Cake Decorating with KatrinaCakes!

Hi, family. We’re so glad you dropped by today because — you know what? There is such a buzz in this kitchen. This program — if you know anybody that likes to do cake decorating or likes beautiful cakes, get on the phone now and call them because you will not believe what you’re going to see today. I am telling you, you are not going to believe it. The most beautiful, decorated cakes — all occasion cakes, kids’ birthday cakes — you will not believe what you’re going to see. This girl who’s my guest, we had a chance meeting at a restaurant. And, you know, I always say that when God wants to bless you, he brings someone in your path. Our paths crossed in a most unusual way and, I’m telling you, she is going to be a blessing today. You will — you’re going to love what you see. Let’s take a little look at just a sample. Look at this! This, my friend, is a totally edible cupcake. Can you believe that? Flowers — I know! It looks like a terra cotta pot. That is totally edible. The flowers — look, even the dirt, the leaves. My guest, Katrina Schwirian, is here today and she is making — you say, oh, how long has she done this? Um — about two years. And you say, well — well, gee — did she do all these classes? She took seven weeks of training and not in this — in just doing with the bag, you know, pastry bag, how we all — seven weeks only. She has truly got a gift and that gift comes from God. I know that. And here — look at this. Look at these cakes! Yes, that is a sand bucket full of sand and shells. Totally edible! That’s the caliber of decorating you’re going to see today, right here on At Home. So we’re going to do the hint. When we come, Katrina is in the kitchen with me showing you how to make some cupcakes and some wonderful recipes you don’t want to miss. We’ll be right back in just a minute.

Here’s today’s At Home Hint. Sweeteners contribute to a cake’s tender qualities, but remember that you cannot substitute granulated sugars for powdered sugars. Granulated for baking, powdered for frostings and icings. If you’ve got a helpful hint, we want to hear from you. Send your hint to At Home Hints, Cornerstone Television, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499. Gives me great pleasure to introduce to you — Katrina Schwirian. Katrina, we’re so glad you’re here.

I’m glad I’m here. Thanks for having me.

Well, yeah! Gee, this is great. And I tell you — what you are able to do just totally blows us away.

Thanks! Thanks —

Do you feel like it’s a gift?

I do. Yes.

Yeah. ‘Cause you — ’cause you —

Definitely.

— no one taught you. Right? You just —

Well, yeah. It started out as just a hobby.

Mm-hmm.

And then I got and more interested in it and it escalated —

Here we are.

— exactly.

Those beautiful cakes again. Larry, show that bucket cake. Isn’t that incredible? And that’s totally edible, huh?

Everything. Down to the crab —

Even the cord. Everything.

— yes. The seashells. You can eat everything.

Unbelievable. Just beautiful. Well, get us started. Show us — I know that the good part of a cake, decorated or any kind of a cake, is to have a good tasting cake.

It really is. And, you know, a dense cake, especially if you’re carving any of them.

Right.

You don’t want it falling apart. Exactly. So I’m making my vanilla cake. It’s very easy, especially because you put the ingredients all in one bowl.

At one time?

Yeah, at one time.

Oh, okay!

And then you mix it all together, so I’m starting out with three teaspoons of baking powder.

Okay.

And just put that in. And it doesn’t matter —

— to give it the lift, right?

— exactly. Doesn’t matter what order.

Crack these for you while you’re doing that?

Sure. I’d appreciate that. I have three-fourths of a teaspoon of salt. I’m putting that in. And you can half this recipe. You can, you know, triple it. It doesn’t matter. Whatever amount you need.

You get the same product at the end with that.

Right. And then this is two teaspoons of vanilla.

Okay.

All right. And then I’m going to go ahead and put my milk in.

Toss this over here while you’re doing that.

I have a cup and a half of milk.

Okay. It’s just regular milk.

Yup.

Okay.

I use whole milk. You can use 2%.

Well, I think it just makes a richer cake.

It does.

If you’re going to go to the trouble of doing it, you may as well just do it right.

You could use half and half.

Sure.

Whatever you want to do. Okay. This is two cups of sugar. Just going to pour that all in.

Granulated sugar.

Yup.

Okay.

All right. Go ahead and put this in here.

Mm-hmm.

And then I have two and a half cups of all-purpose flour.

Oh, that’s not cake flour or anything like that.

It’s not cake flour. The cake flour, I found —

Too fine, huh?

— yes. And the cake comes out just a little bit dry.

Does it really?

I like dense cakes.

Well, you have to because you’re decorating. You have to be able to maneuver with them.

