Happy Halloween!

I hope you all have a Happy, Sugar-Filled Halloween.

I know we will. After all, we've gotten all of these treats in the last few weeks:

Creepy Halloween Cupcakes

An Easy Jack-o-Lantern Cake

Halloween Cake Pops

Pumpkin Cake Pops

(These could easily be made more spooky by using some chocolate candy melts in a bottle or bag to pipe on some jack-o-lantern faces.)

And, last but not least, the D-I-Y Jack-o-Lantern Birthday Cakes

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DIY Pumpkin BabyCakes

My boys are a little different than probably most kids when it comes to birthday cakes. We start talking about their birthday cake(s) in about June. Their birthday is in October. (They're twins, so yes, they have the same birthday, and so far, the same kind of birthday cake.)

This year, my Charley (seen here sniffing his birthday cake selection) decided that he wanted a fondant cake. Kid loves fondant.

Their birthday party also happened to be on the same day I was scheduled to do a local news promotion of some fondant classes that I'm teaching this fall. So, I went a little overboard. I wanted to use the project for both the news and for their party.

I had the "brilliant" idea of letting the kids decorate their own cakes. So, that's what we did.

These are the results.
(A tutorial on how to do the nice, grown-up pumpkin version of the cake will come next week.)

Why Do Cake Pops Crack?

It's so annoying. They're so pretty. You've worked so hard... and CRACK! What a bummer!

I am not a scientist, nor do I play one on TV, but I can tell you that from my experience, the reason that cake pops crack is all about temperature. One of many temperatures.

Is your cake ball is too cold?
Did you use the freezer instead of the refrigerator to let the balls set? Chances are they're too cold. I take my cake balls out of the freezer after just 30 minutes and move them to the fridge so that they don't freeze.

Is your candy too hot?
You really want to heat the candy melts until they're just melted. If you allow them to get hot, lots of bad things happen. Not just cracked pops, but the candy can seize, and you'll have to throw it all away. (gasp!)

Did you add a melted candy decoration after the pop "set?"
If your decorating bottle or bag of candy is too hot, it can also crack the coating. I've had this problem a lot recently. It's annoying. You want it, again, to be just warm enough to melt.

And sometimes, I've found that cake pops just crack. So, you hide that one in the back of your display, or "donate" it to the cause... you know... your stomach. 

Do you have other decorating problems you want help solving. Ask me in the comments section below. If I don't know, I will try to find out!!

Halloween Cake Pops

Get ready for some Halloween Fun! You can make all of these cake pops with a few squeeze bottles of candy melts, some candy buttons or mini M&Ms, some cookies and some Bugles snacks.

For the individual pop instructions, click below:
Spooky Witch Cake Pops
Eerie Eyeball Cake Pops
Wrapped-up Mummy Cake Pops
Pumpkin Cake Pops

Happy Halloween!
Beki

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Spooky Witch Cake Pops

I love these witch cake pops. They're not hard to make, but you will have to make a run to the grocery store to stock up on the random crackers, cookies and candy to make them.

What You Need:
1 cake, baked, cooled & crumbled
Icing to make cake balls
"Spooky Green" Candy Melts
Dark Chocolate Candy Melts
Vegetable Oil
Bugles (look in the snack/chip/cracker aisle)
Flat chocolate cookies (I used Oreo Fudge Cremes)
Lollipop Sticks
Candy Buttons, Mini M&Ms or Halloween sprinkles (or a combo of all 3)
Styrofoam

Mummy Cake Pops

These mummy cake pops are SO easy to make! You only need one color of candy melts and some candy
buttons or mini M&Ms.

What You Need:
1 cake, baked, cooled and crumbled
Icing to make cake balls
White Candy Melts
Vegetable Oil
Candy Buttons or Mini M&Ms
Lollipop sticks
Styrofoam
Optional:
Squeeze Bottle
Food Writer Icing Marker

Eyeball Cake Pops

Eye See You!

These eyeball cake pops were a little harder to pull off than I'd expected. But I think they turned out okay, and yours will probably look even better!

What you Need:
1 cake - baked and cooled (any flavor, any size)
1-2 cups icing (I prefer cream cheese icing)
White Candy Melts
Red Candy Melts
*Eye Color Candy Melts (blue, yellow, green, orange, whatever)
Dark Chocolate Candy Melts
Squeeze Bottles or Decorating Bags w/ tip #3 or #5

A Halloween Visit to Fox 9

Here's a video of my recent appearance on the local news. I always enjoy visiting Tom and Karen... even if we talk too much to get our projects finished.

In the Kitchen: Cake Decoration: MyFoxTWINCITIES.com

Click the Links Below to See:
Other Fondant Decorating Ideas
How to Cover a Cake with Fondant
What is the Best Fondant to Use?
Other Fall, Halloween and Thanksgiving Decorating Ideas

Fall Leaves Fondant Classes

Interested in learning about fondant? I will be teaching classes about how to make this very cake at four community education locations around the Twin Cities this fall. Click the links below to access the websites and register for the classes.

