Meal Plan Extravaganza!

I know, it's another Monday without a good blog post.  I'm sorry.  :(

But!  Today I have a somewhat legitimate excuse.  I've been meal planning.  I meal plan on a fairly regular basis (three weeks a month, usually - the fourth being a week of protest during which, if Husband accidentally forgets that I've over-exerted myself with food preparations recently and asks what we're going to eat, I crumple into a heap of frustrated womanly devastation and either cry or yell, "I DON'T KNOW!" until he just makes us all sandwiches), but this time is different.  We're having a billion guests over the next week, and I'm determined not to be caught off-guard this time.

We have guests on a pretty regular basis.  Probably more than normal people, because, being an Army family, we don't get to choose where we live, and, since none of our relatives live at Army posts, we don't ever live near (as in the same town) family.  But we do have really awesome parents who visit us all the time.  I'd like to pretend it's because we're just so awesome, but I'm sure at least part of it has to do with us being the only ones on either side with little kids.  Either way, we have visitors at least once a month (usually more - plus our own road trips to them at least once every 3 months).

So this week.  My mom and step-dad are driving into town (right now!  They might even get here while I'm typing this!!), and they'll stay from today (26 Dec) until Wed (28 Dec).  Then we have a bit of a break until Friday (30 Dec), when Husband's parents and two younger sisters will be driving up.  They're staying until Monday (2 Jan).  But, because that's not enough, my dad and step-mom will also be coming over on Sunday (1 Jan) and staying until Mon (2 Jan).  Then a good high school friend of mine and her husband will be staying with us Tues night (3 Jan).

I know I get a few breaks in there, but those days will primarily be used for any food preparations I can do ahead of time.  Usually, at least one time during a visit, we end up in that frozen, everybody is hungry, no body has a plan, terrible situation.  Like the vultures from "Jungle Book," except about food.  No one wants to be the one to have an opinion, so we just sit around until we're starving to death, and someone finally breaks and orders pizza.

Not this time.  I'm coming in to this prepared.  Hopefully, I'll feel as dedicated to this plan in a couple days as I do now.

Without further ado, I give you my Christmas Visits 2011 Meal Plan:

Mon 12-26 - Dinner - Caprese Baguettes and chips (tomato and buffalo mozzarella with fresh basil on  french baguettes)

Tues 12-27 - Breakfast - Spinach & Bacon Quiche
Late lunch/early Dinner - Pineapple & Brown Sugar Glazed Ham, Bacon & Onion Green Beans, Scalloped Potato & Onion Bake, and Buttery Dinner Rolls

Wed 12-28 - Jumbo Cinnamon Rolls with Vanilla Icing

(Our first guests will leave on Wed sometime, so we'll just be scavenging and eating whatever until the next guests arrive.  Meanwhile, I plan on doing as much prep and goodie baking as possible in these interim days.)

Fri 12-30 - Dinner - Creamy Asparagus Soup and French Bread

Sat 12-31 - Breakfast - Pumpkin Spice Sticky Rolls with Maple Icing
Lunch - Baguette Sandwiches
Dinner - Italian Sausage Lasagna and Buttery Dinner Rolls

Sun 1-1 - Breakfast - Eggs & Bacon & whatever (I'll be getting myself & kids ready for Church, so if other people want breakfast, they can figure it out - also the standard in our house)
Lunch - order out pizza or chinese
Dinner - Bratwurst and Saurkraut Hoagies with homemade fries

Mon 1-2 - Breakfast - Tomato & Basil Quiche

Tues 1-3 - Dinner - Beef Wellington, Buttery Dinner Rolls, and Baked Asparagus
Dessert - Tunnel of Fudge Bundt Cake

Wed 1-4 - Breakfast - Cherry & White Chocolate Almond Twist Breakfast Bread with Eggs and Bacon

It should be noted that all breads/rolls listed above will be homemade (duh).

Also, not to forget the Christmas goodies that I either already have on hand or plan to make over the next couple days:
Sugar Cookies
Snickerdoodles
Russian Tea Cakes
Caramel Popcorn
Eggnog Cookies
Peppermint Bark
Candy Pretzels
Confectioner's Candy
Triple-Chocolate Fudge
Peanut Butter Fudge

There you have it.  It's probably safe to assume I won't have a blog entry for next week, either.

