Owls & Friends (and DIY curtains)

Just thought I'd show you what J.J.'s nursery looks like.

The room was already painted a light beige, and we decided to keep it that way and add colour to the room with other pieces, like a striped rug and polka dotted curtains. Eventually, we sort of just ended up with what you could call an owl theme. They must be really popular right now because there are owls on everything in the stores. Hopefully JJ likes owls, and isn't scared of them!

There's a pretty tree growing beside her crib with songbirds and owls, and there are owl sheets on her little mattress...

Here's Mr. Green Owl sitting on his branch, shocked eyes looking over the dresser (please excuse the bottle of beer...and no, I wasn't drinking it)

Mr. Hedgehog peeking up from beside the closet...

I have to say, it was a lot of fun to put up the decals! As a kid, it would have been so much fun to cover your bedroom walls with stickers...especially since stickers are usually reserved for putting on paper or in sticker albums. The wall decals actually came from Target. They were on clearance a few weeks ago and I thought it would be fun to add some animal friends to the nursery. They are supposedly easy to remove and even re-use, so we'll see...

Here's the crafty part of this post: here are the curtains that took me, oh, about 4 months to get around to making. I bought the fabric ages ago, and as usual, there were more interesting things to work on than curtains! I was originally going to make Roman shades because of the way one window frame is flush with the wall, but D was able to install a curtain rod that worked with the width of my curtain.

They were very simple to make since I only did one panel per window instead of two. Each panel is approximately 1.5 yards of 45" upholstery-weight cream fabric, with 1/2 yard of the same weight polka dotted fabric attached to the bottom. Then I did a 1/2" hem along the length (I left on the selvages so I wouldn't have to fold under). Because I was a little short on yardage, I decided to serge the raw top and bottom edges to keep as much length as possible. Then I turned up a 1" hem on the bottom, and did a binding on the top with some leftover cream fabric. I made the curtain rod loops also with leftovers, each one cut to 5" long and about 3" wide and sewed them onto the backs (just eyeballing the distances between loops).

Now if only J.J. would make her appearance so she could start enjoying her little nursery! There are only 4 days left until my due date, and STILL no signs of her coming. It'll be slightly depressing when my response to "when are you due?" becomes, "Oh, 3 days ago". Although I am told this is entirely possible and actually not uncommon for first babies!

Anyhow, I didn't really have anywhere else to put this, but here's a pair of socks I've been knitting...just some basic, cuff-down, 64 stitch socks. It's by Socks that Rock in the Knitters without Borders colourway...so far making some crazy tiger stripes. The wool is incredibly sock and squidgy!

Happy Valentine's Day, and Happy Lunar New Year!

Baby Shower Daisy Cake

Last Friday, D and I went to our first co-ed baby shower, and I brought along this cake for the parents-to-be (congrats C&J!). I was really quite excited to make this cake and test drive my in-development decorating skills. Actually, it's the first all-buttercream cake that I've done since I started interning, and I was hoping that I absorbed some of the techniques I watched my pastry chef use every day.


Let me tell you about the cake first - it's a lemon layer cake, with lemon curd and coconut cream filling. MMmmm. I used the vanilla cake recipe from Confetti cakes (replaced 1/4 cup of milk with lemon juice, and reduced sugar by 1/2 cup), and the coconut filling was made from swiss meringue buttercream whipped with shredded coconut and extract.

I'm sure there are many tricks to get buttercream really smooth, but the trick I learned was using a credit card instead of a spatula. It's nice and small, fitting easily into your hand, and your arm doesn't get really tired holding the spatula at a weird angle. Now, it's another thing to know how to actually use the credit card! You have to have your cake centred on the wheel, and you need to be careful about not scraping too much icing off as it turns. The goal is to smooth, not carve an edge on the cake. To make a clean edge around the top, drag the card toward the centre of the cake, which will take off the excess bits. If there is still some lumpiness and uneveness in your covering job, you can either spray the cake with water and run the card over the cake again, or, you can dip a spatula in hot hot water and slowly smooth around.

A Spooky Wedding Cake

Last Friday the 13th we were invited to a 13th anniversary party in historic Allentown, and I was asked to make a special cake for the occasion....spooky themed, of course!