Thursday, Nov. 3 at 6:00pm: Eagle View Elementary School - Elko/New Market

Wednesday, Nov. 9 at 6:00pm: White Bear Lake High School- South Campus

Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 6:00pm: South St. Paul High School

Thursday, Nov. 17 at 6:00pm: John Glenn Middle School - Maplewood

Each location has a different pricing structure. Some include supplies in the tuition cost, some charge a lower tuition, but you have to pay for supplies. At each location, you'll bring a cake and icing (for some you need to bring a rolling pin), and I will provide the fondant and coloring, etc. Any questions, please ask!!

Simple Jack-O-Lantern Cake

This easy Halloween cake idea requires no special decorating tools other than a spatula!! It may not be as elegant as some, but it's cute, and so easy that your kids can do it, too.

What You Need:
1 8-9" layered cake
Buttercream icing (preferrably Decorator's Buttercream Icing, but anything, even from a can will do)
Orange Gel food coloring
Freezer zip-top baggie
1/4 batch Marshmallow fondant  
  -or Tootsie Rolls in lemon & regular flavors

Pumpkin Cheesecake Cake

The idea for this cake came to me while making my mother-in-law's birthday cheesecake. See, I don't really make cheesecake. Cake, yup. Cupcakes, sure! Pie, no probelm. Cheesecake... hmmmm.
But, in the end, it turned out okay, so I thought, now what if I put that in the middle of a cake? Now you're talkin'!

What You Need
2 layers of pumpkin cake
Cheesecake "filling":
  8oz cream cheese (at room temperature)
  1 egg (at room temperature)
  1/2 cup sugar
  1/4 cup sour cream (at room temperature)
  1 tsp vanilla
1/2-1 cup rich vanilla buttercream icing
Optional:
Parchment paper
Piping bag with tip #32 

Pumpkin Cake Pops

These festive pumpkin cake pops are perfect for fall. And they're not hard to make. I use my favorite pumpkin cake recipe, and cream cheese frosting. 

What You Need

One recipe Pumpkin Cake*

One recipe Cream Cheese Icing

Orange Candy Melts (if you want them to be a darker/brighter orange, use some oil-based coloring to deepen the color)

1-2 Tbsp. Vegetable oil

50-60 Lollipop sticks

Chocolate "jimmie" sprinkles

Optional:

 Green Candy Melts

  Squeeze Bottle (with coupler ring)

 Tip #352 & #2
 Heating pad 

*Note: If you make my pumpkin cake recipe, you will end up with about 60-80 cake pops. It makes about 7 cups of batter, compared with 4-6 cups in a regular cake mix.

Delicious Pumpkin Cake Recipe

My sister-in-law loves pumpkin. I mean, really, really loves pumpkin. She was known to eat a full can of the stuff in a sitting when she was pregnant with my niece. (I say that's how she ended up a redhead.) And my sister-in-law begged me to share this cake recipe when I first made it a few years ago.

What You Need
3 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
3 tsp. cinnamon (or pumpkin pie spice)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
½ cup melted butter
½ cup apple sauce
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
4 eggs (at room temperature)
½ cup buttermilk (or soured milk- ½ Tbsp. vinegar + ½ cup milk)
1- 15 oz. can of pumpkin puree (NOT pie filling)

Yield: approx. 7 cups of batter. That is about 2 cups more than the average cake mix. So, this makes more cake than you're used to. If you're using it for Pumpkin Cake Pops, be aware of this. You could be making pops until your hands fall off!

Halloween Cupcakes

I try not to post too many ideas or projects on the blog without clear photo instructions on how to accomplish them. This post would be an exception to that rule. I made these cute Halloween cupcakes before I started blogging, but I wanted to share them!

I

I am also teaching a parent-child cupcake class to make these cupcakes on Saturday, October 29th in West St. Paul if you would be interested in such a thing.

My Favorite Cake Pan(s)

If you've read more than a handful of my posts on this blog, you can probably already guess what my two favorite cake pans are...

The Wilton 8"x3" round pan...

And the Wilton 6"x2" round pan.

Tie Dye Cake (aka How to Marblize Fondant)

Okay, so I don't think this is the world's cutest cake, but my boys are really in to tie-dye, and I had some leftover colored fondant from these beach ball cupcakes, so we decided to make a tie-dye cake. Plus, this will show you very vibrantly how to marbelize fondant.

What You Need:
Fondant in various colors
Iced cake, on a board the same size as the cake
Rolling pin
Rolling mat
-or parchment or waxed paper and ruler
Shortening

The Great Fondant Comparison

It's the biggest question I get about fondant whether I'm teaching class, or just talking cake with people: Why does fondant taste so bad? Well, I don't really have the answer to that. But I know that there are better and worse kinds of fondant. So, I set out to find out which fondant tastes best. Which fondant is easiest to work with. And which fondant is just the best there is.
(If you want to skip through the details, and just see the winner(s), click here.)