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays and has a safe and happy New Year - and please, if you want to get fat, feel free to drop by any time!!  :D

Recipe: Red Velvet Cake with Traditional Frosting

This cake is awesome.  Especially with the traditional roux-based frosting.  I first had red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and thought it was pretty good.  Then I tried it with the traditional frosting and was blown away.  There's a reason it's the traditional frosting for this cake - it's the perfect complement to the cake.  I usually cut each cake in half long-ways to make a 4-layer cake.  That means you have to increase the frosting by about 50% to have enough - but it's worth it.  Sorry about this terrible picture - I haven't made this cake since I learned how to take decent pictures of food.  Guess that means it's about time to do it again!

This makes a fairly large cake; probably at least 12 servings.

Red Velvet Cake:

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour (sift flour once before measuring, then sift again with the other dry ingredients, as called for in the recipe - if you don't have cake flour (but it's totally worth it, so just buy a box), you can use all-purpose instead, but measure out the 2 1/2 cups, then remove 5 Tbsp from it to get the accurate substitution amount.)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp cocoa powder (unsweetened)
2 oz. red food coloring (I've also just used 1 oz before, and it worked just as well, or close enough)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg & 2 egg yolks, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature (if you don't have buttermilk, you can substitute sour milk instead - put 1 Tbsp lemon juice in a measuring cup, then add enough milk to equal 1 cup, total.  Stir, then let sit for 5 min = instant "buttermilk.")
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 350.  Butter and flour two 9-inch round cake pans (or three 8-inch rounds).  I usually butter the entire inside (bottom & sides), then use a parchment round (or you can cut parchment paper into circles to cover the bottom of the pan), then butter the parchment paper, then flour the entire inside - I know it sounds like a lot more work, but it ensures your cake won't stick!

Sift together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl; set aside.  In a small bowl, mix food coloring and cocoa powder to form a thin paste without lumps; set aside.

In a large bowl (bowl of a stand mixer), beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about three minutes.  Beat in egg and egg yolks, one at a time, then beat in vanilla and the red cocoa paste, scraping down the bowl with a spatula as you go (watch out, because you're pretty much guaranteed to get red food coloring on at least one thing - I highly recommend wearing an apron!).  Add one third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, beat well, then beat in half of the buttermilk.  Beat in another third of flour mixture, then second half of buttermilk.  End with the last third of the flour mixture, beat until well combined, making sure to scrape down the bowl with a spatula.

Make sure you have your cake pans buttered, floured, and nearby.  In a small bowl, mix vinegar and baking soda (it will fizz!).  Add it to the cake batter and stir well to combine.  Working quickly, divide the batter evenly between the cake pans and place them in the preheated oven at 350 degrees.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, but check early (20 min or so) - the cake is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  When cakes are finished baking, turn the oven off, crack the door slightly, and let the cakes sit in the oven for about 10 min.  This helps keep the tops from sinking.

Cool the cakes in their pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then removed cakes from the pans and let them cool completely.  Then I cut them in half long-ways to make 4 cakes.

Traditional Red Velvet Cake Frosting:

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp flour
1 cup vitamin D/whole milk (too runny if you use anything else)
1 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Cook flour and milk in a double boiler (or pyrex bowl placed over a pan of simmering water), until thick, stirring constantly.  It will get really thick - almost like toothpaste.  Cool.

Cream sugar, butter, and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer until as fluffy as possible.  Blend cooked mixture with creamed.

The frosting must stay refrigerated, as it will fall apart at room temperature.

I increase the recipe by 50% if I slice the cakes long-ways.  This is enough to cover the two 9-inch rounds, but not if you have the extra layers in between.  It is enough to cover 24 cupcakes, though.

This recipe also makes great cupcakes - fill liners 3/4ths full and bake for 10-15 min, or until toothpick comes out clean.

I've also tried red velvet cake balls - they were awesome, but almost too rich.  Even for me, and my blood is pretty much made of sugar.  In a not-diabetic way.