And it turned into an surprise wedding. Which means that really, I made a wedding cake! It was a hectic week considering I was traveling back and forth to NYC for my class every day and coming home to work on the cake, but I'm so happy I did it. It was a ton of fun to construct, and the couple who asked me are just super nice and I didn't want to say no. It helped that I had sketched a design to follow. I chose 10", 8" and 6" cake sizes, each with about 1.5" layers inside to get the most height possible. I ordered my first bucket of Satin Ice fondant, which is what my boss uses and actually tastes pretty good, along with a whole bunch of other nifty decorating supplies.

So, according to all the online guides I could find, this amount of cake was supposed to serve about 75 people. The hosts were expecting up to 100 guests, so I made another 2 dozen cupcakes, an idea which I have to credit to Cake Journal - too cute! The faces and eyes were cut from fondant, and the mouths were drawn on with food colour marker...also my first time using such a tool. It worked just like a regular marker, which made it feel a bit weird to be using..

Remember these little guys? I had a whole slew of little characters I wanted to add to the cake, which I started making early on in the week...you can store them covered with plastic wrap and use them when you're ready. Who knew my gumpaste flower cutters would come in so handy...I made the spider legs with a daisy cutter and added two little black balls, and made the bat wings using an orchid cutter, slightly reshaped. My favourites though, are still the pumpkins.

If you want to hear all the details, keep reading and I'll give you the whole cake schedule.

How to Make Your Own Spooky Cake for 75 People on a Friday:
(...when you can't do any decorating on the Friday...if you can, you can push the schedule forward by a day)

Sunday:
1) Up to a week before, make all your decorations out of fondant so they have plenty of time to dry and you can see how they turn out. Make extras in case anything breaks. I made about 4 skulls, 4 pumpkins, 2 ghosts, 4 bats, and 2 tombstones.

Anything upright should be cut from a thicker layer of fondant. Attach fondant pieces by moistening slightly with water and a brush. You can use a toothpick for the details, like poking eyes, or making ridges in the pumpkins.

Tuesday:
2) Three to four days before, you can bake all your cakes, remove them carefully from the pans, wait until completely cool, and wrap really well in plastic wrap before putting them in the freezer. Not fridge! You will have suspended them in animation and they will taste fantastic. , with a nice fine, dense texture that will be easy to work with. Choose a recipe that works for wedding cakes, such as a pound cake. I used the chocolate and vanilla recipes from the Confetti Cakes book, and turned the vanilla one into a lemon cake (yeah, I know. I never get tired of this flavour...it's just so good). Oh and the cupcakes were Red Velvet.

3) Prepare your simple syrup to brush the cakes with. Equal parts sugar and water, bring to a boil and remove from heat.

4) Make lemon curd, and save the egg whites for use in tomorrow's buttercream.

Wednesday:
5) Remove your cakes from the freezer; leave wrapped until ready to use.

6) Prepare your icing...I made the swiss meringue buttercream recipe I learned in class, which made about 2.5 quarts. Half was turned into chocolate buttercream by adding cooled, whipped chocolate ganache (chopped chocolate melted into heated heavy cream) and the rest was saved for the lemon cake and cupcakes.

7) Unwrap your cakes, trim them nice and even, brush on the syrup, and do the filling and crumb coating. I decided to pipe the entire filling, but didn't think I needed to spread it flat, and when the cake was cut you could still see all the tubes of icing...not a big deal. Also, when you're using a filling like lemon curd, pipe a dam around the perimeter of the cake to prevent it from leaking out:

Stick everything in the fridge overnight, covered in some plastic wrap:

8) Now, even though you're tired, you should really tint your fondant for the next day, because this is TIME-CONSUMING! It took D and I about 30 minutes to tint all the purple by hand. The mixer didn't seem like it could handle kneading the fondant, which is too bad. We tinted about 4 lbs of fondant total which was more than enough. Don't forget to make black, too. About 1/2 pound should be fine.

Thursday
9) Cover your cake board. I bought a 1/4" masonite board which is pretty sturdy. For a bigger cake, you'd probably want to get a 1/2" thick one. Wrap it with cake-decorator's foil or florist's foil, or if you don't have either, just use wrapping paper like I did. With the cake cardboard under the bottom layer and all the fondant, it shouldn't get too greasy.

10)Pull out your cakes, and then knead the purple fondant to warm it up. Cover all the cakes with fondant. With a serrated knife, trim the cardboard base flush with the cake. To make the swirls, roll out small pieces of black fondant and taper the tips. Wet a small brush with water, and paint a swirl directly on the cake. Don't use too much water, or else the black will run everywhere! Carefully follow the water swirl with the black fondant and press gently to adhere.