Yeah. I’ve had a lot of times where I’ve experimented with cakes and they just —

Disaster.

— fall apart. So —

I know.

— okay, and then I have —

Now I have to tell you that I’m a cake decorator from way back. Yeah, right. I did — I did this for a little while and I had fun because it is nice to see people say, oh! That’s so beautiful!

It is!

But certainly nothing on that caliber. I made daisies. That was my big deal — was daisies.

I enjoy making the flowers, too.

Yeah.

Then you become, you know, known for certain things that you do.

Sure.

Okay. I’m going to put this down. And then we’re going to — we’re going to put it on very low at first.

Yeah. Because if you don’t, you’re wearing it.

Yeah! Exactly. And I’ve done that, too. So — and it’s going to mix on low for about a minute. Well, you know, somewhere around —

Just so it combines.

It combines. And then we’re going to put it up on a higher speed —

To really blend it.

— really get it whipped.

If you did that quickly at first, the flour would be everywhere and your cake would not be real good.

Yeah. When I’m done baking, I have flour —

It’s a mess.

— all over me.

Okay, does — does your mom — I know your mom’s really — her mom is Sharon. She’s really, really involved, too.

She is involved. I pretty much do the baking, but she taste — you know, she taste tests the recipes and then we — you know, we —

Good!

— you know, we —

Critiques them, and —

— exactly.

— it’s the way you learn.

Secret ingredients. Okay. I’m going to turn this up a little bit.

Okay.

And have this just mix a little bit.

Now how long would you say it has to mix?

I’d say about two minutes.

Two more minutes? Okay.

Something like that. And it’s — it’s really by look. If it’s all mixed in —

Yeah.

— your butter is mixed in, your shortening, whatever —

Okay.

— you’re good to go. So —

Now — well, like — like, how did you know that this was like a gift? I mean, when did you start to say, “I think I can do that?” How old were you?

Well, I was — I was about sixteen and a half when it first started, and I was —

And she’s all of nineteen now. So that was a really long time ago!

It was for me! And so I started doing it at a Dairy Queen, actually. I was decorating their ice cream cakes. Got frustrated because the ice cream cakes would melt on me before I got all my —

Sure!

— you know, my detail work in there. And I couldn’t design them. I couldn’t stack them. I’m going to turn this up a little bit more. And then, after that, I started to really delve into my books, my cake decorating books.

Okay.

I got my hands on all the supplies I could, bought them when I had the money.

Why, sure!

And then, you know, just from people’s reactions and my family saying, you know, this is really good!

Yeah!

And I just got more and more interested. So —

That’s so great.

— yeah.

That is terrific.

I really do consider every talent a gift from God. So —

Absolutely.

Yeah.

You’re right.

Okay. I think this is good. Going to go ahead and turn that off.

Do it by look, too, huh?

By look.

Okay.

It seems to be all, you know —

Show them what it looks like. See? That’s a nice creamy batter.

Yeah. You don’t want it to be too runny. You don’t want it to be too lumpy.

No.

Because, you know —

And that — and that’s great! That just looks like a perfect —

Okay. I’m just gonna get this off of here.

Yeah.

And then first thing I’m going to do is I have these little molds because we’re making flower pots today. I’m going to put that in second. I have a little bit extra cake batter, so I’m just going to put some of this in my nine-inch pan.

Okay. She’s a brave girl. She already knows how much she’s going to need in a nine-inch pan before she does the little ones. You are a brave person.

I’ve done this a lot.

You’ve done this a lot, huh? Well —

I’m pretty comfortable making cakes by now. So — all right. And then I’m going to — I don’t need this anymore. I’m going to put that over there. And then I’m just going to spoon —

Now let’s — let’s tell them what these are. These are timbales?

These are timbales. And —

They look like a little cup. It’s really neat.

Right. And —

Stainless steel.

— you can get them at a cake decorating store.

And we just sprayed them. Right?

Yup. We just sprayed them with just regular Pam.

Yeah. Don’t use the garlic flavor. Doesn’t work well.

No, that would be kind of gross. Yeah. That — that wouldn’t be a very good idea.

— only filling them about halfway.

About halfway. Yeah.

Okay.

If you’re — if — if you want to, you can do about two-thirds, but —

Come up really high.

— they do. They come over the top and then you have to level them. And it’s just a little bit extra work. So —

Okay.

— all right. So —

How long do these bake?

These bake for about seventeen minutes.

Seventeen. And how about the nine inch?

The nine inch takes probably about, like, I’d say twenty-five.