And finally, Purple Velvet Cake!  I only had gel food coloring, not liquid, so the color didn't come out as richly as I'd hoped.  Next time I'll hunt down the liquid stuff and get it right.

Adventures in Caking: Marshmallow Fondant How-To

A lot of people have been asking for my fondant recipe/tips, so here's a whole photo blog how-to entry for you.  These pictures were taken when I was making fondant for the Minion Cake, but I always use the same recipe.  Not only does this recipe taste awesome (and it's easy to cut through, especially when the cake is room temperature), but it can be made into tons of flavors, and it can also be bland enough to blend in with the frosting underneath and not drastically affect the flavors of the cake, if you only want to use it for the awesome look you get with it.


Marshmallow Fondant Recipe:

16 oz bag of mini marshmallows
2 lb bag of confectioner's sugar (plus more for rolling out)
4 Tbsp water
1 tsp vanilla extract (or any other extract/liquid flavoring)
crisco (for your hands)
gel food coloring, if desired

First, dump the marshmallows in a big bowl and microwave them on high for 1-1.5 minutes (for my microwave, it's always 1.5 min).  The top marshmallows will probably still look whole, but underneath, they'll be melted.  








When the marshmallows are heated, add the 4 Tbsp water, and the extract/flavoring you're using (I've done vanilla, almond, root beer, and bacon before, all with great results - but some extracts/concentrates, like root beer, are so dark, they'll tint the fondant.  Keep that in mind when choosing your flavoring - if you want to make white or light fondant, you can't use a dark extract.  Also, Wilton has several clear extracts available for just this purpose, but I've never had an issue with regularly colored vanilla affecting the white color), If you're coloring the entire batch of fondant one color, it's easiest to add the food coloring at this point.  Otherwise, leave it white and you can add coloring to pieces later, as desired.











And now the fun part.  Reserve 1 cup of the sugar and set aside.  Then gradually start adding the rest of the confectioner's sugar, stirring until mostly combined after each addition.  The mixture will get stickier and stiffer with each addition.  Add in all the sugar (except the reserved 1 cup) while the mixture is in the bowl.

Getting goopy!

After all the sugar (except the reserved 1 cup) has been added and mixed in, prepare a place on a clean counter top by sprinkling it with some of the reserved sugar.  The next step is to dump the fondant out of the bowl and onto the prepared surface to continue to kneed it, but be warned: it is now a sticky, huge mess.  I usually dump it onto my sugar-coated surface and then prepare my hands.  I've found the thing that works best (for me, at least) is to coat my hands in crisco (between the fingers, too), and then dip my hands into my container of confectioner's sugar (not the reserved 1 cup, but my regular container of it).  The sugar then sticks to my hands and is the best way I've found for keeping the fondant from getting all over me.

I just dip my hands into my crisco jar...

 

Now, with coated hands, begin to kneed the reserved confectioner's sugar into the fondant ball, adding more as needed to combat the stickiness.  Also, make sure you regularly lift the fondant and put more sugar beneath it, or it will stick terribly on the surface you're using.  Usually, somewhere in the beginning of this process, I have a freak-out moment when I feel like I MUST have done something wrong this time - the fondant is TOO hard to manage, coating my hands, sticking to the counter, being too goopy, etc.  It's best to just try and work through the panic.  Chances are, you're doing it right.  :)

 Coated hands: don't panic, it's SUPPOSED to be a giant mess!

Becoming stiffer - turning into actual fondant!

I frequently have to add slightly more confectioner's sugar than just the 2 lbs called for in the recipe.  Continue to kneed and mix the fondant until it becomes smooth and easy to handle.  But keep in mind, if you continue to kneed past this smooth point, you'll have to add more sugar to get it smooth again.  It's kind of a continuous cycle, so when it first gets to the smooth stage, stop kneeding (but keep in mind you can always add a bit more sugar to get it smooth again if you need to).

Now flatten the ball slightly, sprinkle a bit of sugar below and on top of it, and wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge.  It need to be refrigerated at least 8 hours, but I always just do it overnight.

Congrats, you've made fondant!  And for the clean up...  It works best to pour a tiny bit of warm to hot water over the sticky mess left on the counter and let it sit for a bit.  The water will help to dissolve the sugar left on the counter and will make it easier to wipe up.  I then usually have to wipe the counters down with soap and water at least twice to get them completely clean.










