Learning from Delicious Failure

“Learning Through Failure: Mom’s cherry covered chocolate cupcakes”

Back in July, I got inspired to create what I call, “DC Cherry Cupcakes.” It’s a white almond cake topped with a fresh cherry almond puree and cherry almond butter cream. 

I took my regular butter cream and used fresh cherry juice as the liquid and used almond and vanilla extract. The result was a delicate rose butter cream, very similar to the color of cherry blossoms. 

I used a star tip to create a rose design on top. This is actually ridiculously easy. If you’d like to try it yourself, start with a large star tip (4 or 5). Fill your pastry bag (or Ziploc, no judgments here) with your favorite frosting, slightly stiff. Hold your bag perpendicular to the cupcake, and start in the center. Squeeze out the frosting in a circular motion until you get to the edge. Voila! That’s it. I kid you not, it’s that easy.

        My friends and family have willingly become my guinea pigs (ironic, since I’m allergic to actual guinea pigs). They loved these cupcakes! I was making a test batch, so I did a few cupcakes without the cherry puree.  
I marked the ones with the puree by drawing with melted chocolate on top. My friend Laura, who’s not crazy about cherries, loved the cherry almond butter cream. Hell, I loved it so much; I spread it on graham crackers! 

My mom liked them, but said, “Not enough chocolate” (I wonder where I get my chocoholism from?).  I agreed that they would be good with more chocolate. I decided I would try chocolate shavings in the butter cream next time. 

        Flash forward to August and my mom’s birthday rolls around. She claimed I didn’t have to bake her anything. “I don’t need a cake!” she said, but I knew the truth. I decide to create, “Mom’s Cherry Covered Chocolate Cupcakes.” I started with our basic chocolate cake recipe. I replaced the unsweetened cocoa powder with Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder

and I subbed out 1 ½ teaspoons of the vanilla extract for almond extract. The cake batter, holy balls the cake batter, it was heavenly!

I made cherry puree by pitting about 2 cups fresh cherries, throwing them in a food processor and draining through a sieve. I saved the cherry juice for my butter cream. I added 1 teaspoon of sugar and a healthy splash of Disarrono amaretto.  

I stored this in the fridge while the cupcakes cooled and went to work on the pièce d’ résistance; cherry almond butter cream with dark chocolate shavings. 

I wanted the chocolate and cherry to stand as separate notes, that’s why I chose the chocolate shavings instead of cocoa powder or chocolate extract. I also added a little amaretto, because why the hell not? I topped my cooled cupcakes with the fresh cherry puree.

Next, I intended to decorate the cupcakes like the DC Cherry cupcakes, with the star tips roses.  What I utterly failed to consider, and some of you smarties out there might have guessed, especially if you’ve ever had a chocolate chip Blizzard, is that the chocolate shavings would clog my star tip. 
Not knowing this, I loaded my bag with a #5 star tip and delicious frosting. I’ll admit, at this point, I had sampled some of the amaretto (for quality purposes, of course, I HAD to). 

Imagine my surprise when the first rose turned out like utter crap! I was flummoxed for all of two seconds, and then I remembered my own extensive Blizzard experience and the chocolate clogging the straw.  

Normally, you could just scrape off the frosting and try again, but the puree was already on these cupcakes. I wish I had taken a picture of how effed up these cupcakes were, but my first instinct was to fix it, not photograph it. I did, rather pointlessly, try another large tip before just cutting the end off the bag and doing a basic swirl. 

I blame the Friday night dumbs and the amaretto for not skipping that middle step. Then arrived problem number two: The delicate chocolate shavings that were solid enough to clog my tips were also melting in the bag from the heat of my hands. This turned my delicate rose frosting with dark flecks to a dusty pink frosting with some brown streaks.

I stared at my crappy-looking cupcakes in slight despair. These were not the cupcakes I wanted to present to my mother. It was time to bite the bullet, or cupcake. 

I said a quick prayer that they didn’t taste as bad as they looked. I got out a plate and a cup of milk to go with my cupcake (professional tip- just saying’).  

