Cake Doodling

How to Make Tootsie Roll Roses {Tutorial}

2012-01-27T17:17:00.000-08:00

I was asked to teach a group of 8-11-year-old girls some cake decorating skills, so I decided to teach them how to make roses out of tootsie rolls. Since I have a lot of tootsie rolls leftover, I thought I might as well make a tutorial for my blog as well. :)

Here is what you need. You need 3-4 tootsie rolls, any color, and some wax paper. The wax paper is for setting the tootsie rolls on while you're working with them, since they get kind of sticky. If you set them down on a plate or other surface, they're hard to pry back off!

Take the first tootsie roll and break it into 4 pieces. You're going to take the first piece and roll it into a ball. It helps if you warm it up in the palm of your hands for a few seconds first, then just it roll around between your palms until you get a ball.

You will then flatten your ball and shape it into a teardrop shape. The thinner you can get it, the more realistic it will look. This is the first step for every petal of your rose. I found it's easier to make the petals as you're going, rather than all ahead of time, because they're easier to work with when they're still warm from the heat your hands.

To start the rose, you take your first petal and roll it, like so. I started with the pointy side and rolled toward the round side, but I don't think it really matters.

You will have something like this when you're done.

Then form your next petal, and wrap it around your rose center.

It will look like this when you're done.

You will keep adding petals. For the first row of petals around the center, I just did two petals, on opposite sides.

Here is the top view. Notice how I angled the petals out a bit.

Then just keep adding petals, making sure that for each row of petals, there is some overlap in the petals.

Here is the rose with the second row of petals completed. My second row had three petals.

For the third row of petals, I made the petals a little bigger by dividing the tootsie roll into thirds before adding that row of petals to the rose. The final row had four petals. You can stop there, or keep adding more rows of petals, depending on how big you want your rose. And that's how you do it!

My Favorite Tools

2012-01-03T11:14:00.000-08:00

People often ask me how I make my cakes so smooth. Well, someday I'll make a tutorial, but for now, I thought I'd show you my favorite tools of the trade. These are tools I consider essential for making the cake a smooth "canvas" for decorating, and together they cost a grand total of $20. You need a turntable. This one is Wilton's and is $11.88 at Wal-Mart, or if you have a coupon for a craft store, you can probably get it for cheaper. Also pictured is the 13-inch offset spatula. I use that to put the frosting on the cake, as well as get the initial smoothness. It costs $6 at Wal-Mart. The last tool, the yellow one, is actually a putty knife that you can find in the hardware section for $1.97. It comes in a set of 3--a 2-inch, a 4-inch, and a 6-inch putty knife. My favorite is the 4-inch. I use it to trim off excess frosting and get a smooth look. So there you have it--my favorite tools!

Snowflakes

2011-12-19T08:17:00.000-08:00

I made snowflake cupcakes for a Teacher Appreciation luncheon at my daughter's preschool. I thought they turned out cute and I don't think my camera/lighting really did them justice.

Variation on a theme.

Homemade Oreos

2011-11-10T20:15:00.000-08:00

I made homemade Oreos today. Mmm good. But as good as the cookies were, the cookie dough was to die for. Wow, I'm going to have to make that again just for the cookie dough. I had a hard time telling when the cookies were done, so I think I overcooked them a little. But I'll definitely be making these again. I'm seeing all kinds of potential with these. Giant Oreos. Oreos with personalized monograms. Oreo cheesecake crust. I'd even love to make an oreo cookie dough crust. But I'll warn you if I use raw egg. :)

If you would like to try making them, get the recipe here. I take that back. Go now and get the recipe.

Rainbow Cuppies

2011-11-02T20:56:00.000-07:00

My rainbow cupcakes got lost in the format of my blog (you can only see the first picture of any post unless you click on a specific post), so I'm re-posting them here. Thanks, Lisa, for the picture! I made these to go with the purple polka dot doll cake.

Purple Polka Dots

2011-11-01T20:38:00.000-07:00

I made this cake for a friend's daughter who turned 3 today. My friend requested purple with polka dots and bows. I actually had a hard time picturing it at first, but I came up with a design that I thought came out really cute. It can be hard finding inspiration for buttercream doll cakes, since most of the ones I can find are done all in fondant.

I also made some rainbow swirl cupcakes.

Here is the back of the doll--polka dots, and well, just one bow, but I thought it was cute. The bodice and bow of the doll are done in fondant, but everything else is buttercream.

To achieve the tri-colored swirling of the frosting, I actually put the colors in separate frosting bags, then put all three bags into one bag, then piped it out. I thought it worked pretty well, although next time I will cut bigger holes in the three bags, since I cut them too small and it took both hands to exert enough pressure to get the frosting out. Also, I totally thought the cupcakes looked like Trix yogurt. Yum! I hope the kiddos loved it!

