Sugar Hoot

2010-07-15T18:00:00.000-04:00

Now that I have graduated pastry school, I have decided to open my own shop. My mother and I have started a designer cake and sweet treats bake shop in New Milford, CT. Its called Sugar Hoot (imagine that)!

We have cupcakes, cookies, and cakes in our cases and you can order any specialty cake you can dream up. We officially opened on July 2nd, 2010. We have added more variety in the cases already.

This is our seating area with a counter looking out the big front window.

I designed the shop and the logo myself and had a blast doing it. It is located in the quaint town center and has original tin ceilings, a brick wall, and an open kitchen. We bake everything on the premises from scratch with real ingredients. Stop by and check us out or visit my new website and blog at www.sugarhoot.com.

Final Showpiece

2010-07-13T01:24:00.002-04:00

I was hesitant to post this one... but then I thought "I have to, it was my final project." We had to create a showpiece that displayed three items we baked and the theme was video games. I choose Bubble Bobble, an old school original Nintendo game. One of my all time favorites, that almost no one else remembers. The gist of the game is that two little dinos trap the bad guys in the bubbles they shoot. Notice the bad guy trapped in a bubble in the upper left corner.

My baked goods displayed on the stand were: a lemon chiffon cake (yes with basket weave buttercream, which is far from my favorite decorating technique, and barely visible in this not-so-great photo), Branchli (a chocolate log candy), and madeleines (small yummy cake-like cookies). My piece is made out of poured sugar with sugar paste accents.

It was a hot humid day when we were assembling the final projects. This made the sugar not want to dry; everything was sticky! The shelves that held my food fell a few times, but I was able to make it work with the help of my trusty table-sharing partner :)

I say I was hesitant to post this project because I feel that I could have done better. I think all the bubble should have all been clear (no funky dark green in the center). And I think I could have done more with the 3D bubbles; they made all the differnece. Plus if it were not so humid and sticky the clear sugar would look much more clear. But enough complaining, all and all it held up to the walk down the hall (you know like in the food network challenges where they need to move their cakes, hehe) and the judges seemed to like it. And that is how I finished my time at FCI.

A Tim Burton Wedding

2010-06-06T23:59:00.009-04:00

An imaginary couple was making their wedding plans and decided to have a Tim Burton themed reception. They met in line for the Sweeney Todd movie, so they thought it seemed only fitting. I had free reign to create the wedding cake with my only direction being that it be Tim Burton themed. A few weeks before beginning the cake I visited the Tim Burton exhibit at the MOMA in NYC. The first room of the exhibit was a black light room with a really big carousel/mobile full of creepy monsters with a Tim Burton flair that glowed in the dark. That was my favorite part of the exhibit so that is what inspired my cake.

Both the bride and groom were going to wear top hats on the wedding day, so I topped the cake with two abstract figures with top hats. The left one represents the groom and the right, the bride. The groom had pulled sugar wings coming out of his head just because :) The white stands are spun sugar. This was my first time trying that technique and I really liked it.

The snake around the bottom was inspired by the sandworms from Beetlejuice. The pink tongue monster was my favorite.

I tried to keep the colors really bright to be as "glow in the dark" looking as possible.

Just showing off all my monsters.

Spring Love

2010-05-21T08:00:00.000-04:00

These adorable little chipmunks are peaking over a log and peering into each others eyes. Our theme was spring so we decided to capture a moment in the woods with love in the air.

This is our first sugar project and we made our showpieces in groups of four. The base is poured sugar, the tree log and the flowers and bugs are pulled sugar, and the two chipmunks are blown sugar. It was really fun learning about sugar, but boy oh boy is it HOT. The pulled sugar gets cooked to 165 degrees Celsius!! My poor little fingers.

I had to add a chipmunk close up because his face is so darn cute. The girl even has a bow on her ear. Sorry about the not so great pictures lately, it is hard to take a decent photo in the kitchens.

Playing with Sugar

2010-05-20T08:00:00.000-04:00

I made a giraffe :)
Well an abstract one anyway.

