April Showers

April showers bring wedding flowers!  This past weekend was my dear sister-in-law's wedding shower.  And what better way to celebrate than with cake! (and a lovely party).  This cake is an 8" carrot with cream cheese frosting adorned with fresh spring flowers.

You know, like many other bakers and decorators out there, cream cheese frosting has been a bit of a thorn in my foot.  I love its taste, but it often turns out too creamy to actually hold piping.  So over the years I've had good luck and bad, but I think I finially figured out how to get it right almost every time.  Rather than adding the cream cheese during the butter phase of traditionaol buttercream, I go ahead and make a normal batch of vanilla (maybe a tad stiffer than normal), then I add diced room temp cream cheese at the end.. not too much, but enough to give it a twang of yumminess. I've done this a few times, and what I get is a nice, spreadable frosting that holds piping just great! Yay!  Try it, it works!

Oh, and I made some wedding cake cookie favors for our guests.  Good old sugar cookies with marshmallow fondant and royal icing. Enjoy!

Springing forward

Ah, March, the time of year where one week is chilly and the next feels like summer... and what better way to navigate this flurry of meteorological indecisiveness than with some cake!  This past weekend yielded 2 little projects.  One was a classic chocolate/chocolate cake with a painted fondant "31," and the other a mass of cupcakes for a double baby shower.

The chocolate cake speaks for itself, but the baby shower cupcakes deserve a line or six about the decoration.  I've seen lots of cakes with mini-bunting decorations all over Pinterest. Most are made from paper or fabric resembling shabby chic or indy or whatever.

For this order, I picked up some flowered and blue paper, some blue and some pink ribbon and a pack of sticky letters from Michaels.  I used some circle cutters I had on hand (a plain circle and a slightly larger scalloped edge) and sewed them onto some ribbon I tied to a few lollipop sticks.  I have to say, I rather like how these turned out!  Sometimes it's hard with cupcakes to sort of convey that party message, and this just may be the way to go!  Next, I'll have to try a much smaller version on a cake - maybe using skewers and twine... :) We'll see!

Birthdays and Baptism

Well, I've fallen a bit behind in my cake postings, so I though I'd lump my last few cakes into one update!  My little one turned two back in January.  I can't believe two years have gone by!  She was really into Caillou and Pooh at the time.  So it was a bit of a toss up what to make for her. I settled on Pooh, and I think it came out kinda sweet.  She loved it. It's just simple vanilla cake and buttercream icing filled with strawberries and cream.  Maybe we'll do Cookie Monster next year!

Our priest turned sixty in January, and his wife requested a vanilla/chocolate cake with berries.  Mmmm, one of my favorites!  The insides are layers of vanilla and chocolate cake filled with strawberries and cream, and the outside is iced with buttercream and decorated with fresh berries.  Yum!

My third cake these last few weeks was made for my little god daughter's baptism. It's chocolate cake filled with strawberries and cream filling (my, quite a popular filling these days!), and iced with vanilla buttercream.  This cake was fun to make in that it was my first time venturing into the world of fondant roses.  I've made little fondant flowers before- like daisies and such, but I was always a little nervous doing the rose.  I ended up buying a little ateco 5-petal rose cutter- quite a handy contraption.  I followed a few you tube tutorials (from expert village), and they came out pretty okay!  Since I had the ingredients on hand, I went ahead and used marshmallow fondant which yielded petals a little thicker than real life.  Next time, I think I will splurge and get some real gumpaste so I can roll them nice and thin.  But I think I'm off to a good start!

Lego Party

My turkey turned six on Thanksgiving, so we had his party on Sunday at the local Lego store.  It sure was a blast.  Being a sort of quiet guy, we just invited a few of his friends and savored the day- in more ways than one! Like his brother's cake a few years ago, we did the whole candy Lego design. This cake really is fun and easy to make.  I just buy candy melts at Michaels, melt them on the stove, and pour them into my little old silicon lego ice cube tray.  We picked it up at Legoland a few years ago for like $6. What a great investment it has been.  If you would like to own one but can't make it all the way to the theme park, they are usually on ebay now and then.

Cake: chocolate fudge.  Filling: Oreo cream

Happy Thanksgiving!

Snorkels and ninjas, oh my!

Well, another kooky cake weekend here.  This week's line-up is quite fun!  We have a scuba or, probably more accurately, a snorkel cake followed by ninja star cupcakes!  Don't these just look like fun!

I got the cake idea from some google surfing.  Same ole butter cream and marshmallow fondant.  And the cupcakes are for a ninja party- topped with with some white/vanilla/gray chocolate ninja stars.

Here kitty, kitty!

I love cats, and so I was really excited when I was asked to make a cat cake for a darling little girl's birthday.  And not only was there a mama cat, we needed 48 kitten cupcakes to go with her! That's one busy kitty!!

So I went ahead and baked two 8" rounds, a 4" round, and two cupcakes to make the mama cat.  I sliced the cupcakes in half and used them as the kitty's cheeks and cut two triangles out of the 4" round for her ears.  I filled and frosted the main cake then placed the cupcake cheeks on top.  Then, using lollipop sticks I secured the ears. I used star tip 16 and iced the cheeks with white stars.  Then using the grass tip, I frosted the rest of her face and ears.  Boy was that fun! I need to find more excuses to use that grass tip... Her inner ears, nose, tongue and eyes were made from melted chocolate.  Whiskers were royal icing.

The cupcakes were a hoot.. I used a #21 decorating tip to swirl the cheek and a #22 to make the fur.  Though I'm sure any star tips would work. The first couple of cupcakes were a little rough, but I soon figured out what I wanted.  Again the eyes were chocolate and the whiskers were royal icing (I had made all the whiskers the night before so they would be stiff in the morning).

Anyway, I'm really happy with the outcome!  Now I want to make cat cakes for everyone!! :)