CTR Baptism Cake

2011-11-01T19:44:00.000-07:00

I made this cake for a friend's daughter who had her baptism last weekend.

It was chocolate mud cake, filled with ganache and frosted in American buttercream.

Halloween Fingers

2011-10-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

Mmmm... fingers. I made these for a Halloween party I went to. If you would like to make them, there are instructions here. I thought about adding "blood" on the end of the fingers, but since there were young kids at the party, I figured the parents wouldn't appreciate having red food coloring everywhere. :)

A Sunrise Birthday

2011-10-12T16:40:00.000-07:00

A friend requested some Moscow Sunrise cupcakes for her birthday, so here they are! I added a little purple flower to make them a little more fancy. :)

What's New?

2011-09-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

As you may have already noticed, I added tabs to my blog! I've been wanting to for a while now, but I thought it was too complicated. Turns out, it's actually pretty easy! A big thanks to my brother, Spencer, for pointing me in the right direction. Anyhoo, I added a tab called "flavors and fillings" which lists just that--all the cake flavors and fillings I make, as well as listing a few cake size options I have. My flavor list is getting longer and it's getting harder to remember the full list when I tell people! So, please check it out. I hope to add to it as I keep experimenting with new flavors and combinations. Any feedback is more than welcome, especially if something is confusing, or if there's something new you'd like to see me try. :) I think my next recipe search will be for the perfect pumpkin cheesecake cupcake. Doesn't that sound good?

Edited to add: I've been having so much playing around with the format of my blog! I added one of blogger's premade "dynamic" templates, so now my blog is a little easier to browse. Enjoy!

Dump Truck!

2011-09-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

Are you wondering why I have a picture of a dump truck on my cake blog? Okay, okay, you already guessed it...

That's right, I supplied the dirt on this one!

I made a chocolate mud cake, layered with ganache, then topped with crumbled cookies and gummy worms.

I baked a sheet cake, then cut about a third of it off.

I put the bigger piece on the bottom, then added the smaller piece...

...then topped with "dirt and worms". So simple, yet I'm sure the birthday boy loved it!

Hello Kitty

2011-09-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

Here is the cake and cupcakes for my daughter's fourth birthday party.

This is a frozen buttercream transfer. I love how it turned out, except for the fact I made the pink icing background too thick, causing it to stand noticeably above the rest of the cake, erm, I mean, that was totally on purpose... Note to self: tip #12 does not work well for the background. Try #5 next time.

I found a little thing of Hello Kitty playdoh at Party City that had an impression stamp on top. It was perfect for the cupcakes!

Normally I decorate my cakes the night before they're needed, but since I was gone the night before, I had to make this one the morning of the party. Boy, was that an issue this time around. This cake almost didn't happen. Whenever I fill my cakes, I put a "dam" of frosting around the edge to keep the runny filling inside, but I made my frosting too thin, so after I filled it and put my top layer on, the filling started oozing out the side. I wasn't sure what to do, so I started frosting the sides, but when that didn't help I knew I needed to fix my frosting. So, I added powdered sugar, then lifted up my top layer and fixed my dam. In the process, my top layer broke right down the middle. I was torn between wanting to cry and throw the cake against the wall, but I managed to keep it together, somehow. I put the two pieces back on top and iced them in place, then finished my "crumb coat". I can see why some people call it "dirty icing", since this coat was filled with ganache and cake crumbs. Normally this layer just looks white, with maybe a little cake showing through. The point is to lock the crumbs in place. After the frosting fiasco, I was a little short on pink icing to finish off the cake, so it doesn't look as finished as I would have liked, but it was good enough.

Moscow Sunrise

2011-09-11T09:02:00.000-07:00

I made some cupcakes yesterday for a BBQ. Everyone complimented me on my "cherry?"-flavored cupcakes, but they weren't cherry! I used a mystery ingredient that no one was able to guess--beets!

I tend to have a few extra beets on hand this time of year since I love making borsch (Russian beet soup) and I always get more beets than I need. I've been wanting to add them to a cake for a while now because their juice is such a pretty color!

So, I thought I'd share with you how I made my cupcakes. I added a small beet (raw). I peeled it, chopped off the ends, then grated it with my smallest grater. If I had a food processor, I would have used that instead.

I added the beet to the cup of sour cream my recipe calls for.

And mixed. I decided to add the beet to the sour cream instead of the batter based on some preliminary research I did online. It seemed like the beet color would be less likely to cook out if I dyed another ingredient.