I'm the Baby, Gotta Love Me

2010-05-18T22:20:00.005-04:00

Anyone remember the Sinclair family? In class we needed to make a chocolate showpiece and our theme was monsters and/or creatures. I decided to hop in my time machine and bring back Dinosaurs... the TV show. I'm considering Baby Sinclair a creature.

I chose to capture the Baby with one of his catch phrases, "Not the Mama!" Remember when he would hit Daddy Earl over the head with a frying pan; well the frying pan was to heaving for my chocolate creature to hold in our too hot kitchen, so I made it a large spoon. The Baby is made of a mixture of white and milk chocolate, his base is dark chocolate, his bottle is white chocolate, and the details are modeling chocolate (such as his face, hands, and spoon).

Chocolate can be frustrating to work with, but hopefully I will get better with more practice.

Meet George Jetson...

2010-04-11T21:59:00.007-04:00

...his boy Elroy, daughter Judy, Jane his wife...

This cake is supposed to be the Skypad Apartment Building where the Jestons live with the family below in their awesome flying car. The stand is made out of pastillage, a sugar-based dough that hardens very strong. The base, columns, parking garage, family car, logo, and top decorations are made of the pastillage. The cake itself is covered in fondant. I also made 4 small favor boxes to go with the theme (that was part of the project). These might have small candies in them at an event, where there would be one for each guest.

I was happy with the cake in the end. My theme was obvious and I liked the colors I achieved. I learned that the top layer of the pastillage dries very fast making it a little hard to work with. But it needs a lot of drying time to dry all the way through to the middle, especially for thicker pieces or supporting peices. If I had a little more time it may have been a little neater and had a few more details, but I like it :)

French Culinary Institute

2010-03-01T19:32:00.001-05:00

I know I have not posted in a while. I have decided to take my baking to a new level by attending the French Culinary Institute in NYC, and it has been keeping me rather busy. I began in November of 2009 and I should graduate (fingers crossed) in May 2010.

We started with tarts, then pate a choux (eclairs, cream puffs, etc), puff pasty, breads, petits fours, and now cake! I didn't post any of the beginning pastries because they didn't really fit with the blog, but now we are getting to more visual desserts. This is one of my cake tests. Its a 6" four layer ladyfingers cake, filled with apricot Bavarian cream, frosted in vanilla butter cream, covered in fondant, and of course decorated. We had to choose an occasion to make a cake for, I picked Mother's Day. These are cell phone pictures, so they leave something to be desired, but I am showing you the front and back.

Hopefully I will have more to share soon.

Giraffe Cupcake Stand

2010-02-25T18:55:00.004-05:00

I actually made this cupcake stand back in September for my awesome friend Katy. It's her baby shower "cake." The theme of the event was baby animals, giraffes, lions, elephants, etc. She loves giraffes.

I decided to try cupcakes for something a little different. I constructed the stand myself, which ended up being kinda of a challenge. But in the end it worked out and stood up nicely and pretty sturdily. The top tier of the stand is a 6" cake complete with the mommy and baby giraffe that were on the invitations.

The baking of the cupcakes was a little troublesome because I baked them in my mom's oven (she has a convection oven, and I do not). Even though they didn't look as perfect as I wanted them to, they were super yummy. They were vanilla cake filled with whip cream and topped with banana coconut frosting. Tip for next time: double up on the cupcake liners, or find thicker ones. That part could look much cuter.

Classic Winnie the Pooh

2009-09-07T20:52:00.011-04:00

This cake is classic Pooh themed and was made for a baby shower. My boss is having a baby girl and her bedding is classic Pooh so I thought that would be perfect for the baby shower cake. I was inspired by a SweetTcakes cake posted on cakecentral.com. Here is the link, but you will only be able to see it if you want to log in.

I think my fondant skills are getting better; the seams fit together nicely without needing a border to cover them up. Overall the cake was pretty simple looking, but I thought it captured the classic Pooh feel well.

