Shark-cakes

Today is the last day of work at my summer location!

I finished off the shark cupcakes, which I'm now choosing to call Shark-cakes, last night and have started assembling them.

I made two seperate batches of icing - one of Royal Icing (dries harder, so perfect for the fins) and one of 'fluffy boiled icing' as the people over at Wilton like to call it.

If you've ever made Martha's 7 minute frosting, it's very similar to that.

For both the fluffy icing and the royal icing I have to again give thanks to my Aunt Wendy for finding and purchasing meringue powder for me!

I used the fluffy icing with some blue food colouring to make the waves of the ocean.

To make this Fluffy Bioled Icing:

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix together 1 1/2 tbsp meringue powder and 1/4 cup cold water. Mix on high until stiff peaks form.

2. In a sauce pan, bring to a boil 1 cup sugar, 1/8 cup light corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water. Once it comes to a boil, turn off the heat and allow it to cool slightly for no more than 30 seconds. Pour it in a slow but steady stream into the meringue while the mixer is on low. Once you are finished pouring, turn the mixer back on high and mix for about 4 minutes, until there are once again stiff peaks. Then you're ready to use it!

I used Royal Icing to make the fins and used a combination of blue and red food colouring to get a darker shade so that it would stand out from the blue of the ocean.

Once the royal icing was made, I piped out the fin shapes onto a peice of parchment paper and allowed them to harden. I made two batches of them and kind of messed up the first as I didn't make the fins thick enough. As a result, they started to crumble when I tried to peel them off of the parchment. The second batch, however, held up so I went back over the first batch with another layer of royal icing. Hopefully they're sturdy enough now!

To make Royal Icing (about 1 cup):

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix together 1 tbsp meringue powder, 1 1/3 cups of icing sugar, and 2 tbsp warm water.

*For harder-drying icing, omit the second tbsp of water, adding another 1/2 tbsp if necessary.

2. Mix on high until peaks form. Then you're ready to use the icing.

Here's the final product that my shark-o-philic staff better enjoy (if they know what's good for them):

I'm fairly pleased with myself.

:)

Tomorrow I'm a free woman so I may do some crafts shopping. Very excited.