Thursday, July 30, 2009

Oh Fishy


It has been a while since I posted some of my work. It's hard to find the time to post sometimes when you are busy with actual orders. My website has yet to be updated with my most recent photos and I'm still trying to find a way to make my gallery great without hiring some web designer person.
This order was great. It was for a 4 year old boy who requested a fish theme for his party. For the kids go the cupcakes and for the adults the cake. The cupcakes were Vanilla. Looking for a great vanilla cupcake recipe was just a massive endeavor. There are some recipes by some famous shops ie. Magnolia in NYC and Billy's Bakery that were kind enough to share there true and tested recipes. Most reviews were positive (Thanks to Martha Stewart's website), some not. I tried them both as well as a recipe from Confetti cakes also in NYC. Let me tell you not all vanilla cakes are created equal. Either the cupcakes are too dry as I noticed with the Confetti cakes recipe or way to buttery as I experienced with both the Magnolia and Billy's recipes. One thing that really turned me off as well was the egginess of some of the recipes. You could just smell the yolk, for me that is a turn off. Ultimately I think I liked Magnolias recipe the most. But as far as flavor they were definitely better the next day and did not loose there moistness. As for confetti cakes, it did not taste bad but it was much drier probably because it is made with egg whites as opposed to the whole egg. Ultimately what I decided to do for this order is make my own recipe sort of an adaptation of Billy's Bakery recipe and a Yellow cupcake recipe from Bakers illustrated. I think it turned out well and I want to try it again to perfect my idea of what a vanilla cupcake should be. Unfortunately due to all my baking and taste testing I'm sort of vanilla cupcaked out.
For the cake, I made a chocolate cake with actual chocolate chips baked in ( A mixture of dark and semisweet). This is great for chocoholics.
The fish were a concept that I came up with and ran with it. I thought they turned out adorable. I painted them very simply. I was tempted to use luser dust on them, but I had to control myself. (I always am tempted to use glitter on everything). Fish were made from modeling paste so the kiddies could eat them up.
Ultimately the customer was very happy not only with the design but also with the taste which makes it more worthwhile.

Next..a few days ago I made a classic mini cooper. I will post the one later:)