My Absence!

Hey Everyone,
    I apologize for my absence for what....3 + months. LOL. There has been a lot going on. Let's just put it this way, moving half way across the country. Ya know it doesn't take much to do that at all...living in hotels and luggage, trying to find a place to live, finding a place to live and having to sleep on air mattresses for a bit, waiting for what seems like forever for your household goods to come, unpacking as fast as possible to get ready to make a wedding cake, getting the children registered for school, buying clothes, adjusting to the new area, husband deploying and in the middle of it all, driving 5 hours away to make,  did I already mention a wedding cake. Phew!! I am tired all over again.
  I hope to have another tutorial posted by the end of the week, and if I am feeling real ambitious, I will have some expanded suggestions on the sequins.



Until next time..
peace, love and scratch baking!!

My first tutorial....Gelatin Sequins

 I have found that you can do so much with gelatin, from the gelatin flowers to gelatin bubbles. I take no credit for coming with the ideas that I mentioned before. Those ideas give birth to what I did. If you want to know how to do the gelatin bubbles you will find the info here and for info on gelatin flowers here and supplies  here .
  I had no idea that the cake that I did for the North Texas Sugar Art Cake Show would get so much response. I am overwhelmed and humbled by the many positive responses and comments when I posted it to CC (Cake Central). Well as I gave my word that I would post a tutorial and here it is. I apologize that it took so long but I didn't realize that photography was so difficult. Yeah you can tell I am not a photographer but I have done my best. I didn't post it on CC because of the glitches with posting pictures. So without further ado I present to you my first tutorial: Gelatin Sequins



The finished cake





closeup of  the sequins



The supplies that you need:

• unflavored gelatin
• water
• airbrush color
• measuring spoons
• small spatula
• 2 hole punchers :1- 1/16 round hole and  1- regular size individual hole punch
• toothpick
• acetate sheet (or something that won't melt or bow from the heat of the gelatin) Hint: the backing sheet from your edible images is perfect for this job.                                      
• microwave safe container

The gelatin to water ratio is 2 parts water to 1 part gelatin. Here I used Knox gelatin and it measured 2 teaspoons of gelatin for each packet, so I used 4 teaspoons of water. For each color that I used for the cake, I used 3 packets of gelatin.

Bloomed Gelatin

I took the water and gelatin and mixed it together and let it bloom. Blooming is where the gelatin gets really thick and you can't pour it out of the cup even if you tried. LOL.

Hint: Put the water in the cup first and then add the gelatin. If you don't you will end up with dry bits of gelatin at the bottom of the cup .

It doesn't take very long, less than 5 minutes. After it blooms put it in the microwave for approximately 30 seconds. This depends on the wattage of your microwave. Be sure to watch it, especially if you are using a small cup like I did. You don't want to have to clean up gelatin off of your microwave turntable, and the outside of the cup where it             overflowed. Take it from experience, it's a mess. But if you do clean it with hot water!!                                

After it comes from the microwave it will have foam on the top of the gelatin.

 You are going to let it sit until the foam is thick enough for you to skim it off of the top. Here is where the toothpick comes in (if you don't want to use a toothpick use a disposable spoon). You are going to take your toothpick and pull off the foamy white gunk off of the top and throw it in the trash. Once you do that your gelatin will be clarified.

The gunky foamy stuff! Yuck

Gelatin has a natural yellow tint so it won't be completely clear. 

Once you have done the previous step you are going to add your choice of color. I used airbrush color because of it is liquid characteristics. It blends better into the gelatin. Paste color can be used but it takes a lot more effort to get the color incorporated. Use less color for more transparency and more if you want it more opaque. 

  

Stir in your color with a toothpick. After that put your gelatin back in the microwave for no more than 30 seconds. Again watch it to ensure that you don't have any boil overs. 

Hints: Stir your color in gently so that you won't incorporate air bubbles. Also for darker colors it takes more, especially black.

After it comes out of the microwave immediately pour it out on your acetate sheet (or clear plastic sheet) and use your spatula to spread it out.

Hint: You DO NOT have to put any shortning on the plastic.

Don't spend too much time spreading it out because it sets up in less than 2 min

 You don't want it too thin (it will be too flimsy to punch out) and you don't want it too thick ( it will crack when you punch it out. . IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE PERFECTLY EVEN!!! You will notice that it will become ripply but that is ok.

Once you spread it it will become like the consistency of a gummy bear. You will notice that if you touch it, it's cool. Don't ask me what is happening...all I know is it's probably some chemical reaction. Set it aside and it usually takes about 5-6 hrs to dry but that depends on your humidity. As it dries it pulls away from the acetate.

You can see on the left upper corner where it's pulling away.



If it is like the green it's too thick!! You are going to want it flexible like a piece of paper, well not that thin, closer to card stock





This is why you need a lot of black ! It looks black on the picture but it was more purple.



When it is dry it will pull away from the sheet. Again it's going to be ripply but most of the sequins won't show it, and those that do, chunk them in the circular file or keep them for those cut to fit spaces. Now on to the..........

 Secret

Here is the secret to it all...the hole punchers!!!! I purchased a 1/16 in round hole puncher a while ago for another project and God showed me to use this for the center of the sequins.

1/16 circular hole puncher

This is a "regular" size hole puncher

The hole punchers can be found at Michael's or Hobby Lobby. The ones that are shown in the picture I found at Michael's in the scrap booking section. Although the 1/16 was found at Michael's the "regular" hole puncher can be found at almost any store. They are around $6 but if you use your 40% coupon it saves you some money. Sorry I had to throw that in there, it's always good to save some money!

Warning: This is the most difficult part.....I mean time consuming part of the process.

What you are going to do is take your small hole puncher and punch a series of holes in a line leaving a space between each small hole so that when you go back to use your "regular" sized puncher you won't overlap wasting your punches.

Once you have done your small punches go back and center the small hole against your "regular" sized single hole puncher....

 The last step is to open you catch and dump your sequins out.

 

 Wallah!! Now you have edible sequins!! 

It's not difficult but it is time consuming.

This is my first tutorial, so if I have inadvertently forgotten something or if you have any questions please feel free to post in the comment section and I will do my best to answer your questions.

Feel free to re post the information but just link it back to me ok!!Thanks

It's Official..... I am a Blogger

I have been thinking, and thinking for quite some time should I start a blog. I know I like to talk but would it translate well into blogging. Do I really know what I am doing? Would anybody follow? What do I have to offer? Well many moons later and a cake competition prompting  (more about that in the next post) here I am. 


Welcome to my blog. As the title says I am a scratch baker. I  strongly like all (at least most) things from scratch including making pinatas. For those of you who know me well. This is going to be a blog mostly about baking, especially from scratch and my adventures of doing it. I will have some tutorials on cake decorating but that's it for now!! Let the adventure begin.