6/1/12 Jessica's Finally Cupcakes

These cupacakes were one of the easier things that I have made.

After not being about to make the cake because of the difficulties of using modeling chocolate I resorted to making individual cupcakes with chocolate horse, a barrel of hay, and green frosting piped to the cupcake to look like grass.

Piping grass is quite simple, all you have to do is squirt small bits of grass evenly so that you cant see any of the cupcake underneath:

 Making the chocolate horse is simple too. All you do is make one drawing and put it under the wax paper and trace the outline and fill in the drawing with the chocolate in a plastic bag.  After you put it in the fridge and wait about 2 hours and then you can easily peal the chocolate off the wax paper:

THE FINAL PROJECT!!!!!!:

5/16/12 Nutella Cupcakes

Today I decided to make these delicious Nutella Cupcakes.  This was my first time carving out the middle of a cupcake and putting in chocolate ganache for a filling.  This cupcake included putting Ferrero Rocher on top crushed up on top of melts chocolate as a frosting on top of the chocolate cupcake.  Essentially this is a chocolate lovers cupcake.

5/12/12 Ithaca Bakery

After quiting Papa John's I was quickly on the job hunt again.  With help form my mother, I recently got a job at the Ithaca Bakery Catering Company.  After getting a full tour of the kitchen at the Ithaca Bakery I was amazed at all of the wonderful equipment that put this operation together.  Earlier in my project I had a post about different prices at B&W Supply for all the necessary components for operating a bakery.  At the Ithaca Bakery they had huge mixers, bigger than the 60 gallon ones I had earlier researched, and it was really cool too how smoothly they whole operation ran, making hundreds of cookies, pastries, and cakes a day.

5/10/12 New Findings

Today after school I decided to go to Michael's to find some new baking tools.  There were so many interesting baking tools to try out!  A lot of them I have seen on television on Cake Boss but have never had a chance to try out in my own kitchen.  So many of them were either too big or expensive for this small project but would be something I would invest in if I ever made my own business.  But, finally I found the perfect thing to accent all my butter cream flowers.  It is called Sparkle Dust, it is a very thin powder that you can can apply to the butter cream flowers with a paintbrush and a small bit of water.  It had dimensions and makes the flowers look so real.

Alix's Birthday Cake

I haven't known Alix for as long but I do know she loves green.  She is also alergic to chocolate so her cake will be a vanilla cake with strawberries also in the middle and vanilla frosting.  Along with green frosting there will be a variety of things on her cake, a sheet music of fondont with edible paint, and a jamaican flag to represent her, which will also be made of fondont.  There will also be lots of sparkles which she loves.

Jessica's Birthday Cake

For my best friend's birthday cake I was planning on making it a one layer chocolate cake with strawberries in the middle layer.  Since Jessica loves and working with horses all the time and is on the polo team I was planning on making it a grassy top with a few hay barrels and finally a horse.  The horse will be made out of model chocolate which is new for me and i will mold it around wooden spools.  I did some research on this and figured out I can make the horse and put it in the fridge so it will stay good and not melt.

Cake Walk-Field Day

Today I have been asked by the Red Cross Club to bake a few cakes for the field day.  These cakes will be raffled off for the Red Cross Club.  Since field day is the last day of school and technically the start of summer I was thinking of making every bright and summery cakes.  Using some of my new frosting and techniques with different flower and making them very vibrant and flashy.

Neopolitan Cupcakes

These delicious bit of cupcakes are my vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry cupcakes.  First I made a chocolate cake mix and added a few chocolate chips, and put it as the first layer in the paper lining.  Second I made a simply vanilla cake mix with a little bit of added vanilla for an extra kick and put that in as the second layer.  I then put these cupcakes in the oven and waited for the magic to work.  Once cooled and settled I used the flavorless Duncan Hines frosting and added the strawberry powder packet.  Once it was all mixed and creamy I put the frosting in a piping bag and piped it onto the cupcake in a swirling motion.  It was a perfect mix of strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate.