OH MY F#@*ing CRAP, these were the ultimate ugly duckling cupcakes! The flavors did just what they should; explode on your tongue, do a little dance and party in your mouth. This, IMHO, is an awesome cupcake.  I do recommend storing them in the refrigerator. To quote my mom, the birthday girl, they are “Divine.” My friend Jen texted me, “Hoooolyyyy crap!!!!” and “So good. Possibly even better that is was cold. It was still gooey and delicious”

*Sadly, my mom went to sneak the last cupcake when everyone else in her house was asleep (so she didn’t have to share) only to discover that ants had invaded her container and were eating her cupcake. She did not heed my fridge suggestion. *

Now on to learning from my delicious failure: the next time I make these I will simply do a big only swirl design. These darlings don’t need fancy looking frosting. I should probably chill the frosting in the bag for a few minutes to avoid the chocolate melting. For your viewing displeasure, here are a few of my bad pics. 

Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog for more baking adventures, tips, triumphs and mishaps. ~Megan

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How-to Use Raspberry Filling in a Cake (without it running everywhere)

I'll Give you a hint.  This:

 is a bad idea.


Look closely at the picture.  Too much filling, no border, no nothing.  Oops I forgot that.  Easily fixed:

Meh.  Sorta.

In the end, I had to take out some of that amazing filling.  (and add it to another part of the cake!)

Here's how you fill a cake:

1. apply your crumb coat!  After you slice a cake in half, put a thin later of icing on the inside of the cake.  Then refrigerate the cake or let it sit so that the icing hardens a little.  This will keep your cake from absorbing all of that yummy filling.
2. Pipe a THICK border of icing around the outside of your cake.  (see second photo above)  You really want it to go in about 1/4 inch-1 inch (depending on the size of the cake.)  You may even spread some icing on with a spatula.  Make it way more than the picture shows :-)
3. Again, let this icing set up and crust a little.
4. Spread your filling within the icing border.  You want to err on the side of thin.  Raspberry filling (specifically, but any liquid filling) has lots of flavor.  You don't want to overwhelm the cake with filling.  Also, you don't want it bust past your icing dam because you've put on too much.
5. Now you should be good to go.  Slap (by which I mean GENTLY LAY) the other half of the cake on and begin your overall icing.  Again, remember the crumb coat, then the pretty icing layer on top of that.  
6. DON'T PRESS DOWN TOO HARD.  Squishing a cake makes it not pretty and will make any filling ooze out the sides. 

Breaking in a Kitchen

A move does a busy Gingerbuilder make!

This Gingerbuilder sold her house in December and closed and moved to a new (and beautiful!) home in February.  Think back to the many snowy, icy weekends from this hard Ohio winter.  Yep, that's when we moved.

and it sleeted.

but the other Gingerbuilders came and helped!  and we had wine.

Erin's caption: Who moves in an ICE STORM?!












So I hope they forgive me.


Anyway, needless to say, moving everything we owned takes some time to unpack and organize...(still not completely there...)

I'm sorry to say this took away from our gingerbread time.  Although we still found time to decorate an Easter House, so we are now back on track!


I did keep my baking tools in use by helping a friend decorate cupcakes for her daughter's birthday party.

I also broke in my oven making 2 cakes for friends.

Actually, I broke in my oven by baking brownies...I had to learn the hot spots after all!  My husband and I ate those.  (the sacrifices we make...)

THEN I made some cakes!

First, a Tommy Bahama Pina Colada Cake for a surprise birthday gift!

Then, a TARDIS cake for a birthday!!

I have a Nursing School graduation cake to make in May, as well as treats for a college graduation and bridal shower.  Be sure to stay tuned!

AND I have a gingerbread surprise in the works!  Planning! Planning!

Summer is just around the corner.  You can be sure that our kitchen will get lots of use!

and not just from me!  Gingerbuilder husbands too :-D

These pictures and more can be viewed on our Instagram account.  Follow Gingerbuilders!  

Please be sure to leave comments of encouragement or questions.  We are excited to talk to you!

and contact us for any dessert designs you desire!  (I love alliteration.)

Easter Bunny's House

Gingerbread day! It’s basically a holiday that we celebrate multiple times a year.  A lot of planning and forethought goes into the day. Like any holiday, you make grocery lists, shop, make to-do lists, prepare and anticipate. And like other holidays, you do all this in the midst of other life events, work, social engagements, family obligations, etc.  As the day approaches, and the real work starts, you look forward to spending time with your family (my gingerbread family).  What is unique about our team, or family if you’d rather, is the assignment of roles.  With most holidays, as the years pass, certain people get assigned certain roles (the cranberry sauce, the green bean casserole, the pumpkin pie). That’s not really how we work. Sure, Stephanie stores the bulk of our supplies and tools (she has the most room).  But, we try to take turns designing and baking and hosting.  (I get out of hosting mostly because my apartment is small, unorganized and not child friendly).  This time, I suggested we do the Easter Bunny’s house as our spring house.  Erin offered to host and bake the house. She wanted to calculate the PPH (Price Per House). I had found these adorable Linzer cookie cutters,

so I offered to make little gingerbread decorations for the “yard.” Stephanie, who moved recently, was on snacks (probably the most important job).

