Solving First World Problems & Other Things I Have Been Working On

The cluttered state of my fridge and tiny cupboard were driving me crazy I decided to do a redo on each of them. This kind of brings me back to my Food Budget Series. I had so much stuff cluttered up in both places, that I was having to throw away stuff that went bad (because it was hidden in the back and went bad) or compile doubles and sometimes triples of some products. What a waste of money! A fridge reset doesn't have to take forever and waste a lot of electricity. It can be knocked out in 20 minutes with the right attitude and plan.

Getting Started on a Fridge Reset

• Before you even start pulling things out, think about how you utilize your fridge, and determine if anything is not working for you.
• For example, my cakes usually take up a lot of space on a shelf, but I'm always having to juggle the cake while moving the milk, and scooting over last night's leftovers. Not to mention that sometimes it was too close for comfort to the shelf above it and I risked nicking the top layer of taller cakes. That meant when I started my fridge redo, I kept in mind that I need to change my shelf spacing so that my jug of milk and pitchers of juice could easily fit a shelf, but so could my tall cakes, while my left overs were now to be delegated to the "short" middles shelf that shares the dairy drawer.
• Mise en place
• What? I thought that was only for cooking? Think again. Having everything ready to go and by your side when you start your clean will make the reset faster, wasting less energy. Here is what you will most likely need:
• Trash can with a thick bag, or several smaller bags to throw out bad food.
• Clorox wipes or some other cleaner that you like with plenty of rags or paper towels.
• Cooler for temporarily housing your goods while you clean.
• A variety of plastic storage containers and spoons for transfer of foods. (More on this later.)
• A towel for quick clean up of spills, and to kneel on while you are doing bottom layers of the fridge.
• Permanent marker.
• Empty your sink, because you will be filling it with dirty containers, most likely.
• Ready, set, go!
• Start with the freezer, dump your ice tray and gel ice packs into the cooler. Shut the lid on the cooler, and go quickly wash and dry ice tray. Set aside.
• Go back the freezer, open the lid on the cooler. Open your freezer and throw anything salvageable in the cooler. Anything freezer burned, bad, or fits into the category of "we will never eat this", toss in the trash. Don't stew over decisions. Be decisive. If it takes you more than 30 seconds to decide whether or not your family will ever eat a product, toss it. Once the freezer is completely empty, wipe down the racks and door with your wipes. If the rack/ drawer needs lots of attention (i.e. a popscile melted, pooled and refroze in the bottom, pull the whole thing out and shut the freezer and cooler doors until you get it cleaned out. Once the freezer is cleaned, shut the door until further notice.
• Next open your fridge door and start again with the sorting of foods into the cooler or into the trash. Once the fridge is empty, close the lid on the cooler.
• Pull out all the fridge shelves and wipe the back of the fridge with a disinfecting cleaning cloth. Same with the door shelves, drawers, shelves.
• Next, think back to your plan? Were the racks at the right level for your needs? Put the shelves back in to accommodate your needs. Shut the fridge door as it should now be squeaky clean! Good work, half way done.
• Repack foods into more appropriately sized containers.
• A major problem in our house is that we grab the first Tupperware we can find and package or food in it, regardless of size. We lost a lot of shelf space and viewing capabilities because of this. Check it out.



Three containers removed! Once 2 giant container for peanut butter cup filling reduced to a flat plastic bag.
What once was a giant container of blue icing that got used little by little, now it fits in the tiny take out container.

• Use your maker to mark items as "USE FIRST!"
• Have two open containers of mayo, BBQ sauce, milk, etc? Compile them into one jar if possible. If you can't compile them into one jar, say because they are two different flavors of BBQ sauce, take your marker and mark one in big letters that say USE ME FIRST! This should be the one that is closer to being empty, or will expire first. Make use your family understands and follows your directive. Plan meals that will utilize those last squeezes of that ketchup, or will help you use up that cup of BBQ sauce for this week. If the marker won't write on the container, you can use a patch of duct tape.
• Replace the remaining food from your fridge with purpose, mentally noting what needs to be used right away, and putting items in more appropriately places to fit your needs.
• Lunch meat getting a bit old? Subs for lunch. Milk about to go bad? Cereal for breakfast. Lettuce starting to wilt? Salad as a side with dinner. Ten packages of ground beef? Put two or three in the fridge to thaw for a large pot of chili that can made and frozen for later meals.
• Kids always standing in front of the fridge for 5 minutes trying to find a snack or juice box? Put all the snacks in a drawer or a plastic bin so they can pull it out, grab it, and go.
• Empty cooler and wipe down the other part of the fridge with a disinfecting cloth.
• Your done!

