More Fun with Fondant!

In my ongoing effort to learn the fine art that is fondant, I made yet another attempt at some lovely fondant fun!

Since I'm all about baking from scratch now (and I'm trying to get my poop in a group for my Son's birthday party in October), I was looking for a good confetti cake recipe. I found one on Heather's Sprinklebakes site and was revved up and ready to go!

I mixed up my lovely batter and dumped the sprinkles in with glee! This is WAY more fun than that crappy little packet of sprinkles they give you in the box of cake mix! This recipe takes a good 3/4 cup!!

I unearthed a few 8 inch pans, lined the bottoms with parchment paper (makes getting it out of the pan so very easy) and got my batter ready to go:

My cakes came out looking great! I let them cool and got my butter cream whipped up. I'm really digging this recipe I found on Food Network's website. I find that a batch and a half is just enough for two 8 inch cakes.

Now, the last (and first) time I did a fondant cake I ran into issues with creasing at the base of the cake. I rolled the fondant much thinner than the last time, and managed to get the fondant on the cake without incident or creases! YAY Me!

I did, however, run into a bit of a bulging issue around the mid section of the cake. Picture a gal with a muffin top in a pair of low rise jeans. I did some poking around on the net today and found that I need to put the butter cream between the layers about an inch away from the edge and should have probably let the cake settle for a few hours before putting the fondant on. Lesson learned!

Once decorated, this is what I managed to come up with:

My Momma was making tacos across the street and invited us over for dinner last night, and this made the perfect ending to a lovely meal!

The cake was SUPER moist and such fun! I would recommend this over a 'cake in a box' any day!







Want some cake?

Now, for what I've learned today.

I don't really like fondant.

It looks pretty, tastes OK (and that's only after I flavor it), but the texture is a little off putting. I don't like to serve my desserts with the disclaimer "if you don't like the fondant, just scrape it off". I think fondant is great for a wedding cake (here in Wisconsin, we're usually hammered by the time the cake is served), or one of those fancy show cakes; but for something you're actually looking to eat and enjoy, maybe with a scoop of New York Vanilla...meh. Not my thing.  

I've decided I'm going to try and concentrate on making my butter cream look as smooth as possible and decorate it with fondant cut outs for my son's party! I've already started my research and just need to get some more practice in before October 29th!

Tune back in soon, I've about a thousand more pages in my CIA text book and I'm cruising right along!



Splendid Sunflower Seed Rolls

What else to do on a lovely Sunday morning? Sleep in? Negative, a toddler lives in my house. The weather outside was actually nice enough to cut off the central air and open the windows, why not bake?! Time to get to work on my next project; Sunflower Seed Rolls!

Wheat Bran 3oz

Milk, room temperature 22.5 fl oz

Bread Flour 1 pound 10oz

Instant Dry Yeast 4.75 g

Honey 2oz

Sunflower Seed Oil (I didn't have this on hand, so I used Vegetable Oil) 1.5oz

Salt 17.75g

Sunflower Seeds lightly toasted, plus more for garnish 3oz (+ 2 extra ounces for garnish)

This project actually began the evening prior. The wheat bran needs to soak overnight in the milk. I put the mixture in the fridge overnight, and took it out first thing in the morning to let it come to room temperature. I've found that if it's not warming up fast enough, putting the container in the sink and filling it (the sink, not the milk/bran container) up with warmer water can speed things up if needed.

The sunflower seeds needed to be lightly toasted, so I threw them onto a sheet pan and stuck them under the broiler for a few minutes, just until the natural oils started to come out. Yummy! It was all I could do to keep from snacking on them while I was baking!

This recipe does call for sunflower seed oil, but my grocery store didn't have it. After a quick google search, I discovered that you can substitute vegetable oil, so, substitute I did!

The flour and yeast are combined in one bowl, and all other ingredients, except for the sesame seeds, go into the mixing bowl. The flour/yeast mixture is added to the mixer and mixed on low, with the dough hood attachment,  for 4 minutes. Then we upped the speed to medium and mixed for another 4 1/2 minutes.

Now we add the sunflower seeds and mix for another 2 minutes on low.

Now for the waiting, the dough needs to bulk ferment for about an hour. I covered the dough lightly with a dampened tea towel so I could avoid getting a "skin" on it.

I was feeling particularly creative on this fine afternoon, and, since I was in the kitchen anyways, I made my son a lovely "you eat with your eyes before you shove it in your face" lunch!

Cute Huh?

Once the dough had risen, it was time to preshape the dough into a large round. I'm actually getting pretty good at this! Check out Lean Dough Take II for preshaping instructions. Once preshaped, let the dough rest, covered, for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Now that we're all well rested, it's time to make our cute little rolls! Divide the dough into 38g pieces with a dough blade and kitchen scale.

Once divided, time to conquer! I'm going to just quote the textbook here, as they explain it better than I think I could!

Shaping the rolls was easy, but time consuming because there's so many of them! "Press each piece lightly with fingertips to flatten. Fold the top edge of the dough to the center of the dough, pressing lightly with fingertips to tighten the dough. Rotate the dough 90 degrees, fold the dough in half, and use the heel of your hand to seal the two edges together. Cup the roll in your hand and re round the dough, applying gentle pressure to create a tight, smooth ball."

Place the rolls onto parchment lined baking sheets and brush with an egg wash. I've used two different methods of egg washing. One is egg and water, the other is equal parts egg and milk with a small pinch of salt. I'm finding that I'm partial to the egg/milk wash. Now is a good time to get ready for proofing. I head up my double ovens to about 100 degrees each for a few minutes, then turn them off. Just to get them warmer than the temperature in the kitchen.

Once, egg washed. I covered all my little dough balls with tea towels and put them into my warm ovens to proof for about 40-50 minutes. I was delighted to see that the dough had proofed beautifully! The dough sprung back a bit to the touch, but didn't collapse and had grown in size nicely!

Now, we egg wash again and top with sunflower seeds. You'll want to be really careful when egg washing the rolls once they've proofed, because you could actually collapse the rolls if you jab them to hard with the basting brush!

And now, we bake! I actually don't have a convection oven. I've had them before, and I've found that they can dry out baked goods. When it was time to pick appliances for the new house, I was totally fine with conventional ovens! The instructions in the text state to bake at 410 degrees in a convection oven for about 15 minutes. I've found a handy website that gave me the conversion trick for convection to conventional ovens. The formula is to add 25 degrees and 33% more time. This put me at 435 degrees for about 19 minutes.

The rolls are done when they sound hollow when thumped on the bottom and are a nice golden brown.

If you can manage to wait, let the rolls cool completely on wire racks. These were nutty, a little crunchy and delightful! My Hubs and Son LOVE them! They also make cute little burger buns!

Yummy!

I asked my son what he wanted for dinner, and he answered with an emphatic "noodles"! Needless to say, these were a great addition to our spaghetti dinner! I would encourage anyone to try these out! They are a bit of work, but the end result is fantastic!

On a side note...I've graduated from my iPhone camera to a big girl camera and have been psyched by the pictures I've been able to take!