I think I've written about stripes before in another tutorial:

11) Dowel your cake. I'm not going to explain it here because there are hundreds of tutorials on the internet. I like using a stake through the whole thing to give it more support. Assemble the tiers 2 and 3.

12) Make a small batch of royal icing. Pipe your spiderweb design on the second tier, and pipe some more webs onto some parchment to dry. They break easily, so pipe more than you actually need. Now, attach two skewers to the back of the moon and 13 sign with royal. It'll dry hard as rock by the next day. Next, tint the remaining royal icing purple and pipe the borders.


13) Oops, I forgot about the word plaque...that's just a circle of fondant and food colour pen. Make sure it's still pliable and adhere to the cake with a little water.

Friday Party Day:

14) Stick on the piped spiderwebs with a dot of royal icing, because they're not going to travel well in a box. Pack all the rest of your cute little decorations in a paper-towel padded tupperware, and bring a pastry bag of royal icing along with a small round tip and the tip you used for the borders.

15) Once you get to the party, insert the moon and 13 sign and glue on all the decos with royal. Pipe your last border, and you're done! Try your best not to drop the cake now :)

The cake dissected...

Here comes the Bride!

Did you guess what the white dome was?

This past weekend was Z's wedding shower and bachelorette party, and I made her this little bride cake for the occasion!

I can't quite remember when the obsession started, but for the longest time I have wanted to make a Barbie doll cake (just ask D). I saw one like this on Cake Central, and loved how elegant it looked as a black dress form modeling the wedding gown. Inside, it's a lemon cake, doused in lemon syrup, filled with lemon curd and blueberry preserves, and iced with cream cheese frosting under the fondant. All the details are piped with royal icing.

I have to say, this is my favourite cake to date....it was a super fun to decorate - just like being a kid again and dressing up my dolls. I want to make another one already!! I guess I can, now that I own the Wonder Doll cake pan. Any future brides out there? :)

So, Saturday morning the cake traveled (quite well!) to the shower, where it received many 'oohs' which got a bit embarrassing (although, really...who minds a little ego-flattering??) It appears the bride-to-be enjoyed her cake...here she is, about to make the first cut:

If you look carefully, the groom is peeking out of her hoodie

Between nine of us, we ate about half the cake. I heard that Kodiak enjoyed a nice big chunk of shower cake...lucky doggy!

Ouch! That's my bum!

Considering the outer layer was ripped off and reattached, the inside doesn't look half bad:

* * HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN BRIDE CAKE* *

This took a little bit of planning, as I didn't want to be making it last minute and messing up the decorating. So, my cake schedule was as such:

Tuesday: I made the lemon curd with Devon (in an impromptu baking lesson)

Wednesday: I made the lemon syrup and cream cheese frosting

Thursday: I baked, filled and iced the cake. There was a bit of a disaster with the cake - the entire outer surface ripped off when I was turning it out of the pan, probably because the cake was still too hot, and unfortunately this was one of the only times I didn't line with parchment thinking that a cone shape would be easy to invert. Luckily, I managed to salvage the outer portion and stick it back on and glue the whole thing together with the cream cheese icing. The whole thing went in the fridge in two layers of plastic wrap to settle.
Friday: Dyed the fondant, covered the cake and piped the royal icing details.

Having a schedule was really helpful, and I think being organized made the process more enjoyable, rather than running out of time for decorating (like I have done several times in the past). Plus, there would be time to make another cake if the baking didn't go well. And, it felt like there was less clean up because everything was done in stages.

1. Dye a walnut-sized ball of fondant black (wear gloves, or prepare to have black hands). Dye a large clump of fondant in ivory for the dress and the bust.

2. Covering the doll pick:

• First, pull off Barbie's arms and head (I know it sounds mean but how else will you have a lovely dressform?) Snap off the little pokey bit on the neck. Form three tiny 0.5 cm balls of black fondant and press them on the neck and two shoulder sockets to create a smooth edges for the rest of the black fondant to mould to.
• Roll out the remaining black fondant to about 1/8 inch thick and drape over the neck and shoulders, as if covering a cake. Gently press the fondant against Barbie's upper body.