Twenty-five to thirty, maybe. Yeah. It really — you know, we give you ideas for timelines but everybody’s oven seems to be different. If you haven’t had yours calibrated recently, and the gas company — you have to talk with them. They will — or whatever. But it’s good to do that because you can be way off. Like fifteen, twenty degrees.

Yeah.

It makes a big difference. Absolutely.

Stick a toothpick in it because, for some reason, it just always seems to vary.

Yeah, it does.

Yeah.

Even the atmosphere, like if it’s raining or if it’s a dry day or whatever. Yeah.

Okay? That looks good.

So these go in for seventeen?

Seventeen minutes.

Okay.

Going to go ahead and put this under here.

Okay. Why don’t you start your icing and I’ll put these in the oven.

Okay. Sounds good.

Okay. And here’s your —

I’m going to mix this with — yeah — the hand mixer.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

And so the first thing I do here is put in two cups of shortening in butter. And this is softened butter, too.

Okay.

Never work with hard butter.

That’s a disaster that —

Yes.

— you can definitely avoid.

Yes. And it’s — it’s always, you know, better to have it at room temperature from sitting out. Can you grab me a spatula?

Sure.

And I’ll spoon this Criscoe out.

Oh, this is — I’ll give you a stiff one here.

Thank you.

There you go.

Okay. And then this is a cup of shortening.

Okay.

So I have a cup of butter and a cup of shortening.

Okay.

And the same thing applies with the icing as with the cake. You can half it. You can double it. Yes, it doesn’t — doesn’t really matter. All right. And then I’m going to just slightly cream these together.

Okay. Okay. So then when they get creamed and you add your powdered sugar?

Right. And then after the powdered sugar, we add —

Some milk?

— yes. And that will just make it creamy.

And do you put vanilla or anything in this?

Um, I do sometimes. Sometimes I add a little bit of almond.

Almond extract. Either one.

Yeah. Doesn’t matter.

While she’s whipping this up, we’re going to take a break. When we come back, we’re going to decorate and she’s going to have this icing all finished. We’ll be right back. Well, we’ve got the cakes in the oven and they’re smelling really good, I want you to know.

Yeah. So good.

And when they come out, they’re like this.

Right. Yup.

And now they — they raise higher than this. Right?

They do. I level them down because they won’t sit correctly.

Right.

So —

So you do them to about three-fourths. Right?

Yeah, and they — they cooked about up here.

To the top.

Yeah. So — and then those just slide right out.

Okay. And then, when she slides them right out — you do this. Right?

Right.

Like that. Beautiful. Then she puts a crumb coating of that butter cream. And here’s the butter cream —

Doesn’t that look good?

— that she was putting together. Isn’t that awesome? It is so creamy! Ah! And she does a crumb coat. Now I know — I learned crumb coat is really important. If you — if you ice your cakes and they have all these little crumbs in them —

Right.

— put a crumb coat and then you do a finishing coat on it. So much easier on you. Right?

Yes. Especially when we’re going to be using this fondant. When you have the fondant over, you won’t see any of the imperfections.

Right.

So —

And that’s the fondant.

— this is the fondant.

Looks like —

Looks like play dough.

Yeah, it does.

It looks like clay.

— silly putty. That ages me. But it does look like play dough. It does.

You just warm it up with your hands. You knead it and knead color into it and then take a rolling pin and just start to roll it out. You don’t want it too thick because no one likes to bite into thick fondant.

That’s too much.

Yeah, that’s kind of —

And that really is like sugar, huh?

It is. Yeah.

I mean, totally sugar. So you really don’t even want your kids to be biting into that or you’ll never get them to bed.

And it’s very good, too. And also, if you want to change it up, vary things around, put flavoring in it.

Really!

Raspberry, almond, orange, whatever.

Almond would be wonderful.

It would be. It would taste like marzipan.

Yes!

Okay. And that’s —

And you get that in a box like this. Right?

Yup. You can get it ready made or you can make it. I just find it’s easier to do it ready-made.

I think so too.

We’re going to move this off to the side and then, if you could tear me a piece of wax paper so I don’t get everything all messed up. Oh, just a little bit. Just to — just to cover this area here.

Okay. See — I’m all thumbs when I have to do — is that enough?

That’s good. Yup.

See? I get the big jobs — cut the wax paper.

All right. We’re going to move —

Thanks for thinking of me.

You’re welcome. Okay. Put this over here.

Now why do you put that on there?

Because I like to avoid mess.

This is true, because that’s very soft yet.

If I’m making a couple of these, then the butter cream will be on the counter, the fondant will stick to the butter cream, and it just goes downhill from there.

