Frozen Buttercream Transfer Tutorial

Okay, you guys know how I'm not a cake decorator, right? Like, you've been here through all of my rants about how the Cake Boss and similar shows have made people think baker = decorator when most decorators aren't actually great bakers. (I know a lot of cake decorators who use box mix because it's easier, quicker, and they can spend more time decorating. I'm not hating, I'm just saying that you don't have to be both) I know with me, I really don't have the patience for most cake decorating. Occasionally, I'll go a bit manic and decide that I can make royal icing transfers or dalek cupcakes, but even then, I'm aware of my limitations and try to keep things simple.

So when I tell you that that cake up there was super easy to decorate, you'd best believe me.

A frozen buttercream transfer is a cake decorating technique that works pretty much like it sounds. You create the design with buttercream and freeze it to transfer on to the cake. It's similar to the RI transfers I did for my Balance cupcakes, but unlike royal icing, the buttercream will only need 1-2 hours in the freezer to "set," and it won't harden. That means once you put it on the cake, you just need to let it defrost for about 15 minutes, and the buttercream is soft and creamy once more. People will think you're magic when they realize the design is delicious frosting and not edible paper.

Also unlike a RI transfer, if a frozen buttercream transfer cracks or breaks while moving it, it's no big deal. Let the buttercream soften for a minute and then press the cracked pieces back together, smoothing it out gently with your finger or a piece of waxed paper. Mine broke into three pieces when I moved it to the cake. Can you tell where it happened? Cause I sure can't.

Can't draw? No sweat. Coloring pages work perfectly with this technique. You can find all sorts of free coloring pages online (which is what I did), or you can get coloring books for cheap just about anywhere (and if you've got kidlets running around, you can just borrow one of theirs)

Source

This is the image I used, which I got for free on AZ Coloring. If you're just doing a character cake, you can just print it on out and get started. However, since a frozen buttercream transfer is an inverse technique, if you have any writing like I did, or if your image has to face a certain way, you have to flip the image. You can do this in any photo editor, or even in a Word document, which I did (the pan I used was roughly the same size as a piece of printer paper, so that was the quickest way to make sure the image took up most of the page).

If you're using a physical coloring book, you can scan the image in and flip it, or you can trace the image on tracing paper with a sharpie, then just flip the tracing paper over.

Tape your image onto a flat, portable surface (I used a cutting board), tape a piece of waxed paper on top of it, and start outlining. If your outline color is black, you're probably going to want to use a tube of black decorator's icing rather than homemade. True black is hard to get without massive amounts of food coloring and the premade black is less likely to bleed. Most people recommend using Wilton, but I didn't feel like going to Michaels just for a tube of frosting, so I used Cake Mate brand, which is carried in my local supermarket and has special tips you can screw right onto the tube. The tip was a little too big (the smallest they had was a #3), but otherwise it worked out fine.

Once your outline is finished, stick it in the freezer for about 15 minutes to set up. This is not strictly necessary, but it will help prevent bleeding and makes it easier when you fill in the rest of your colors.

While your outline is chilling, you can go ahead and mix up your buttercream. You don't want to use store bought frosting as you need the butter for it to freeze firm, so you'll want to use a recipe that's at least half butter (half shortening). If shortening skeeves you, I see no reason you can't use all butter, it will just need more time to thaw, and it won't take color as well.

I used 1 cup unsalted butter, 1 cup solid white vegetable shortening, 1 tsp. vanilla bean paste, a pinch of salt, and I didn't actually measure the sugar, but it was probably about 4 cups.

Once your outline is set and your buttercream is ready, you can start filling in your colors. I had planned out my colors before hand and I knew I would need a lot of white, so I just went in order of "colors that can be used to make other colors" (leftover pink was used to make purple, yellow made orange made brown). There's probably a better way to do it, but this worked for me. Make sure your buttercream is at room temperature, pipe it in (I didn't use a tip, but you can if you need more control)

Now, I specifically chose this design to cover the whole top of the cake, which is why I needed fill in all that white in the last picture. You don't have to do that. It depends on your design and your preference. I just like to do it this way. If your transfer is not going to take up the whole cake like mine, you'll just need to use your background color (in my case, white) to fill in any gaps (like the holes in the "hoot hoot"). Stick the transfer back in the freezer for another 15 minutes.