Final Paper Outline (Rough Draft)

I. Intro

• what my project is about
• why i choice cupcakes/design
• a brief info about what ill be discussed
• what has been researched

II. Body Paragraphs

i. -why the vet project didn't work out
  -why i originally choose it
  -why i picked cupcakes as a substitute

ii. -how starting my cupcake project was
   -what my original project was planned to be about and what i would do
   - what i did my first month

iii. -the struggle in blogging and motivation
    -beginning of looking at the business aspect of cupcake designs too
    -lack of hands on work and more research sections
    - loans, money, floor plans, my experience of looking in the buildings, equipment

iv. -the techniques for designs that i learned
    -talk about my best projects i made
    -the difficulty of each technique and the precision/practice needed

v. -my over all experience during this project

III. Conclusion

• restate the point of my project
• a final thought on how i thought during the process

Loans

Here some information on getting loans...which  I would need if I started a business.

General purpose loan: $2,000-$100,000

• you would have up to 120 months to pay it back
• Borrowing $100,000 for 120 months, the interest rate would be 5.84% with M&T Bank.

Business purpose loan: depends on what it is for (equipment, store, etc.)

Flavorless Frosting

While simpily shopping for some cake mix and frosting I came upon this wonder creation.  Duncan Hines is now making a flavor less white frosting in which you can add your own flavors too!!! To me this is so amazing being trying to make frosting a certain flavor is so difficult and if you mess up, most of the time you have to begin all over again.
I may plan on using this for my Girl Scout cupcakes on Wednesday, depending if I can find a flavor that goes with my Neapolitan theme.  This just goes to show that the baking world is still updating and growing.

Kaylee's Birthday!!!

After 6 hours of hard, messy, colorful work I finally finished Kaylee's cake.  My original idea was to make it 2 separate cakes, a 1 and an 8.  Once I started to prepare the cake and get all my ingredients together, I reevaluated my plans.  Being able to cover 2 big cakes was just going to be too difficult, so instead made 1 sheet cake with the one and 8 on top in fondant. 

Here is fondant that has been colored green for camo:

frosting a cake before putting fondant on it is important to make sure it sticks and staying in place, and being flat:

Here I used edible spray paint for make the dog tags and later painted on the wording:

Fondant with food coloring:

Slightly mixed fondant, which you twist and kneed until it is fully mixed in:

Fully mixed:

When you roll out fondant you spread flour so it won't stick and you then lay it on the cake and flatten it so it is smooth and cut off the excess fondant:

Four colors of fondant:

I took little pieces of fondant and mushed them together and then rolled them out with a rolling pin to make camo:

THE FINAL PROJECT!!



this is the hardest cake I've ever made.  Making camo was so hard to make it perfect and match up together.  I wish it had more sparkle to it but to me it has so much talent invested into it that it is worth the lack of sparkle.

Kaylee's 18th birthday

My best friends birthday is May 8th and she is turning 18.  Of course I want to do something uber special but what would be so amazing it would blow her out of her cowgirl boots??  And finally it hit me.  Instead of cupcakes I want to get big so I'm going to do a cake, that I will cut into a 1 and an 8.  I will then cover it in fondant, but how could I make this any more special? I'm going to make the fondant look like camo, YES camo, her most favorite thing in the work.  Not only is her husband a marine but she will be going into the navy next year.  But I don't want it to look like a boy camo cake so what makes it girly? SPARKLES.  I will be adding sparkles and many other little girly marks. Now that I think about it, maybe I will make it into pink camo.
Here is what the structure will look like:

Strawberry Short Cake

On Saturday I made pound cake so our family and friends could have some strawberry short cake for dessert. I used a recipe i found online from scratch, at http://www.cooks.com/.

4 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon mace (optional)
1 lb. butter
3 cups sugar
8 eggs, room temperature
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons rum or amaretto (optional)

This recipe made a huge cake which was good since it was for two families.  It was so thick and packed together, like pound cake should be, yet it was moist and delicious.  To top it off with the fresh strawberrys and whipped cream completed it.

