Cake with Horizontal Stripes

This cake is decorated with strips of modeling chocolate, sheeted and cut with the Kitchenaid pasta attachments.

Modeling chocolate is make with chocolate and light corn syrup. Baking chocolate or chocolate melts work well, but chocolate chips make the modeling chocolate too crumbly. For this project I just used what I already had - semi-sweet baking chocolate for the dark modeling chocolate, and Wilton melts for the white modeling chocolate.

Dark modeling chocolate:

12 oz semi-sweet baking chocolate

1/3 cup light corn syrup

White modeling chocolate:

16oz (1 bag) white chocolate melts

1/3 cup light corn syrup

To make modeling chocolate:

1. Melt the chocolate according to the package directions. Keep mixing until the chocolate cools to about 90°F.

2. Add the light corn syrup and mix until it comes together.

3. Wrap the mixture in plastic wrap and let it cool to room temperature.

To make and assemble sheets of modeling chocolate for the cake:

When the modeling chocolate has cooled, it will be hard. Knead small pieces with your hands until it warms up and can be rolled out.

1. Form pieces into thin rectangles and run them through the pasta roller attachment as you would with pasta dough (continue to knead dough by folding sheeted pieces in half and running them through again.) Strips will need to be long enough to fit around the cake. For a 5-inch round cake, strips will need to be approximately 17 inches long.

2. When strips are long enough to fit around the cake, run them through the fettuccine cutter attachment to cut them into equal sized stripes.

3. When you have enough stripes of each color, arrange the pieces on a non-stick surface, pressing them together so that there aren't any gaps. Then roll out an additional sheet of modeling chocolate and press it on top of the pattern to hold all of the pieces together. (This seems to work best with white modeling chocolate since it is more sticky.) This side is the back.

The side on the bottom will be on the outside when wrapped around the cake.

4. Each cake will also need a circle of chocolate to cover the top. Using a piece of chocolate that has been rolled into a sheet, press the rim of the cake pan into the chocolate to make an imprint, then cut along the line. 

5. Attach the side piece to a crumb-coated cake by rolling the chocolate up on the side of the cake. The edge can be trimmed if it is too long. Last, press the chocolate circle on the top of the cake.

Giraffe Sugar Cookies

Another non-round design on round cookies! (Remember these penguin gingerbread cookies?)

The cookies are vanilla sugar cookies...

And the design is created with royal icing:

- Orange piping and flood icing

- Brown flood icing (I made this flood a little thicker than normal, instead of making both piping and flood icing for the brown spots.)

- Cream flood icing (also a little thicker, for the same reason)

- Black piping icing

- Royal icing eyes (these are pre-made eyes.)

To make a giraffe: 

1. Pipe around the edge of the cookie with orange piping icing.

2. Flood the center of the cookie with orange flood icing. Then let the icing dry completely.

3. Add a cream nose just below center.

4. Add four orange ovals for the ears and horns.

5. Add brown spots around the bottom edge of the cookie. Then pipe black accents on the horns and ears, and dots and a smile on the nose.

6. Attach the eyes with a dot of extra orange icing.

Let the cookies dry completely before stacking or packing them - they're dry when they are no longer shiny.

Ice Cream Cupcakes

   

These frozen cupcakes are made from brownies and chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream. Rather than using paper cupcake liners, I used jumbo silicone muffin cups to give them their shape.

Step 1. The base of the cupcakes is a brownie. Any brownie recipe should work. I used this recipe for basic brownies. Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare the brownie batter and grease the muffin cups according to your brownie recipe. Add 2 big scoops of batter to the bottom of each muffin cup, filling about 1/3 of each cup.

Tap the bottom of the cups to smooth the tops.

Bake for 18-22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of one of the brownies comes out clean.

Let the brownies cool to room temperature, then put them in the freezer, covered with parchment paper, for 30 minutes.

Step 2. While the brownies are cooling and chilling, take the chocolate ice cream out of the freezer. Let it warm up enough so that you can transfer it to a bowl. Continue to let it warm as you stir it. Stir the ice cream until it is the consistency of soft-serve.

To make it easier to transfer the ice cream to the muffin cups, pour the ice cream into a piping bag (with no tip.)

Cut off the tip of the piping bag and remove the brownies from the freezer. Fill the muffin cups with ice cream, then smooth the top with the back of a spoon.

Place the muffin cups in the freezer, covered with parchment paper, until they are completely frozen.

Then remove the cupcakes by inverting them and pushing them out from the bottom. Return the cupcakes in the freezer while you prepare ice cream for the swirl.

Step 3. This swirl is piped with an Ateco #824 tip, using vanilla and strawberry ice cream. Attach the tip to the piping bag. To make a swirl using two flavors, fill one side of the bag with the first flavor, and the other side of the bag with the second. Tie off the end of the bag with a rubber band or twist tie.

Note: You may need to let the ice cream warm up some in order to get it into the piping bag. However, if the ice cream is too wet after filling and tying the bag off, place the bag, with the tip in a glass, in the freezer until it is a better consistency.

Step 4. When the piping ice cream is the right consistency, take the cupcakes out of the freezer and pipe the swirl.

Return the completed cupcakes to the freezer until it's time to eat them.

Easter Egg Sugar Cookies

These striped and marbled designs are made by piping a second color of royal icing on the wet flood.

- Royal icing tutorial and recipe

- Sugar cookie recipe 

To create a striped and marbled designs with royal icing, start by piping and flooding with the main color.

While the icing on the cookie is still wet, pipe lines with a second color of icing on top, using the flood consistency icing. Use a piping tip (Ateco #1 or #2) to create finer lines. Stop at this point for a striped design.

To create a marbled effect, drag a toothpick through the stripes while the icing is still wet.