Cookies, Cupcakes, and Cardio

Hockey Cupcakes

March 15, 2011 by Jenn

HOCKEY CUPCAKES

About three years ago, my dad decided that he was going to learn how to play hockey. At the age of 59.

What was he thinking!?

He was thinking: it will give me something to do when I retire, it will give me a way to stay in shape, and it will give me something to be passionate about! At least, that’s my interpretation of what he was thinking!

He did it, took skating lessons, joined a “old, old timers league” and every Tuesday and Thursday, texts his family his “Stats” from his games.

I am very proud of my dad for venturing into something brand new for him. He has spent a lot of time learning . . . and falling . . . and scoring goals! With a goalie in the net . . . sometimes 🙂 Kidding aside, I am very proud of him, and can’t wait to get to see him play again soon.

In honour of my Dad, I wanted to name a cupcake after him. His FAVOURITE kind of cookie is a peanut butter with a scoop of raspberry jam on the top. So, what better cupcake to make for him than a PB & J! I asked him what he would like me to name it, and he chose “The Classic”, named after his hockey team! How cute . . . and perfect for a name, as what is more classic than PB & J!?

Here is The Classic, customized for a special order, in honour of my dad’s hockey team. Apparently the “guys” like the cupcakes.

Well done Dad, I’m proud of your hard work.

Filed Under: Cupcakes Tagged With: cupcakes, hockey, hockey cupcakes, jam, peanut butter, sports

Basketball Cupcakes

March 14, 2011 by Jenn

BASKETBALL CUPCAKES

Getting the fortune of teaching in one school this year (after being in two different ones for the last two years) has allowed me to get back to doing extra curricular activities. I loved sports and music when I was going through school, and I was on every team I could be, and in band and choir. As a Kindergarten teacher, I love to be able to teach the older kids sometimes, and through coaching, I get that opportunity.

Our season was a lot of fun . . . and we even won a game! Which we didn’t during the volleyball season 🙁 I had a great group of girls, who tried hard, and had a lot of fun throughout the season.

We had our traditional pizza lunch last week to wrap up the season, and I wanted to make them something special. So what did I think of? An ice cream cake!! But, then I remembered that I’m running a cupcake business. Hellooooo. So I made them some cute basketball cupcake treats.

Paul was my diligent fondant cutter . . . look how round those balls turned out 😉 He has officially be initiated into the land of fondant.

Filed Under: Cupcakes Tagged With: basketball, cupcakes, sports

Tutorial: How NOT to Cover a Cake in Fondant

March 13, 2011 by Jenn

1. Be too lazy to make more buttercream, and just use your small amount of leftover icing that does not entirely cover the outside of the cake. This will make it especially tricky to lay your fondant smoothly.

2. Roll your fondant so thin that you can see the marker lines from the mat, through it. If this is your first attempt, make sure you up the ante, and use a press to imprint a design in the fondant, and press too hard and make holes.

3. Lay the fondant over the cake unevenly. When you peel it off to re-lay it, make sure you scoop up some crumbs and buttercream in the fondant, so when you roll it out again, you have a nice, natural speckle to the fondant.

4. Do not watch any tutorial videos, or read any advice prior to finishing the smoothing process. Just slap the fondant down on the cake, squeeze the wrinkles out, and hope that the holes fill themselves.

5. Make a border to cover the huge gap between the cake board and the cake, because you didn’t carve the cake prior to icing.

6. That’s it! That is all you need to do to have yourself a completely ugly holey fondant covered cake!

Filed Under: Cakes, Tutorials Tagged With: covering cake fondant, tutorial, working with fondant

Fondant Bow and Overlay

March 12, 2011 by Jenn

This week in my cake decorating classes, we were to learning how to cover a cake with fondant, and how to make fondant inlays, overlays and bows.

The thing that I have started to LOVE about fondant, is that it is just like playing with playdough! It is so relaxing (when it works) and almost therapeutic! Had a bad day, take it out on a hard piece of fondant! That stuff is TOUGH if any air has gotten into it! Apparently you can put it in the microwave for around 4 seconds, flip it over and then put it in for 4 seconds more.

Here is a picture of a fondant overlay. As you can see, use two of the same cutters, of different sizes and simply put the smaller one on top. Super simple!

This bow looks very complicated, but it totally isn’t! All you have to do is cut out long ribbons of fondant, using your ribbon cutter, fold them in half, let them dry, and viola! You have the pieces of a bow ready to go.

When your pieces have dried, start with the ones on the bottom, space them out, build upwards, and you’ve got yourself a fondant bow cake topper!

As this was the first time I had ever covered a cake in fondant, I made a crucial mistake and rolled my fondant too thin. It ripped, it wrinkled, I had to peel it off and got chocolate cake all over the white fondant. I cried. It sucked. I hated fondant. But, I persevered, made a slightly better mess of things than I had previously, and managed to produce this-far-from-perfect fondant covered cake! My cake from this week, is MUCH better (lessons learned) and I will post that soon!

Filed Under: Cakes Tagged With: covering cake fondant, fondant bows, fondant overlay, working with fondant

Tutorial: How to Make a Fondant Ribbon Rose

March 12, 2011 by Jenn

Today I am releasing my first Video Tutorial! My channel on YouTube is called Cupcakesandcardio!

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: cake decorating tutorial, tutorial, video, working with fondant

Tutorial: How to Make a Fondant Rose

March 11, 2011 by Jenn

Have you ever wondered how to make one of those beautiful fondant roses that you often see on wedding cakes?

