How to make cake pops! ..... (that look like chickens)

So on a rare and wonderful day off, I made my first ever cake pops in the shape of little chicks: 

I was inspired to make them by a wonderful book called (surprise surprise) Cake Pops, by Angie Dudley, a.k.a Bakerella. 

At the moment I own this on Kindle, which is not very practical, because Mr Cupcake gets annoyed when his iPad gets cake, icing and food colouring all over it. 

These little chicks have a hard coating, with a moist and delicious mixture of chocolate mud cake and coffee cream cheese icing inside. 

As you can see in the pic above, you need to stand the cake pops up in some sort of stand, both while they are drying, and also to display them. Therefore my preparation started with power tools because I needed to make a customised stand. 

This process involved turning the garage upside down trying to find a spare piece of wood, then trying to match a lollipop stick to my much depleted box of drill bits. There was much cursing as I wondered where do all those missing drill bits GO?

I found an elegant wood block that had originally been part of a timber vase and was missing its glass inner piece. I thought this would make a nice stand. You can see the lollipop stick and the corresponding drill bit. 

Miraculously the drill battery was charged - well, half-charged - so I proceeded to drill some holes to make my stand. 

Because my drill was half charged, the drill bit was quite shit and the timber was very hard, the drill holes ended up quite shallow. They worked ok but I'll deepen them at some stage so that the pops will stand up more securely. 

So with the hardware put away, it was time to tackle the pops!

Firstly you need a cake - I had some odd shaped pieces of chocolate mud cake in the freezer that were left over from a previous cake decorating session (actually, from making my sushi cupcakes the I described in a previous post). So I used these leftover pieces because the size and shape didn't matter - it all had to be crumbled. 

I crumbled the cake with my fingers, making sure that there were no large pieces left. You could do this in a food processor if you wanted. 

Then you have to mix some icing into the cake crumbs, so that you get a firm, dense and moist mixture that can be shaped into balls. You could use any type of icing - I made a simple cream cheese icing (one part spreadable cream cheese to three parts icing sugar) and flavoured it with some cafe trablit, which is a strong coffee syrup, 

This is the icing being stirred into the cake. Put in about a tablespoon at a time and stir it thoroughly each time, until you get a texture that starts to ball away cleanly from the sides of the bowl. 

Once you have a texture that is firm and truffle-y, but not sloppy, you can start rolling cake balls. Lay some baking paper on a tray, and make sure your hands are clean and completely dry. 

Scoop the mixture by spoonfuls into the palm of your hand. You need about a large teaspoon, but it's up to you what size the cake balls should be. Roll them gently in your palms until they are spherical, then place them on the baking sheet. 

I included this pic so you can see the texture. They do not have to be super smooth, but they need to hold together well without crumbs going everywhere. 

You may have to wash and dry your hands every so often because the rolling process gets harder the stickier your hands are. 

When you're done, put the tray of cake balls in the freezer for 15 minutes (or leave in the fridge for a couple of hours) and get your decorating things ready. 

For the little chicks, they need little feet and beaks made of orange. In her book, Bakerella uses a variety of ready made lollies, cachous and candies for this purpose but I didn't have any, so I rolled some orange decorating fondant and stamped some tiny stars...

....and hand-rolled some tiny fondant cones for the chicks' beaks.

To make the coating for the chicks, you need some yellow candy melts. These are available in cake decorating stores and come in a variety of colours. The name is a little deceptive - they are not really 'candy', as in lollies or sweets, they are more like white chocolate, and are made of vegetable oils, milk solids and sugar. 

A possible upmarket alternative would be to get white chocolate couverture pastilles and tint them yellow with chocolate tint (but note this is not the same as gel food colouring that you use for tinting fondant). 

Melt the candy melts according to the packet instructions - you can microwave them, or use a double boiler. 

When the candy is melted and smooth, turn it into a deep, narrow bowl so that you have a depth of at least 10cm. Sit this bowl in a larger bowl filled with hot water so that the mixture stays melted for longer.

Take the cake balls out of the freezer. They should be cold and firm but not frozen.