And then I made my recipe as normal. I used a doctored cake mix for this one.

Aren't they beautiful? I decided they look like a sunrise, and since they're inspired by Russian beet soup, I dubbed them "Moscow Sunrise".

Another shot.

I then added my favorite chocolate frosting recipe, with a twist. Since borsch goes hand in hand with sour cream, I added a little sour cream to the frosting as well.

So, are you dying to try it? Here is the recipe:

Moscow Sunrise Cupcakes:
1 box white cake mix (I used Duncan Hines)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
1 1/3 cup water
2 Tb vegetable oil
1 cup (8 oz) sour cream
1 small beet, grated finely or pureed
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract

Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Mix or blend the sour cream and beet together. Add all the dry ingredients to a bowl. Use a whisk to "sift" the ingredients and break up any chunks. Add the remaining ingredients and use a mixer to beat on low speed for 2 minutes. Fill cupcake liners 1/2 to 2/3 full and bake for 18-23 minutes.

This recipe is adapted from Rebecca Sutterby's White Almond Sour Cream (WASC) cake.

Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting:
3 cubes unsalted butter
3/4 tsp salt
2 lb. powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup sour cream*
2 tsp milk
6 Tb cocoa (I used a 1/3 cup measure and filled it just over the top)

Cream the butter and salt together for 3 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients a little at a time, alternating wet and dry ingredients. Mix for 5-6 more minutes, depending on how creamy you want it. If you want to use salted butter, just omit the extra salt.

This frosting recipe is probably about double what you really need for the cupcakes, but it was easier for me to write the whole recipe instead of halving it! And hey, you can always double the cupcakes! :)

*amount of sour cream is an estimate. I just used how much I had left, and all I really know is it was more than 1/2 cup and less than a cup.

Enjoy!

A Dark Crystal Birthday

2011-09-05T17:30:00.000-07:00

I got a request for a Dark Crystal-themed birthday cake. I think this may have been my most challenging cake request to date. The characters in the movie are very complex and detailed, and since I'm not much of an artist, and since I don't have an edible printer, that makes it hard to translate to cake! But I hope it turned out okay (I'm still not too sure how I did).

The dark crystal (in case you couldn't tell).

The Skeksis castle.

This is supposed to be a Mystic, although I think it looks more like a Skeksis. Maybe because it's black? I was going to make both races, but I was afraid that if I did them both, no one could tell which was which. :)

This symbol is hand-painted and the writing is buttercream I piped freehand, based on some words I had printed out in a Dark Crystal-based font.

This was my first attempt to paint a character from the movie. This is supposed to be Kira. She didn't make the cut... You might notice the characters that did make it onto the cake are silhouettes. That wasn't an accident.

My First 3-Tier!

2011-08-27T11:53:00.000-07:00

I made a cake for my friend's baby shower today. It was my first 3-tier and my first time attaching ribbon to a cake. That part went really well! The whole cake went well, really, except for the fact I underestimated how much frosting I would need to make the roses. My original plan was to do the roses on both pink tiers, but I ran out! The sad thing is, I had more at home I didn't bring because I didn't think I'd need it. Oops! Now I know for next time. :)

Star Wars

2011-08-27T11:47:00.000-07:00

I made a cake for my friend's son's 5th birthday. You'll never guess what theme he picked. :)

The paper stars was actually plan B. I started out making some with fondant, but as I was making them only 2 days in advance I realized there was no way they'd be dry in time (a week would have been more like it). So, I made paper ones instead. I thought they turned out really cute.

Spongebob Squarepants

2011-08-20T08:01:00.000-07:00

My niece, Mandy, helped me decorate this cake for my daughter's early birthday party while we were visiting family. The ocean was three layers of chocolate mud cake with cookies and cream filling, then frosted in buttercream. The pineapple was a banana cake filled with "cake spackle" (a mixture of buttercream and cake), then drizzled in caramel. Originally the pineapple was going to be frosted in buttercream and filled with caramel, but when I accidentally added too much blue and got a mustard color instead of pineapple-looking, we had to come up with a plan B. The banana cake and caramel were the hit of the party. I wish I had switched the flavors and made the banana the big cake!

The pineapple on top gave us so much grief. In short, the colors were wrong, the fondant was cracking and the leaves on top didn't dry fast enough (I had to lean them on toothpicks, and many of them bent over and cracked), and both frosting bags broke while we were trying to pipe onto the cake. Good grief! However, in the end I think it all worked out and it looked really cute. And the birthday girl loved it, so that's all that really matters!

