100º BAKE

This is the story of what it's like to BAKE in Minnesota when the temperature outside was well over 100º.

I was asked by my cousin to come up with a fun decorated cupcake for an open house that she was putting together for her company. Whoo hoo! My first Corporate gig! She wanted 120 cupcakes for the event. Minis. Red Velvets. No problem. She asked on Sunday. She did not need them til Wednesday. PLENTY of time to plan, shop, create and BAKE!

To the 100º BAKE.

We had an idea to replicate the company's logo for the cupcakes. A red disc with a popped out R. Easy. Ha-ha...joke was on me!

I have made my own fondant many times. Never red fondant. And never when the temperature and humidity where about the same. Monday at 5 o'clock the temp was 90 with a dew point of 86%. Sticky sticky. Not just the weather, the fondant as well! I couldn't get the fondant to set up. I was using "Red-Red" food coloring and it would not turn to the color. It was a sticky mess.

I kept thinking, if it's like this today, when tomorrow comes it is going to be hot when it's time to BAKE...

Well, Mr. Bubbles had to step in to help me peel some of the fondant off my hands so I could at least get a bit to work with. I did end up making 2 examples. They were round, they were painted red with food color, but they had a real nice "R" on them and that's what mattered.

Practice!

It was what my cousin wanted. We agreed that due to time constraints 1/2 of the cupcakes would have the "R"s on them. The over half would have red velvet crumbs on them. The plan was in place. I made my SECOND trip of the day to my favorite craft store to get more food coloring so I could make the red fondant.

Well, in the hours since I had last been there, the cake decorating isle had been completely redone! It was so pretty. And there to my complete surprise and happiness was the new line of Charm City Cakes Duff Goldman Cake Decorating Fondant! and I thought it was a gift from above that I would not have to mix up fondant when it was going to be 100º outside!

On BAKE day(night) it was hot and humid when I turned on the oven. 105º on our deck thermometer!

I rolled out Duff's fondant and punched out 60 disks. I wrote out "R" 's in frosting on all of them. 

I BAKED the first of 4 batches of Red Velvets and they sunk while they where cooling. Had to pitch them. Batch #2 came out perfect. 3 and 4 trashed. I was starting to get frustrated. It was 11:30 at night!
I researched the problem on the internet and decided to adjust my oven temperature. I BAKED up batch #5 and they were perfect.

It was so hot! The air conditioning was working hard and the electricity surging...I had to hurry in case the power went out.

I love how cute they were all frosted up!

 Official temp was 103º! The hottest day in Minnesota in 23 years!  I did it, I BAKED through it!