Fast forward to the night before Gingerbread day (and the end of Family Conference week at work  for me): I’m exhausted from the work week and REALLY don’t want to make an entire batch of gingerbread dough. I don’t have any shortening and I’m way too lazy to go the store a whole 2 miles away. I start thinking of ways around it, even texting Erin to see if she’ll have some extra dough (Ha! actual dough, not money). I’m sitting on my loveseat, making my list for Gingerbread day when the idea hits me. What if I make actual Linzer cookies!? But I can make them with gingerbread spices instead of boring regular butter cookies (actually, the original is delicious, too).  Energized by this amazing idea, I get to work creating spicy Linzer cookie dough. I sub out some sugar for molasses to give it extra gingerbread flavor. I’m careful to record my actual measurements, instead of cooking with reckless abandon like I normally do. The result is mouthwatering and melts in your mouth good.  It also spurned an addition to my old saying. Necessity is the mother of invention, but laziness is its cousin.

  

Begin gingerbread day at Erin’s: she “effortlessly” assembles the house, minus the roof, before I even get there. Steph had class in the morning, so she joined us a little later (with cheeses!).  My morning got a slow start due the lovely Ohio springtime pollen count.  The cookies are quickly approved by Erin and our official taste testers, George and Victoria.  I fell in love with these pearls and sixlets,  and I knew we had to use them on the house. Erin  

applied the icing to the roof while I dotted it with the pearls. We stood back for a second to admire our brilliance (one of these days, I’ll get the hang of modesty). We mixed up some spring green icing and added grass to our landscape. Erin designed a lovely path across the lawn.

What about the wine? Isn’t here usually wine at these things? Not to worry. Let me take this opportunity to introduce you to the Gingerbread Boy: Take as much or as little coffee as you want, add a good amount of milk (or creamer) and add at least a shot of Gingerbread Kaluah. Serve hot or over ice. Yum! 

I put on some gloves to dye gum paste for the carrots. I figured the Easter Bunny had to have carrots. George asked why I was wearing gloves. When I explained that I had to wear the gloves to work with the food coloring, he decided to put on gloves himself so he could “touch things.” Stephanie arrived 

and we took a cheese and cookie break. Getting back to work, we created a mail box for the Easter bunny and started decorating the Easter egg shaped cookies. Funnily enough, we had no plan for the eggs. Sure, they were cute and delicious, and George got to help, but where are they going to go? Then I had another “Aha!”moment. What if Easter eggs are actually grown in a garden in the Easter Bunny’s back yard? Boom! We love it. We had a little problem with a melting egg (patience is a virtue), but I think it’s safe to say that the Easter egg garden is adorable.
I hope you agree! Remember to subscribe to our blog for more delicious tales and updates.

Much Love and Happy Easter! ~Megan

Graduating with a Certificate in Pretty Things

Megan mentioned the Wilton decorating classes we were taking in this post.

Our final class was a time to use what we'd learned to decorate a cake.  Unfortunately, Megan couldn't attend this last class, but she still learned all of the techniques through the previous classes.

Erin and I celebrated our graduation after class.  The part of Megan was played by Ketchup...

Here's the cake I made for a friend:

The Wilton Classes have given Gingerbuilders time to refine our molding, fondant, and gumpaste skills.  We practiced playing with our food so that we would be better designers and decorators in our business.




I have reviewed icing skills, learned some real fun royal icing flowers, learned to work with butter cream icing, (the fat in it is usually an enemy in the gingerbread world) and bake regular cakes (that I don't usually
make because I don't like cake.  I know.  I'm CRAZY.)



I have gotten better at mixing, squeezing, dollop-ing, shaping--you name it!



I love edible art!





Gingerbread Houses are being designed for year-round sales.  Cookies and treats to follow.

Meanwhile, if you want to use Gingerbuilders' mad skills to create a cake for your special occasion, please contact us.

I am currently working on another baby bump cake for a shower.  An anniversary cake, birthday cake, and bridal shower cake are on the calendar.  I also make yummy cupcakes.

Our fun and passion goes into all of our baked creations.









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