Solving First World Problems Part II: Pantry Redo

So yesterday we tackled the fridge, today let's tackle the pantry. This time I was smart enough to do a before and after. So let's take a closer look.



It may be hard to tell the improvements, but I gained an entire shelf, plus you can
see the floor on the bottom. I'll give you a break down.

Getting Started on a Pantry Redo

• Things you will need:
• Trash can for tossing expired or bad food.
• A box for food that you are going to take to a food pantry or shelter
• Pen and paper
• A basket or infrequently used container.
• Cleaning cloths to wipe up any spills.
• Marker
• Pull out everything from the shelves, sorting into trash, donate, and keep. Be decisive, longer than thirty seconds to decide on an item means it needs to be tossed or donated.
• Once all the food is out, do a quick wipe down of the shelves with your cleaning cloth.
• Inventory
• With your pen and paper, make a quick inventory of what you are going to put back in the pantry, this will come in handy when you are planning meals. Plan on using anything that is close to expiration right away, same move if you way too much of something. (I found 4 cans of corn and 4 jars of pasta sauce. Spaghetti for dinner tonight!) Tape the inventory to the inside of the pantry door and mark things off as you use them. That way you won't overbuy again.
• Put snack foods into a basket or infrequently used container.
• I found a Corningware container that I never used and I emptied all those boxes of granola bars, popcorn, beef jerky, etc., into that container. No more digging, all the snack food is in an easy to identify location. Bulky boxes are in the trash and not cluttering up my shelf. I also took a 3/4 eaten jar of peanuts that was hidden in back and emptied it into a zipper bag.  They will be eaten quickly like this! This is also a great idea for chips. We buy the large bag that had 4 or 5 varieties. I emptied it into a basket of its own.

All snacks live here.

• Compile anything that you can.
• Have two open peanut butters, boxes of pasta, or oil? Try to compile them. If you can't because they are different varieties (crunchy and smooth PB?) mark the one that is closest to being finished or expiration with the marker: EAT THIS FIRST! Make sure the family understands and follows your directives.
• Compiled, now what?
• Look around about what you have left. Put infrequently used or seasonal items in the upper shelves that are harder to reach. It's getting close to Thanksgiving, so you might want to leave down the pumpkin pie filling left over from last year, as well as that hot cocoa. Put anything summery away at the top if you are going to keep it. (Maybe blueberry or strawberry fillings, or sun teas).
• Bulk items fit nicely here, too. Jon got a steal on a carton of paper towels. I got a bargain on a large container of vegetable oil. I took my smaller (easier to handle container of oil, poured the bulk oil in it to the top, the banished the giant container to the back, top of the pantry.  (top left shelf of after picture)
• Put gravy packets, chili/ taco seasoning packets, drink mixes, etc in a basket for easy identifying. I also put spices that I had double or triple of here with a note on the front of the container to check here before buying more spices. (top left in after picture)
• Replace the food at levels according to your needs.
• Snacks and grab-and-go foods should be at a kid's eye level if you have children.
• Frequently used goods should be at eye level with labels turned out for quick identification.
• Infrequently used items go close to ceiling or floor.
• Finally, if you have a bunch of shopping bags, put them all into 1 bag. If that bag gets too full, toss out what's left over because that is just too many bags. Check out the bottom of my before after to see what a difference that made.
• Good work! Take out the trash & drive the food to the food bank and you're done!

Piping Candy Letters, Simpler Than You Might Think

Hey folks, today I am going to teach you how to pipe letters out of candy coating. It looks pretty cool and it is easier than you might think. Besides, everyone will ooo and aww about your mad candy skills.
Things You Need:

• Candy Coating, you can use rounds linked or blocks found at your supermarket.
• Double Boiler, or you can use the technique I use (observed here).
• Ziploc baggies, or off-brand, whatever.
• Spatula
• A paper clip, twist tie, clothespin or small office clamp. A binding device OK!
• Plastic wrap
• A flat surface to work on, like a cutting board.
• Toothpicks
• Water and an oven
• A paper template if you have crappy handwriting and little imagination like myself. Print from a computer if necessary.
• A Dish towel.
• Shortening
• Measuring spoons
• Tape (any kind will do in a pinch)
• Scissors

Directions

• First things first, you will need to mise en place. Having everything in one place will make things go more smoothly for you.
• Start by putting your cutting board in the fridge or freezer while you set everything up. This will help the candy to harden once it is laid on the board and not ooze everywhere.
• Print your template off if you are going to use one.
• Put an inch or two of water into your double boiler and bring it to a boil with the top section on.
• Throw your candy pieces into the top part, making sure that they do not come into contact with any water. If you bought the block, break it into smaller bits with your fists. Or a knife. Whatever.
• As your candy gently melts, stir occasionally, incorporating all the chunks. You may need to add a tablespoon of shortening to thin it out. The candy does not need to super runny. In fact, that may be bad. It just needs to get a ribbony state.

