Homemade Caramel

Friend! Where have I been, you ask? I reply "Baking furiously for the king."

It sure feels like I've been locked away. Been busy with so many things it's hard to get out anymore!

I haven't shared any baking adventures with you lately, so time to update! I'm caked out. I'd like to perfect peach and apple crisps. However, today it was time to tackle caramel sauce. I have yet to make caramel candies but I imagine it wouldn't be to crazy hard. This caramel is certainly saucy. It thickens as it cools but won't give you a hard candy apple shell. It'll just be saucy caramel-ly (unless you know something I don't about caramel and make it thicker and stickier).

I found the caramel recipe from Simply Recipes.

Homemade Caramel Sauce

1 cup sugar

6 tbsp butter (I used mine cold and didn't have a problem)

1/2 cup heavy cream

(optional: 3 tbsp vanilla extract)

Use a large pan. When you are working with the sugar and also with mixing in the cream and butter, it will bubble up and you don't want a spillover or burns! Be extra careful while whisking this. It needs almost constant whisking. Don't let it spill up onto you or you might scream in terror!!

Assemble ingredients. Put butter in a bowl and cream in a cup. You want it all ready to go because when you need to add them, you need to add them right away and won't have time to go get them from the fridge.

Pour sugar in pan. Use medium to medium high heat. Stir sugar. The whole process to make caramel took about 10 minutes and 8 minutes of it is waiting for the sugar to melt.

Keep stirring. I used both a wooden spoon and a whisk. Once sugar is melted and it's nice and creamy smooth and rich amber color, remove from heat. Immediately whisk in butter and cream by adding them alternately. Whisk like mad. I mean it! Don't let it sit. Whisk whisk. If it looks like it's starting to clump, whisk it even harder. Keep whisking until it's nice and smooth and creamy.

Let it sit until room temp. You could cool it or use it hot. You might have to microwave it if you refrigerate it.

Skewered slices of apples and dipped them in caramel!

Yummy Caramel Apple!

Stir in some peanuts or pecans! Go crazy and sprinkle it with marshmallows or M&M candies! It's quick and yummy. It tastes like a Werther's Original Hard Candy. I highly recommend this recipe. Just be sure to stir and stir and don't let it burn.

Best of luck!

Pax and Ash demolishing a moth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjWfDa0odAQ

My dumb dogs!

Bearded Dragon Cake and Amazing Buttercream

A BEARDED DRAGON CAKE?!MADNESS! I know the question you must be asking is "Does it contain real bits of lizard?" The answer, unfortunately for those with a lizard loving palate, is no. But I'm absolutely positive that it's delicious and the client will love it!

I have gotten a few odd requests for cakes: A wrestling ring cake, a darth vader head cake, a camouflaged army tank cake, and now a bearded dragon cake. I am so happy that people trust me with their head cakes and lizard cakes. It's quite a high honor, you know.

Seriously though--I have to be absolutely innovative and creative. There's no way for me to finish a cake and make it look amazing without first setting the foundation. I have to ask myself how the cake will stand, how it will be organized, and what decorations I'll need to make. Cake flavor and filling are the fun parts but the exciting stuff happens with the decoration or theme.

This cake is a surprise for a little guy. He is receiving a real bearded dragon for his birthday--so to kind of prep him for it, they wanted a cake like it. I thought about making the cake HUGE and making it shaped like a bearded dragon. Then I realized how huge it would have to be to even look good and it's not meant to feed but 10 people. I had to rethink my strategy.

Why not make a cake that resembles a giant rock with a lizard or two chillin' on it? Sounds perfect! Then under and around the rock, put a bit of "sand" (finely crushed shortbread). POIFECT! I was getting giddy just thinking about it. I put my imagination to work and started create-devising a structure and it all fell into place.

About Sculpting Cakes

In the past, I've searched and tested recipes for a good cake that will sculpt well. I want one that isn't crumbly and is firm. I used a chocolate pound cake recipe and thought it was decent but then I went back to my original chocolate cake recipe (YUM!) and it worked out even better. Don't get too caught up with finding the perfect cake recipe. If you think you'll have a problem, freeze the cake for a bit to stiffen it up.

Here we have my basic two layer cake after I cut it into a jagged rocky shape.

I frosted it with my chocolate buttercream recipe.

I didn't worry about smoothing the frosting too much on this one because it was to resemble rocks anyway--didn't want it to be perfectly smooth.

