Sunday, November 16, 2014

Browning Birthday Cake

Welcome back!

First off I want to say that I got tons of support on my last post! Thank you everyone for all your wonderful comments and support. I couldn't do this without any of you. 

Friday night was crazzzzzy! I had an order of truffles for Friday night from a friend. She took her grandmother out for her birthday and since she knows that her grandmother is such a chocoholic, she asked me to make some truffles for her. Grandma loved them! It makes me so happy to see one of my customers enjoying a surprise like that :)

Then my little brother had a birthday party yesterday for his best friend/show buddy and his brother.  She took them all to a trampoline park! Can you imagine taking nine ten year old boys to a trampoline park and giving them all cake???? A few weeks ago their mom asked me to do their birthday cake. Since there was a ton of little boys literally bouncing off the walls and the party was in an uncontrolled environment she asked for a cupcake cake. 


She wanted half chocolate and half vanilla cupcakes covered in camo buttercream with a pink browning logo. The colors are a little off in the picture because it was taken at 3 in the morning and our lighting isn't exactly studio worthy. The pink was actually a very bright hot pink. I am so proud of how this cake turned out. I used a new technique I'd never heard of before and to be honest was a little nervous to try it. But it totally worked!!!
 I am still fairly new to the cake decorating world, and this was my first cupcake cake. I must say, it was so much fun to make! Even if I didn't get to sleep until 4:30 this morning. NO it wasn't because this cake took me that long.......although it did take quite a bit longer than planned. This cake should only have taken maybe four hours to do, start to finish. I started baking around seven. Why did it take me five extra hours? Well let me tell you...

It all started when Mom and I went shopping with the kids to get my supplies I needed. We went into the city (city is a general term for any place that holds more than our 600 people) to go to Walmart, Petsmart, and Michaels. While at Walmart we met my grandparents who came to Dallas from Oklahoma for a doctor's appointment. Of course we had to stop and visit. Then we continued on with our shopping.  

After shopping we headed home and I got started on my truffles order. While I worked on confections Mom worked on dinner. We had some awesome white chicken chili (I'll have to do a whole post on this later). Then after filling my stomach to the max I started on cupcakes. Twelve vanilla and twelve chocolate. She asked to include my super sweet buttercream, and I had to make chocolate buttercream for the camo pattern so I just did half and half. I had to make three batches of frosting for this cake, and I actually ended up using a new recipe for crusting buttercream. It is required of the technique I used to have crusting buttercream, and sometimes my typical throw-it-all-in-a-bowl-and-mix deliciousness doesn't really crust all that well.

 I got my chocolate buttercream recipe from CakeCentral. I LOVE this site; it's like a forum where all different bakers from all around the world come on and post their recipes and ask questions. Everyone is always super nice and supportive. I got my vanilla buttercream recipe from Rose Bakes. She is another fellow blogger that I just love, she is super creative. I have subscribed to her blog and I save lots of her recipes. I also chose this recipe because she makes this for large cakes, and all the recipes I have seen before just don't make enough. This made so much that I had some left over. 

So half way through making icing my hubby texts me asking if I can bring him some dinner (he works the night shift at the county jail) because he had to take an inmate to the hospital. I told him it would be a while as I was making icing and had atleast two hours left on this cake. He said Ok and I went about finishing my icing. Right after I finish the chocolate and move on to the vanilla Dad calls the satellite people (our signal has been in and out for about a week now, don't worry he fixed it yesterday) so I can't run the mixer while hes on the phone. No worries, I can go ahead and put the chocolate base layer of frosting on the cupcakes. As I finished this Dad finished on the phone. Back to vanilla!

Alright so here comes the fun part......I said in my last post that we live on a cattle ranch and raise show cattle. My brother happens to be showing one of our top prize winning heifer's babies. When Dad got off the phone he went to turn the cattle out of the barn into a big pen with hay for the night. He came in after turning out and says that Robby's heifer is bloated...bloat is bad. It means something is wrong with her stomach and air is trapped in her belly. This will make her belly twice the size it should be (incredibly painful), potentially killing her if we don't get it fixed quickly. Mom, Robby and Dad bundle up and head to the barn. I was so close to finishing this frosting so I went ahead and finished then covered it so I could go outside and help. When I got outside Dad already had her intubated (a garden hose shoved down her throat), and the air was released. Immediate crisis averted! But you can't just let her go. There is still something wrong with her stomach, and Dad thinks it's the new feed we just put her on. So we gave her some mineral oil to coat the lining of her stomach hoping that will be like a band-aid until her stomach can heal. We put her in her pen and were finished for the night.

So back to the cake I go. The heifer episode probably took around an hour. When I came back in to work on the cake I had another message from the hubby asking about his food and to tell me they were headed back to the jail. Once again I told him I was still working on the cake and it would take a little longer than expected, i.e. he's gonna have to wait. So I pull out a bunch of bowls and piping bags and tips and food colors and my special tool for this new technique I used. Then I mixed and mixed until my arm hurt, but all of my colors were finished and bags were filled. This was the true fun part. On most of my cakes the part I love most is baking, but on this cake that was a totally different story.