Ribbon-esque

• Pull your cutting board out of the fridge and tape your template to it.
• Stretch plastic wrap tightly over your paper template, tape it down as well. Return to to fridge if your candy coating is not yet melted.
• When the candy has thoroughly melted, pull out a Ziploc bag and turn it inside out over your hand or a cup. You are basically making a piping bag.

 

• Start transferring the candy coating to your bag, this can be a little hot. Use a dishtowel between your hands and the bag if you have to. Fill the bag only about 1/3 of the way full to start. You can always add more.

Warning, this can be a little hot!

• When you have added the coating, try to get as much air out as possible and seal the bag. Twist the top of the bag to work the candy down to a bottom corner. Use one of the above mentioned clamping items to hold the candy in place near the bottom. It should be a tight fit.

• You then use the scissors to cut the tip of of the bag off. How much is cut of depends on how fine your lettering will be. I always start small and cut more if needed. If you cut too big, you will have to empty the bag and start over.

 

Snippy!

• Resting your hand against the board, start filling in the spaces on your template. Be careful not to rest your hand on your work. Move around the board systematically so you don't smudge or get worked into a corner. You can use a towel wrapped around the bag if it is too hot for you to handle with you bare hands.
• Store your finished work chilled until you're ready to use. Lift off the plastic carefully with a knife.
• Enjoy your results!

I'm a freakin' genius!

New Fondant Tools are Here! Time to Play!

So some of my new fondant tools came in last night and I couldn't resist playing with them. The tools are for the baby button cake for the photographer's daughter. I know that cake isn't supposed to be ready for two and a half more weeks, but I just couldn't help myself.

I had some fondant in the fridge, so I pulled out a chunk and microwaved it. Here's a few tips on mircowaving fondant:

1.) Heat only like 5-10 seconds at a time or else you will get burned, crusty bits of sugar.

2.) When you DO burn the fondant like I did last night, don't think that you can mix the slightly burned bits back in. You will be digging rock candy out of your fondant pieces for the next thirty minutes.

3.) Remember that microwaves cook the center of your food outwards. So even if the outer part of your fondant is still cool, the inner part is probably molten. Work the fondant a little in your hands before zapping it further. The heat of your hands plus the lava middle with disperse throughout the chilly parts, most likely making your fondant ready to handle.

4.) If you heat the fondant too much, it will be too sticky to use right away and will have to cool down either in the fridge or at room temperature (if you are that patient). So, again, work in 5 second heating increments until you get your desired consistency.

I pulled out some Wilton rolled fondant and used gel food coloring to make three different colors of fondant. Then I went to making tons of little buttons in each of the colors. I also practiced making some rick-rack ribbon, but it did not turn out as pretty. Therefore, you only get see the pretty buttons today. I have a little too much powdered sugar on these, I hope I can dust it off with a small paintbrush instead of starting over. I'm sure it will look adorable!

Cute enough to eat. Wait! You can!

My First (Real) Fondant Cake

My friend Nancy is getting married in a couple of weeks, and today we are tossing her a wedding shower at work. I've been really crunched for time, so I was just going to whip up some cake balls for the party, but I let my ambition (and my desire to get out of this stupid blog slump) get the best of me. I decided at the last minute to make a little 6" personal cake for her, in addition to the balls. She is a Hello Kitty FANATIC, much in the way my gingerific gal pal Sam is a GLEE fanatic.

"Hello Kitty"

Now, in my opinion, this is my first fondant cake. Jon seems to think the mini rainbow wedding cake is. That cake was not really for consumption, so I am counting this cake as the first. It's a bit of a philosophical disagreement in our household.

Anyways, the first thing I did was go out and get a 6" pan. I guess I'm getting serious about this because I am investing so much in equipment. I popped the first layer of chocolate cake in the oven. While it cooked I melted the candy for the cake balls and finished those up. (I had made the batter and formed the balls over the weekend and kept them covered in the fridge.)

