Vanilla Butter cake filled with Lemon Curd Buttercream

and covered in Vanilla Buttercream with Fondant accents

Happy Sunday Morning Everyone! This week went so well that at the end of this post you all get a treat! The cake above went like a dream. No issues with the baking, altho the kitchen did smell heavenly with the baking of this cake. It's a 10 inch square cake and is 4 inches tall. A lot of cake but the young man I did this cake for is more than worth it. He enters Boot Camp at the end of the month and is being thrown a family party to celebrate his Bon Voyage.

Fondant is an interesting medium to work with. It's become the rage in the past decade being used mainly for wedding cakes to give them that smooth polished professional look but lately, thanks to the TV cake shows, more and more cakers are using it for 3D work like the Vintage TV or the Handbag in my earlier posts. For some, Fondant is like working with a slippery eel...they hate it and it seems like their fondant hates them back. This is my relationship with buttercream! LOL! However, for those of us lucky enough to love working in fondant, it can open up a whole new world of cake possibilities. For me, working in fondant is like playing with clay all day long. Forming the shapes I want and trying to make them look like the real deal is nothing but fun for me. Still, laying out a smooth sheet of fondant to cover a cake is a labor intensive move. To cover the cake above I have to roll out almost 2 pounds of fondant into a 18x18 square and then, somehow, pick it up and lay it over the cake...and that's just where the fun begins! Then comes the smoothing process in order to get those perfectly smooth sides. Most of the time that isn't an issue for me. I grab my fondant smoother and, beginning at the corners, begin the process of slowly working the fondant down the sides of the cake and then trimming the excess so it ends in a smooth edge. For those trying to work with fondant for the first time, here's a wonderful tip. Elevate your cake about 2 inches using a slightly smaller cake pan or something like tuna cans under your cake board and it will make the edge smoothing easier. The excess fondant droops down past the edge of the cake allowing you to trim the excess and smooth easier! Unfortunately you are not off the hook once it's perfectly smooth. If your cake is too cold or has not had enough time to settle before you place the fondant on you can get the dreaded fondant bubble! This bubble will form within the first two hours of covering your cake due to escaping gas or air from your cake coming to room temperature so you have to keep a watch out for it and pop it and smooth again as soon as you see one forming. And if you don't see it in time...well, pop, smooth and Oh Look..that's where the flower goes! LOL!

With this cake I didn't have that problem at all. The fondant went on very smoothly and no bubbles formed. Hey, even the buttercream went on easily! The logo is a laminated print out that's been placed on wax paper to keep it food safe. I had fun with this cake, watching it turn out to be exactly what I had on my sketch pad and am delighted to present it to the young man before he heads off to the Air Force Reserve.

Now...for your treat! I stumbled upon this amazing cookie recipe that is so easy anyone can do it! AND it has only 4 ingrediants!!! So here is the recipe for:

Chocolate Crack

What you need:

1 foil lined PAM sprayed large cookie sheet

1 box of graham crackers

2 sticks of real butter (if using unsalted then add 1/4 tsp salt)

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 pkg choco chips

What you do:

Line the sprayed cookie sheet with a single layer of the graham crackers. Just break the crakers into pieces to fill in any empty areas. Set it aside and pre heat your oven to 350 degrees. Now put the butter and brown sugar into a pan and over medium heat bring it to a boil. While the butter is melting stir occassionally. When this mix comes to a boil stir continuously for 5 mins. At the end of the 5 mins just pour the mixture over your crackers and spread it out to cover all the cracker surface. Now place the cookie sheet into the oven for 10 minutes. When they come out of the oven pour the choco chips on top as evenly as you can. Wait about 30 seconds for them to melt then spread them out like icing on the top of your crackers. Now move the whole thing into the refridgerator or freezer to allow them to cool and harden. When totally cool and hard just break the cookies up into about 2x2 pieces.

Three reasons these are called Chocolate Crack...one: they are made with crackers, two: you crack them up into pieces at the end, three: they are as addictive as the illegal type crack...I dare you to eat only one!

Enjoy! This next week brings a Wedding Cake that I'm just dying to share with you all!

Cat