Triathlon Cake

2009-08-07T16:26:00.006-04:00

This topsy turvy cake is for a 40th birthday party. The birthday girl just finished a sprint triathlon so that was the theme for the cake. Each tier represented a different event of the triathlon, swimming, biking, and running. I put little signs marking the distance of each to show how much she accomplished. My pictures of this one are not very good, but the cake was fun so I wanted to post it anyway. Enjoy!

ZipLine Cake

2009-08-06T08:45:00.005-04:00

You are probably wondering what a ZipLine is. I work at a sign hanging hardware company, we create unique products to display commercial graphics. Next time you are in Kohl's or the Gap look around, the "stuff" holding up their signs is what we create and sell. This cake was for one of our product designers 10 year anniversary with our company. He has invented the ZipLine, but it has given him much grief in doing so. For such a small product it has probably become his most annoying project.

This is the real ZipLine. You are supposed to press the grey button and pull the hook to release the cable to the length you desire. Then snap the top "bulkier" part to a grid ceiling and attach the hook to a sign. It is called a ZipLine becuase it the cable is supposed to "zip" back into itself similar to a tape measure.

Gloworm

2009-05-03T22:06:00.007-04:00

This cake was for a first birthday. Remember Gloworms; well Playskool is still making the cute light up, melody playing creatures that premiered in the early 80s. The birthday boy is a big fan, its his favorite toy. So this cake's theme was his Gloworm. The top tier was vanilla and the bottom tier was chocolate, both filled with butter cream. The Gloworm itself is made of rice crispy treats covered in fondant. He was a heavy little guy.

In addition to the main cake, a small cake exclusively for the birthday boy was requested. It was simply iced in buttercream and written on. Nothing too fancy, but hopefully messy enough to have caused adorable pictures.

Diaper Bag

2009-04-15T09:26:00.002-04:00

This cake was for a baby shower, I decided to make a diaper bag cake to try something different. It needed to feed 50 people, so it was two 9" x 13" tiers, the bottom tier was vanilla and the top was chocolate. There was also a top layer of rice crispy treats to shape the bag.

I was very happy with the cake in the end. If I had had more time I would have filled the side pockets with baby items, like bottles and diapers, but this cake was done all in one night. It is not that I did not have to time make the items (I would have stayed up all night), but the pockets were not dry enough to put things in and I didn't want them falling off because of too much extra weight. I almost put real preemie diapers in the pockets, but I wasn't sure I liked the idea that they were not edible.

Adult Swin

2009-02-09T13:25:00.005-05:00

This is a small 6" cake. In case you don't recognize the characters, it is the Aqua Teen Hunger Force crew. This cake is my take on tiramisu, but in a form that could be decorated. I filled the cake like I would have filled cupcakes; squeezing the filling into the cake itself instead of torting the cake and filling it that way. It was a little messy, but tasted yummy. I made cupcakes out of the extra batter, filling, and glaze so I could try it too.

FryLock was very close to Shake before the cake traveled in my car for an hour. I was hoping the popsicle stick would not show, but hey that's what Boston potholes will do to a cake.

1st Birthday Party

2009-01-20T17:00:00.002-05:00

This cake was for a one year old's birthday party, her name is Eva. It is french vanilla cake with raspberry filling and butter cream icing, covered in fondant and decorated with fondant and gum paste details. It was made to match the invitations for the party.

The woman I made this cake for liked it very much! She thanked me in an email and said, "I adored the design... And the taste was outstanding!... All around, it was a smashing success." I was thrilled by her comments!

Oh Yeah!

2009-01-20T08:00:00.001-05:00

This cake is, of course, a Family Guy cake. It was for a 30th Birthday party for a guy who loves the show. For those of you not familiar with the show this is a scene from the very first episode. Near the end of the show Peter, the father in the cartoon, is about to go to jail. It pans to the whole family, pictured on the 1st tier, where they each say "Oh No!" Then the Kool-Aid man breaks though the wall of the court house and shouts "Oh Yeah!" like he always did in the old Kool-Aid commercials.

