Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting..and the Final Product!

I love to experiment with different frostings. When I first started out I always used the Wilton buttercream recipe that was provided in my cake decorating classes. It's crisco based (it made me cringe at first too..to think that all the yummy frosting on cupcakes and cakes is largely made of crisco???)

Once I began experimenting, it was like opening a whole new world. I love trying different frosting recipes. I now primarily used true butter based buttercream. I've always wanted to try a swiss meringue frosting. It sounds pretty fancy so I thought it could be fun! Here are some pictures from my first go at a Caramel Swirl Swiss Meringue Buttercream



Plus..what frosting can't be good with vanilla caramel sundae topping in it!



Here are some pictures of the final product! These were taken in my office at work. Once again my co workers were my taste testers. I almost forgot to take a picture of my creation! The cupcakes were topped with crushed heath bars!





The overall opinion--while I thought this was a very butter rich frosting..some loved it and thought it was a great match the very rich chocolate cupcake! One I'll definitely make again!

Taking a Cookie Vacation...with Cupcakes!

Before I focused mainly on cookies, I loved to bake and decorate cakes. I took some classes to learn the basic techniques and fell in love with it. However, being in my late 20's with no kids, it was difficult to find enough reasons to go all out, bake, and decorate cakes on a regular basis. I slowly started to bake and decorate cupcakes instead. I love to find really different flavor combinations and also like to use some more in depth and difficult recipes using quality products.



After mixing the flour and cocoa powder, I chopped some bittersweet chocolate to melt and add to the batter for an extra rich chocolately taste.








To make these cupcakes extremely rich...butter was melted with the chocolate in my make shift double boiler.





This batter was very thick! I could tell it was going to make an extremely dense chocolate cupcake and it also made it very difficult not to lick the bowl!



and...Voila! Some intensely chocolate cupcakes..

Royal Icing Accents...

Royal icing is the hard frosting accents used on cakes and cookies. It's made with meringue powder, or powdered egg whites, and powdered sugar. The beauty of royal icing is that it hardens with in minutes, and is espcially handy with writing and other decorations on cookies. It's whipped up in mixer and while using it I keep a damp paper towel draped over the bowl to prevent it from drying out.




Below are some pictures of the decorated and finished products...the cookies are sporting some silly phrases and personalized for some friends.







While I love to decorate....this is the part I'm not a fan of...the clean up

Having some fun with Fondant.....

I had some extra fondant after making some rice krispy treat wedding favors that were decorated with fondant and monogrammed with the bride and grooms initials. I make my own fondant..mostly because it tastes so much better than anything store bought. After it's made, I wrap it in plastic wrap and store it for at least 24 hours to harden it up. Once I'm ready to use it, I place it between sheets of parchment paper to roll it out. The parchment paper is a great trick..the fondant (since it's made out of marshmallows) tends to stick to surfaces very easily, which can create a sticky situation!








Once the fondant is rolled out, I use cookie cutters to get the exact shape to cover the cookie.




Fondant can be adhered to the cookies using a little bit of corn syrup, or if you're pretty organized in the kitchen, you can have the fondant cut outs prepared and place them on your warm cookies that are hot out of the oven. This works so well with my homemade fondant since the marshmallow fondant melts with the warmth of the cookie and sticks perfectly.

Valentine's Day = A Really Good Reason to Bake Cookies!

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, I skipped the chocolates, flowers, and cute little cards and decided instead to make some cookies for my co-workers. My fellow co-workers are the frequent recipients of my creations. I'm not sure if I should call them recipients, the test market or guinea pigs. But, they're always willing to try some treats! Below are some photos of making some good old sugar cookies!

Once the dough is made, I split it into two portions, refrigerate and then prepare to roll it out on a floured surface.




I use different cookie cutters to make my cut outs and then re roll the dough and start all over. It's best to try and get as many cutouts as possible on the first roll out of your dough.



My final product...some heart cookies ready to be popped in the oven!

Making Fondant....

All of my cookies are made with home-made marshmallow fondant. You can buy bricks of fondant at craft stores, but the taste always turned me off. The coloring of store bought fondant always rubbed off on my hands and clothes while decorating cookies and it really made me wonder what the stuff was made out of. I found some recipes for marshmallow based fondant and tweaked it until I came up with a version that works perfectly for me!

I start off with mini marshmallows that are melted down.....

After the marshmallows are a sticky concoction.....

Some special ingredients are added along with lots of powdered sugar to create a playdoh like consistency. The fondant is wrapped in plastic wrap and stored for 24 hours before I roll it out and use it.