During this proccess I had to look a few things up.  When looking at the ingredients I saw "mace", now i have no clue what that is, so I googled it.  I found out that ground cloves are the base of it, so essentially it just an additional spice.

Update On Girl Scout Cupcakes

That Girl Scout dinner i mentioned is coming up soon and I need to decide on a cupcake fast!  While surfing a Betty Crocker website I found the perfect kind of cake.  Now granted it doesnt have a cool design to represent Girl Scouts in general, but to me it does in a different way.  This cupcake/cake is a Neapolitan cake, to me these three different flavor are a good example of the different girls that are in Girl Scouts. I've been in Girl Scouts for 13 years and now that I think about it, I have seen every girl of every color, background, heritage, everything.  Baking is about new experiences and to me a way to bring people together for great baked goods!

Technical Difficulties

Having a seven year old laptop is quite rare now a days.  I got mine in sixth grade and it is pink, of course, and i LOVED it.  Now I don't, because it decides when it was to turn on or have a virus.  So sorry for all the delays and no posts in quite a while, but we are back up and working. :)

113 Cayuga St - Crespella

After my meeting with John Yengo I got SOOOOOOO much more information about a restaurant and what it could possible come with.  Many places just go from being one restaurant to another one, just changing the theme or colors, so it helps when it comes with so many of the supplies that are needed.  Here are some photos of the restaurant that is now not occupied.

This store has a really nice lay out and a huge kitchen, that may need a few new pieces of equipment to spruce up the place.  The only thing I find to be a negative is that it is more of a sit down restaurant, to me when it comes to a bakery you may want a smaller space because not as many people will be staying to eat.  To me a bakery should have a bigger kitchen than an eating area, because a kitchen is where the true magic comes from.

This was an awesome experience being able to be behind the scenes in see a true kitchen.  But it was really difficult to schedule things like this because I work so much and I do have other school work.  As a result I feel like I'm learning so much for the future.

Store Viewings

Today I yet up another appointment with John Yengo tomorrow to view a local on Cayuga Street. Hes going to help discuss with me, based on the size of the oven and equipment, how long it would take to get everything set up, and how long it would take to get a days worth of baked goods (hes been in the restaurant industry for a while too). Also how much money I need to make in order to be able to pay rent and make money all in one.

B&W Supply

To investigate more into how much it costs to run a bakery I went to B&W Supply to check out some prices for equipment that is commonly used in a bakery.  This week I mostly looked at the sale flyer because when investing in a huge business such as a bakery, it would be smart to cut costs everywhere possible. This week had five major items on sale that would be essential to owning a bakery.

60 Quart Mixer- $9,263 each

 Dry Curved Glass Bakery Case- $4,951 each

Dual Zone Dry/Refrigerated Combination Case- $8,260.50 each

Heated Holding & Proofing Cabinet- $1,591 each

Dual Flow Gas Convention Ovens- Single: $7,564 Double: $14,572

All of these are essential, I would need multiple mixers to become more efficient. Each bakery case would depend on what I would be making more frequently, whether it be something that needs to be refrigerated or just a display case.  Ovens would be the most important, enough of them to be able to continually work, and one that is easy to adjust the temperature due to different recipes, and with the most space.  

Home made strawberry frosting

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup frozen whole strawberries , thawed
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter , firm and slightly cold
• Pinch coarse salt
• 3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar , sifted
• 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Directions

Place strawberries in the bowl of a small food processor; process until pureed. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together butter and salt on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce mixer speed and slowly add confectioners' sugar; beat until well combined. Add vanilla and 3 tablespoons strawberry puree (save any remaining strawberry puree for another use); mix until just blended. Do not overmix, or frosting will incorporate too much air. Frosting consistency should be dense and creamy, like ice cream.

I made with frosting today and spread it on a plain vanilla cupcake.  For me it was a little bit sweet but the fresh strawberries I put on top were delicious. I took them up to my moms work and had everyone eat them and grade me.  Of course they all said they were perfect, but that's okay.  The thing with making your own frosting is being able to judge what ingredients should be added to fix it or how to fix the texture of it.