This cake gave me an opportunity to use my new airbrush set. All the characters, including the Kool-Aid man, were airbrushed. The fondant covering both tiers was also airbrushed. That is one awesome tool!

Girl's Night Out

2009-01-19T10:59:00.002-05:00

This cake is for a bachelorette party. The wedding is on Valentine's Day and the colors are red, pink and black, so I tried to carry that theme to the cake but with a little more fun than class. This is my first topsy-turvy cake, I thought the style would work nicely for a bachelorette party. The martini glass on top proved to be harder than I thought. It took 2 tries to get it right. In the end, I really liked the cake and so did the bridesmaids who picked it up!

Happy Birthday Aunt Sally

2008-12-31T13:56:00.003-05:00

This cake was made for my Aunt Sally for her birthday. I wanted to make her something fun. I always send her pictures of my cakes but this is the first one she got to enjoy in person. I decided to make her a slot machine cake. She enjoys going to the casino every now and then and I just thought it would really different.

The cake was vanilla with a hint of lime filled with raspberry mousse and topped with mojito frosting. It was nice and light and very flavorful. The cake was covered and decorated in fondant. I had a lot of fun making this one!

Christmas Cake

2008-12-31T12:19:00.007-05:00

Guess what I got for Christmas? Yes a Build a Bear cake pan! I was so excited. I was supposed to bring home a red velvet cake to my house in CT for my family to enjoy for Christmas dessert. I thought a bear cake would be sooo cute! So I made the batter and filled the pans with the amount the directions told me, then I put it in the oven. Within the first 10 minutes it was already overflowing, not a good sign. So I watched it vigilantly for the entire time it was baking to prevent my smoke alarms from going off. When it was finally done I let it cool and tried to remove it from the pan. I could not. I tried for a good half hour being as careful as I could to remove the cake from the pan. Then I had had enough, I shoved a butter knife right in and ripped the cakes out. Of course I broke the bear. He was decapitated and had no feet by the time he was out.

I had failed to make a Bear cake to bring home. Not wanting to waste all that cake or really having the time to start again, I decided to make the best of it. I tried Bakeralla's cake balls. I made up a batch of cream cheese frosting and mixed it with the crumbled cake. I rolled the cake mixture into small sized balls, then dipped them in chocolate (I added paraffin to the chocolate to make it more silky smooth and easier to work with) and let them set in the fridge. They were delicious and, although totally different than what I set out to make, they were a hit at home.

Murder Mystery Cake

2008-12-22T12:43:00.005-05:00

Just sharing my latest creation. This is a yellow cake with butter cream filling and frosting covered in fondant and decorated with gum paste figures. It is supposed to be a 1920s speakeasy, where the murder takes place. Notice the red flapper girl has a knife, the sitting Zoot suit guy has a Tommy Gun, and the standing Fedora wearing guy has a hand gun... duh duh dun.

I got a little carried away and painted some of the setting on fondant.

Here is a close up of the gangsters! This was a really fun cake to make; there were a lot of details. It was for my friend Steve, so he came over and helped me with the figures and kept me company.

Thanks Steve!

Manolo Princess

2008-12-10T14:24:00.003-05:00

This yummy treat is for a small gathering, it is only a 6" cake. The birthday girl fancies expensive shoes and has the self-proclaimed nickname "princess." What would be more suited for her than a sparkly Manolo Blahnik on a pillow, kind of Cinderella-esque. The due date for the cake got moved around a few times, so I was a bit tight on time. But in the end, it all worked out and the cake got rave reviews.

Sweet sweet caramel

2008-11-29T21:00:00.002-05:00

November's Daring Bakers challenge was a caramel cake with caramel icing. Dolores from Culinary Curiosity, Alex (Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo), and Jenny of Foray into Food were the hosts this month. They recruited the help of Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go for alternative baking options (I just stuck with the original). The recipe they chose is by Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater, and you can find the recipe at Bay Area Bites.