I then covered the entire thing with black fondant. I bought this fondant at Michaels (Joanns? Hobby Lobby?) because I heard tinting your own fondant black might be tricky. It's pretty good stuff.

Fondant Bearded Dragons

Fondant is like play-doh except that it tastes ten times better. It's easy to sculpt with and it's resilient. Here in Colorado the fondant dries out as quickly as the desert engulfs a drop of rain. You have to be quick to work with it but once you have your result, let it dry overnight and it'll harden up. I really like sculpting with fondant. You can tint it with gel food coloring. I paint on it with vanilla extract/food color mix. It gives it a watercolor effect. You'd be better off tinting the entire thing in the beginning instead of painting it later if you want a more consistent result.

I simply shaped the fondant to look like a bearded dragon. I used pictures online for reference. To make the spikes, I cut little spikes into the "skin." For the bigger one, I instead pinched the fondant to give it a more aggressive look. I'm really happy with the result.

Here is my first attempt at making the lizard. Turned out pretty well!

The lizards' heads are propped up on my bag of baking powder until they solidified. I do this to make the head raise up instead of making it all just lay on the ground. It will dry in that position and give it a more realistic and dimensional appeal.

Hello, Mr. Lizard.

LIZARDS!

Final result. I'm pretty stinkin' proud of it!

BUTTERCREAM!

I'm excited to create another cake. I'd like to start messing around with plain jane buttercream decorations. I've perfected my buttercream recipe!

Vanilla Buttercream

1cup butter softened

1cup shortening

2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup milk

vanilla extract

Whip butter and shortening for about 10 minutes. You want it to be nice and fluffy.

Add in the powdered sugar bit by bit (don't just dump it all in there--let it incorporate).

Mix in the milk and extract and the final bit of sugar.

Keep whipping.

Whip some more.

Tickle it with a feather and whip it a few more minutes.

VOILA.

Amazing Buttercream.

At this point, If you're an extract type of person, add in some lemon, cinnamon, or orange extract. This would be the point to add some cocoa as well. I usually never have chocolate baking bars on hand so I use cocoa. I would say you'd need darn near a cup of cocoa to make this frosting frothy chocolatey.

Helpful Tip: Equal parts fats and double total amount for sugar need. AKA 1cup butter and 1 cup shortening will need 2 cups sugar. five cups butter and 5 cups shortening will hypothetically need 10 cups sugar (never tried it in that big of batch). I've tried this up to 6 cups of sugar (3c butter, 3 c shortening) and it hasn't given me a problem. Just adjust your milk a bit.

Camo Army Tank Cake

I enjoy making cakes.

I enjoy being creative.

Therefore, I enjoy being creative while making cakes.

A friend of mine via connection of military spouses was throwing her son a birthday party. He is big into military stuff. He wanted a Camo Army Tank cake. I said "YES!"

Here we have a regular chocolate cake.

I then layered it with frosting and put the second layer on top.

I then sculpted the front to look like the front of a tank and cut the back end stubby.

I kinda left out the part about making the camo fondant--- basically I rolled about 30 balls of different shades of greens and browns and stuck them together flat on the greased table. I then rolled it out and let the colors mix a bit to form the camo. Pretty easy but time consuming.

I used a dowel rod to support the top layer. Hopefully this gives you a bit of inspiration! I know I loved making it.

Camo Tank Cake

I have a birthday party coming up for which I'll be making a camo Army tank cake. I'm so excited! I'll be making my own marbled camo marshmallow fondant and sculping the cake to look like the tank. If only I could make it shoot or move on it's own....

My homemade vanilla bean extract is still doing great. It gets a deeper and richer amber color every day I see it, it seems.

Also, in other news, COUPONING!

I bought all of these things (a $46 dollar value) for $6.50.

I received all these for free--in fact, the store owed me about $0.60 after all was said and done. I doubt I'll ever need toothpaset again this year or next.

I'll be happy to tell you how I did it-- comment if you'd like to know more!

Have a fantastic day today, friend!

Time to bake!

Just came back from my trip to Pennsylvania and New York City! What a rush. I fell in love with the state of Pennsylvania within days of arriving. I gained a new appreciation for small town living after seeing NYC.

As we walked through the tall buildings looming over our heads one day, I immediately was stopped dead in my tracks by a certain smell. Freshly baked bread. Oh gracious it smelled so good! The warmth of the scent consumed me on the brisk windy day. It felt so good to experience that in NYC!