Buttercrean Frosting

Crusting Buttercream
1 bag powder sugar (two pounds or about eight cups)
1 cup shortening (I used original Crisco)
1 tsp vanilla extract (use clear if want white frosting)
1/2 cup – 3/4 cup milk
Cream shortening and vanilla in mixer for 2-4 minutes. Add in powder sugar, one cup at a time. If you find your mixer struggling, slowing add in milk. Use more milk for a creamy consistency, use less milk for a stiff consistency.
This recipe is SWEET.  Super sweet.  If you dont like sweet, simply use less sugar.

This is a photo from a cake made from this frosting.  My next project may need to include this because I am always have problems with the frosting staying in place!

Pit Orchestra

As Ms. Zawel is my mentor she suggested I show my artistic side and dedicate it to the pit orchestra.  So I did my favorite thing ever which is to melt down chocolate and create a design out of it.  These cupcakes were a vanilla cupcake with a vanilla frosting.  With the chocolate, you first melt it down to liquid in the microwave using little chocolate wafers.  I then processed to put the melted chocolate into a plastic piping bag and draw the design on wax paper, because once the chocolate hardens it will peal off easily. As a result:

Girl Scout Cupcakes

This week I've been asked by my Flow Fender, a member the NYPENN Girl Scout Council, to bake and design cupcakes for the Ithaca-Lansing Girl Scout Leader Appreciation Dinner on May 9th.  At first I thought it was sorta of intimidating, but yet it is another opportunity to show my skills, and possibly learn a new technique.  So first things first, what am I going to put on these cupcakes and what recipe will I use?!  I started at by looking through my old badge books, since I've been in Girl Scouts for 13 years now.  I have my badge books from Daisy to Senior Ambassador.  This is the most popular "logo" that has represent Girl Scouts for exactly 100 years now:



The thought of trying to make this by piping it with frosting or even maybe making it out of fondant could take days! It is definitely a challenge and is one of my top choices for the design.  Next I went to girlscouts.org which is the national Girl Scout website, and searched the store to see if i could find any designs that would be perfect on a cupcake.

Through my searches I also found a design similar to the top one but a bit simpler:

Another thought that I had was that a cupcake didn't have to have an elaborate design or even look pretty.  A cupcake is also about tasting yummy.  I have found a lot of recipes that include putting Girl Scout cookies in the cupcake for enhanced flavor, and a complicated recipe.  Sadly, we stopped selling cookies a month ago and I can't get any cookies...from anywhere...unless I want to drive at least 4 hours away.

Renting Space

Yesterday I met with John Yengo, with the Ithaca renting company to dicuss available locations for a cupcake bakery.  In a two hour span, John was able to give me information about the price to rent a space, what kind of spacing come with ovens and kitchens, and price per square footage.  There was deffinately a wide variety of costs!  Some time this week I will also be meeting with him to view these spaces and see what sort of conditions they are in, and what they look like. Tomorrow I will have time to write up all the information I found out.

Schedule

Monday: 3pm I will be meeting with Mr. John Yengo at Ithaca Renting Company to discuss the possible store front prices, and the average rent cost to maintain it.

Tuesday: I will be calling the different baking in Ithaca to find out about interest rates on loans I would be taking out to start a business, also what sort of paper work I would need (license, and credit score, etc)

Thursday: I know there is the kitchen store across from Papa Johns (which you think i would know the name of it since i stare at it for 30 hours a week), I will be going there to check out the prices of ovens, pans, mixers, tables, utensils, etc.  Really understanding how much money it takes to even just buy all the machines you need to do your work.