Happy Freakin' Birthday

2011-07-30T06:56:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday was my birthday. I thought I would use that as an opportunity to try a few new recipes and techniques on a cake.

It didn't go so well. Apparently when the recipe said to line the pan with parchment or wax paper, they weren't joking. (I did use my usual non-stick concoction.) I did manage to get the part stuck in the pan out by prying it off with a spatula, and it came out in one piece.

So, I decided to use it anyway. As it turns out, that was the least of my concerns.

Both layers of the cake stuck to the pan and came out in two pieces, so this is really a 4-layer cake. :)

The frosting was what really killed me on this cake. I messed up and added a pinch too much salt (I'm still trying to figure out the best amount for a sweet, but not too sweet frosting). I also tried to whiten the frosting by adding a smidge of purple food coloring, but added way too much (I was out of toothpicks and used a skewer, so I think my eyeballing was thrown for a loop). I didn't want a purple cake, so I added blue. It was going to be pink, per my daughter's request. Oh, well. It's my birthday.

I then tried to add white chocolate to help out the flavor, but I apparently didn't melt it all the way, because I ended up with a blue frosting with white chocolate chunks in it. That does not lend well to smoothing or piping on a cake. I ended up with big blobs of swirls on top, just because a chunk of chocolate would get jammed in my tip, and I'd use major pressure to get it out, resulting in a big mound of frosting. Ugh. However, it didn't matter anyway, because I decided to put my cake dome on the cake to try to keep it from drying out in the fridge and the dome was too short and squashed my "blobs". Whatever. I had already given up on the cake looking pretty, so I just shoved it in the fridge.

Well, my frosting hardened. It hardened right onto my cake dome. Yes, my cake is suspended several inches in the air because it is stuck inside my cake dome. I ended up running the whole thing under hot water just so I could get it out.

Gorgeous. I didn't bother fixing it.

At this point, I decided to let my daughter help me, since she always begs to help me make a cake. It was fun decorating with her.

First, she wanted fuchsia stars (although she called it pink). I actually really like how that turned out.

She also wanted green people. I really don't know why, but she did. I happen to have a mold for making a little family, but I told her she could only have one person, which she seemed okay with.

Then, of course, it needed sprinkles...

...and candles. Yes, I am eight this year. Well, add 20. Happy birthday, me! The cake was white cake with lemon curd filling and white chocolate buttercream. My favorite part was the lemon curd, although it was a bit on the sweet side. I'm toying with the idea of halving the sugar next time. And I'll definitely be using a different frosting.

Polka Dots

2011-07-23T06:08:00.000-07:00

I made this cake for our church BBQ tonight. I tried out a new cake recipe and a new frosting/filling recipe, so we have yet to see if it tastes good, but I think it looks really cute! The cake is Hershey's chocolate cake and it's frosted with a peanut butter buttercream.

I wanted to practice putting fondant on cake and try out my new Americolor gels. I am officially in love with Americolor gels! I could never get the deep, vibrant colors I wanted with Wilton gel colors, but now I can with Americolor. I only bought 7 colors so far, but you can bet I'm going to be getting some more, just as soon as the budget allows it. :)

My first ever "sugar flower". I thought it came out pretty cute. I used fondant to make it.

Really don't know what I was thinking with this design. I think I spent four hours just cutting out these little dots and sticking them to the cake. And here I was wondering why no one else had done it before...

Gauging Interest

2011-07-15T06:33:00.000-07:00

I've talked with a couple of people about maybe doing a cake decorating class. That's something I'd be interested in doing, if there's enough interest. So, locals, is there interest? If so, what do you want to learn?

If people could tell me what they want to learn, I could probably be talked into doing something informal at my house. I could demonstrate:

baking and frosting a basic round cake
fun cupcake projects
easy ideas for kids' birthday cakes
using a frosting bag and frosting tips (for making flowers and borders on cakes)

I'm open to other suggestions as well, if it's something I know how to do. So, what are you interested in?

Volcano!

2011-07-14T13:59:00.000-07:00

My friend's son was turning 5, and he was having a dinosaur-themed birthday party. After looking at some examples of dinosaur cakes, he decided he really loved the volcanoes. So, I made him a giant volcano cake for his birthday.

Complete with little palm trees.

I feel dumb now I completely forgot to write his name on the cake! Oh well, I guess. The cake was chocolate mud cake with cookies and cream filling and frosted with chocolate ganache. Mmmmm.... I "borrowed" this photo from my friend's blog.

Blue Dragon Cake

2011-07-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

My sister just had a baby one week before her second oldest turned nine, so I volunteered to make her daughter a birthday cake. Since I was away from home, I needed a cake that didn't require a lot of cake tools. My niece loves dragons and I found this cool tutorial for a dragon cake.