I piped all my wonky shapes and went to town with my handy dandy............


ROLLER?????

Yep. I couldn't believe it either. I got one of these foam rollers from Walmart for three bucks and it worked like a charm.

After putting all of my colors on the cake it was bumpy and misshapen and kinda ugly. I gently rolled over the top of my crusted frosting and it all squished down and moved into place. Just like it was supposed to! That NEVER happens!!! It took a couple rolls for it to all really move into place and get really smooth like the picture. If I saw a crack that didn't get filled I just turned the edge of the roller down and quickly went over that certain spot a few times to smooth it out. Oh my gosh, this was the most fun I've ever had making a cake! Silly..yes I know, but it was awesome. I just couldn't stop. This is where another extra twenty minutes came in to the process because I was just playing with it.

Then I cut out a picture I had printed off the internet to use as a stencil for the logo. I piped my pink icing inside the stencil, smoothed with the roller (I tried not to get carried away here because I didn't want it to be deformed), and verrrry carefully pulled the stencil off. This made the edges pull up a little so they were kinda jagged, but I used my handy dandy roller's edge to gently smooth the edges down. Voila! a finished camo cupcake cake with a hot pink browning logo. I'm so proud of this sucker I have to put the picture up twice.

:))))

I took pictures and put it in a box. Ready to go! Now that it's three in the morning I can finally make that food hubby is hounding me for. I pack up some chili and cornbread and drive old Charlie (my sturdy old F150) up to the jail. When Benji finally got out to see me he was thoroughly agitated...understandably of course, he had a tough night and was starving. But I was agitated too. I didn't just make a cake.... I made truffles and dinner and cupcakes and icing and fixed a cow and iced the cake and made him some food and then drove thirty minutes to take it to him and now had to drive thirty minutes to go home. So I gave him his food, and kissed him then let him go back to work. I got home and put on my pjs, got in bed and........I can't sleep! Are you kidding me???? I am so tired that my body doesn't even want to walk all the way from the front door to my bedroom and now that I'm finally here.....ugh! I finally fell asleep around 4:35. Ah yes sweet sleep, how I've missed you so. 

But wait! There's more! Hubby gets home at seven in the morning. Usually he comes home, puts on his pjs, we cuddle and he goes right to sleep. Except Mom came in and says the heifer has bloated again. Needless to say, everyone got dressed and went outside to fix her once more, but we didn't have Dad this time. He was at work. No problem, we don't need Dad...right? Well I am an Ag graduate and I've intubated a cow before, I've even intubated a horse before....but never a heifer which is quite a bit smaller. That's ok, it's the same concept...except those were both a few years ago and my hands weren't freezing or covered in mineral oil then. I tried my hardest to get that hose down her throat, but she just wasn't having it. Dad had already called in reinforcements though and they showed up not long after that with a different type of hose actually meant to go down her throat. So we moved her to the squeeze chute and tried to gett it down her, but in calf anatomy the windpipe and the esophagus are right next to each other. If it doesn't go down the right pipe we could potentially damage her windpipe and cause some serious damage. It took us a few tries but we finally got it where we wanted it. All of the air came out of her, we gave her some eggs (to add the necessary bacteria back into her stomach), and then some more mineral oil. I gave her an antibiotic shot, and she went back in her pen. She got a little better as the day went on, and we got her some different feed. Today she's back to normal and we haven't seen anymore issues with her, praise God! This is good because losing a $5,000 heifer is no bueno on the Diamond H Ranch! 

Glad to report that today everyone was working, and the kids and I got to spend a lazy day in front of the fire watching movies. I did make some chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake truffles though! None of them have been eaten yet, but I'll let you all know in my next post. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Love Lucy














Wednesday, November 12, 2014

First Blog Post! (Chocolate Truffles)

       Alright....so this is my first real blog post. I've had to create a few blogs and posts for various class assignments throughout college, but nothing like this. There has been some heated debate between the voices in my head about whether to start this blog or not for a while. Recently the movie "Mom's Night Out" came out on Redbox and I finally got to watch it! This is now one of my all time favorite movies ever, and the main character starts the movie out struggling with the beginning of her blog. After countless mishaps and a night spent in jail she becomes a successful "mommy blogger". While I am not yet a mother nor do I spend many nights in jail with Trace Adkins, it inspired me to get this puppy going.
   
      I started my own cake decorating business in May after my best friend and I created my awesome wedding cake....
Red Velvet with cream cheese icing, Lemon with lemon filling and vanilla buttercream, and traditional almond wedding cake with strawberry filling and white chocolate buttercream. All covered in fondant and decorated in fresh flowers. 

I'm pretty proud of this. I also made a wedding dress out of cupcakes and my husband's grooms cake...

