Monsters and Boston Cream

Well it happened again. I was enticed into baking by another beautiful blog. This time it was pastry studio. I want a pastry studio, been thinking about taking real pastry classes so I can work in a proper kitchen again.

A new experiment for me, I followed the directions to a T, well almost. I didn't have cake flour (I know terrible, I've been baking enough to justify it). I also made my own buttermilk. I didn't zest the entire orange, probably about 2 teaspoons or so. I used regular cupcake pan and a loaf pan (will explain later why). And finally, I didn't use all the corn syrup, I used half a tablespoon maybe next time I'll use less.

always good to start with a little wine

For the recipe check out this website :pastry studio:
My vanilla filling was tasty but a bit lumpy, I don't know why. Maybe I heated the milk too much? Maybe the eggs were supposed to be at room temperature for that part too?

it was a bit messy

 When I cut out the middle of the cupcakes for the filling, I had lots of cake bits as left overs. I took my kerr jars and made a couple special boston cream parfaits for my roommies.

leftover cake, cream and chocolate in a kerr jar!

Alright I'm finally getting to the monster part. My friend, Marcos, designs fun creatures. It was his birthday so I decided to replicate one of his creatures in a mini-cake.

cake creature

I used the cake that I baked in the loaf pan, and cut it into smaller pieces. Then I used cookie decorating white and red frosting and made the mouths. I rolled out orange starbursts and cut them for the tummy piece. The gren hair is made from laughy-taffy, also nuked for 10 seconds and rolled out with a rolling pin. Then cut into the design. The eyes are just dots of icing. Do you see my inspiriation?

more creatures: http://www.marcosrc.com/