BAM!

After I had made, cooled, and leveled 2 layers of the 6" cake, I put a crumb coat of butter cream icing down. This helps the fondant adhere to the cake and not slide off, as fondant is wont to do. This layer doesn't have to be thick or pretty. Just enough icing to keep everything in place will do. Oh, and don't forget a little dollop of icing on the plate you are icing on to hold the bottom layer in place while you are icing.

Bottom layer's crumb coat after I put the top layer down and Jon said "Oops, I didn't get that shot. Redo!"

After the whole thing was crumb coated, I put it in the fridge for a few minutes and took a break. Cake making is exhausting. I wish I could have had a margarita, but alas no mix. Moving on.

Next, I used gel food coloring to dye some fondant pink, because Hello Kitty wears a pink bow. Always make more than you think you need, because you can never get the colors to match perfectly if you have to make a second batch. I also adjusted the image of Hello Kitty from above to the size I needed, and printed it from my computer to use as a template. I was not going to go hog wild and purchase a bunch of Hello Kitty cutters.

Using scissors, I cut out the template and set it aside. I then rolled out the pink fondant and used a toothpick to etch the outer part of the template (which was a heart). I used a sharp knife to cut it out. Don't pull the fondant or it will stretch your shape. You have to be patient and cut cut cut.

I put the heart to the side and then rolled out the base layer of fondant. From what I understand, you need to roll it out to about 1/8 of an inch. I don't know if made it that thin (I always feel like I make it too thick) but it worked out ok. You are going to have to make the circle of fondant much larger than the actual cake. I did not and had to do a little last minute stretching to make it fit. Roll the edge of the fondant over your pin, and drape it over the cake, unrolling gentle as you go.

"Damn! A little too small!" *streeeeech* (please don't tear!)*

Next comes the smoothing of the fondant, which I have to say is the part I haven't quite wrapped my head around yet. I understand the concept, which is to slowly, from the top edge around and down, smooth it up against the cake. At the same time you have to sometimes have to lift so that this is no ruffle/bend/fold. It never seems to work out just right for me. Probably because I am in a hurry and not patient enough. I did my best to smooth out and only got a mild crease at the bottom of one side. I had a plan to cover it though. More on that later. Use a pizza cutter around the base to cut off excess fondant. Remember, cut don't tear or you will stretch and tear the fondant.

Notice the fold there on the right! Got most of it smooth but still, Grrrr!

Now, to the sneaky covering around the bottom. I decided to make a pink ribbon around the bottom to disguise any flaws. I barely had enough pink to do it. (remember always make more than you think you need). I made a log of the left over pink and rolled it into a flat strip. Luckily, my mat has grid lines. I was able to use them to made a pseudo-straight piece of 1" ribbon. I swear I can't make a straight line, even with a ruler.

To get a piece of fondant to adhere to another piece you have to dab a small amount of water where you want to place the piece. I made a damp line all around the base of the cake and tried my darnedest to make it work. Alas, I stretched to much and it tore. Crap! I did the best I could to smooth it down and moved on.

I wanted the heart for HK right in the middle of the cake so I dabbled a little water and made a little sticky patch about 2" in diameter. You will notice the texture of the fondant gets kind of gummy when you do this. I stuck my heart on and prayed to God that it was centered. (Another thing I am not very good at).

Afterward, I cut the heart section of the template off and cut around the actually Kitty part of the shape. Again, I traced the area with a toothpick, this time on the white fondant, and cut it out with a knife. I dabbed some water on the heart shape and placed the kitty shape on the heart. (A little off center to my consternation. I didn't notice until it was set.)



HK got a little oily from all that handling.

 Now for the detail work. I laid the template over the cake and used a toothpick to punch a tiny hole where the eyes and the nose should be. From what I understand, making a true black fondant is hard work, so I chickened out and bought a black tube of regular icing. Unfortunately it was a little thin, it seemed to have separated a little. I guess I didn't squeeze the packet enough to make sure it was remixed. Oh well. I made the eyes, nose, and paw outlines.

Now, Hello Kitty is all about the bow on her ear. In some images of HK (particularly "wedding" Hello Kitty) she has a flower on her head instead. I had a tiny flower cutter already so I opted to use it instead of fighting my exhaustion for the bow.

After the flower was in place, I added the whiskers and a little ear fold details. One of the whiskers ended up running together a little on one side after the cake sat, but it's no big deal. Just be careful not to rest your hand on the cake or you will smear your detail work.