• To reduce bulk on the dress bodice, trim the black fondant where the top of the bodice will fall (just use a paring knife)
  

• Next, wash your hands thoroughly! If there is any trace of black, it will stain the ivory fondant, so put on gloves if you have to (or, you can do these steps in reverse order starting with covering the cake first)

• Roll out a walnut-sized ball of ivory fondant, and drape over the pick-end of Barbie's body. Carefully press the fondant against the doll to the edge of the black fondant. Again, using the paring knife, trim the ivory fondant in the shape of the bodice. Press the black and ivory edges together to form a complete seal.
  

3. Covering the cake:

• Ice the cake so that it has a nice, smooth, domed shape. I applied another layer of icing to the photo below.
  

• Roll out your fondant and drape over the cake, which will create the dress ruffles naturally. You can straighten the ruffles out a bit if they fall unevenly, if that bothers you. Trim with scissors or a sharp knife.

4. Almost done! Time to insert the doll pick into the centre of the cake:

5. Finally, make a small amount royal icing tinted in ivory. Pipe the dress details on the bodice, the waist, and the skirt, and anywhere else you want. You could pipe a necklace, or add ribbon trim, flowers, dots, lace...the possibilities are endless! (Gold or silver dragee would be pretty too - I searched my entire apartment but couldn't remember where I had stashed them, so no sparklies for me).

Last but not least, giving credit where it's due. Here's the photo from Cake Central that inspired my cake:

Whew, that was a long post. Enjoy!

PIF: Clutch Purse Wristets

Pay It Forward is finally done! I really did procrastinate until the last minute on this one. Since speedy knitting is not my forte, I decided to copy Zarafa and make sewn projects for everyone.

Recognize the bird trinket?

I went online hunting for free patterns and tutorials on making wristlets and clutches, and managed to collect quite a bunch of them! There's a great thread on Craftster with huge list of free tutorials, just type in "tutorial". For mine, I ended up combining features I liked out of each pattern and sort of made it up as I went along.

The green one went to Zarafa, the red one to Lorah, and the black one was intended for another recipient but unfortunately I never heard anything when I tried to contact her. So, I ended up gifting it to someone else (Nuttnbunny, if you're reading this, please get in touch with me if you want to receive something.

These were a lot of fun to make - it'd been a long time since I'd done any sewing, and I'm glad I got back into it. There were lots of little mistakes as I went along, and I learned something about working with different decorating fabrics. See the green fabric? I thought it would be easy to sew because it was nice and thick, but it ended up being incredibly slippery and frayed like mad. What I should have done was either cut the pattern pieces extra big, or iron on some interfacing to hold the whole thing in place. The red and black fabrics (both from Ikea) were easier to work with, more of a canvas with a fine grain.

The flower and the bird were cut from other fabrics and appliqued. There are many ways to do applique, and I tried two different ways for the bird and the flower. For the flower, I ironed lightweight interfacing on the back and cut it out just like that (it stops the fraying), and pinned it to the black material and sewed it on with a close zigzag stitch. The bird, on the otherhand, used a double-sided fusible webbing which I will explain below.

How to Make Your Own Appliqued (or not) Wristlet Clutch Purse

1. First, choose a pattern from the list below as well as Craftster threads for your inspiration:

Gathered Clutch with Zip
Amy Butler's Clutch with Antique Pin Closure
Foldover Clutch Purse
U-handblog Wristlet Clutch
Butterick Wristlet

2. Cut out all your pattern pieces, including interfacing and lining, and a wrist strap if you're using one. Make sure you've got all the snaps and buttons and things you need.

3. Pick your image to applique. You can cut out something from an existing piece of fabric, or find a picture online (google images is great). I typed in 'bird' and found this little guy. You'll probably need to enlarge the image, which you can do in something as basic as Paint, and then print it out (econo mode is just fine - why waste the ink). If you're picky about which was the image goes, remember to do a mirror image of it. I just forgot so my bird was flipped in the final product. Now, trace the shape with a pen.

4. Next, trace the image onto one side of the double-sided fusible web (It comes with two pieces of translucent paper stuck to either side). Cut around the bird roughly so you're working with a small shape and not the whole sheet. Remove one paper side of the webbing and stick it to your fabric. You may or may not need to iron at this point, just make sure to read the instructions carefully. Mine was just a straight paste-on while you're positioning it. Now you can cut the bird out with some sharp fabric scissors.