The last step, which I forgot to take pictures of, is a layer of more white (or whatever your background color is) over the entire transfer, making sure it's smooth and even. This makes sure you have an even base for the transfer. If you skip it, the frosting might sag once it thaws, and that doesn't look good.

Place it back in the freezer and freeze for a minimum of two hours. Once fully frozen, you can flip it onto your cake, or if you're making it ahead, like I did, wrap it up in a few layers of plastic wrap and keep it in the freezer until you need it. I made mine a week ahead, but as long as it's wrapped tight, I don't see why you couldn't keep it in there for 2 or 3 weeks.

Place it on the cake while still frozen, then let it thaw for about fifteen minutes. The transfer is thick, about half an inch thick, so piping a border around the edge helps it look a little more seamless. Of course, I'd never piped a shell border before in my life, so I'm not sure it actually did much to help. Once the buttercream is thawed, you can cut the cake as usual, and watch all your guests try to figure out how you did it.

It's My Very Favorite Gun: DIY Vera Prop

Hey guys! So, I know I kind of unexpectedly took the summer off. I didn't mean to, I just had my cousin's wedding in Florida, and then I got sick, and then I got lazy. *innocent whistling* It was way too hot this summer anyway for serious cooking/baking. I subsisted mostly on rice and frozen veggies because my rice cooker does not heat up the kitchen, so I really had nothing to share with you. But I have some fun stuff planned for Halloween!

I did meet Felicia Day, though, so that was exciting. It was at her book signing, I didn't like meet her on the street or anything. She was super cool and I actually managed to have a coherent conversation with her. (In your face, social anxiety).

The way the signing was set up, I gave my book to one of her handlers, who made sure she had my name before I even got to her, so when I stepped up to her table, she was already signing it and didn't see me right away. I stepped up, and not knowing what to do, I said hi. She asked me how I was, I said, "Good, how are you?" (I was going for coherent, not sparkling conversation, okay?)

She finished up, and goes to hand me my book as she says, "I'm goo-- *gasp* oh my god, I love your shirt!" I was wearing my Knights of Good Guild t-shirt, and I nearly died at how excited she got. "That is an OG Guild shirt, man!" she said, as she got up to take a photo with me. So I told her how Clara was my first ever cosplay, and she hugged me.

Her handler took these pictures with my phone. I didn't know until later that he took this one too.

She told me to tweet her a picture later. As I was about to leave, she stopped me and said, "You'll like the book; there's a lot of Guild stuff in there." And I replied, "Thank you," because that's clearly the correct response, and I stumbled out of there in a fog of fangirly bliss.

Not that it's actually necessary for you to know any of this, but it's so rare that I have cool stories like this to tell people. Also, you should totally read her book, because it's really good and pretty funny.

Anyway, NYCC is this week, yay! (And Felicia Day is going to be there. My mom says I should ask if she remembers me. I find it very doubtful that she would, even if a tiny part of me has decided we're totally BFFs now) The brother and sister-in-law finally watched Firefly about a month ago, after I loaned it to them about a year ago and decided they want to go as Jayne and Kaylee. I told my brother he should get a toy gun and paint it as an easy Vera-like prop. He just looked at me with this perplexed look, so I told him I would do it for him.

This isn't exactly a tutorial, since I really didn't know what I was going to do until it was actually on the gun itself, but I did take some in-process photos, so I can kind of walk you through what I did.

Source

This is the reference photo I worked off of. I knew I was never going to get it screen accurate, but I did want it to be clearly based off of the show prop. So, it's more like Vera's little sister, related, but not the same.

You want to start off with a toy gun. I got mine from Wal-Mart for $10 (it was part of a set with a big machine gun, a hand gun, a knife, a grenade, and string of "bullets"). I forgot to take a before photo, and I can't find a picture of it online, but it was Kid Connection brand, which I think is just basically generic Wal-Mart brand. It was very cheaply made, but that ended up working out better since I could easily cut off extra parts.

The first thing you want to do is take it apart, lightly sand everything down with fine grit sandpaper, and clean it (I did this part in my tub because that just seemed easiest). Wipe it all down with rubbing alcohol and let it dry. When that's done, just spray paint everything with a flat black paint that works on plastic.

The gun I used didn't have an ammo clip, so I made one out of cardboard and craft foam. You'll notice that cardboard and craft foam are a bit of a theme. I painted some of the fake bullets that came with the gun gold and cut a window in the clip so it would look like it was full of them. I just tried to match color and design to the reference photo.