Super-messy counters

Now that your fondant has refrigerated overnight, it's almost ready to use.  If you need to color it, divide it into the sections to color and let them warm to room temperture, or at least an hour (covered, to keep dust, etc off of them).  Whenever you do anything with the fondant, have a good deal of confectioner's sugar on hand, and use it liberally.  The best way to keep it from sticking is to use tons of excess sugar.  If there's sugar on the fondant when you put it on a cake, don't worry, it can easily be smoothed away, or it will absorb into the fondant while the cake sits in the fridge.

To cover a cake with fondant, you first need to crumb-coat the cake with a layer of frosting.  Crumb-coating is just putting a layer of frosting over your cake and smoothing out any crumbs of imperfections on the cake.  You can frost the cake and then use the fondant over it immediately, but for the best results, you should crumb-coat the cake the night before and refrigerate it overnight (along with the fondant).  The fondant will stick well to the cool, hardend frosting, and the cake will stand up to the fondant better if it's chilled and slightly hardened (you're also less likely to accidentally smoosh the cake if it's chilled).

 Stacked cake before crumb-coating:

 

Crumb-coated cakes, waiting overnight for fondant:

To fondant a cake, let the fondant warm up slightly (though with marshmallow fondant, if it's at room temperature, it's much more likely to tear and stick), then roll it out on a heavily sugared surface.  It helps to flip the fondant several times during the rolling out process and throw extra sugar underneath.  Also, make sure you don't knick it with your fingernails, as that will leave infuriating marks in it.

Roll out a piece that it bigger than the cake you're trying to cover.  Using your sugar-coated rolling pin, you can wrap the fondant around itself (very, very loosely), and you can "roll" it back out onto the cake.  Begin in the center and smooth the fondant out toward the sides (make sure you don't pull it, as it will tear easily).  Fold gently over corners/curves.  Once the fondant is in place, you can rub it gently with your hands to get a smooth effect.  For the excess around the base of the cake, I use the backside of a butter knife blade (the rounded, not serrated side) to gently "cut" the excess at the edge of the cake.  However, even with professional tools, fondant has a tendency to look ragged at the edges, which is why fondant cakes usually have a border at their base (aside from giving the cake a more "completed" look).

Fondant-covered minions!

To stick fondant decorations on a fondant-covered cake, use a tiny, tiny bit of water.  I dip just the very tip of my finger in a shallow bowl of water and put a dab on the back of the piece I want to adhere, then stick it on.  It will basically glue it there. 

For molding fondant, treat it just like modeling clay, but use confectioner's sugar liberally to prevent sticking.  I've found the store-bought Wilton brand of fondant is best for things you need to harden very stiffly.  Marshmallow fondant WILL harden if left out overnight (or several days), but the Wilton stuff harderns faster and stiffer. 

Also, I leave all my cakes in the fridge, but be warned, marshmallow fondant will "sweat" when removed from the fridge, until it reaches room temperature.  It won't affect the cake in anyway, except it gives it a wet look until it's at room temperature.  I'm always nervous my cakes will melt if I leave them out (or the fondant will get dirty, or stiffer), so I don't mind the sweating look.  If you're opposed to the wet look (which, again, is only temporary - but if you take a cake out at the beginning of a party, expect it to look extra shiny at the party), either leave the cake out entirely, or remove it from the fridge several hours before it's needed.

I think that's it!  Please feel free to ask me any questions about this process, or let me know if I left anything out/didn't make something clear.  Good luck, and always keep in mind: fondant can make me more angry than anything (I call it the "fondant rages"), but the joy you then feel after it actually turns out is one of the best feelings in the world.  Just keep at it, and, when it doubt, add more sugar.  :D

My sugar-coated kitchen after fondanting the minions:

The Day it Smelled Like Broccoli

I always hate writing stories about people who may realize the story is about them (unless they're in my family; then I think they have to just expect and accept it), but sometimes it's hard to pass up a really good anecdote. That being said, names have been changed to protect the (not so) innocent (and if the subject/culprit does ever stumble upon and read this and recognize that the story is about them, no hard feelings - like always, this is just my personal recollection of events; who knows how accurate it really is?)

