Just your friendly neighbourhood baker

I don't know about you, but these days I feel as if I'm constantly trying to breathe broth. Heat, humidity, and pleanty of sweat - yay summer! 
Just the ideal conditions for baking a cake, right? (/sarcasm)

Anyway, a colleague - actually one of the attending physicians working with us on a rotation to pamper our beloved policy holders with medical advice whenever needed, or otherwise (Look, mama! More sarcasm!) - asked me for a Spider-Man cake for her adopted son Nhat, who just turned six. 
She wanted it to feed about 20 little ones, but other than that she wasn't particular. She showed me a model cake, covered with red fondant, with a blue web covering one wedge of it and a Spidey action figure plopped on top. Only she couldn't find that particular toy, but provided me with a Spider-Man candle instead.

I immediately thought of repeating my Red Velvet feat from a few days ago, since that cake was really delightful, and dramatic enough to satisfy a bunch of kids. 
Only with a bright red interior, I needed blue fondant for a nice bit of contrast, and a red web on top. The doctor was OK with me inverting the colour scheme, and pretty much left me free rein with it... 

...and so, here it goes. 

I thought it better to have the web cover the entire surface, so the kids won't need to fight about who gets to gain a spider sense by eating it. 

I piped it with royal icing btw; I really wanted to use Candy Melts, but I just can't tame the darn things (shame, 'cause they taste lovely and have such bright colours!)

The writing is, likewise, a royal icing transfer, and all in all it was surprisingly quick to do, thanks to this truly amazing Spider-Man font you can download for free OMG!

Since I needed a much larger cake this time, I hit the Internet for a recipe that was already adjusted for a 12'' round pan. (I know, I know... SO lazy of me! But, I was short on time as the party's tomorrow, so I really needed to take all of the guesswork out of the process to be on the safe side.)

In the end, I picked this one from Food & Wine. 

Unlike the Bake Happy recipe I used before, this one produces little to no dome, as it is actually meant to bake low, like a German Torte. I wanted a bit more height though, so I made two and stacked 'em - even so, I got zero waste from them, as they baked so amazingly flat I didn't need to cut anything from them. 

(This meant, unfortunately, I didn't get a taste of it - but, by the looks of it, I think I like Bake Happy's version better. It was extremely light and soft, whereas this one feels heavier and kind of oily. Granted, the added sturdiness is a bonus in this instance, but in my personal opinion, Aikko's recipe is closer to the real thing.)

I did none of the fancy ice cream and pecan praline thingie - even plain cream cheese icing was a no-no, what with it being for very young kids who might not like its sour-ish taste (which I love, btw!)

So, alas, a canned vanilla frosting it was, and plain American buttercream for crumbcoating. The very thought sickens me, but this way I'm sure the kiddos will not object... plus, I have to admit the hellish stuff is much stabler than anything dairy-based!

Right, now I only need to carry the darn thing to work. Ugh. 

SOOOOOOO HEAVY...

Once more unto the breach!

Sorry sorry sorry!

I keep dropping off the blogging world, but... this time I have a good reason if nothing else! 

See, I am finally baking again - my biggest cake ever (it serves 24), and my first go at... stacked cakes OMG!

Nedless to say, I'm frantic, tired and overworked, and dead scared about everything that could (and probably will) go wrong. 

And I'm feeling more elated than I've been in a long time. 

I'm allowing you guys a sneak peek at my WIP...

(Please ignore the clutter...)

See? It's going to be for a Spiderman-themed birthday party, so there will be ol' Spidey climbing down the skyscraper once it's finished.

And I'm going to put silhouette buildings all around the bottom tier, to make it look a bit more like New York. 

BTW this reminds me that I haven't shared my trusty "sturdy chocolate cake recipe" yet.

I'm not even sure I have a right to call it mine, honestly, as it's 99% an average mudcake, with a few very minor tweaks I introduced to make it extra durable. 

It's an awesome base IMHO, for children especially - it's rich and fudgey and extremely chocolatey, so that a single slice will satisfy even the sweetest tooth in the world.

Plus it's dense and sturdy (for carving or stacking), and it keeps for up to three weeks in your refrigerator. For real!

I'll have to convert the recipe in cup measurements before I can post it, so please stay tuned.

For the finished cake too, of course! 

(...Er. You do want to see it, don't you?)

Superhero Cupcakes - at last!

Remember back in February, when I told you I was making superhero-themed cupcakes for the opening session of my friends' new RPG campaign, set in the Marvel universe?

Well, as you know, that batch... didn't turn out as expected. So I took a page from any good supervillain's book and bided my time. Planning ahead. Waiting for the next special session...

...which could logically, at that point, only be the closing one. 

(Insert cheesy flash-forward effect here, s'il-vous plaît...)

And here are, at last, my superz cupcakes!

I knew Flavio wouldn't be able to attend the session, which is kinda sad, I presume (since, unlike me, he's a rabid superheroes fan). But to me, my uber-picky BFF's absence meant that I wouldn't be limited to chocolate cupcakes anymore! 

Before going into that, though, I have to tell you about the decorating part - although I know my readers are smart and will have recognized the edible sugar sheets already!

I used Wilton's, and boooooy... is that stuff brittle!

And pricey. Did I mention pricey?

Now seriously, this is all there is to it. I cut some spikey balloons - there must be a proper definition for these LOL - in outrageously garish primaries, then sketched your typical superhero comics sound effects with a food marker, and cut these out as well. 

I used tiny sewing scissors and lots of patience, and still had managed to break many of the onomatopoeias... 

(See? I can use the correct technical terms when I want to!)

Although you can't see them from the photo above (which is the only one I had the time to take before the cuppies were carried away - so much for me planning ahead, all evil mastermind-like...), the wrappers were as relevant to the superhero theme as the cupcakes themselves. 

I bought them from one of my favourite Etsy shops, cakeadoodledoo - I got the boy design only, at 15 € (plus shipping) for a set of 12. 

I truly recommend you Tricia's shop, really - her wrappers and favour boxes are funny, creative and extremely functional. You might, of course, balk at the cost, but for that very special occasion once in a while, they're well worth splurging! Plus, Wilton's laser-cut wrapper packs don't come for much cheaper either... and Tricia's are handcrafted!

Image belongs to Tricia @ https://www.etsy.com/shop/cakeadoodledoo

(The following pics were stolen by my sweetie with his trusty smartphone during the gaming session itself, btw...)

As you can see, the edible paper sort of softened into the frosting. This is actually supposed to happen btw!

The food marker bleeding, on the other hand, was unexpected and a bit of a bummer... but I guess it's my fault for using a very soft, cream cheese-based frosting. I bet it wouldn't have happened, had I used proper buttercream or ganache instead... oh well! 

Now about the cupcakes themselves! 

They were lemon-flavoured, as I still have plenty of the gorgeous lemons I brought back from my blitz holiday on the Amalfi coast. 

The original recipe's called Lemon Blossom Cupcakes and it's from a cookbook called The Cupcake Diaries, by Katherine Kallinis and Sophie Kallinis LaMontagne - but you can get it from here as well, courtesy of Bundt-loving blogger extraordinaire, The Food Librarian!

(She's absolutely right about the grated zest quantity btw... My lemons were huge but 1/2 cup just doesn't make sense. I used 2 of them and called it a day - and I think more than that would have been overkill actually!)

The cupcakes turned out delicious and very lemon-y, if a bit too dense and buttery for my taste. I'll take crumbly over moist any day, but that's just me - I have uncontrovertible evidence that the gamers loved them as they were!