Bread and pastry making is one of the many things I'd like to master in the next six months as Sam is deployed. I truly love the smell of bread baking in the oven. I always thought it'd be so great to have homemade sandwich bread on hand.

So-- now that my vacation is over, back to baking! I've missed it so much.

By the way-my homemade vanilla bean extract is looking (and smelling) AMAZING! I'm just about ready to do another batch in smaller bottles. Stoked to show you the process again!

The Death of Motivation and time for deployment

I'm at a loss of what to bake. I kinda cupcaked and caked myself out. I decided one day that I don't actually like chocolate. Could it be that I had been baking nothing but chocolate cupcakes for the previous 2 months?!

Right now, I'm hanging out until I take a short road trip with some friends. I don't have time to bake anything extravagant or fancy but I want to bake. What do I do? I suppose I could make a simple pie or a no bake pie and cheat (Heaven FORBID!) by using a pre-made crust or graham cracker crust. I think my conscience would probably eat at me later...

For now, my motivation has been slowed. I'm for sure missing my wonderful husband who will be gone for a bit--as in 6 months. I'm thankful for what I have but I'm giving my mixer and spatulas a break. I'm wanting to get more into my art and spending time with my friends and training for the marathon. Having a husband that deploys in the military is an honor and a bitter thing.

Deployment leaves a family behind whether it's a spouse or a mother and father. Being left behind is not the hardest job in the military nor is being a military wife. My husband's job is the hardest one and I support him. Someitmes my support means letting him go.

My husband will be leaving me for deployment in a day and a half. We've been through this once before. This time feels different. The first time around I gathered so much information from military spouse forums, garnered advice from magazines and online articles. I was scared and didn't know what to expect.

It felt so formal going with Sam to the outprocessing meetings at the Airman and Family Readiness Center. They asked us how our marriage was, if we were okay with the deployment, and other emotional questions. Not only was it nerve wracking, but also exciting. Gosh--this is something big in the military: A deployment. Separation from each other for at least 6 months not knowing if we'll be able to talk or write each other often enough to keep both our spirits up and happy.

I'm sure I cried and got bitter. I remember detaching myself emotionally from my husband a week or two before he was to leave. Protecting myself and my emotions, distancing myself from the situation, and abandoning my feelings was the only way I knew how to get through that situation. I realized quickly that it wasn't healthy and decided to just cling closer to Sam before he left.

This time around, I have no feelings of bitterness. I've only broken down once. I've accepted that deployment is a part of the military lifestyle. Am I trying to stuff my feelings? Perhaps. There's time to cry after he's gone. For now, I'm enjoying spending my time just being near him. The little things are the biggest reminders of the love between us. It took deployment for us to figure out important elements of marriage.

Sam's first deployment helped us draw near to each other and to our relationship with God. We were forced to communicate. There was no way around it anymore--we had to be absolutely open and honest with each other about everything because we didn't have physical presence with each other. We got through that first deployment by opening our hearts to each other. Our marriage significantly improved. I had felt a bit like a robot the first few years of our marriage--trying to situate myself to this new life and to please my husband. I then realized it was time to speak up and out if I had an opinion on something, not just stuff it down. We ordered some relationship and marriage books and read them together. I'm so absolutely thankful for the deployment. Our marriage was improved.

This second deployment I am not certain about yet. I feel closer to Sam than I've ever been. I love him more than ever. He is my absolute best friend. He empties the dishwasher for me. He buys me flowers randomly. He switches the laundry out. He takes care of the pups. He holds me close and holds my hand in public to show everyone that I am his. He makes me feel like I'm beautiful. He makes me laugh so hard I cry. He is the only one who I've ever had near me who understands my humor, my thoughts, and why I do what I do. He encourages me to paint, to write, to dance, to live.

Six months will pass just as they have in the past. Time won't slow or speed for a wife who misses her husband. I look forward to deveolping hobbies and relationships that I have either taken for granted or never knew were there. I will run a half marathon. I will paint my mural. I will continue my college coursework. I'll probably master another area in baking. I hope this deployment will bring us closer as the first one did. It's up to us for that to happen.

It's always been up to us to make our marriage grow and become better than what it would be otherwise. I am responsible to be honest and loving to my husband and to think of ways to make him feel special even though he is on the other side of the world.

I'm nervous. I'm excited. I'm scared. I'm at peace. All at once.