For the muzzle, I used a cardboard tube from a roll of aluminum foil I just finished, I cut it down to a size that looked right, and hot glued it onto the gun. Then I painted craft foam silver, cut out alternating notches, and glued it on top.

You can see that the scope in the reference photo sits on top of a silver bar, which worked for me, because my gun had a handle there I needed to cover. I bent cardboard over the handle, and covered it with silver-painted craft foam. The scope is just a pirate telescope I got from the dollar store painted black.

The show prop had a weird metal piece attaching the clip to the gun, so I recreated that out of more craft foam. Then I painted sections gold and antique copper to add more visual interest. The antique copper paint is by Folk Art, and it was a really pretty color that covered very well, so I recommend it.

I just finished off with some weathering, which was more fun than it should have been. For areas that needed to look more metallic, I dry brushed on some more silver paint. To add some grime, I used some watered down black paint and immediately wiped it off, which is especially effective in areas with a lot of raised detail, or I dry brushed more black paint on. For some "battle damage," which I went a little overboard on, I took a cheap brush, hacked it up so it was uneven, and used it with more silver paint to add random scuffs and scratch marks

Like I said, it's not screen accurate, but I think it ain't too shabby, considering.

Nathan Fillion is also going to be at NYCC, so I plan on telling him all of the weird things people have Googled about him that have lead them to my blog (including "Nathan Fillion singing peanut butter song.")

And because I know you want it, here's Needy McSnuggles, "helping":

 He fell asleep on my open toolbox. And you can't see it, but he's on a bag of screws. Comfort

I put down cardboard to measure and cut, and he immediately decided it was his new bed

UPDATE: I got Nathan Fillion and Jewel Staite to sign Vera! I was a little disappointed I couldn't get Gina Torres to sign it too, but her line was too massive. Nathan recognized it immediately as Vera and said I did a great job on it, before quoting, "it's my very favorite gun." (!!!) So she's officially Mal approved. Jewel Staite didn't say anything about it, but I got the feeling she was tired, and probably didn't make the connection. She was still super nice though.

We were instructed not to take up Nathan's time with extra conversation, since we were at the tail end  of the photographing session, and he had a schedule to keep, but he didn't really pay attention to that and was being his friendly, charming self to everybody (the SIL was fangirling too hard to notice he was being especially charming to her, which is a thing I will never let her live down. EVER.)

Felicia Day did not recognize me, as expected, not that I asked "hey, remember me?" But I brought my Guild Companion for her to sign, so we had another short conversation about Guildie things. She was about to close the book and hand it back to me, when I mentioned how I identified with Codex, and she opened it up again to write "you rock!" So you could say my plans of becoming best friends with Felicia Day are right on track.

So now I have Con Crud, but the fact that Nathan Fillion appreciates my crafting skills and Felicia Day thinks I rock makes me feel a lot better. XD

PizzAvengers Assemble!

This is one of those posts that you only get because of the unique way my brain works.

It started out simply enough. I was looking up Iron Man cupcakes on Pinterest (for completely non-blog related reasons. Sometimes you just wanna look at superhero cupcakes, y'know?) and I stumbled across an Iron Man pizza. I thought that was a really cute idea. And then I thought, I wonder why I've never seen a Black Widow pizza. That would be super easy. And then my brain thought about doing a Captain America fruit pizza, and it just kind of snowballed from there.

Plus, with Avengers: Age of Ultron coming out in LESS THAN A WEEK OMG I AM SO EXCITE, it seemed like the perfect time to let Mr. Brain go wild and create the PizzAvengers: Earth's Mightiest Pizzas. (Those of you that live places with an earlier Avengers release, no spoilers, please!)

I stuck with the core 6 Avengers from the first movie because it just worked out better that way. 6 pizzas is already more than enough for just me, and I wouldn't have the slightest idea of what to put on a Scarlet Witch or Quicksilver pizza.

All of the pizzas (except Cap. He's special) start off the same way. I used pre-baked crusts to save some time (you can usually find them in the refrigerated section of the grocery store near the cheese), a simple tomato sauce and shredded mozzarella. You can go with any sauce/cheese combo you like-- the Thor pizza would be really good as a barbecue pizza-- just make sure the cheese is white or lightly colored to give you a plain backdrop.

Because I'm cooking for just me, I decided to make three of the pizzas mini. You can totally make them full size, this is not a comment on their importance as Avengers, they just had the easiest designs to scale down and gave me less to fit in the fridge.

