Playing with my food again-episode 2

Last weekend, I escaped and went to stay with a friend for the whole weekend.
I went to my good friend Jodi's house and we played with our food again.
You can see where Jodi and I have played with food before, here.
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2009/04/playing-with-my-food.html
A few people that know me, know that I have envisioned myself for years as a cake decorator. Must have been in another life time.
I watch the pastry shows and all that.
LOL!! Clay is so much easier, I have a whole new respect and awe of cake decorators.

I also have all these great tools that I can use in cake decorating and pastries, I just know I can. Extruders, texture sheets, molds, rolling cutters, cutters, and various others I can not think of now! LOL!
So why not give it a try right?
So good to have someone with the tools we might need also and who I have so much fun with when we are together, Jodi.
We started off Friday night, I got there later than I planned and Jodi had already baked various cakes, cupcakes and bought some fondant. We ate some dinner and discussed our attack plan.
We gathered tools.
I brought the ones I wanted to try.

Here are some of them, all Makin's tools.
I was so happy I brought these green tools. They do not stick to the fondant, and everything else does!!

Jodi had the food colors

and sparkling sugar and food grade sparkling powders.









Similar to pearl-ex and glitter ;-D

We wanted to start right away, but both of us had had a long week and if anything, we might be getting smarter as we get older, har har har!!
The next day we had to go pick up the chocolate fondant at Pila's Pantry in Norco (there is also one in Temecula).
Pila's Pantry
http://www.pilaspantry.com/
1670 Hamner Ave. #6
Norco, Ca 92860
951- 371-3957

The fondant prices were outstanding too. And it tasted good.
Lauren helped us, gave us a few secrets, and was just a very sweet girl and a veritable wealth of information.
What a great place, I can see myself getting lost in here for a couple many hours ;-O Oops I did.

OMG! And the chocolate fondant tastes like tootsie rolls. As Madi would say "mummies".

After we got back from there, we started right in making things.
We washed and dried all of the tools. Water, I found out from Jodi, breaks down fondant. They had to be completely dry.
We took a sheet cake and cut out little 3" diameter individual cakes, so they would be bigger than a cupcake and more surface area to work on.

Crumb frosted first and then a layer of tub frosting from the grocery store. This was totally about the tools and embellishments and less about making the best tasting cake in the world.
Neither Jodi or I consider ourselves pastry chefs, and as far as working with fondant and making goodies for the top I am a rank beginner and she a has a lot more experience  than I, but we are both beginners.
But we both have tons of enthusiasm and are willing to try things.

We thought we would try molding the flowers and leaves first.

Pinch off a piece of fondant, less than you think you might need, roll into a ball and place in to the flower you want.
Fill the mold.
The fondant does not stick to these molds, your hands yes, but not the molds.

Having a perfectly smooth cutting board is key here and if you do not have one you can use a marble tile from the hardware store.
Turn the mold over and press it down on the cutting board.

Pull the mold back quickly(think waxing, or pulling the tablecloth off the table full of glasses, quick and deliberate) and the fondant should come out of the mold and stick to the cutting board. You want it to stick to the cutting board.

Clean up the flower around the edges with one of the green tools. They have many different tips, 3 tools, so find the one you like. I prefer this knife like one and would push the excess from the edges to the flower, if the edges weren't clean.
Use one of the those small metal cake spatulas to get it off the cutting board or this spatula P47 will work too.

You can use a single edge razor blade to cut away the excess.
Cut into the edge and pull back the razor blade to remove the excess.
The leaves are pretty easy to do this with. The flowers have more curves so you have to take little "bites" with the blade.
The fondant does stick to the blade, a lot!
I had to clean the blade with water many times.

Jodi started painting this flower with thinned down food coloring. Almost water color looking.
We used Gel food coloring. You can get those at Pila's too.

Now with this one she used these powders (looks exactly like Pearlex) and mixed them with a little vodka (Seagram's 7, we didn't have any vodka, LOL) The alcohol evaporates and the powder stays. These look gorgeous on the fondant.

Cover the whole flower. You can see the food coloring one in the background.
These we let dry for a while, this will probably depend on your weather and humidity.

When it was dry, I brushed with a little gold powder with my finger just to accent the lines. I applied it the same way I do on the beads and hearts.
Cute eh?
We made a bunch of leaves and different size roses this way!

I mixed up some light pink fondant and extruded  the edges.

We took one of the little frosted cakes and started adding the edges.

I used these two dies and the stainless steel extruder, OMG, this extruder is made for precious metal clay and it is so much nicer than my all time favorite extruder.
The clearance in the barrel is very tight, so there is very little clay or fondant ;-D left in the barrel. The ends screw together very smoothly too and it is very easy to clean because of the short barrel. Nice, very nice tool.

I used the one on the left for the top edge of the cake.
What a great way to make edging, I felt like I was a pastry chef. LOL!!! It looked very good.
Click on the pic for a bigger view.

We covered the seams with flowers and leaves. We used a little frosting to attach those ones on the bottom.
And placed the rest of the flowers on the cake directly to the frosting.
All in all, we thought we did a great job and were ready to tackle some more at this point.

I have never had so much fun playing with my food, and at my age... geesh!!
I tell you, I think we did a great job with the tools made for clay. Guess what?? these are now cake tools for me, too.
YES!! Chef.

Wednesday wonder- Coloring outside the lines

Christian Faur

Photo from Ifitshipitshere

non traditional medium

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
http://www.christianfaur.com/crayons/TheLandSurveyors/image09.html
Hand Cast Encaustic Crayons (wow, wow, wow, impresses me even more)
Do yourself a favor, grab some coffee or your favorite beverage and sit a spell with Christian and his wonderful and creative mind.
 