I’ve just learned how to do them myself, and I wanted to share that with you.

UPDATE … Full tutorial video added. Hope you guys enjoy it:

Tutorial #1: How to Make a Fondant Rose

The first step for you to do is to mix equal parts fondant and gum paste together. Roll out to about a 1/4″ thick and cut out a 1 cm diameter circle. Use this small piece of fondant and roll into a teardrop shape. This will be the base. Poke a toothpick into the larger end and set aside to dry. I use a block of flower arranging styrofoam to dry my flowers in. If you have time, allow the base to dry for a couple of hours.

The next step is to create the rose bud. Roll out fondant as in previous step, and using a five petal flower cutter, cut out a flower shape. For the bud only, cut off two petals, not ones that are adjacent. Using your ball tool, and a foam pad, thin the petals out to your desired thickness (personal preference is the best judge here). When you have thinned it, next you can wrap it around the base, as shown in the picture. Use glue gum to “glue” petals into position. You can also use water, but gum glue uses a bit more oomph! If you allow the bud to dry, it will be easier to work with later.

Now, you’re ready to make the rest of the rose! As shown below, using a larger five petal cutter, cut out another set of petals. Before you begin thinning your petals, make a small slice in between each petal, about an 1/8″. YOu can see this best in the bottom right hand petal in the picture below. Next, you will thin this as you did for the bud.

When you have reached your desired thickness, you will apply the petals onto the rose bud, as you did previously. I find it easiest to turn the bud upside down, prick the centre of the cut out with the toothpick, and slide the whole thing down the toothpick. At this point, slightly offset the petals with the ones from the previous bud, and use gum glue to hold in place.

That’s all there is to it! Just keep adding rows of petals, and you will find yourself with a beautiful fondant rose! Good luck 🙂

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: fondant rose, tutorial

Popcorn Cupcakes and A Movie Cake?

March 8, 2011 by Jenn

I love movies.

I love rom-coms. I love dramas. I love action.

I don’t love sci-fi.

I love popcorn.

It sounds like I’m one of my Kindergartener’s writing a poem! I think that means I should stop. I hope you get the idea.

When a friend of mine asked me to make a birthday cake for her daughter’s 12th birthday, she happened to mention that I would need to drop the cake off at a restaurant after the movie. Movie? I had JUST the idea!

I used to go to the movies all the time . . . it was one of my favourite pastimes in University. I love the smell of the butter and the huge lazy boy type chairs that the super theatres now have (not that we have one of those in Cranbrook!) I just don’t seem to have much time to go to movies these days. Also, it doesn’t seem like there are many quality movies making their way to the local theatre.

To go with the bad habit of filling up on a big bag of popcorn, I had was always falling asleep once the movie started!

I blame the dark.

My friends developed the “helpful” habit of elbowing me to wake me up. Thanks.

What else goes with popcorn, and a nap at the movies? Candy of course! To go with this cake, I went searching the aisles of the movie theatre . . . Mike n Ike’s, MnM’s,and chocolate covered caramels.

These popcorn tubs were so fun to make! I got the idea for Hello Cupcake, and had seen it months ago. I was so excited to finally get to make this cute addition for a cake.

How to Make Marshmallow Popcorn:

You will need one bag of white mini marshmallows, and one bag of multi coloured flavoured marshmallows. Separate out all of the yellow marshmallows. You will be making around 200 kernels of popcorn! Take one marshmallow and cut it into three pieces. These become the “petals” of the popcorn. Put a dot of icing on the bottom a whole marshmallow, and attach the three pieces of cut marshmallow to the whole one. That’s it! Super easy, but time consuming. Make sure you have a good movie to turn on 🙂 Edited to add: Thanks Paul for putting together so many of the popcorn pieces together. You’re the greatest helper.

The cake is chocolate with chocolate buttercream, and the cupcakes were vanilla with salted caramel buttercream, and vanilla with vanilla buttercream.

I LOVED making this cake. It was so much fun.

What’s your favourite movie?

Filed Under: Cakes, Cupcakes Tagged With: cakes, cupcakes, movie cakes, popcorn cupcakes

Fortunate Friday

March 5, 2011 by Jenn

Isn’t it interesting how life is going in one direction one day, and then you suddenly see yourself heading in a different one? I feel this has happened with the evolution of my blog.

I started Cookies, Cupcakes, and Cardio in October of 2010 (it’s just an infant!) and I wanted to share my love for baking, and combine it with the healthy lifestyle choice of spinning (and other cardio). I love my job teaching at the gym, and I appreciate each and every person that come to my classes. Lately, posting cardio components has dwindled away . . . to nothingness 🙁 sorry. I will get back to it this weekend!

I am fortunate that people are still reading my blog despite the lack of recent cardio components!

I have found myself down the path of altering my blog. I love blogging, but starting a business in a small town, I am mixed about sharing complete recipes! What if my “competition” reads my recipes, and “steals” them? Is that serious concern? I have no idea! I have always been skeptical of others, not necessarily a trusting person, and I don’t know what to do about sharing completed recipes.

Upon many thoughts about this, I have decided to offer pictorial sessions of my baking and share recipes that are not for sale by JJ’s Custom Cakery. I hope that this doesn’t annoy too many people! If it does, please email me, and I will send you the recipe that you are looking for. I started this blog to share and learn, and I want that to continue that in some way.

I am fortunate that I have gradually found myself going down a road I never thought I’d be on.

I am fortunate that I have a dilemma regarding what to do regarding sharing recipes, because it means I have started out successfully!

Filed Under: Fortunate Fridays