I hosted The Great Fondant Comparison. A highly un-scientific fondant taste test in my home with 7 friends (and  myself) doing the tasting.

I started out with five 'contenders.' I bought three national brands (Pettinice, Satin Ice and Wilton), and made two myself (one from scratch, one with marshmallows). I covered a 6" round cake with each kind of fondant, and made small cut-outs for my taste-testers to try it off of the cake as well.

I then had my testers grade each fondant on appearance, taste, texture and give an overall score. I graded each on its ease of preparation, ease of kneading/rolling, ease/success on the cake, and its cost/availability. Each category got a score from 1-5. 1 meant bad and 5 meant great.

Which Fondant Is Best?

This post is a shortcut, a cheat sheet to my Great Fondant Comparison post... in which I detail my taste test to discover which fondant available to me is the best tasting, easiest to use, and best looking on a cake.
To read the entire post, including seeing the score sheets from each of my 8 taste testers, please click here.

In short, I covered each of 5 cakes with fondant. I purchased three brands, Pettinice, Satin Ice and Wilton, and I made two myself, a homemade scratch fondant, and a homemade marshmallow fondant. Below you will find the winners of each category and the final winner. (Again, all of the scores and details can be found here.)

Categories/Winners:
Ease of Preparation: Wilton 
Cost/ Availability: Homemade marshmallow fondant 
Ease of Kneading/ Rolling: Satin Ice
Ease/ Success on Cake:Tie between Homemade scratch and Satin Ice
Appearance: Satin Ice
Taste: Homemade scratch fondant
Texture: Homemade scratch fondant
Overall:Tie between homemade scratch fondant and Satin Ice
THE WINNER IS SATIN ICE!!!!

In the interest of full disclosure: NO ONE paid me anything or provided me with anything for this test. I am a Wilton cake decorating instructor, but they didn't give me anything either.

How To Cover a Cake with Fondant

Even though I teach this skill about every 2 months or so in class, I have to tell you that I always get nervous when I have to cover a cake with fondant. It's not that it's so hard, it's mostly that you don't have a lot of room for error, and I am terrible at lining things up. But once I get it done, I do breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy the pretty, smooth covering on my cake.

What You Need
1 cake covered in icing*
Appropriate amount of rolled fondant (click the link for a chart from Wilton.)
Shortening (to grease the rolling surface)
Rolling mat (or parchment or waxed paper taped to the counter top)
Rolling pin
Optional:
Cardboard circle the same size as your cake to set cake on 
Bowl or pan to raise cake
Turntable

*Note: The icing does not need to be perfect to cover the cake with fondant, but if you have a dark cake (like chocolate) and you're covering with white or pastel fondant, those big crumbs can show through.

Homemade Rolled Fondant

I start this post with a warning. This stuff is not easy to make. It's not exactly hard to make, it's just definitely not easy. I also reiterate my recommendation that you try working with a store-bought fondant a few times before you make your own so that you know what consistency you're looking for.

What You Need
1 Tbsp. + 1 tsp. water*
1 Tbsp. powdered gelatine
1/3 cup corn syrup
1 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. glycerine
2 tsp. clear vanilla
pinch of salt
1 1/2 - 2 lbs. powdered sugar (approx. 6-8 cups)

*Note: if you're not interested in making white-white fondant, substitute half-and-half or heavy cream for the water here. You'll get a little more "ivory" colored fondant, but it's richer and yummier.

Marshmallow Fondant - MMF

If you've never worked with fondant before, making it yourself can be a challenge. I always recommend that my students use store-bought fondant a few times before trying to do their own because then you will know what kind of consistency you're looking for.

What you need
This recipe is for a small batch. It makes about a pound to a pound and a half of fondant. If you want enough to cover a cake, you'll need to double it.
1 10.5-oz. bag of mini-marshmallows
1 Tbsp. water
1 tsp. clear vanilla extract
1 tsp. clear butter extract 
2-3 cups of powdered sugar 
butter or shortening to grease 

Fondant 101

This week is going to be all about fondant here on the Beki Cook's Cakes Blog.

Fondant is everywhere. ALL of the cake shows use - in my opinion - entirely too much fondant. But if you talk to most people, they have rarely, if ever, eaten the stuff. They talk about peeling it off of the cake before eating it. So, what's the point?! Well, it is beautiful! And if you're at all artistic, it's amazing the kinds of 'sculptures' you can do with it.

This post serves as a kind of introduction to fondant. Although, I will recommend that if you really don't know much about fondant, but would like to get into it, take a real class! It's nice to have someone who knows what they're talking about to answer your questions along the way, and help correct you if there's something you misunderstand. Check out your local craft store, kitchen store or community education catalog. I teach Wilton cake decorating classes at JoAnn Fabrics in Edina, Minnesota. I also teach other cake classes of my own through community education programs around the East Metro of the Twin Cities.