Adventure Time Cupcakes (For my friend Lauren!)
Adventure Time Cupcakes... Go and tell you friends!
My friend Lauren’s birthday is coming up and since I’ll be away on vacation at that point, I decided to create a gift for her early. She shares my love of Adventure Time With Finn & Jake, and even dressed up as Lumpy Space Princess for Halloween. So it was a no-brainer.
I also hadn’t baked since LAST Christmas – over a year! So I decided it was high time that I started practicing my skills again.
I haven’t worked with fondant that much at all, so I decided to make the shapes for 4 characters. There is: Finn, Jake, Lumpy Space Princess and Peppermint Butler. They were the easier shapes to capture. I wanted to do Gunther, the penguin but dying fondant (or icing) black is near impossible.
As with any baking/decorating projects, there were some key learnings:
- I planned and sketched out every shape, and noted the colour I would need. This was good
- I started earlier than planned, and each day I did a little bit more than planned, and it worked out perfectly in the end
- Chocolate cake is crappy because it rips more easily when being frosted
- The medium cupcake liners are TOO small. The cupcakes too easily rose above the liner, and so the fondant shapes didn’t sit nicely within. This is bad.
- The medium cupcake liners made the cupcakes smaller and thus they kind of fit awkwardly into my new cupcake carrier. Lesson learned: USE LESS BATTER IN EXTRA LARGE CUPCAKE LINERS.
- Black frosting is hard to make. Watering down chocolate fudge frosting sucks. It was hard to pipe with as it was the wrong consistency. I should have used royal icing for the consistency – but how would I get it to be black? I don’t know, I’ll have to learn.
- Also, outside of a paring knife, what can I use to cut out freehand shapes from fondant? A scalpel? How do I get a smoother edge?
Finns in progress
I’ll explain how I did each character.
First, everything was white fondant that I coloured using Wilton’s gel colours.
Finn: I decided to make two circles of blue – dark for his pants, light for his shirt. The dark blue is a standard round cookie cutter, the light blue is a smaller size. I cut out his hat shape using a paring knife. I also free-hand cut his face. I put the light blue on the dark blue (a little water on the back of fondant and it will stick to other fondant), and then I rolled my rolling pin over to make slight smooshed in. I did the same with his face on his hat, so it looked more ‘inset’. I piped on his face with my horrible black-fudge-frosting mixture that was too watery.
Jake: He just needed yellow and white. I free-handed his jowls. Instead of trying to dye fondant black, I decided to pipe on the blacks of his eyes. Meh! His nose is also piped on.
Lumpy Space Princess: The easiest! I used the standard sized round cookie cutter as a guide, but just free-handed her blobbynes. The yellow star is from a jar of cake decorating sprinkles – I just picked out the yellow ones. I also drew on her face.
Oh my glob!
Peppermint Butler: White circle for his base, and the same dark blue from Finn with a notch cut out for his pants. The red was free handed inside of a standard cookie cutter face. The buttons and face were free-handed. I actually forgot to put on his little red bow-tie. I thought it would be too hard to cut out such a small shape from fondant, so I then thought I could pipe it on, but there wasn’t much space. (And I didn’t want to make a batch of royal icing just for tiny tiny bow-ties).
Peppermint Butler
I used generic frosting to attach the fondant to the cupcakes…
All in all, it was fairly simple, just a lot of work. I have a lot of fondant leftover so I’m going to be making more things. Practice makes perfect!
Vacation Dream List
I love travelling. In recent years I’ve been able to do more of it. One of my more masochistic hobbies is putting together dream trips. I also love hearing about other people’s travel adventures. Sometimes though, I hear of a place and think oh, that’s neat but not for me, it’s not “my top 10″. Y’know, those places that are super high on your list and if money and time were no object you’d go there before anywhere else? I realized I have a few of those places but I’ve never actually MADE the list. And one thing I love almost as much as I love planning fake vacations is making lists.
So I give you, my top 23 travel dreams. You’ll notice some trends: cold, animals, food.
- Galapagos Islands – This has always been my #1 destination ever since I heard of it. I love animals and wildlife so this seems like the mecca of nature tourism. The history of Darwin and everything is a big appeal.