The summer after my freshman year of high school, I went on one of those everything-has-been-arranged-for-you-including-your-meals group tours of German-speaking Europe. Overall, it was an awesome trip filled with visiting lots of amazing places that I had never heard of and thus did not recognize the significance of our visits to them until years later, at which point I grew frustrated with 15-year old me and my lack of historical knowledge and appreciation. And my drastically limited experience with cinematic artistry, specifically in the form of "The Sound of Music." Salzburg (and a tour of places from the movie) is not overly interesting when you are only vaguely aware that said movie exists. For that one I blame my parents, who never really let us watch any movies (my older brother had ONE nightmare from an episode of Scooby Doo when he was three - consequently, 99% of all television and movies were banned in our house, much to the chagrin of poor Husband, who is left facing the incredibly daunting up-hill battle of making me watch all the "classics" - Ghostbusters, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, among hundreds of others).

I don't know how these kinds of tours are arranged, but I suspect certain companies (specifically a German version of a fast food chain, called Wienerwald) are slipping money under the table to the tour organization in return for a huge commitment to eating at their restaurants. I think we ate Wienerwald for at least 75% of our meals during the 2.5 week tour. It was not especially good food, and in all the time I've lived in Germany since, I've yet to encounter another Wienerwald. Almost as if the pre-arranged tour was to an alternate German-speaking Europe universe in which all the McDonald's are replaced by Wienerwalds.

Regardless, we were not only contractually obligated to consume Wienerwald slop, we were only allowed to eat what they had pre-arranged to serve us. They claimed that, in order to have"that many meals" ready at one time (our group was about 15 people, total), they had to limit our options to "vegetarian" or "generic German meal," but, as defined in our contract, one had to choose whether or not they were vegetarian before embarking on the tour, so our numbers (1 vegetarian, 14 generic German) were sent to all the restaurants weeks in advance of our actually eating there. I suspect they began preparing the food that far in advance, as well. As I learned through my other experiences living in Germany, many Germans are not necessarily opposed to leaving food out for uncomfortably long periods of time, subjecting it to various contaminants we Americans tend to shy away from consuming.

One of our first stops on the tour was Berlin. Shortly after arriving in the city, we were shipped to a large youth hostel-style lodging facility. There we were divided into groups of three to share rooms. Fortunately, I was placed with one of my closest friends at the time (Kay) and another girl from our school. The rooms were minimalistic, though likely not as an attempt at art, and the bathroom was one of the strangest things I'd yet encountered in my life (if you've never been fortunate enough to have utilized a German toilet, you truly don't know what you're missing out on). Not only was the toilet a classic German "shit shelf" toilet, but the tank was high above it on the wall, made of wood, and had a long pull cord hanging from it to flush, which, when pulled, released a torrent of water (necessary to clean the shelf, most likely) that would literally spray the entire room if the lid weren't held down tightly.

After a few minutes exploring the room and the most bizarre bathroom I'd yet encountered in my short, sheltered, sanitized American childhood, we were off to eat our first meal at Wienerwald (whose mascot was a fat golden chicken, if I recall correctly. Most likely because of the abundance of free-range, obese chickens in the vast forests of Vienna. Everything about that statement is accurate.)

After we were seated around a long table, the wait staff gruffly brought out our pre-arranged meals (no need for a menu!). The third girl staying in our room (let's call her Sarah) informed our teacher that she had ordered the vegetarian meal, but the restaurant had evidently made a slight oversight. After a brief scuffle with the staff, a revolting mash of over-steamed, soggy vegetables in some weird yellow-ish sauce was dropped in front of the girl. The smell was powerful, which is not an attribute that readily goes with well-prepared food. But Sarah dove right in, pronouncing the food as "great." After fighting to cut off and choke down several bites of my own dry wienerschnitzel, the smell of the vegetarian dish became too much for me, and I forfeited any further attempt at eating. Sarah cleared her plate in record time, however.

Our teacher took us on a brief walk around the city following our meal, but since most of us were suffering from our first case of jet leg, she let us go back to the hostel with the warning that we should try our best to stay up until nighttime, in an attempt to adjust our internal clocks to German time. Off we went, to struggle through the next several hours of exhaustion.

