Purple

I found a cake on Flickr that I fell in love with and waited for the opportunity to copy it. A friend was hosting a personal shower for a friend she grew up with. She liked the cake so I tried it.

My flower and dots are a little different than the original cake. I wish I had better lighting in my kitchen because the picture just doesn't do this cake justice.

Originally I had iced the cake in buttercream, but because of a change in the shortening formula I use I couldn't get the cake smooth. I was really disappointed so at the last minute I decided to cover the cake in fondant. The dots are white royal icing. Once they dried I painted them with silver airbrush color.

The flower is purple gumpaste. I used a circle cutter, cutting 6 circles for the bottom layer and 5 for the top layer. I used bits of parchment paper to prop the petals until they dried. I let the flower dry a few days then steamed* it and brushed it with violet luster dust. It turned out really well, looking like purple metal.

*I don't have a tea kettle, so I boiled a pot of water with the lid on. I left the lid just a little crooked so that steam would come out in a stream and then waved the flower through it a few seconds at a time. I learned that the luster dust won't stick as well if you don't steam the gumpaste first.

Boy birthdays

Handy Manny chocolate cake with buttercream icing. Fondant and gumpaste accents.
Star Wars yellow cake with buttercream icing. Fondant and gumpaste accents.
The mom purchased figurines to go on each cake.

I put shortening in my buttercream icing so that it is more stable than just using butter. However, the formula of the shortening changed recently so I had trouble getting my buttercream smooth. I guess I'm on the search for a new buttercream recipe.

Larry, Bob, and Junior

My best friend's daughter asked me very sweetly one night if I would make her birthday cake. She wanted three cakes, Larry the Cucumber, Bob the Tomato, and Junior from Veggie Tales. I agreed and then wondered how to do it.

Larry & Junior are vanilla pound cakes I baked in loaf pans. Larry is one and a half cakes, Junior is one cake and his hat is part of another. Bob is chocolate, He is a 7" round and half the Wilton Sports Ball pan. For each cake I baked them and filled them before wrapping in plastic wrap and freezing for an hour. Then using a coloring page as a reference I carved the shapes, iced in a thick layer of buttercream and refrigerated them for about an hour. Then I covered them in fondant and worked on the details.

For the eyes I used fondant with a bit of tylose powder mixed in so that it would harden, it is similar to using gumpaste. I covered a plastic Easter egg with the white fondant and allowed it to harden. All the other details are fondant.

I think the eyes especially on Bob look a little evil, like they are about to get in trouble, but I don't know how to fix that other than to keep playing around with the angle. I do wish I had a bigger cake board so that I could have put a hat on Larry too. Maybe next time.




The birthday girl loved her cake and I had a whole lot of fun making it for her.

67-72 Chevy Pickup Cake

Family birthdays are when I experiment with new recipes. My husband and I have very different tastes in desserts. I prefer chocolate, he likes fruit or caramel. So for his birthday I came across a butterscotch cake with caramel icing.

He is also really into old trucks so I decided to make a cartoony version of his truck, a 71 Chevy pickup.

I took a picture of my husband's truck from the front end to help me figure out the proportions. Then I made a large circle out of fondant to cover the top of the cake. I cut out basic shapes of the truck's details from fondant. I used a small amount of water to hold the pieces in place on the circle. I did paint all the gray pieces silver with airbrush color, but it doesn't really show up in the picture.

Ingredients:

2 cups self-rising flour
1-1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup milk
5 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup butterscotch chips
Caramel Frosting (below)

CARAMEL FROSTING

1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 cups confectioners' sugar

Directions:

Cake:

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Spray a 10-inch tube pan with non-stick spray.
• In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, shortening, and 2/3 cup milk; beat until smooth.
• Add remaining milk, eggs, and vanilla; beat until smooth.
• Fold in butterscotch pieces.
• Pour into prepared tube pan.
• Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.
• Remove from pan; cool completely.
• Spread Caramel Frosting over the top and sides of the cake.

