The Beginning

I have started my Personal Growth Project. For this month's cake I am doing Pumpkin Mini Cakes. They are in the shape of pumpkins! This Sunday I practiced carving cake into a pumpkin. I had to bake the cake in a cookie sheet. Then I had to cut circles out of that cake. I then stacked up the cake. The icing that I used was cream cheese so it was runnier than I would have liked. The pieces of cake kept sliding around! From that experience I learned that I needed to use a stiffer icing. I carved the cake into balls and then cut indents in to give it the bumpy shape. Overall for my first time carving cakes I believe that I did a pretty good job! Today I am making some little Ice Cream Cupcakes. I did not plan on making these cupcakes for my project, but I figured it would be good practice for making the icing. The icing that I will be using throughout the year is different than the recipe I normally use. This recipe was the real Buttercream (made with meringue.) I had some trouble heating up the egg whites and sugar because I didn't have bowls and pots that were the right side. I ended up holding the bowl of egg whites and sugar over a huge pot of boiling water. That resulted in the mixture not heating very well. I was worried that the meringue would not come together, but surprising it started fluffing up while it was being whipped. I was so happy so I continued on and added the butter. The butter started deflating the meringue and by the time all the butter was incorporated the mixture was really runny. I started freaking out, but continued on and added the vanilla. A crazy thing happened then, the icing turned all granulated and gross then suddenly changed thick and fluffy like it was supposed to! I am so proud that on my first attempt, at this much harder recipe, was a success! I had to freeze the icing so I could scoop it like ice cream so that is where it is right now. I am a little concerned about this because I don't know how well it freezes. The Ice Cream Cupcakes recipe called for a different type of icing, but the whole reason to do these was to learn how to make the Buttercream. I will see how it works out and post the results and pictures later.