BOUTIQUE CHOCOLATE

I have made these chocolates for a friend for her baby shower. This was my first experience with melting, coloring and molding the chocolate. It is pretty time consuming but fun to make. Kids made a few too. I used these candy melts and just colored the white chocolate with these candy colorings. And these are the candy molds I used for the baby theme. All these can be found at Michaels craft stores or any place that carry Wilton products. Here on this link you can find instructions. My chocolates didn't have lollipop sticks but if you choose a lollipop mold it is easy to attach the sticks. I wrapped each chocolate in lollipop bags and tied with nice satin ribbon.

BUTTERCREAM CAKE

This cake is from Wilton Cake Decorating Class 1. I terribly messed up on the bow but this was my first buttercream bow, right:)!!! I should maybe give the recipe for the buttercream icing in this post. Buttercream is still not my favorite cream but it is necessary to know how to make it to be able to make the decorations on most cakes. Here is the recipe:

Buttercream Icing- Stiff Consistency- Makes 3 cups of buttercream enough to cover an 8 inch double layer cake.

1 cup vegetable shortening (Butter can be used instead but the consistency may change. Adjust the consistency by adding more powdered sugar or water if use butter)

4 cups pure cane confectioners' sugar

1 tablespoon meringue powder

A pinch of salt

Vanilla or other flavorings that you would like

3-4 tablespoons milk or water

Cream the shortening with vanilla and water. Add the dry ingredients and mix on medium speed until all ingredients have been thoroughly mixed. Keep mixing a couple more minutes until creamy.

This stiff consistency buttercream is good for covering the cake, roses, sweet peas.

Medium Consistency: Add 1-2 more tablespoons of water to the full recipe. It is good for stems, figure piping, borders, flowers with petals that lie flat.

Thin Consistency: Add 3 tablespoons of water to the full recipe.It is good for writing, making stems, leaves.

COOKIES

I made so much royal icing for my cake decorating class last week and I had a lot of leftovers. When my kids saw the piping bags with colorful icing in them, they wanted to make cookies. The older two had lots of fun decorating the cookies and my youngest had a lot of fun eating them:) I will give the recipe this time because it is a recipe I always use and works every time perfectly.

Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup butter (2 sticks) at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
Lemon zest
3 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
Vanilla sugar

With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy for about 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time and beat until compeletely mixed. Add lemon zest and mix. Combine flour, salt, baking powder and vanilla in a seperate bowl and add to the butter mixture gradually and mix with the electric mixer or by hand until it forms a ball. If the mixture is too sticky and hard to form a ball you can add just a little bit more flour. Divide the ball into to pieces and wrap each piece with plastic wrap and refregerate for at least one hour. Preheat the oven to 350 to 370 depending on your oven. Take one of the pieces from the fridge and roll it about 1/4 inch thick. Cut the shapes you like with cookie cutters dipping the cutters into flour each time you cut to prevent sticking. Place the cookies into ungreased cookie sheets. Put the cookie sheet in the fridge for 15 minutes before you put it in the oven. This prevents the cookies to spread and loose their shapes in the hot oven.

Bake in the preheated oven until lightly browned on the edges. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely before you decorate.

We decorated the cookies with royal icing but you can use other frostings, icings, colored sugars, candies etc. Here is the recipe for royal icing:

Royal Icing

1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon meringue powder
2 tablespoons water

Just add everything together and mix with an electric mixer for at least 5-6 minutes. To prevent drying, store the icing in an airtight container. This icing can be kept at room temperature for up to 2-3 weeks.

FONDANT CAKE

My friend made this cake for another friend's new baby. She always makes wonderful tasting cakes but none of us used fondant before. She did all the work and invited me for the fun part:) We covered the cake with white fondant and decorated it with colored fondant. Although we had a little hard time rolling the fondant as smooth as we wanted, the end result was pretty good after a couple of patches:) It was fun. I know now why the kids so much love playing with the playdough:)

NEUTRAL DIAPER CAKE

This diaper cake is good for a baby boy or a baby girl because it is frosted yellow:)