How to do Frozen Buttercream Transfers

 Frozen Buttercream Transfer (fbt) is very easy to do. Just find a picture of  your choice and print it out. If you have the program to be able to print it out backwards that would make it a little easier for you. If not flip the picture over and trace it out with a black marker. When done tape the picture to a flat cookie sheet that will fit in your freezer. Then you need to tape wax paper over the picture. Make sure you don't over tape the wax paper down because you will need be able to remove this to do the trasfer. Outline your picture with buttercream in what ever color you like, black works the best most of the time. Then you can just fill in the areas with the other colors. You don't need to make sure it is smooth right now just completely filled in. After you are done filling in your colors put it in the freezer for about 5 mins to get it nice and hard. After taking it out pull the tape off the waxed paper and flip it over on to your cake. You may need to rub your hand over it a little to get it to release off the wax paper. Don't worry if some of the outline sticks to the wax paper because you can go back and outline it again in thoughs areas. Now you will need to smooth the transfer out to get all the lines out. I like to use paper towel, Viva works the best! Now you will have the perfect picture on your cake.

How to make Coral out of sugar

For my son's birthday this year he wanted an Aquarium cake. I had remembered watching CakeBoss and loved the coral he made. They made it out of Isomalt, so I went and bought a bag of it. I found directions online on how to cook it and make coral. The Isomalt didn't work so great and it is expensive for one little bag, that doesn't make very much. Also Isomalt melts if it is real humid out, even though I had the air on. If you watched the show it melted on them also because someone put it in the fridge. I was real bummed that it didn't turn out.

My best freind had a great idea to try making it out of plain sugar! So we went on line and found a hard candy recipe using good old cheap sugar. I was so happy and pleased with the results as you can see.

First you will need ALOT of ice. I went and bought 2 of the big bags of ice from the party store. You will also need a tall stock pot to put the ice in. It works better if you can clean your freezer out to make enough room to be able to put the stock pot in it.

In a stainless steel pot you will add 2 cups of sugar and 2/3 cup of water. I double this so I got a thicker and less fragile coral. Stir this with a stainless steel spoon or whisk, but only until it starts to boil then stop. You want to boil this until it reaches 300 degrees. Just befor it reaches that you want to pull out of the freezer your tall pot, filled to the top with ice and have that ready to pour you sugar over it. When you pull your sugar of the stove sit the bottom of the pot in to cold water just for a few seconds until all of the hissing sounds stop. Then you want to really quickly stir in your coloring and then pour it over the ice in a circular motion. Let it sit for about a minute then very very carefully tip the pot on the side and pull out your sugar coral. You might have ice that is stuck on it or in it, so what I did was run cold water over it until it the ice melted. I then took my air brushing machine and blew air on it just to get as much of the water dryed off of it that I could. It will still be very sticky so let it dry until it is no longer sticky to the touch. Make sure you dry it on wax or parchment paper. I did notice that it won't stay totally clear, it will become cloudy and crystalize. I think it just makes it look more realistic because coral is not see through.