Baking Colleges

One thing I did this week was research school with a baking and pastry major, in case my vet school doesn't work out.
One school I found was the San Francisco Baking Institute.  When reading their website it seems major on their breads and pastries, which may not be the best choice since I enjoy cupcakes and cake designs more.  In this school they train you for domestic or international baking and a full career.
Another school that I actually considered before choosing to go to vet school was Johnson and Wales.  This school has a wonderful culinary and baking institute, which Felica is attending in the fall!  The thing that popped out most to me was that there was a ton of hands on experiences and expertise training.
Maybe as a second degree I could major in baking and make all my friends delicious treats daily :)

Set Backs

So recently I have called two different bakers, Wegmans and Just Desserts, I left my name, number, and email for an interview....and neither of them have gotten back to me.  It has only been a week since I contacted them so I'm still hope full that I will get in touch with them.  Thanks to Anna Kucher I will also be contacting another bakery this weekend to check out their business and wonderful designs. (Thanks Anna).

Best Discovery

I found this in my album! I made these last summer for my best friends graduation.  These cupcakes were in one of my book I got of christmas, and is a simple yet creative way to make someone happy and show that you care, which I love :)

Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting and toping ranging from apple jacks, reese's peanut butter cup, colored frosting, vanilla cookie covered in chocolate, topped with strips of gum and an m&m.

Cake Class #3

When I was told to make about 60 little frosting flowers, I thought, 'psh no problem!', wrong.  My hand might need to be taken off!  Cake makign should be a sport, it takes so much talent to not shake and the muscles you use in your hands and arm with the piping tool is amazing.
My final project also included my basket weeve on the side of this cake.  Learning the basket weeve was so incredible, it looks so difficult but it is so simple and including you on making a line about 1 in at a time.  In the end it fits together so well that it looks like a master did it, just make sure your lines are always straight and even.

4 hours of baking and creating butter cream by scratch ^^^

Cake Class #2

Holy Crap my hand hurts, in this class we learned how to make roses, and daisies with butter cream frosting.  So frustrating...if any part of it is crooked or slightly off you must start all over or, for example: the rose will collapse over sideways.

Next week I will be doing my final project and using all my flowering skills, along with my knowledge of balance and evenness on the cake.

Cake Class #1

Two weeks ago I had my firt cake class...who knew it was actually hard to make little flowers out of frosting.  Most of this class was just learnign how to mix fondont and gum paste together (the gum paste makes the fondont harden faster).  With this mixture we used a sort of cookie cutter to make a button flower.  Next lesson should be interesting...actual hard flower making!

Local Bakery's

     This week I've been doing research about our local bakery's.  In Ithaca you would think there were a lot of local business's since we are small and into the whole "buying local".  During my research it was REALLLY hard to find them!  Looking online is hard because no matter what you type in, the Ithaca Bakery is the one that pops up the most. 
     Through many hours of rewording phrases, I found three local places: Just Desserts (http://justdessertsithaca.com/), Wide Awake Bakery (http://wideawakebakery.com/), and of course Ithaca Bakery (http://ithacabakery.com/).
     My plan is to call and trying to make a time for an interview with a baker.  My top choice is Just Desserts, since on the website it shows so much about her background and all her baking experience.  But on the other hand I am really interesting in how they got into their business.
     As a last resort I could also call and schedule with the Wegman's bakery because a lot of their bakers are amazing and have some major skill. 

Oops

Yesterday I tried to make a cranberry nut cupcake/muffin from a recipe from memory...it didn't work.  I added too much oil and water and not enough flour and sugar resulting in a nasty mushy little sad cupcake.  In conclusion, I shouldn't be making recipes from memory quite yet.

1st cupcakes for wise

This project was especially hard because I ran all over town trying to find the perfect supplies.  I created a construction site including a road, sand/dirt pile, and a pond, with construction vehicles on top.  Since it was made for a friends birthday I took special care to make sure it was flawless.  The difficulty of keeping so many supplies, the cupcake, and different colors of frosting, textures, sprinkles, all separate was really hard this time because each cupcake was different from the others.  In the past I've had the practice of choose the right piping tool for grass, or water, or a straight line so I felt it helped me progress faster and finish the whole project in 3 hours.

One thing i did learn today is about color mixture with the color dye.  Believe it or not black is really difficult to perfectly get, it includes lots of blue red, and yellow, with the exact number of drops...or next time I can just buy black color dye.

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