- Churchill Manitoba Polar Bear trek – I once watched a documentary featuring Ewan McGregor (swoon) on a Tundry Buggy tour. Sold! I’m somewhat keen on the colder places of this earth, and polar bears are one of my favourite animals. [Note: BlogTO is running a contest to meet a Polar Bear Expert (http://www.blogto.com/contests/2011/12/contest_meet_polar_bear_expert_dr_ian_stirling/) and to enter I must state why I think *I* deserve to go! I think the fact that a trip to see polar bears in their natural environment is #2 on my dream vacation list speaks volumes! I love and am fascinated by them! I hope I win!]
- Alaska(n Cruise) – Again with the cold. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a cruise, but I do want to see the glaciers and so this seems the easiest way to do it. I’m tentatively planning this trip in May 2012 with my family. Hopefully it happens
- Maldives – This is not cold, but a beautiful tropical island. This is a more recent destination of desire for me. It’s not too far of the coast of India and I will be going back there – so I’m hoping next time I go (Winter 2012?) I can make the quick flight over for a weekend.
- Patagonia/Antarctica – Back with the cold! I’m just fascinated with the polar regions and the mountains and… everything. I need to improve my athletic level before I venture down here. I also like stories of Shackleton and other explorers, so I feel the history is rich, if only in layers of ice.
- Banff – Beautiful! I like mountains and blue waters! Who doesn’t?
- Switzerland – I know a few people who have been here recently and rave about it. Everything I’ve heard and seen seems to be wonderful. Also the chocolate.
- England – I can’t explain what exactly it is about England I want to see, other than it’s old. The historical significance is huge and I would love to see it in person. I want to see London, because I love big cities, and I want to see the country side because it looks so charming.
- California (San Diego, San Fran, a bunch of stuff inbetween). Again – it looks wonderfully beautiful.
- Rome – Ruins! Ever since I saw the Taj Mahal, my mind was blown by wonders of the world and would like to see a lot of them. Again, the history thing.
- New England – HISTORY! I’m fascinated with the American Revolutionary war and Civil war – so I want to see New England for that reason. I took a lot of history classes in high school and loved reading about the revolution itself, Thomas Payne, The Boston Tea Party etc etc.
- Savanah, Georgia – See above re: civil war. I’ve seen photos and it looks gorgeous. I’d like to see old plantations and slave houses… this part of American history is so important and fascinating.
- Germany – Land of chocolate.
- Back to Singapore – I went here when i was 19 and fell in love with the place. At the time I felt like I could definitely see myself living there for a few years. I’m sure I still could. It’s beautiful, and neat. and close to the south pacific.
- Lake Tahoe – google pictures of this. It’s like Canada’s Banff.
- New Orleans – I read Interview with the Vampire when I was 14 and was hooked. The little proto-goth in my fell in love with New Orleans. It’s fallen down my list of places I’d like to visit, but it’s still got a strong pull. If only for little 14 year old Anita.
- Tofino – I’ve been to Victoria and my gracious host took us to French Beach. It was amazing, so I’d love to see more of Vancouver island, and I’ve heard this is one of the best spots.
- Argentina – I would like to have a proper, grass-fed steak in Argentina. I’ve heard the food & wine are top notch.
- France – I feel like it’s mandatory to see Paris. I also love chocolates, pastries and baking, so another culinary must.
- French Polynesia – Bora Bora. C’mon. Ocean Stilts.
- Hawaii – Any island is automatically awesome, and I really don’t need to explain why I want to go to Hawaii.
- Mexico – Day of the dead. I’d love to go experience a Day of the Dead parade and related festivities for reals.
- Japan. Again with the island – Also the food here. I like Japanese food. I also have seen pictures from friends voyages and the amount of ridiculous things (like a bus that’s been made to look like a dog) beg to be witnessed.
October Round-Up
I haven’t mentioned enough how much I love fall. October is a standout month due to Thanksgiving and Halloween.
This Thanksgiving I hosted at my mom’s house for my family and my in-laws. Cooking at someone else’s house is always a challenge. I don’t know where everything is kept and their tools aren’t the same as mine. One thing that made up for all of this was my mom’s AWESOME CONVECTION OVEN. Holy crap! I’ve never cooked in a convection oven before and I don’t ever want to go back. The 17.5lb turkey took 2.5hrs to cook fully, instead of the 4.5-5 hours it would normally take. Combine the ultra-quick cooking time with my brine made for the absolute juciest turkey I have ever had.
