Behind the Scenes at DVD Shoot

WOW!

That was a wild two days! 27 hours of filming to get 7 hours of footage. It was long and hard, but also tons of fun and worth every minute. You guys know Wendy is the unsung hero of shooting these DVDs. The behind the scenes work she does cannot be described. I literally could not do it without her. And of course, the great video team of Trish and Todd from Video Specialties.


Here are a few snapshots taken on Monday and Tuesday:

Here we are playing back a scene to check it.

Center camera from behind.

The Monitor.

What did we use these for?

And these?




Working on something..........




What the heck am I doing?

Wendy assisting me with scene prep.

Part of the aftermath. And only a small portion

of the carnage is shown here.

Tired girls.

Pooped!

Now on to the editing phase! I can't wait to see it come all together.

Now I am off to join the witness protection program, because Wendy is going to hunt me down and kill me for posting those pics.

Happy caking ya'll,

Sharon

www.sugaredproductions.com

DVD Shoot

Hi friends!

I have been working hard these last 2 weeks getting ready for our new DVD. We are filming tomorrow and Tuesday. Wish me, Wendy, Todd and Trish good luck and pray I do not screw up anything!

I am very excited about our new project, and will give you more details later. If you received our newsletter a while back asking your opinion about the next two DVD topics, I can tell you it is one of those two topics. And we are going to have a Name the DVD Contest in the upcoming weeks so put your thinking hats on and start coming up with fun creative titles for those 2 topics. You might win a free copy of the new DVD!

Back to work for me! I will try to post some behind the scenes pictures later this week.

Have a great week everyone!

Sharon

www.sugaredproductions.com

Poured Fondant Pumpkin Cookies

Fall is here! Fall is here!

Don't you just love fall? It is my favorite time of year. More than Spring, more than Summer vacation, more than the Christmas holidays. I love the cooler temps and lower humidity (what little of that we get where I live, LOL.) I love fall colors , pumpkins and turning leaves. I love the promise of the time to be spent with family and friends during the upcoming months.

I especially love fall baking. I adore fall themed cakes, cookies and cupcakes. Just love everything about it!

Recently I used the pumpkin cutter set we featured in a SugarEd free gift promotion to make some cookies using poured fondant and rolled fondant. I cannot locate this exact set anywhere retail, but set 1872 here looks to be very similar.


After baking the cookies, I made poured fondant:


6 cups confectioners' sugar (I often add 1-2 cups more sugar to make it a bit thicker, optional)
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 teaspoon almond extract ,optional
1 teaspoon vanilla, optional

DIRECTIONS:
In a saucepan, combine confectioner's sugar, water and corn syrup. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until it reaches a temperature of 92 degrees F (33 degrees C.) Mixture should be thin enough to pour, but thick enough to coat cookie. Add food coloring to desired color and stir thoroughly.




Make sure not to overheat. Overheating will cause the mixture to crystallize and show sugar crystals once dried. It may also become too thick to flow well.




I take it off the heat to pour over the cookies. It will thicken up as it cools. If it gets too thick to flow well, gently heat it back up until it is thin enough again. Again, be careful not to overheat it at any time. If you do it will give you trouble. You will get mad. You will say bad words. You might throw cookies across the room. .....Just sayin'.




I hold the cookie in one hand over the pot and spoon the icing over it, allowing the excess to flow back into the pot.



Coat entire cookie. (I do normally wear gloves for this but was so excited to do this tutorial it slipped my mind.)

Let all the excess drip off and then slide your spoon under the cookie.

Slide the bottom of the cookie across the edge of the pot to scrape the excess off.

Lay it on wax paper or parchment. I do not like to put my cookies on cooling/cookie racks because the icing hardens and sticks to the rack. Then when you release the cookie from the rack it messes up your pretty cookie edge.

See that pool of icing? No worries. When it is all dry and hardened, you scrape that excess off with a palette or exacto knife and you end up with a perfectly clean edged cookie.

For the big kahuna cookies, the process is close to the same.

Use several spoonfuls to get the entire cookie coated well.

Let the excess drip back into the pot.

Hold the large cookie with both hands and tap the sides of your hands on the edge of the pot to get all the excess icing flowing off the cookie.

Slide the bottom of the cookie along the edge of the pot as you take it out to scrape off any more excess.

This is where you get so excited because you have this adorable Jack o' lantern cookie looking back at you! Place him on the parchment too and leave them alone for a while till fully hardened. I leave them for at least a few hours before I clean them up.

Rolled fondant covered:

Roll out your orange fondant and cut out the shape with the cookie cutter you used to make the cookie. Smear a little thinned buttercream onto the cookie to make it stick.

I used a large oval cutter to make indentations into the fondant.

I did this four times to make the indent lines that pumpkins have.




Airbrushing:

Airbrushing adds more depth and dimension and interest to your cookies. It is not necessary to do this, but I like what it adds to the look. I gave it a light overall coating of orange color.

Then I did more pinpoint lines in the grooves with orange.

I did the same thing on the poured fondant cookies.

You can vary the colors if you like. You can add some yellow to give it bright highlights or add some brown to make it more rustic.

Let that dry fully and then add your fondant leaves and arrange!

A beautiful bounty of fall pumpkins!

I love fall stuff!

Here is the fondant one. I even dusted just a tad of pearl dust on this one. Not too much or it will be ugly; trust me on this one.

Punkies, punkies everywhere!

Mr. and Mrs. Happy Patch

Mr. Grouchy Gourd

Cuteness factor overload!

Now go make some of these.

Now.

Hurry.

Then send me some.

Please.

Happy Fall!

Sharon

www.sugaredproductions.com

Cake Off Behind the Scenes

Hey guys! So what did you think of our episode? Pretty fun, huh?

We had such a great time! Both of the other teams were incredibly talented and nice, and we all left the best of friends. We had a great time messing with Norm both on and off the set; he is a great sport and a really nice guy.

Here are a few more pictures I can share with you now:


Last minute shopping for supplies. I made sure we had enough snacks.

Day of arrival; setting up the kitchens.

Giving Norm a beating....

Zane eating his birthday cake.

I cannot tell you guys how beautiful all 3 cakes were, each in their own right. The TV, nor photos, do any of them justice.

Norm's beauty.




Lots of chocolate curls and ruffles and flowers.

Grooms cakes surround the main cake on a beautiful display board.




Mark's cake was simply stunning:

The most beautiful soft green with ivory.

Gorgeous brush embroidery, bows and a custom made stand.

Incredible moving carousel. It played music too although they did not show that on TV.

And Rebecca's masterpiece:

What a gorgeous design.

Little lights shone out through the flowers and behind the monogram plaque. The hanging pearls, the stenciling, and flowers were just stunning.

Rebecca is so utterly talented on every level. It was my honor and pleasure to be on her team. And spending 4 days with 3 of my great friends on such an adventure will be a memory I treasure forever.

Tell me what you guys thought of the show!

Sharon

www.sugaredproductions.com