"Through a novel technique that I have developed, I again find myself working with the familiar form of the crayon." - C.F.
 
Oh, you certainly have Christian. Talk about coloring outside the lines.
This takes it to a whole... nother... lev-el!

Photo from Ifitshipitshere

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


http://ifitshipitshere.blogspot.com/2009/03/unusual-art-of-christian-faur.html
A wonderful site with an interview from Christian Faur

Bite me!

Very Vampy hearts.

The one on the left is in my Etsy store now.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/56286817/vampire-heart-1-bite-me

Ever have those days where you just want to bite someone or...

tell them to bite you???

;-D

Pearl-exed Heart to go with the spiral extruded tube beads

Pearl-exed Hearts






I showed you how to make the spiral extruded tube beads here and I told you I would put the instructions for the heart up. So here it is.

Most of the links below will lead to my husband's store, if you are looking for these products.
Thank you so much for looking.
Thank you so much for supporting myself and my family.

You will need:

Cernit polymer clay color of your choice
Pearl-ex colors of your choice
needle tool or bugsticker also called a protool
Small glass bead
24 gauge Artistic wire 1" piece
2 rubber stamps of your choice unmounted-Stamp scraps
lace
cardboard
texture plate- I used lava rock from Victoria James
Knitting needle- bigger, mine is about 1/4" in diameter and it is metal
Paper plate
wire cutters

1. Condition the clay. Roll a 1" ball of black Cernit.
Then roll that in to a chubby teardrop.

2. Flatten the rounded end with your thumb and forefinger just a little. Do not smash, just flatten a little.
You want it to look puffy when you are done. I take that back, I like it to look puffy when I am done. You can have your heart anyway you want.
We are going to flatten this a bit with the stamp so it is best to leave it more puffy. No worries though, you can always smash it up and try again.

3. I am using a knitting needle here to make the indentation in the top part of the heart, I hold the pointed part of the heart and roll the knitting needle point from the front to the back. I then with my fingers adjust the lobes of the heart until I like them.





4. With the needle tool you are going to "drill" it in to the bottom of the heart and keep "drilling" until it comes out in between the lobes in the top of the heart. Drilling by rolling the needle tool back and forth between your finger and thumb keeps the needle from sticking.

5. "Drill" the needle tool out of the heart and flip the heart from end to end and place the point of the needle tool in to the hole in between the lobes of the heart and "drill" it to the other end of the heart. Leave the heart on the needle tool like this.

6. Lay the heart on one of the stamps and place the other stamp on the top of the heart.

7. Press the stamp down around the heart gently but firmly.You can even go around the edges a little.
You can even use the palm of your hand to press gently.

8. Pull the stamp off and check it out. If it is not deep enough you may have to do it over again. Roll the heart into a ball again and start from the beginning.

Here is a picture of the other side.

9. Place a very small(very small) amount of Pearl-ex powder on the plate. Some times I just take it out of the lid.
I place my finger in the powder and then rub it on the plate to get rid of clumps and smooth the powder on the end of my finger.
10. Rub the powder in to the heart gently. For the multicolored heart I just add little patches of this color to the heart. I used Interference blue, Interference red, Interference gold, interference violet and interference green. I use a circular motion to apply the powder. I also go over one area and keep rubbing gently to force the powder into the surface of the clay.

11. Keep adding the colors until the heart is covered front and back.

12. Get a small glass bead  and cut a small piece of wire about 1" long and thread the bead on the wire.

13. Place the bead in the middle of the wire and twist the ends together, tight to the bead.

14. With the wire cutters cut off the ends of the wire leaving a 1/2" tail.

15. Bend the twisted wire in to a little hook.

16. Insert the twisted end in to the clay heart. I put mine on the  left hand side of the heart. I leave the heart on the needle tool to make sure I do not put it in to the hole that runs vertically through the heart.
Bake the heart in a preheated 275 degree F. oven for 1/2 hour, shut off the oven and let cool inside until you  cam touch it. All of my baking instructions are for an electric home oven, not a toaster oven.

17. With a flexible silicone texture plate, I lay the heart on the needle tool on top of one side of the texture plate.

18. Fold the other half of the texture plate over the heart and press the texture plate together. You can even do this between your palms.

19. With corrugated cardboard pieces lay one of the pieces of the cardboard down, place the heart on the needle tool on top of the cardboard the way you want the lines to impress. Place the other cardboard over the top of the heart and press them together gently and firmly. Peel them off, tah-dah.

20. Now, with a piece of cotton lace, lay the lace down, place the heart on top of the lace with the needle tool still in it.

21. Place the other end of the lace over the heart and press the lace in to the heart on both sides.

22. With something this flexible you can press it easily around the sides too!

And the winners for the 15th giveaway are...

Well, after cutting all of the responses up and making sure everyone got their total amount of entries and reading through all of the entries again, and folding them very small, I then put them all in a bowl and picked out three. 

The first winner is Annette (Nettie) and she wins the first angel.

The second winner is Carmen and she wins the second angel

And the third winner is Vanessa and she wins the third angel

I enjoyed this so much, you are all angels yourselves.

Please take care of you.

The winners have till Monday the 13th to get in touch with me and get me their addresses.

Marie(at)mariesegal(dot)com

Congratulations!

I am going to do this again, I had a great time, and you are welcome to share your words of wisdom with me anytime.

Have a great weekend my pretties!