Take a lollipop stick and dip it into the melted candy to a depth of about a centimetre. Then stick it into a cake ball, just until it's about halfway through the ball. 

 Then carefully dip the cake ball into the melted mixture until it is completely submerged. Don't stir it around while it's in there - you don't want crumbs coming off and messing up your dipping mix. 

Gently lift the pop out, then tap the stick on the side of the bowl, 7 or 8 times, to allow extra candy to flow off. This will form a little ribbon coming down off the pop into the bowl. Every now and then, rotate the ball a little so that the coating stays relatively even. 

When you have a nice even coat, place the pop in your ready made stand to dry hard. 

Repeat with all other cake balls. 

When the coating has dried, stick the 'beak' on with a little extra candy coating (wow, I made a messy job of that one - oops)

Then stick two little stars on to the bottom of the pop - these are the chick's feet. 

Use some black food colouring and a pair of tweezers, cleaned and sterilised, to dot two little eyes on the chick. 

This is a terrible pic but it gives you the general idea. You can dot both eyes at once, equidistant from the beak. 

And hey presto - there is your little chick cake pop! 

If you want to give your cake pops away, you can customise a box to store them. 

To make this, I used a spare gloss cardboard box that had been used to hold a desktop calendar.  

I got out my trusty drill (rapidly losing power at this stage) and put holes through the sides at regular intervals. 

The sticks of the pops can then be inserted through the holes to keep the pops in place. 

The pops are actually quite tough but beware of knocking the beak or the feet as they can break off. 

I'm happy to report that the little chick cake pops tasted good too. They were moist and full of chocolatey goodness. Their little hard coats were satisfyingly crisp and they held together well on their sticks. 

Here's to lots more experiments with cake pops!

 

Whoopie pies.... with a black forest theme

I had never heard of whoopie pies before this year. They are a traditional American sweet, a cross between a soft cookie and a cake, and originated with the Amish, who made them to use up little bits of leftover cake batter.

Amish farmers apparently used to find them in their lunchboxes occasionally and got so excited they would shout 'Whoopie!" You have to love that degree of excitement over baked goods.

Mr Cupcake asked the interwebs about them and then informed me that whoopie pies are the 'State Treat' of Maine, USA - not to be confused with the official Maine State Dessert which is apparently blueberry pie. I love that someone in Maine wanted to give State status to both a dessert AND a treat.

These whoopie pies are a red velvet mixture with a mascarpone and cream cheese filling flavoured with cassis liqueur and studded with cherries soaked in cassis, and a dark chocolate topping. They are very rich and decadent (those guys in Maine must be on the chubby side).

Disaster 1 - the baking tray batch

My first attempt to make whoopie pies, the day before these, was a complete disaster.

I read that I could cook them by piping circles of cake batter onto baking trays, or using whoopie pie tins, which are like cupcake tins, but the holes are larger and much flatter (cookie shaped rather than cake shaped). As I didn't have any whoopie pie tins I decided to make two batches, the first piping circles onto flat trays, the second using a cupcake tin but only filling the holes a quarter full - I reasoned I would get small whoopie pies that way, and larger ones on the tray.

Disaster 2: the cupcake tin batch

Except. Except I didn't. I got a tray full of completely joined-up batter about a centimetre thick (which I tried to turn into a swiss roll, but even that didn't work) and about 8 full size cupcakes - they rose and rose, the little buggers.

But the good thing about whoopie pies that look like cupcakes is that you can pretend you set out to make cupcakes.... so these were my first 'whoopie pies' ... vanilla cupcakes.... :-)

So-called 'muffin top' tins

So on my second attempt I zoomed out to Woolworths in Newtown - a truly excellent facility - and bought a couple of five-buck 'Muffin Top' tins. After having a giggle at the name I decided that these tins were actually whoopie pie tins and were essential for the job.

The actual recipe for my second batch was a red velvet whoopie pie recipe from a new English book called Whoopie Pies, by Hannah Miles (the first, failed batch was a vanilla recipe from the same book). It produced a very nice, light cake with a fine crumb, which turned out of the tins beautifully, without cracking or flaking. It was almost like a butter cake recipe but with a hefty amount of buttermilk and some water added, which I guess helped with the lightness.