Frosting:

• In a small heavy saucepan, melt butter over low heat.
• Add brown sugar; boil, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes.
• Stir in milk until mixture returns to boiling.
• Remove from heat; cool.
• Beat in confectioner's sugar until thick enough to spread.

*I baked in two 9" round pans instead of a tube pan. Reduce the time to 25 minutes.

This is kind of a crumbly cake and the icing is not easy to spread once it has cooled. You will need to work quickly or drizzle the icing over the cake instead.

The icing didn't really taste like caramel to me, but it was really good.

Happy Valentines Day!

For the past 3 years I have been trying to make cookies, decorate them, and get them in the mail to my nieces and nephews for Valentine's Day. For various reasons it just hasn't happened. This year I got the cookies made and mailed, but I don't think they arrived in time.

I also ended up making cookies for all the kids in my son's Sunday school class. Cookies are a great way to practice piping skills. I also played around with sprinkles and colored sugar to see what the effect would be.

I outlined the cookies with royal icing and allowed it to set up a few minutes before flooding the cookies with thinned icing. I used the sprinkles and colored sugars while still wet. I allowed them to dry for about 24 hours before doing any additional decorating. I then let all the cookies dry for another 24 hours before placing them in bags.

When doing the lettering or lines a damp art brush can be used to move the line or flatten peaks if your piping doesn't come out perfectly. I'm not always great at remembering to do that, but it does work really well.

Royal icing:

1/4 c. meringue powder

1/3 c. water

1 lb. confectioner's sugar

Beat on medium speed 5-7 minutes until still peaks form.

I added a small amount of vanilla to the royal icing to give it some flavor. Additional water can be added in very small amounts (a few drops at a time) to thin enough to flood the cookies.

There are probably better tasting royal recipes out there, but this one is very simple.

I'm back!

After a 2 month break from cakes, I am back at it. On December 23rd, my daughter was born. We are still trying to get her on a schedule, but she is doing really well.

I thought I was going into preterm labor and had to cancel my son's 2nd birthday party. 2 weeks later we celebrated just the 3 of us with a cake he "designed" and help make.

I did this in about 30 minutes so it isn't my best work ever. My son chose all the colors which is why it is an orange and yellow monkey. It was a banana cake from The Cake Bible with chocolate ganache icing. All the decorations are fondant.
I was itching to get back in the kitchen this past week, so I threw this "slice of cake" together. I tried a new recipe for red velvet cake off the cake flour box, it was awful!

Using 1 layer of a 9" cake, I cut it into sixths and stacked the pieces, icing between layers. I then iced the entire stack and refrigerated it for about 2 hours. I covered the cake in 3 pieces of fondant, then decorated with fondant accents. It was a lot of fun to make!

Catching Up

At the end of October, I thought with the exception of my son's birthday, I was done with cakes until spring. Instead I have been staying pretty busy with cakes. Here is what I have done so far this month.

Almond sugar cookies with fondant decorations. I used texture mats, letter presses, and a knife to create the designs in the fondant.

This was a strawberry cake in the same design as the blue & white bridal shower cake I did a while back. The 8 year old it was for was very specific about how she wanted the colors to be done. I thought it was really sweet and funny how specific she was.

This was for a Hollywood birthday party for a 10 year old. It didn't quite turn out how I envisioned it, but the little girl loved it.

This is the "sushi" the mom made for the party. It is fruit Twizzlers, rolled up in rice kripsy bars and then the whole thing is rolled up in fruit leather. I thought the idea was great.
These were for a baby shower. Almond sugar cookies with buttercream icing and then a very thin layer of fondant.
The bears, ducks and bottles had additional decoration of colored sugar. I used a size 2 tip to outline the shapes with piping gel, then I sprinkled colored sugar over the shape. I allowed the sugar to set about 30 minutes and then shook off the excess sugar.
Lastly, a yellow cake carved into the number 40, iced in buttercream. The stripes were made out of fondant using my clay extruder.

Next weekend I am making a cake for my son but then I am taking a break until at least January. The last couple cakes I did I felt so tired I just didn't feel like I was doing my best work.