Spoon a small bit of chocolate into your hand and roll the truffle around until the ball is just coated. With your fingers, set the truffles on parchement or waxed paper. Let the truffles solidify.

This time, using a round dipping spoon (I can't believe I didn't get a picture of this- LAME!), drop the already coated ball into the chocolate. Scoop up the truffle with the spoon, shake off the excess & flip the ball over "facedown" onto the parchment paper.

Let them solidify in the fridge for a few minutes or in a cool place away from heat for about 1/2 an hour. For fun, I drizzled half of them with white chocolate and the other I coated with luster dust.

THESE ARE AWESOME!!! My roommate who doesn't like gingerbread thought they were great! I LOVE when that happens!

Then I put them in a purty box for me Pops. I'm gonna send it out tomorrow! YAHOOEY!!

So Happy Father's Day, Dad!!! I LOVE YOU!!! :) :) :) :) :)

Also, I want to give a shout out to my sweetie cause today is his birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SWEET LOVIN' MAN!!! :) :) :)