Like always, I forgot to take pics after the first hour of prep so I don’t have finished shots. Here are some pics of the prep:
Turkey ready for brine
Martha Stewart's Turkey Brine
I used this recipe from Martha Stewart for the brine. It’s pretty amazing, except I think the amount of water she has in there is wrong. Water can only dissolve so much salt. Nevertheless, it was easy to add a few extra cups and everything turned out fine. I used my iPad extensively. Last time I made turkey dinner I used my laptop. The good thing about the laptop was the conversion widget. However, getting gross food stuffs in the keyboard was not good. That is where the iPad excelled.
Everyone loved the dinner and I was happy with that. Though I’m definitely going to need a break from making such a huge meal.
The other highlight of course is Halloween! Admittedly, this year I wasn’t feeling it as much as previous years. I still took part. I attended a Zombie make-up work shop at Complections school of make-up artistry. It was a demonstration but I paid the extra $45 to get the make-up kit. It was totally worth it. I did the make-up for my sister-in-law, her room mate and boyfriend for the Toronto Zombie Walk! Here are pics of them:
Zombie the first
Zombie the second
Zombie the third
I also did the make up a week later for my friend and Hubby. I myself went in the exact opposite direction and dressed up as the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. Had a good time and lots of candy!
Zombies
White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland
All in All, I had a great October. It’s just a few days into November and it’s shaping up to be a great one, too. 
Birthmeh
For most of my life I have gotten really excited about my birthday. I would sometimes have expectations that were too big to fill but for the most part I’ve always had a great time. As I got older, I started to feel that it was decidedly uncool to love your birthday like a child, so I learned to hide my excitement. I’m sure I didn’t do a very good job. My late 20′s have changed that. I’ve stopped caring about doing anything special and it felt like just another day, but at least another day with guaranteed chocolate cake. I still don’t hate or fear my birthday. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of dealing with aging. Maybe it’s because I look a lot younger than I am – something that used to bother me when I was younger but of course now is something I treasure. Maybe it’s also partially because of my child-like behaviour… Either way, I’m not sweating birthdays… yet.
I remember when I was a teenager I’d prepare the birthday wish list no less than 1 month in advance. Having a mid November birthday meant that all unfulfilled birthday wishlist items automatically became the Christmas wishlist. It was just efficient, I thought! Then I got to that point where I could buy myself whatever I wanted, and all the things I really wanted were way too expensive to ask of anyone. This never stops my mom for asking me what I want. It’s an interesting thing. As a kid I’d ask my mom what she wanted for mother’s day, birthday and Christmas and I’d rarely get a real answer. Every couple of years she would run down her old slippers or run out of perfume and those were easy… but other than that she mostly wanted nothing. How frustrating! Surely there’s something you’d want! Well, now I find myself in that position.
Last year when I turned 30 she bought me and Baron a return flight to NYC as our combined birthday gifts. It was perfect. I’d always wanted to go, flying is very convenient and this way I could force Baron to come with me. I loved it. I decided at that point that every birthday in my 30′s will yield a trip. Lavish, indulgent and maybe a bit much but that’s what is happening… Though I can save up and take these little weekend trips myself, and I could never ask someone to buy me that… so it doesn’t quite solve the problem of what my mother wants to give me.
Since I am taking myself to Chicago (my kinda town), I started to think of things I would want.
So far I have come up with this:
A chocolate covered caramel apple.
Birthday Yum
Failing that, I will gladly take an edible arrangement:
More Birthday Yums
There are a few other things I want like a cusinart food processor, a better blender and perhaps slight more fun, cooking classes. Those things can still get pretty pricey.
So apparently I want either: fruit dipped in chocolate, or things that will allow me to cook. Hrm. Can we say one-track-mind? I wouldn’t mind getting a wacom tablet, but it’s not a necessity. When I was younger it was so easy to make a list of things I wanted… now even the things I want seem slightly silly. Perhaps I’ve actually succeeded in becoming less materialistic. I’m totally fine to not buy things, to wait it out or at least save up for it.
All I really want on my birthday is this: to spend time with people I love and to have chocolate. Taking a trip to somewhere is really just the chocolate on the fruit.
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