Cut out bird with fusible webbing on the other side

5. You're ready to iron your applique on! Position your bird just so, and iron according to the package instructions. Next, thread your machine with your applique thread colour, and set it so that it's stitching very close together on a zig-zag mode (you can practice this on some scrap first if you're worried about messing up). Working slowly, stitch all the way around all the edges.

6. Now you're ready to go back to the pattern directions and attach things like the magnetic snap, the wrist strap, and turn the whole thing out!

Ta da! You're all done. Now run around town, parading your handiwork with pride. Ok, so that wasn't much of a tutorial, but at least I tried to explain how to do the applique part. Have fun!

Meet Mr. Snapper!

Mr. Snapper used to live at the North Market fish stand until the Knitticrafty household decided to explore the world of grilled fish. Stuffed with lemon, thyme, garlic and butter, he was a very good fish indeed! Neither D or I had ever grilled a fish whole before, but with a well-oiled grill and minimal fussing (i.e. resist the urge to check and turn the fish) it is possible!

Look at those big fish lips!

A lot of people are squeamish about seeing their dinner in its original state, with heads, necks, tails and all. I've never really understood what the big deal is - although being Asian, you get exposed to this sort of thing early on. Get to know your food! It's OK. Let this be your first exposure session. Stare at the picture until you feel your anxiety subside, which might take several minutes. Practice makes perfect and soon you will be able to face your own whole fishie. It's more delicious this way.

Grilled Whole Red Snapper:

1 whole fish, about 1.5 pounds
2 tbsp butter
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 lemon, sliced
2 sprigs of thyme
salt and pepper

Have your fish person scale and trim the fish, and empty the body cavity. Salt and pepper the outside and inside of the fish. Mix the butter, herbs and garlic together, and stuff this mixture into the cavity, along with the lemon slices too. On medium-high heat on your grill (let it preheat), brush the grill generously with oil. Now lay the fish diagonally on the grill to get pretty grill marks. Cook 10 minutes on each side, and resist the urge to move it around - you will get a botched up fish with bits falling off if you fuss with it! When the thickest part of the fish flakes with a fork, you're done. Yum!

Since Mr. Snapper was nice enough to give us his fish life, it would only be right to use every last bit of him we could. So, we used his bones for fish stock and made seafood chowda with the rest of the fillet, adding clams and shrimp, which ended up giving us 3 dinners altogether. How's that for no waste?

New England Clam Chowder:
From Epicurious.com, modified a bit

24 ounces fish stock (or bottled clam juice)
1 pound russet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
3 slices bacon or salt pork, finely chopped
2 cups chopped onions
1 1/4 cups chopped celery with leaves (about 2 large stalks)
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup all purpose flour
3 lbs of littleneck clams, or whatever clams you can get (or 6 6 1/2-ounce cans chopped clams, drained, juices reserved)
1 1/4 cups half and half cream

Soak the clams in water for a couple hours with some salt to release any sand. Then, put the fish stock in a pot, bring to a boil, and throw in the clams to steam. Put the lid on and leave for 7-8 minutes until the shells fully open. Discard any unopen clams. Remove clams to a bowl, shell half of them, keeping some in the shell for garnish. Now you have a potful of yummy fish stock enhanced by clam juice! You can strain it at this point in case any sand got in there. Add the potatoes, cover and simmer until potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Melt butter in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add bacon and cook until bacon begins to brown, about 8 minutes. Add onions, celery, garlic and bay leaf and sauté until vegetables soften, about 6 minutes. Stir in flour and cook 2 minutes (do not allow flour to brown). Gradually whisk in reserved juices from clams. Add potato mixture, shelled clams, half and half and any other ingrediants you want (like shrimp, or leftover fish). Simmer chowderto blend flavors, stirring frequently. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Refrigerate uncovered until cold, then cover and keep refrigerated. Bring to simmer before serving.)

I threw a handful of chopped chived and thyme on mine to make it pretty.

Chocolate Raspberry Petits Fours

A few weeks ago, I became completely enamoured with the idea of making my own petits fours after I came across this post by the creative Vegan YumYum. I love these miniature, bite-sized sweets...can we say tea party time?

This photo, and the next, courtesy of Zarafa

I didn't want to mess around with these dainty little things, until I felt up for the challenge. The delicate layering, cutting and dipping looked truly intimidating. Plus, I wasn't sure what I'd do with thirty odd petits fours besides eat them myself, or pack them for D's lunch, so I thought it best to wait for an occasion.