This recipe had quite a few steps and I crammed it all into one night (where I also went grocery shopping and out to dinner). The first thing that I had to make was a caramel syrup. The recipe warns you to wear long sleeves and have ice water ready just in case. I was a little nervous going into the syrup stage. I got my sugar cooking on the stove over high heat, it takes a little longer that I would have thought to start to turn to an amber color. But once it finally did, I got my arms all covered up and my water ready that would halt the caramelization. When I poured the water into my sugar pot it practically exploded! Luckily I had been warned and was ready to step back. It was a pretty awesome reaction actually. But boy oh boy could it have hurt if I wasn't ready for it. After the crazy splattering subsided, I simply had to whisk the syrup a bit.

The cake recipe was pretty straight forward and un-lifethreatening after the syrup. The one thing I think I could have been more patent about though, is adding the syrup to the cake recipe. I should have waited until it was room temp as the recipe stated; I waited only until it was still slightly warmer. I think that is why the batter was separating a bit when I scooped it into the cupcake pans. But they seemed to bake just fine despite my impatience.

Then came the icing. I was supposed to brown the butter, but I don't think I browned it nearly enough. I should have left it in the pan longer but I was afraid of it burning. I didn't even have to strain it because I had no burnt flakes to strain. If I make this recipe again, I'd be sure to do the butter steps better.

In the end, despite any mistakes, the cupcakes were delicious and very moist! The icing was very sweet but in small does tasted great. I topped my cupcakes with just a simple pearl and brought them to work for my co-workers to enjoy.

Autumn Cake

2008-11-21T09:23:00.004-05:00

This cake is for a vegetarian crowd. It is chocolate cake filled with raspberry mousse, iced with butter cream and then covered in Wilton fondant. It took a some thought to figure out how to make it fit the dietary requirements. I could not use eggs, so I substituted pureed apricots in the cake. When baked, it was more dense and a bit less moist than my recipe with eggs, but still tasty. I also could not use gelatin for my mousse, so I used a sea vegetable called Agar-Agar. I found this at Whole Foods and it was not cheap. But it did make my raspberry mousse turn out quite well. It had a nice light and tart taste that I think will balance out the dense cake well. The butter cream was easy, I did not have to alter that recipe.

Then I came time to decorate. I usually make my fondant because it is much less costly and not that difficult. But the recipe I use has marshmallows in it. Marshmallows contain gelatin which is a no no. To my surprise and delight, Wilton Fondant does not list gelatin as an ingredient. I did some internet research and am satisfied that they use corn products, not animal products in their fondant. I even found a vegan cooking forum called Post Puck Kitchen that has contacted Wilton about this question. So I used Wilton for all my decorations on this cake.

Yay fall! Too bad I think it is supposed to snow this weekend :(

Baby Bum

2008-11-19T13:43:00.003-05:00

This is a cake I made a little while ago and just forgot to post. My only picture of it is actually in my refrigerator (I am a little scatter-brained sometimes)! The cake was for a good friend of mine who was throwing a baby shower. I have made about 4 baby bum cakes now, everyone seems to find then very cute and silly. I got my inspiration from many people that have posted on Cake Central, I was certainly not the genius that came up with the idea.

Other people have used Rice Crispy treats to make the bottom, but I used half of a Winton ball pan. I like the idea that its all cake and its really easy to bake with the rest of the cake instead of making something else entirely (not that Rice Crispy treats are exactly difficult).

I really like my teddy! When I was making him I was worried becuase my fondant wasn't the best texture I have ever made. But in the end, his droopy look turned out adorbale in my opinion.

Big hair & side pony tails

2008-11-18T10:01:00.003-05:00

This past weekend it was my roomie's birthday so we rented an 80s themed party bus to take us and 32 of our closest friends around Boston. It was a blast!