Back in our room, Sarah asked if either of us had to use the bathroom. She said she wanted to shower and would be in there for a while. In retrospect, I feel she lied to us.

After about 20 minutes, a smell started to escape under the door of the bathroom and fill our small hostel room. It was a familiar, powerful smell. Kay and I exchanged looks and laughed. But after another 10 minutes, and it was no longer funny. The smell became all-invasive. It was one of those thick smells; the kind you can feel in the back of your throat.

Kay and I went over to the giant window in the room and attempted to figure it out. Like German toilets, if you've never encountered a German window, you don't know what you're missing. They have weird, detachable hinges on all sides, and, depending on the direction of the handle, you can change which hinges stay attached and which ones release, enabling the window to open at the top or the side. We managed to figure this out after minimal confusion, and swung the window open wide.

It was cold outside, as evenings in June in Berlin so often are (they are typically either way too cold or way too hot - and the lack of air conditioners in the majority of German buildings makes "too cold" the preferred option). The cold air fought a valiant battle with the smell and won. But the room was soon freezing cold.

After another 30 minutes in the bathroom, Sarah emerged (with the last of the smell), and remarked at how cold it was in the room. Kay and I, through chattering teeth and blue lips, explained that we were attempting to stay awake until bedtime, and the cold was helping us. We might have also implied we were warm. We hadn't thought through our excuses, but neither of us wanted to make Sarah feel bad about the horrific odor. With the smell finally dissipated, we closed the window and passed blissfully to sleep, giving in to the exhaustion of jet lag.

The next morning, we were herded onto our pre-arranged tour bus and shipped (literally, by ferry) to Potsdam for a pre-arranged tour of Sanssouci (the Hohenzollern's summer palaces) and Cecilienhof (the palace that hosted the Potsdam Conference after WWII). While walking through the gorgeous gardens and paths that lead around the Sanssouci complex, Kay and I found ourselves walking a few paces behind the majority of the group, including Sarah. We were admiring the lavish palaces when, out of nowhere, our noses were again affronted with the same mind-bogglingly offensive smell from the previous night. But this time, we weren't the only ones who noticed it.

Sarah turned around to us and absent-mindedly remarked, "hmm, that smells just like my broccoli from last night!!"

Also, for anyone interested, Wienerwald is slowly disappearing due to bankruptcy in the 80's, which would explain why I saw many more of them in 1998 than in 2004-6.

Adventures in Caking: The Making of the Minion Cake

The Minion Cake!!

My son just turned three. We had a party for him, and some family and friends came over to help us celebrate. They were all pretty blown away by the cake I made for him, but the truth is, even if it had just been me, my husband, and the kids, I would have made the same cake. I got one comment from someone who said my kids are the luckiest kids in the world (to get awesome cakes on their birthdays, etc). It's such a sweet thought, but my first reaction was, "why? I did this cake for me." I guess I should just not tell the kids that, and they can live their lives in ignorant bliss, believing their mom would "sacrifice" an entire week of her time to bake them ridiculous birthday cakes (yes, I foresee this becoming a tradition in our house - hopefully I'll be able to live up to each cake wish!).

Several people asked me how I made the cake, so I thought the easiest way to share was a photo blog entry (also, I know this doesn't count as a "real" entry, so please forgive me - I SWEAR I'll work harder at updating regularly - I'm just waiting for my life to settle down for a second - please forgive me, loyal fans (i.e. Joe)).

Without further ado, here is how the Minion Cake came to be:

First, I tinted and sculpted the little features out of Wilton (store-bought) fondant. I also use Wilton coloring for all my cake decorating. It's easy to work with and cleans up well (even if it looks like it will stain your counters forever - so far, it's always wiped up clean for me). I use the store-bought fondant for the external features because it hardens quicker and sturdier than my homemade marshmallow fondant. But tinting it is a mess. Anything with black food coloring is a mess.