I started out with the Black Widow pizza because she really did have one of the easiest designs to put on a pizza. Take some pepperoni and cut it in half. Outline an hourglass shape using the cut side of the pepperoni to give you straight lines. Fill in. You're done.

Simple and elegant. Just like Natasha. But the pizza is far less lethal.

Hawkeye's pizza may look simple, but it took me forever to figure out. Hawkeye's costume is purple, which means that purple is usually used to represent him, and I couldn't figure out anything purple to put on a pizza. I briefly thought about skipping him, when I remembered about Pizza Dog, and when a character has a Pizza Dog, you can't not make him a pizza. (Lucky, aka Pizza Dog is from the comics, but I'm totally hoping he shows up in the MCU soon)(Lucky is called Pizza Dog because Clint gave him pizza and called him Pizza Dog. It's that simple)

Finally, I remembered that red cabbage is purpley. I chopped it and gave it a quick saute in a hot skillet-- not long enough to make it soft, I just wanted to jumpstart the cooking process since it didn't get very long in the oven-- and used it to make a bullseye pattern.

I feel like Clint would be very torn about whether to shoot at it or eat it.

The Hulk pizza is the one I'm least happy about because he kind of just ended up looking like generic green monster. But I didn't know of anything else that seemed appropriately Hulk-y, so that's what I went with. Plus he's kind of cute.

So what you need are some chopped green peppers and olives, and some extra mozzarella for eyes and teeth. I found it easiest to start by outlining his mouth with the chopped olives. Fill it in with more olives, then add some little pieces of mozz for his teeth. Fill out the shape of his face with green peppers and cut out some eyes out of more mozz. Make the eyes kind of slanty and angry looking, but don't worry if the shape's not perfect since it will melt in the oven. Add tiny pieces of olives for the pupils.

Once you're satisfied with the size and shape of the head, outline it with more chopped olives. Use larger olive pieces for his hair and nose.

I totally meant to add some angry slanty eyebrows and some red onion (cause the Hulk is always wearing purple pants), but since it was one of the mini pizzas, I didn't have room.

HULK LIKE PIZZA

For Iron Man, you need pepperoni, cheddar cheese, and some more chopped olives, plus some mozzarella to make the eye slits. Start with outlining the Iron Man helmet shape with pepperoni. Tony has a big head, so don't be afraid to use most of the pizza. Then you need to shape the face plate. I found it easiest to create the shape with the cheddar, then I used the halved pepperoni I had left over from the Black Widow pizza to give it a more defined outline. Place vaguely rectangular pieces of mozz for the eye slits (again, don't worry about getting the shape perfect), then use the olive to add some of the ridges and details in the mask.

Tony probably thinks ALL pizza should have his face on it.

Thor's pizza I almost forgot about because I was so worried about what to do for Hawkeye's pizza, but it actually ended up being one of my favorites. What you're going to need is shredded cheddar cheese, chopped olives, plain shredded chicken, and cooked, crumbled sausage.

Start by using the cheddar to draw a lightning bolt on the pizza, slightly off center, and then learn from my mistake and outline it with more chopped olives (the lightning bolt got a little lost after baking). Use the chopped olives to outline Mjolnir (rectangular head, long handle). Fill the head with shredded chicken and the handle with the sausage crumbles.

This last step is purely optional, but I put pepperoni around the outer edge of the pizza. I had so much pepperoni left since I bought a 16 oz. bag, and it's the color of his cloak, so I could get away with it. Plus it tickled me to make Thor's pizza a kind of meat lover's pizza. I can just imagine him being all YES MORTAL, I TOO AM A LOVER OF MEAT. LET US FEAST ON THIS STRANGE, FLAT PIE YOU CALL 'PIZZA.'

One last look before they go into the oven. Bake according to the directions for whatever crust recipe you're using. The pre-baked ones I used suggested baking at 450 (F) about 8 minutes for the mini pies and 10 minutes for the large.

While your pies are baking, you can work on Cap's fruit pizza. Since this is a dessert pizza, the crust is a giant cookie. I used sugar cookie dough. Any roll out recipe would probably be best (I can recommend these from LilaLoa). I actually just bought a thing of slice and bake dough from the store since roll out dough and I aren't friends. Spread your dough into a pizza pan (I used a foil one) and bake at 350 (F) until it's a light golden brown. I baked mine about 16 minutes, but keep your eye on it. Let it cool completely. I actually baked mine before I started assembling the pizzas, so it could cool while I was working on them.