One thing you’ll notice about her cakes. She is meticulous. There’s not a crumb. There’s not a — anything out of place.

This comes up. This is very —

Pliable — yeah!

You don’t need to be afraid of working with this.

Looks like rubber almost.

If you tear it, you put it again — put it back together and you mold it again.

Wow.

So this is just going to go right over like a piece of fabric.

Ah!

Just like that. And then this is the tricky part. And this is probably the hardest part. You have to smooth it down over the cake without any creases, and then —

Does that — does that stretch?

— it does. It does. But if it — you know, if it gives a little too much, it might tear, but then you just pull it off and do it again. It takes some experimenting.

— heat of your hand probably helps it to mold, too. Right?

Okay. So it’s on there.

Then what do you do?

Doesn’t look like too much right now.

Looks like a big — big sombrero with a huge brim and a very small hat.

I have this — kind of, like, this little rotary tool thing here.

Cool! Yeah.

This is kind of cute. You can get this at Joann Fabrics.

Okay. Joann Fabrics. Actually, I think it’s for, like, tracing patterns or something.

It is. It’s like a tracing wheel.

Okay. Good.

And just take this along the outside edge. Just —

Do you, like, allow for extra?

Um — I just pretty much meet where the cake hits the — the wax paper. You can kind of feel that when you go around.

Okay.

If you cut too far up, it doesn’t matter because we’re going to be putting a band —

A ridge.

— around here. So that’s what it looks like when the fondant is on there. Now I’m going to take this again —

Reroll it?

— and I’m going to reroll it.

Okay.

Into a band.

I have to give you another one of these?

No.

Oh. I was going to get started on it ’cause, you know, that’s a big part of this deal.

You’re good at it, too.

Thank you.

Okay. We’re going to roll this out. Doesn’t have to be very long because, you know —

It’s just going to go around the edge. Right?

— right. And the way that you know — okay, this isn’t working too well. The way to know how much you need is just to measure —

Like a string or something around it? That would help.

You could do that or you can measure the diameter of your pot.

Okay.

And then multiply it by pi.

Okay.

And that gives you your circumference.

Okay.

So that’s kind of nifty.

All right.

Throw a little math into it.

Yup.

Okay. And then I have a ruler here. And I’m just going to measure — make a straight edge. And then I’m just going to — ah — just look at it, see how it looks nice.

Eye judge it.

Yeah. It looks good. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

But, see, the thing is she says it doesn’t have to be perfect, but it all looks perfect. That’s the key.

Yeah. And people aren’t going to look closely at your strip and say, oh, it’s not —

— right, yeah.

Okay. The way to get fondant to stick to fondant is with a little bit of water.

Water. Okay.

Add a little bit of water.

Yeah. You don’t want to get sloppy. Right?

Yeah. Exactly. Okay. And then this, we’re going to turn upside down.

Oh, that’s an easy way.

Work with gravity. Put this on here.

Shape it.

Shape it around.

Wow!

And then I found that kitchen scissors work the best. We’re just going to take our little flap here, pull it out.

Okay, wait. Let’s show it to the camera over there so they can see it. There you go.

— little flap? We’re going to pull it out and we’re just going to cut right down.

Yeah.

Cut that excess of.

Push it together.

— push it together.

That is so awesome. Look at that. Terra cotta pot. Why couldn’t you do it on a big one if you can do it on a small one.

You can! You certainly can.

Okay. Now show us how to decorate the top because we’re running out of time.

Okay.

I really want you to get —

First thing we’re going to do is take a little bit of brown fondant, just a little bit. We’re just merely covering the top of that. Doesn’t have to be perfect. Just has to be this —

That’s going to be the dirt. Right?

Mm-hmm.

That’s the dirt.

Just set it on top.

Geez!

Look at that. It already looks like a flower pot.

Yeah. It does! It looks like a pot of dirt.

And beforetime, I just made these royal icing flowers. If you don’t have icing flowers, cake decorating stores sell them —

They do sell them. Yeah, I know. Seen that.

Very easy.

Now here — let’s talk about these flowers. Now what icing have you used for these?

I use royal because it’s hard.

Okay. You use three different kinds of icings on this particular cake. You have the butter cream.

Butter cream.

You have the royal.

Mm-hmm.

And then you have the fondant.

The fondant. Right?

Okay. But you could make that with butter cream, can’t you?

Sure. No problem. Yup.

And you know what? As a beginner, if you’re just starting to make flowers on a nail is the easiest. Isn’t it?

It is. It really is.

Because you have control and you don’t mess up a whole cake if you mess up the flowers on top of the cake.

