Sunday, March 13, 2011

Pinkalicious!

Someone's been awfully happy with Mommy's pink food experiments. And they are "experiments". See below. 
Decided most of the food for the party should be pink, so I practiced making cupcakes. 
The strawberry cupcakes were pretty good.
But the icing....needs some work. It didn't tower high as I anticipated, LOL. Not sure what I am gonna do next, but it won't be this! The pashmak idea is out because the only supplier that sells it in US, has a very high minimum order. I have no need for 8 bags of pashmak. So maybe flowers on top? We'll see.

The next pink food I made this week:
Pink Popcorn. Mix melted white chocolate and food coloring poured over popcorn. Okay. Super easy, right? I thought this would be a fun and simple thing to try. It was a rainy day so a good yummy treat and a movie was exactly what we needed. Well there must be some trick to melting chocolate. The recipe said to melt in a double boiler (which I do not have) or just microwave 30 seconds at a time and stir after each time. The first time I did a couple extra seconds and got this:
It's the strangest thing. First it gets all liquid-y, then all of a sudden it's a brick. I don't get it.
The 2nd time I got it just right....and then thought, oh, let's just get it a little more melted so I can easily pour it. Again, it was too much. This time it didn't totally harden. Instead it was somewhat melted and the rest were big, sticky, gooey clumps. Seriously, it was such a mess. I had to take my finger and push it on to the corn to make it stick and then pry the gluish goop off my fingers. 
I managed to make enough for one popcorn bag for Ruby (which we shared). I have to say it tasted pretty yummy. The perfect sweet/salty combo. But worth the effort? Not sure. May try this one more time and decide. And get me a double boiler to do it.

In the meantime, I am still working on the cake.
I mixed colors so I'd have enough so don't mind the odd color combo. For the party I'll order the pink and white fondant, but I wanted to make sure I could work with it b4 ordering the big tubs. I found it pretty easy. Read some tips online and I need to smooth it out a bit more next time and I need a bigger piece for the bottom. But I think the next one (the one for the party) is gonna turn out alright. I had some little helpers making the cake part...
Ruby's BFF was here last week for a whole day and we had a lot of fun. Yes, I cheated with a box cake cause I knew we'd never eat it all. The next one will be from scratch though!

Found this sweet little fairy online to sit on or next to the cake.
Isn't she cute? I ordered her with a pink dress. I just love the artist, Nuria, who makes these. Such a lovely person. Did my custom fairy in like 2 days and got it the next day. It came wrapped in gorgeous multi-colored pastel paper with potpouri sprinkled on top. Such a nice touch! Check out:

Update! Tried the pink popcorn again today (Sat) and it turned out a bit better. You have to heat the chocolate at 50% and I wasn't doing that. Ah-HA! 

Next up...gonna attempt those pink marshmallows. Wish me luck!

7 comments:

Jessica said...

This is my kind of experimenting!

How about pink lemonade cupcakes with pink frosting and strawberries on top? They're delicious and very pink.

I don't have a double boiler either, I always just boil water in a big saucepan and stack my smaller saucepan into it so that it sits just on top of the boiling water. You can melt more chocolate that way than in the microwave. I also like the chocolate melts better for microwaving. They're smoother. You can also keep microwaved chocolate smooth and shiny by adding the tiniest dollop of shortening. Sounds gross but it works.

Can't wait to hear about the marshmallows!

c & b said...

If you add a little bit of heavy cream or half and half into your white chocolate mixture it should help it to not clump -the extra fat helps it be more like a ganache. It also means it will melt more easily on hands, do you care?

Do you guys like cream cheese frosting? There's strawberry cream cheese available that you can add powdered sugar to sweeten it up plus a touch of vanilla to give it depth. We love cream cheese frosting, and it holds its shape up well.

Everything looks delish, wish we could join you taste sampling.
christina

Maci Miller said...

Thanks for all the tips, girls! I'll try 'em!

Mireille said...

That's what I do, a glass bowl with the chocolate over a pan with hot water on the stove, bowl just above the water level and stir, easy to melt.

Looks great Jen!! It will be a fab party for sure! My girls are turning 9 on April 27th and they want a disco foam party...

Maci Miller said...

Thanks, Mireille. Gonna try that this week...along with those marshmallows. Fingers crossed I don't make a gastly mess! :-)

Disco foam party? Sounds like a blast!

Maci Miller said...

Thanks, Mireille. Gonna try that this week...along with those marshmallows. Fingers crossed I don't make a gastly mess! :-)

Disco foam party? Sounds like a blast!

Pink Velvet Mommy said...

love the cupcake wrappers and that fairy is to die for...can't wait to see yours!! I will have to favorite her.

Darling is what this party will be....I am writing down ideas daily and noting yours too!! Can't wait to order my tutu's

We LOVED seeing you guys. Oh how I wish we lived closer. Ruby is just a gem just as I knew she would be, and her mama is pretty special too.

Hugs to you guys and thanks for coming and spending the day with us!