My secret recipe chocolate cake with salted
caramel buttercream.
It was divine!
All traditional almond wedding cake
with strawberry filling
and white chocolate buttercream. 
Since then I have taken a several orders for birthdays, a bridal shower, and even another wedding!

       This blog isn't going to just be about cakes and sugar though! I want to share with you everything about me, and what led me to start this business.....The short version of me starts on a cattle ranch with my parents. I showed cattle in the FFA chapter of our small town all the way through high school, and I showed a little in open shows during college. Now I mostly just mentor younger kids, and help them learn all about the ways of a show farm life. Until almost my teenage years I was an only child, and despised it. Although looking back, it was pretty nice being the second grandchild on both sides and the only child of my parents. When I was twelve my baby brother, Robby, was born. He is the complete opposite of me, and I think he is literally trying to drive me crazy but I don't adore him any less because of it. I majored in Agricultural Education in college, and I am now certified to teach high school Ag. I met my husband, Benji, during my sophomore year of college, and we were married on our third year anniversary this past April. Two weeks after meeting him my parents took in my cousin, Joleigh, after some crazy family drama, and I now have a sister too. She's my little kitchen bug and just last night was helping me make some tasty hoagie rolls from scratch. Last summerr my husband(then fiancee) took me out of my small town to go half way across Texas where he accepted a job as a corrections officer for TDCJ (the state prison system). I was miserable from extreme pine allergies and the dreadful house we were living in, not to mention I hated being so far from my family. So he moved me back at the beginning of this year. We are now living in my parents' house on the ranch until we can find a more permanent home. I have two awesome fur babies, Gemma and Molly. Gemma is my three and a half pound teacup chihuahua, and Molly is Benji's fifty-five pound lab mix....





















I have always loved to bake and cook. It's calming to me. I love how I can turn on my Pandora, put in my headphones, and start cooking, then the whole world just kind of disappears.....at least until a member of my family comes into the kitchen. I am even going to start a new job in the next couple of weeks as a baker. I am so excited!

       Now that you know a little about me, let's get to today's recipe! Chocolate "Candy Cane" Truffles.....yummo :)

I found this recipe on Pinterest....I am addicted to Pinterest. I find most of my recipes there. The weather people are saying this is going to be an awful winter for us in Texas. Really really cold and really really wet. An arctic storm came through yesterday blowing in a ton of cold wind. It is abnormally cold and windy for this time of the year.

        I have a friend who sells Premier Jewelry, and I am hosting a parting in December and I'm going to have a hot chocolate bar. So I thought today would be the perfect day to try out a recipe for hot chocolate in the crock pot. I found a ton of recipes, but they were all basically the same with a couple variations. The one I made used 1 can of sweetened condensed milk, 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, 6 cups milk or water, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, and 3 cups of chocolate chips. Combine all of this in your crock pot, stir well, and let it heat on low for two-three hours. Stir occasionally so all the chocolate melts. It's finished when it starts steaming, then you can turn on the warmer. This recipe was OK. My chocolate chips didn't melt all the way, so I think next time I may use powder or melt my chocolate chips before I add them to the mixture.

       While my hot chocolate was heating away, I decided I wanted something with a little more chocolate to round out my day. So I went back to Pinterest and found this recipe for Chocolate Candy Cane Truffles from Your Cup of Cakes's blog. Lizzy is an awesome blogger, who has been doing this much longer than me. I definitely suggest you go check out her blog and subscribe, she's got some awesome recipes. Chocolate Candy Cane Truffles

                             

They look so scrumptious right? I absolutely love everything Christmas, especially candy canes. I keep a box hidden under my bed during the season just in case I get a craving....don't judge me, I can't help it. I had everything to make these delectable bites of heaven.....except candy canes. I searched and searched my pantry for something to roll these suckers in. I thought about just doing white chocolate with peppermint extract added in, but it's just not the same. So I revised the recipe! I do this quite often, almost nothing I make is actually made to a recipe....."It's more of what ya call a guideline"..... I also love Johnny Depp and all his movies.

       So I substituted the peppermint extract in her recipe for vanilla and rolled my finished truffles in crushed pretzels, crushed honey teddy grahams, and I even dipped some in white chocolate...without the peppermint extract. This was my finished product....


My pictures aren't anywhere near as pretty as Lizzy's, but I am also using my phone's camera instead of a digital. 

       They are delicious! I can't wait until I actually have some candy canes to roll them in. I have many taste testers in my house plus our neighbors and friends are always excited when I decide to experiment :) I actually ran out of truffles in the first fifteen minutes of posting them on Facebook! I doubled the recipe because I had the ingredients to do it, but I guess next time I will have to quadruple the recipe since they were such a hit.

       Alright! Here I go, out into the big bad blogger world! Let me know what you like and what I can improve on. I am tough, I can take the criticism.It's part of being a farm girl!

Until next time.......Love Lucy :)