Yup. Exactly.

So until you really get going with it —

Okay. I’m going to —

She’s just stacking them.

— because, you know, I want them to look real. Flowers wouldn’t just be sitting flat in a —

Right.

— and then I have little ones that I made. And then we’re just going to stick those in there.

Now the only thing I see missing there is some leaves.

Yup. Exactly.

So what do we do with that?

So we’re going to take our green fondant —

Oh, geez.

— which is conveniently mixed up for me.

Of course. It just happened to be there.

Yeah. That works out well for me.

Is this readily available everywhere —

It is.

— in cake decorating stores?

It really is. You can get it at Joann Fabrics, you can get it at Michael’s.

You’re kidding!

Yup. Just — it will just be in the cake decorating aisle.

So a lot — there’s a lot of helps out there for people that want to —

Yes.

— get working.

Yes.

But you do have to have some talent to know what — you know, because that — that maybe wouldn’t look that way if I put those flowers on there.

Takes a little bit of practice.

Yeah.

But — okay. This is a leaf cutter. You can find these at a cake decorating store.

It’s got a little pump thing on it. Look at this. This pumps it out after you cut it. Oh, that’s neat.

It presses a vein impression into it.

That’s nice.

So I just cut it and then I push this down.

Oh, that’s what that does!

And I bring this back out. And there’s a leaf.

There’s the leaf.

And then I just stick those right in there.

Oh! Look at that! I don’t think I could do that.

I seriously do.

I think I might be able to do that with your —

We’ll do it afterwards.

Okay. With your guidance.

Yeah. We’ll make all kinds — take them home.

— so nice!

Yeah. Sometimes they don’t stick so we just pull —

— use water? Would you use water to —

You can use water. You can use a little bit of — bag of butter cream —

Okay.

— tinted brown so you don’t see the —

Right.

— you know. Just those little —

Little touches.

— extra efforts. Yeah.

Wow.

Just stick that in there.

Oh, that is so gorgeous.

And it’s done.

Ach!

It’s ready to eat.

Can you see the top of this. Larry, can you see that? Is that the most beautiful little thing you ever saw? I tell you what. That is just completely awesome.

And that took — what did that take?

Not long at all.

Five minutes?

Yeah. Really didn’t take long at all. And this is simple. Now you would do this — could you do, like, a bigger cake?

Mm-hmm.

When we go back to the table at the end of the program, you haven’t seen all the cakes. You will not believe what she does with this kind of a cake. We’re going to add this to our setting over there. You have to stay tuned. We’ll be back for the finish of the program and more cakes in just a minute. Told you there’s a whole lot more to see. And we’re going to take a trip around the table and just look. First we’ll start with this beautiful pink — and it’s — you don’t really have an official name. It’s just a pretty cake. It’s an all-occasion cake. Right?

Right.

Birthdays, anniversary, whatever. And this is the sand bucket. We’ve seen that one. Just incredible. Every piece of this is edible. Every — the bucket, everything. Now we go down here to the domino cakes. Look at that! Isn’t that — I mean, they’re stacking. I mean, they’re, like, falling down. Over here — here’s one you haven’t seen. This is a complete makeup kit. I mean, there’s scissors. There’s a cell phone, the lipstick, the nail polish. Everything — this is all cake. And everything there is all edible. Can you imagine what a teenager would do with that? I mean, what I would do — I love that cake! Beautiful! And then we showed you our little cupcakes that she made into terra — terra cotta pots. Here’s the big one that goes with it. This would be the big one and then you put all the little ones. This is daisies. They’re beautiful.

Thank you.

I love that flower. And all the little pots that can go around it — individuals. This girl is so talented. Her number is on the screen. And if you want to contact her, please give her a call. These cakes are just beautiful.

Thank you.

And you — you don’t get tired doing it?

I don’t — no. I love it.

Yeah, because it kind of —

It never gets tedious.

— yeah, kind of spurs you on to something new —

It does.

— and different.

Yeah. It really does.

You heard it here first. One day you’re going to see her on the Food Network because somebody is going to grab her and run, and I’d be more than happy to know that because you saw her here first. Okay? We — we just ask God’s richest blessings on your business —

Thank you.

— on your life. Anybody that can do this is okay in my book. And we hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me again.

My pleasure.

It was wonderful.

Well, be sure to join us the next time because it just wouldn’t be the same without you. We’ll see you then.

Furnishings provided by Levin Furniture, featuring Lane’s Country Living Collection. Food provided by Jordan Banana Company, wholesalers of fresh fruit and vegetables in Dravosburg, Pennsylvania.

Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.