With the right equipment, my second batch worked much better. This time I got cookie-shaped rounds of cake, with a fine texture and a good shape, if a little thin (my high-rise cupcake experience of the day before had made me scared to fill the tins up).

They turned out of the tins really well and I was able to fill them and top them with chocolate.

Going from the general look and feel of the fillings in the book, I made up my own 'black forest' filling. This consisted of halved cherries macerated in Cassis liqueur (I would have used Kirsch but I didn't have any)...

...Mixed with a creamy filling which was roughly equal portions of mascarpone, spreadable cream cheese, icing sugar and a splash of cassis. I put this in a disposable piping bag and piped it out onto half of the whoopie pies, studding it with a few cherries, and then sandwiched it with another whoopie pie on top.

I tried some different piping patterns (both with a star nozzle). That's why one of the whoopie pies in this picture looks a bit messy.

To decorate the top (because it seems like whoopie pies are often iced as well as filled) I melted some dark chocolate with my trusty home made double boiler arrangement - a china bowl precariously balanced on a tiny saucepan full of boiling water.

Then I spooned it on the top of the whoopie pies and finished with a cherry half on top.

Now, I was pretty happy with the way this picture turned out - they look so luscious and glossy and all - but I have a confession to make. These were a bit TOO RICH for Dr Cupcake! Yes indeed. There was an awful lot of filling in proportion to the cakey part, and the filling was pure dairy goodness - so much of it that I felt like I was becoming more lactose intolerant with every mouthful. I think next time a whipped cream filling, moderate in quantity, could work as it would be a lot lighter.




Recipe for cake batter:
125g unsalted butter or margarine (apparently they are traditionally made with vegetable shortening)
200g caster sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
300g self raising flour
20g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
250ml buttermilk (or plain yoghurt)
2 tsp red food colouring
100ml hot (not boiling) water

Set oven to 180C (350F) and grease and flour the tins. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and well combined. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat again. Sift all the dry ingredients in and mix again, then add the buttermilk, colouring and the hot water. You should end up with a sloppy but not liquid mixture which can be spooned (messily) into the pans. Let the mixture sit in the pans for 10 minutes, then pop into the over for 10-12 minutes. When you take them from the oven, run a metal spatula carefully around the edges to release the pies and cool them on a rack before filling and icing them.
Keep in a sealed container in the fridge - these are best eaten the same day but can keep for several days, depending on the filling.

Animal cupcakes for RSPCA Cupcake Day

Last week was Cupcake Day for the RSPCA which for an animal and cupcake lover has to be one of the most exciting days of the year!
This year I inveigled my work colleagues to participate in running a cupcake stall for the day, and all the money raised went to help the little animals at the RSPCA.

This is what our stand looked like, although there were heaps more cupcakes than you can see in the pic. Oh happy day.















I wanted to do fondant animal decorations - you can see them all together on the circular tiered stand in the pic. As I needed to do quite a few I tried to make them simple. I ended up with tigers, elephants, sheep, dogs, ducks on ponds, and pigs.
Some may say that the RSPCA in Australia would rarely have much to do with the first two, but I say the RSPCA must be prepared for ANYTHING.

The tigers were very popular. They had quite happy, cheerful faces and I was pleased with their flower-stamen whiskers.

The elephants were proud of their chunky trunks and big tusks.

The ducks floated on little blue lakes, with grass and flowers at the edges.

... And the puppies were a bit messy, and didn't look like great brains, but they co-existed happily with all the others.

For all the animal cupcakes I started off with a dense, moist chocolate mud cupcake that I coated with ganache. I then hot knifed the ganache to give it a perfectly smooth surface. These cupcakes have had their ganache finished and set and are ready to go.












I premixed my fondant colours, estimating how much I would need to make about 10 of each animal.

For the tiger, you need a large circle of bright orange fondant, about 3-4mm wider around the edges than the top of the cupcake; two little balls of orange fondant, flattened and rolled with your fingers, to make the ears; nine black triangular stripes; a small ivory circle; a smaller hand-shaped black pyramid; and tiny balls of white and black fondant for the eyes.