It appears these were eaten al fresco

I needed some practice with dipping too, and since there weren't any petits fours to dip at work, I practiced on buckeyes - dozens upon dozens of them because that's all people seemed to want to buy this week. Suffice it to say, I make really, really excellent buckeyes now (I would go so far as stating that I could be the next buckeye dipping champion). I considered myself ready for the challenge, and this week there happened to be an occasion, and I decided that Ken (and Z) could benefit from a box of sweets.

They turned out well in the end, although they were the source of an afternoon's frustration dotted with lots of profanity and several text messages to D ("I suck at this!" "I hate this glaze!" "Why didn't I just bake a cake??"). This was definitely a humbling exercise which made me appreciate the fine art of dipping. I'm just glad I had enough pieces to choose from to make up a presentable box (and no, I'm not showing you the fugly evidence) for Mr. Ken, who is moving to Texas this week.

OK, I know you're all dying to run off and make your own now. Here's a quick How-to, and please also check out the links I refer to.

How to Make Your Own Petits Fours:

1. First, do a little reading: I highly recommend VeganYumYum's blog post as well as this Baking911 page. Decide what flavour you'd like to make, and choose an appropriate pound, sponge or genoise cake recipe. These cakes all have a fine, dense crumb that will make for easier cutting. Bake either in a jelly roll pan that won't warp, or split the batter up among some square pans to bake thinnish layers. I used the chocolate cake recipe from the Confetti Cakes book and divided the batter in two 8" square pans lined with parchment.

2. Choose (and make, if necessary) your filling. It can be buttercream, ganache, jam, whatever. I decided on chocolate buttercream so it would be more visible between the layers.

3. Cool the cakes (I find it easier to cut when it's been refridgerated a couple hours) and then carefully slice into 1/4" thick layers. I'm not kidding you, this part is kind of hard. If you have a cake leveler, now's a good time to use it. Alternatively, you can just use a large serrated knife and run it along the outside of the cake to mark the cutting line, and then continue sawing around until you reach the middle. Carefully lift the layers with a spatula and your hands, or a piece of cardboard, and rest it on a cutting board. I got four layers out of mine.

4. Fill the cake carefully, layering cake, filling, cake, filling, until your overall cake is just under 1.5" high. You can brush it with a glaze, or syrup, or add a thin layer of rolled marzipan at this point (I used some raspberry syrup with marsala since I like a boozy cake). Now, chill the cake for an hour so it will be easier to cut. You're more than half way there!

5. While your cake is chilling, prepare the icing. This can either be a glace icing, poured fondant (I think those two are different), a very liquid chocolate ganache, or just plain melted chocolate, which I wish I'd decided to use, since I am very proficient with that from the buckeyes. Anyhow, I decided to use the chocolate glaze recipe from Baking911, with added corn syrup for shine.

6. Cut the cakes into little 1.5" cubes like so. Eat the scraps. I told you this was an enjoyable process. Time to get out a grill rack, a dipping fork, and a spoon or little spatula.

7. This is when the cursing potentially begins, if you have high expectations like me and don't like messing up. I don't have any photos of the dipping process, because I was too covered in chocolate to get the camera, but here is a helpful step-by-step tutorial from the Callebaut Chocolate people that shows how to dip things in chocolate (you may need to register, but it's free so don't worry). The Callebaut people tell you to plunge it straight down and lift. Now, my ganache with the corn syrup was super viscose, and I soon found out the plunge method wasn't going to work, so I ended up just using a spatula to scoop up the ganache and let it dribble it over top, then shake off the extra. I kind of wish I'd made my glaze more liquid, but whatever. As Vegan YumYum suggests, dip the ugly ones first, because you're going to get better by the end and you'll have saved the prettiest cubes for last. Carefully transfer your dipped cubes to the drip rack and leave it alone to set. Try not to touch them to test if they're set. It's kind of like waiting for nail polish to dry...don't get marks on them!

8. Now it's time for a little more decorating! In other words, covering up the ugly bits. My ganache was beautifully shiny, but not without airbubbles. If anyone has any suggestions for removing air bubbles, I would be very grateful for your advice. To cover up some of the uneven surfaces, I melted some white chocolate in a ziploc back, cut a tiny hole and drizzled the petits fours and topped them with a raspberry for cuteness. You can dress yours up any way you want! The more pro you get at this, the less deco-concealing you'll have to do.

And ta-da! You're all done. Now sit back and enjoy your handiwork.