Black icing: "As soon as this photo is over, I will smudge into my neighboring whisker!" *Evil laugh*

At this point, I told myself I was done, but that damn tear in the pink ribbon was bothering me. You see, I wasn't paying close enough attention when I put the heart down, so the tear was front and center, instead of hidden in the back. I thought for a few minutes about how I could hide it, and then it came to me: a bow of course! HK has to have a bow.

Using the remaining pink 1" strips I had, I fashioned a bow to cover the tear. All you have to do is gently fold the strip in half and pinch the base flat-ish. Cut of any excess fondant and stick it to the cake. Two folded strips will make a standard bow. Make a disk to place in the center to hide your pinches. Then, use a toothpick to "fluff out" the loops of the bow. It was the perfect finishing touch. I couldn't have been more pleased with how the whole thing turned out.

Tear? What tear? All I see is an ADORABLE bow!

Thankfully, the cake made the trip to work without incident. I had to drive it alone this time. I think I'm getting pretty good at transport. Now we are just waiting for the surprise party at 1 o'clock. I'll post a picture of her with it later this afternoon if I can.

How to Make Tiny Wedding Cakes...Sort of

Alrighty gang, I think I have finally recovered from the cake-making mania from this holiday weekend. It went fair, but took much longer than I anticipated. The large (purple) wedding cake went over just fine. The bride wasn't as excited as I had hoped, but then again she was in that "I'm getting married tomorrow, I need a cigarette" mode, so I decided not to push too much for feedback. I didn't actually attend the wedding, but I heard some of the guests were interested in buying their own cakes in the future. Let's see how that works out.

A "meh"  rainbow wedding cake

Let's talk about the mini cake. Last week I was challenged to do a mini wedding cake as seen below:

Super Teeny

I knew I couldn't get it that small, but I decided to take a stab at it and here is what I came up with:

Yes, the layers are rainbow and slightly out of focus.



So again, I am going to have to say...

So how did I do it? I'll teach you how so you can make it yourself.

 

First things first, make the Rainbow Cake Batter per these instructions from the earlier post.

Instead of baking these layers in a cake pan, I used a jelly roll pan, making two colors at a time. I tried two different techniques to get the batters not to mix. Both were pretty successful, so just use the one that you like best.

Technique 1:
Grease your jelly roll pan very well, then place a strip of aluminum foil make into a thick L shape and fit snugly across the middle of the pan. Then add your batter to both sides. Shake the pan a little so that the batter settles evenly across the pan.

Technique 2:

You can make an entire section of the pan a foil cut out so that it actually sits in one whole side of the pan. make sure to spray it really well so it doesn't stick.

The cakes are so thin that they will cook very quickly (between 3-6 minutes). You almost have to stand there and watch them, lest they end up like mine.

Cool completely on a rack before starting the next part.

Now most people would think the next part is cutting those teeny tiny little rounds and icing them to stack. I went a different route. I decided to ice all the layers as if it were a thin, square sheet cake, then used a sharp biscuit cutter to cut through all the layers at once. It saved a lot of time and agony, in my opinion.

There really is no leveling of the layers for this cake, so you pretty much have to cut from the middle or you cake will have a significant lean. This gave me some nice fat layers. The bottom later of the cake was able to keep all of its rainbowy goodness. The middle and bottom layers were far too tall to be accurately proportioned. I ended up removing two layers of cake from both the middle and top layers for aesthetics.

Each section of cake was then individually covered in a layer of fondant and stacked. The layers were held in place with a toothpick. I inserted the toothpick about two-thirds of the way into the bottom two layers and used the remaining part to hold the top layer in place. It worked perfectly.

Tiny little pearls of fondant were rolled from scraps. A little bit of crumbs got stuck in there, that's why few of the pearls have a yellow or green tint to them. It was getting late though, and I was too tired to care on a project that was just to challenge myself.

I was going to make a rose for the top, but my first flower looked like such a pretty, little Calalily. I decided to stick with that instead. It turned out very cute if I do say so myself. The cake is now sitting in my fridge because I can't bring myself to eat it.

So, there you have it, how to make a teeny tiny wedding cake. Enjoy!

Technique Tuesday: How to Separate Egg Yolks From the Whites

Lots of recipes like meringues, custards, or egg white omelets require you separate eggs for either the yolks or the whites. Some places will try to sell you a fancy gadget for this, but don't waste your money. Here's how to do it for free, where the only clean up is washing your hands.