Jules and I collaborated again for a cake for the birthday girl. Jules made the cake and most of the decorations. She did a rad job on the 80s paint splatter and the tubular props. There is a PBR beer bottle (the bDay girls favorite beer), the St. Louis Arch (she is from MO), a Frisbee with her old Ultimate team symbol on it, a law book because she is in law school, a skate board, and lastly a super fun 25 (of course, her age). I added the topper: the birthday girl playing the guitar. Her head and hands are a little fat, but overall it came out well. I used the same tutorial I used for my Obama cake. It is really helpful, I would definitley reccomend it. This was areally fun cake to be a part of. Thanks Jules!

Purse x2

2008-11-11T13:48:00.005-05:00

My last, and first, purse cake got me an opportunity to make another purse cake. This time it is Coach instead of Louis Vuitton. You can see the Coach Soho Signature Satchel that was tying to replicate here. I need to figure out how to make fondant/gumpaste shiny. It is a chocolate cake with butter cream filling and icing covered in fondant with details in gumpaste.

My super fantastic friend Julie helped me out with this cake. I had a limited amount of time to create the cake and without her I don't think it would have been on time. Jules likes to be in the kitchen as well, this is her blog: mycookingadventure.blogspot.com. She gave me the idea to make a C stamp out of potato for the signature material of the purse. It worked well with the pearl dust. I had to fill in the uneveness with a paint brush, but that wasn't hard at all once I had a good outline. My Cs were a bit oversized, but I think you still get the desire effect.

Ducky Baby Shower

2008-11-10T17:29:00.002-05:00

This cake has a chocolate layer and a vanilla layer, it is filled and iced with butter cream. The woman having the baby wants to be surprised, so I kept the colors yellow and green. It is more of a baby bath than a shower, with lots of bubbles and a little rubber ducky. There are even little pearls on the cake. I brought this one to work and it got very good reviews from the crowd.

LV Purse

2008-11-07T17:27:00.004-05:00

Just sharing my latest creation. Its white and yellow cake filled and frosted with butter cream and decorated with fondant. I hand painted all the symbols with pearl dust mixed with Vodka. I was pretty pleased with the outcome... but I did put the handles on upside-down, oops (no one will know if I don't tell them, lol).

Eat for Obama

2008-10-23T10:47:00.006-04:00

Although I usually have a "don't talk about politics with people you don't really know" policy, I thought this time it was OK because it's just sugar and it is for a friend. My roommate goes to law school and she is the VP of the Democratic Club. They were having a bake sale and asked me to help out. I made them this two tier chocolate cake with butter cream filling to raffle off. And yes, that is supposed to be Obama on top. This was my first try at a sugar paste person, but I think he turned out very well. I actually got a figure tutorial from The Icing on the Cake, it was very helpful and had some great tips. The cake was a big hit and the club said it really helped their bake sale turn a profit.

I also made all the tags for their baked goods. On the back of all of them they say fun things like "yummy," "mmmm," and "tasty."

The Begining

2008-09-03T23:37:00.011-04:00

Hello and welcome to Sugar Hoot. Since this is my first entry I feel like I should share a little about myself. I have a long list of things I want to do, jobs I want to have, hobbies I want to take up, etc. For example: Becoming an aerobics instructor was on that list. So, I took some classes, bought some books, studied quite a bit, and passed the certification exam. Then I taught at two different gyms for a few years. It was very fun and a check off my list. (Then I went to Italy for 4 months, let my certification lapse, and haven't renewed it since, but that is a whole different topic, lol.) Other things on the list range from teaching 7th grade math to photography to white water rafting in the Colorado River...

Anyway, the point is I have a lot of random things on the list. One of which is to open my own bakery and until last Christmas I thought that was mostly a pipe dream. But, as a gift, two of my friends got me a bunch of cake stuff and a gift card for Wilton cake classes at my local Michael's. I took the first set of classes and really loved them so I continued on and also took the next 2 sets of classes. By the time I had completed them I was hooked. I began using every occasion as an excuse to make another cake; the funkier the design the better. Now I have been trying to teach myself new techniques and test new recipes on my own. The more I bake the more I think I could really do this.

Sugar Hoot is going to be my way of sharing my baking adventures. Join me as I explore the delicious world of confections and see where it takes me.