Most fruit pizzas I've seen use cream cheese frosting as a base, to which I say ick. We've been over my feelings about sweetened cream cheese before, but honestly, when you're putting all of this fresh fruit on a dessert, why would you use anything except fresh whipped cream? Seriously.

So for this fruit pizza, we're using whipped cream (about 1 1/2 cups after whipping), halved strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, sliced bananas (2 were more than enough for me), and mini marshmallows. Start by spreading your whipped cream evenly on your cookie base. Then work from the outside in on the design: start with a ring of strawberries around the outer edge of the cookie, then do a ring of sliced bananas. My bananas were small, so I doubled them up. If you're worried about browning, you can skip them or use large marshmallows in their place. I made a quick glaze out of apricot jelly, and they only looked slightly brown the next day

Inside the bananas, do a ring of raspberries (I meant to do a double ring, but I made the banana layer too wide, so there wasn't room). In the middle, use the mini marshmallows to make a star, then fill in the rest with blueberries. Use more raspberries to fill in any spaces between the strawberries.

It won't stop bullets, but it's perfect for any 4th of July barbecues

I kind of totally love how they all turned out. Especially when they're all together, you can totally tell who they're supposed to represent.

Black Widow's is my favorite. It's just so simple and clean and immediately recognizable. Plus it was the easiest to make. Bonus.

If the lightning had come out better, though, I think Thor's would beat Black Widow. I love the design of it (is that narcissistic to say when you designed it? Maybe I shouldn't have had Iron Man pizza for lunch), and I love thinking about how much he would enjoy it, that great big Norse labradoodle that he is.

I put the most thought into Hawkeye's, but unfortunately, I don't think most people would get it presented on its own. It fits right in with the other PizzAvengers, though.

In my head, the Avengers have 4th of July picnics together and Tony always makes sure they have a dessert like this. Steve stopped being embarrassed when he tasted it.

Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. Pizza.

Hulk was my one disappointment, since he looks too generic, but like Hawkeye, when he's around the other PizzAvengers, you know immediately know who he is.

My Age of Ultron excitement level is officially 6 pizzas high. How about you?

Microwave Popcorn without the Bag

Microwave popcorn that's cheaper, healthier, and greener than the prepackaged stuff. What's not to love? 

I love popcorn. I think it's a great snack food. I eat it a lot. My biggest problem with microwave popcorn though is that it's always way too salty. And its weird to me that there's not a single brand out there thinks, hey, we should do low sodium popcorn. Even the "healthy" brands are super salty, and what's healthy about that? The Shop Rite store brand has a salt-free butter flavor, and it's the only one I've ever seen.

So, I finally bit the bullet and bought plain popcorn kernels. I knew that you can make microwave popcorn in a paper lunch bag, except I didn't see them in the grocery store. No worries, there had to be instructions on the back of the bag. Well, there were. And they sounded hard (plus, lots of oil involved).

I took to the Internet to see if I could find an easy way to make popcorn that didn't involve paper bags, and I did.

Things you will need:

• A large, microwave safe bowl
• A microwave save plate that fits on top of the bowl
• 1/3 cup plain popcorn kernels

 Measure out your popcorn kernels

 Pour them into the glass bowl and cover with the microwave safe plate. Note: you don't want the cover to be air tight, so I wouldn't recommend using any cover that might have come with the bowl. If you don't have a plate the right size, you can use parchment paper held in place with a rubber band.

Put it in the microwave for about 5 minutes on high. Now this time will differ between microwaves and popcorn brands. Make sure to listen while the popcorn is popping and take it out when the popping slows to a few seconds between pops. A little over 5 minutes works for me, but my microwave isn't very high powered. You might need more or less time.

Using pot holders because the bowl will be very hot, take it out of the microwave and remove the plate immediately (if you leave the plate on, the trapped steam will condense as it cools and make the popcorn soggy). Season as desired (I like a little drizzle of olive oil with some cracked black pepper and sea salt) and serve.

If you want butter, just mix a little melted butter in with the kernels before putting it in the microwave.

That's all there is to it. No bags to throw away, just a reusable bowl and plate that barely get dirty. Cheap and easy and environmentally friendly, and as healthy as you want it to be. Seriously, no downsides. Except you might find yourself eating way too much popcorn. *innocent whistling*

Technique adapted from The Yummy Life and Cherryvale Farms