Cover the cupcake with the orange circle and burnish to get a perfect flat surface. Stick the ivory circle in the centre with a dot of water.

Stick the black pyramid in the centre of the ivory circle. This is the nose.
With a black food colouring pen or using a thin brush and some black food colour, draw two lines coming down from the nose, then curving upward towards the cheeks.

Stick on the black stripes, points facing inward, with drops of water, and stick the ears on. Make holes for the eyes with the end of a small paintbrush, and poke some tiny holes in the ivory 'muzzle' with a sterilised needle.

Finally, roll two white balls for the eyes and two smaller black balls for the pupils, and stick them in. Cut some cake decorating, flower stamens in half and stick them into the needle holes in the muzzle for the whiskers.

Roarrrr!!

For the elephant you need a large grey circle, two grey oblongs, a sausage-shape for the trunk, two white cones for the tusks and black and white balls for the eyes.

Attach the circle to the top of the cupcake and burnish until smooth. Shape the sausage into a trunk - flatten the top end slightly so that it sits a bit flatter on the cake, and make the end of the trunk slightly concave, pushing two holes in it with the end of a small paintbrush. Attach it to the middle of the cupcake with a drop of water.

Next attach the oblongs - these are the elephant's ears. Put some rose petal dust on the cheeks with a soft brush (OK I know elephants don't really have pink cheeks, but cupcake elephants do).

Stick the tusks one on either side of the trunk.

Make two holes for the eyes just above the trunk, then roll two small balls of white fondant for the whites of the eyes and stick in the holes. Roll two tiny balls of black fondant for the pupils and stick onto the eyeballs.

These are the entire herd of elephants stampeding across the table.

For the ducks, you need a ball of yellow fondant about the size of a walnut. Roll this into an oblong shape and then hand shape it to become the body of the duck.
With a smaller ball of fondant, roll an oval shape for the duck's head and stick in place with a drop of water.
Roll a tiny cone of orange fondant for the beak and stick in place. Then cut some small flat triangles and stick these on the sides of the duck for the wings. Use a piercing tool to make tiny holes for the eyes.

Cover a cupcake with pale blue fondant and stick the duck on, slightly to one side.

Make a cone of bright green fondant and snip the top of it with scissors (I used sterilised nail scissors). Snip about four times, to make a spiky clump of 'grass'.

Stick the grass onto the edge of the cupcake with a drop of water, then fix a flower beside it (I haven't shown how to make these here, but they're really simple: roll some coloured fondant about 2mm thick, stamp out some shapes with a mini flower cutter and use a balling tool to curve the shape upwards. Roll a ball of fondant in a contrasting colour and stick in the centre).

To tell the truth, I wasn't 100% happy with the ducks. The shape wasn't quite right. But I liked the colours and will work on the shapes next time.

For the dog, you need to start by hand-shaping a piece of fondant about the same size and shape as a human nose. You then stick this directly to the ganached surface of the cupcake.

Then cut a large brown circle, about 4mm wider on all sides than the cupcake top. Moistening the top of the cupcake with water, stick the circle down and carefully smooth it over the nose-shape until you get an even finish. This is the dog's snout.

Make a little oval of black fondant (like a little jellybean - in fact you could use black Jellybellys). Stick it on the end of the snout to make the nose. Then paint or just slice a vertical line underneath it, and a smile line beneath that.

Roll out some brown fondant and cut out two oval shapes. Stick them on and bend them in half like in this pic, to make the ears.

Make the eyes from black balls of fondant - or you can make white eyeballs and black pupils.

I also made some dogs with ivory coloured spots - I think these ones were better than the plain ones.

I have shown how to make the piggies and the sheep in other posts but I wanted to show how the rose petal blush goes on. You only need a little and you put it on with a clean, soft brush.
You can use a makeup brush, but be sure to use it only for this purpose so that you don't run the risk of getting real makeup on the cupcakes.

Happy Cupcake Day - thanks to all our customers who gave us their hard-earned dollars for a good cause.