08 Nov 2010 5 Comments
Baking Marathon for Jordan’s 1st Birthday
A few days before Jordan’s birthday party, I bought ten pounds of butter, huge bags of flour, a dozen eggs, several bags of sugar, and new bottles of almond & vanilla extracts. I went through my recipe box and decided to use a different recipe for sugar cookie instead of my signature sugar cookie because I’m afraid it’s not going to stay fresh as long as a regular sugar cookie.
After many hours of baking, I finally ended up with about 160+ cookies! It took a very long time to pipe and frost each and every single cookie but it’s all worth it in the end. Our house almost turned into a mini bakery with all the stuff I’ve been making but everyone loved it because the house smelled so good!
I always knew I wanted to make the Small Fry’s first birthday cake for it to be extra special. It would be my first fondant cake and without taking any cake decorating class, I was a little nervous. As I prepped the ingredients for the cake, I kept telling myself that I cannot fail because I do not have a back up plan! However, once I started working through the buttercream, I felt confident. The egg whites were peaking, the butter was creamy, and the sugar syrup was at its precise temperature. Everything was looking good!
I baked 120+ cupcakes. I made chocolate cupcakes with pistachio almond buttercream, white chocolate cupcakes with silky chocolate frosting and red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I also baked two 6-inch round chocolate cakes.
When the two layers of my 6-inch round cakes were cool, I stacked them with chocolate fudge in between, crumb coat them with buttercream and then stuck it in the fridge for a few hours while I prepped the fondant. I covered the cake with fondant and thankfully it worked beautifully on my first try. Although the fondant animals I chose were just simple designs, it still took me several hours to make and I’m very happy with how my jungle animals turned out.
Instead of paper cupcake toppers, I used fondant instead so everything is edible.
Fondant isn’t the easiest material to work with but it is also far from the hardest and the beautiful, clean look it gives your cake is worth the effort. Some people think fondant is a waste because you usually take it off of the cake before you eat it but a recipe that has a marshmallow base tastes great so you can leave it on and enjoy your masterpiece.
Nov 15, 2010 @ 02:51:15
Like I said, everything looks so fantastic! Hats off to you, Joy!
Nov 11, 2010 @ 16:55:46
You did a truly amazing! Everything looks FANTASTIC!! I love his cake, SO SO cute!!
Nov 09, 2010 @ 08:35:33
These are excellent! Are you sure you haven’t done this before? I’m sure it tasted as good as it looked. I’m impressed. You should make money out of this.
Nov 08, 2010 @ 16:50:23
Oh my goodness those cookies turned out adorable!!!
Liam was suppose to get 5 shots at his 1 year well baby check up but I talked them down to 3. He ended up getting the flu shot, Hep A, and prevnar. We chose to postpone MMR and vaircella until his 15 month appointment. I was having so much anxiety about all those shots I knew he was suppose to get at this appointment and luckily his doctor let me split them up.
Nov 08, 2010 @ 20:39:52
Thanks Sarah! As for those shots, you’re not the only one getting anxiety attacks! So far, Jordan’s current with all his shots but we’re also delaying the MMR a bit. We’ll get it at 15-18 months.