I made the goggles out of the Wilton fondant, cut into strips (with a ruler and pizza cutter), and let them harden around soda cans. Then I molded the eyes to fit inside them, added pupils and eyelids. After the eyes set for a few hours, I turned them over and shoved toothpicks in them (so I could put them on the cake later). I let all this stuff harden for about 5 days. It gets hard overnight, but I had too much to do, and it was nice to get it done so early and not have to worry about it again. After they'd hardened for a couple days, I sprayed the goggles with edible silver spray. It didn't seem to have any affect on their texture or hardness, which was a concern I had after reading other people's reviews of it.

The "3" candle, gripped in a little minion hand, waiting for the cake to exist.

I baked the cakes that would become the minions about 5 days in advance, too, and froze them. I used 6" round pans and the Wilton sports ball pan.

Four days before the party, I made all my homemade fondant. Three batches. Fondant is very messy. I plan on making a photo blog with my fondant recipe and tips. I'll try to do that in the near future. :)

Scraping yellow pre-fondant out of the bowl. It's hard work!

All my little features, sitting out to dry. The hair and arms were made with (store-bought) gum paste. It's the first time I've ever used gum paste. The only difference I really saw was that it was harder to get the lines out of it than it is to get a smooth surface with fondant. It worked nicely for the hair, and it weighs less, but otherwise, it seemed almost more difficult to work with. Maybe if I knew how to make all those fancy flowers, I'd have more of a purpose for gum paste.

The base cake, crumb-coated and chilling in the fridge overnight before it gets fondant. It was cream soda cake with root beer frosting (and eventually, root beer fondant).

The smaller minion - I crumb coated him with strawberry frosting (he was lemon cake), then carved his mouth out of the frosting. Also, he was two 6" round cakes and a half of the Wilton sports ball pan.

Stacking the taller minion. I used bubble tea straws as supports to keep the cakes from sliding off each other. He was chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

All three cakes, crumb-coated and chilling overnight before they get fondant!

Fondant on the little minion! His mouth is just another piece of fondant that I cut to fit, then I molded little fondant teeth.

The fondant-covered base cake. The rivets are just fondant balls (a lot of fondant on this thing). But the root beer flavoring worked GREAT in the fondant. I actually liked it more than normal vanilla. The only issue was that root beer concentrate is very dark - it would only work for a fondant that was being colored a darker color, or something that could easily incorporate the brown of the flavoring.

Taller minion with fondant and hair. His lip is just a small, rolled piece of fondant, stuck in with a tooth pick. Then I covered the whole thing with the yellow fondant and used the back of a paring knife to draw the mouth lines.

Blind, naked minions in my fridge.

Overalls! Again, just rolled out fondant, cut with a pizza cutter and ruler.

He looks like an idiot farm boy or something.

The "stitching" on the overalls was one of my favorite features of them - it was done with a tracing wheel (like the thing used in sewing).

My kitchen was a giant mess of confectioner's sugar. But the Boy is getting excited about his cake!

The "G" symbol was cut out of a rolled out piece of gum paste.

Big minion's "G" symbol.

And one on the cake, for good measure.

Sightless minions in my fridge!

The completed cake.

A lot of screw-ups with the fondant on the back (and a minor incident with the taller minion's goggles, because I didn't take into account how rounded his head would be - oops!). But I definitely learned from this time, and my fondant work will be better on the next cake. :D

Husband made fun of me for my attention to detail, but I think little things like the hinges on the sides of the goggles are what make the cake work.

It's kind of sad to think that my little boy probably won't even remember this cake. Hopefully I'll just keep learning and making cooler and cooler cakes that he can remember more easily as he gets older.

My sweet little minions. I got very emotionally attached to this cake.

Sitting in my fridge, smiling at me!

A fair likeness, if I do say so myself!

He WAS happy about the cake...

Tasting the fondant!

The inside of the chocolate minion - you can see the layers and the bubble tea straws used for supports. I also had both minions on their own round cake boards, sitting on top of the base cake, with supports going through the base cake (the minions each weighed quite a bit and I was concerned they would crush the base cake).

The inner workings of a minion cake.

Losing a goggle...

Happy Birthday to my favorite Big Boy!!

Also, check out my cake's page on Coolest-Birthday-Cake's website!

http://www.coolest-birthday-cakes.com/coolest-despicable-me-birthday-cake-6.html