Now, I really can't take credit for all the decorating on the cake. My sister-in-law Nicole and her three girls wanted to help me with a cake while I was visiting, and this ended up being the perfect collaboration.

Emily and Mandy painted the design on these gelatin wings. I thought they turned out awesome.

Rose fashioned the fire coming out of the dragon's mouth and the eyes were a group effort, getting the marshmallows the right size and design. Nicole made the dragon smooth and made the swirls on the spikes.

There were many more details that went into it. We had a lot of fun making it.

Awesome Ribbon Cutter

2011-07-06T10:54:00.000-07:00

This post is more for me as a reference, but I found an awesome DIY ribbon cutter for cutting fondant/gumpaste that I'd like to make someday. So I am posting the link:

http://cakes.keyartstudio.com/tutorials/item/83-diy-multi-blade-ribbon-strip-cutter.html

Happy Birthday to Me

2011-06-20T19:52:00.000-07:00

Every few months I head on over to craigslist and search for "cake"-related items. Usually all that comes up is an abundance of glass cake plates. Once in a while I'll see a couple of character pans, but they're either more than I want to pay, not ones I want, or too far away to be worth going and getting. That is, until today. I searched today and found this lot:

for $25 dollars. That's just over $2 a pan. New, they cost $12-$20 apiece. Since I was out of spending money for this month, this is my birthday present, one month early. :)
If you're interested, the pans are as follows:
castle
book (this image is the same shape as my pan, but mine is smaller)
football
3D train
book--halves (put two together to make full book)
mitt
sheep
shell
taz
space ship
teenage mutant ninja turtle
donald duck

If I Had a Million Dollars...

2011-06-19T05:17:00.000-07:00

I made this cake to celebrate a friend's graduation from the MBA school.

University symbol and namesake of the school. The "serial number" is the initials of the school and date of graduation.

Ballerina Bear

2011-06-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

My daughter had a ballet recital on Saturday, so I volunteered to make a cake. I've been biding my time for a chance to use my new character pans. Believe it or not, character cakes are much easier to make than the cakes I usually make and I think they're a lot of fun for kids. This cake was a carrot cake (with walnuts, pineapple and coconut!) and cream cheese frosting. I thought it was very tasty, however I'm not sure I'd do this recipe for cream cheese frosting again. It was too thin to make really clean stars on the cake. There were a few things I'd like to do better next time, but overall I thought the cake turned out well. It must have, because it was all but gone when we took the box home. One of the moms even said it rivaled the signature carrot cake at a bakery she used to go to. My husband even liked it, and he normally doesn't like carrot cake.

Lemon Cake

2011-06-04T09:32:00.000-07:00

I've been loving lemon lately, so when I was asked to make a cake for a Memorial service, I decided to try out a lemon cake. Besides, I figured everyone else was doing chocolate.

It wasn't quite lemony enough for my taste, but still very tasty. I love the recipe. I have a feeling it can be adaptable for different flavors. I may have to experiment...

Pink Butterflies

2011-05-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

A friend asked me to make cupcakes to celebrate her baby getting blessed at church. They are patterned after these cupcakes, except with smaller butterflies.

I was pleased with how they turned out.

Mermaid Cake

2011-04-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine requested a cake for her daughter's Mermaid-themed (specifically not Little Mermaid) 4th birthday party. The birthday girl liked a cake she saw online, and I attempted to replicate it, with a few requested changes. The birthday girl didn't like that the top part was gray in the original, and wanted it to be blue like the ocean. She requested a blonde mermaid with pink shells and an aqua tail. Her mom wanted a more modest mermaid.

I was trying to think of what to draw behind the mermaid, and I thought, "oh, I'll just draw another crab". I didn't realize until after I drew the little guy that he looked like he was trying to grab the mermaid's tail. :) Hopefully no one noticed.

Sleeping Beauty Cake

2011-04-13T07:35:00.000-07:00

A friend was throwing a birthday party for her daughter and wanted a Sleeping Beauty cake. I wanted to try my hand at setting up a cake scene.

I was pleased with how it turned out.

My favorite detail is probably one you wouldn't have guessed--her collar. My brilliant husband came up with a template for her collar to look just right.

Relief Society Birthday

2011-04-13T06:30:00.000-07:00

Here's the cake I made for the Relief Society birthday dinner. I used the same batter and frosting from my daughter's birthday cake to save time. It was chocolate cake with my mom's chocolate frosting.

Simplicity

2011-04-12T07:59:00.000-07:00

This cake was my Plan B for my daughter's first birthday party, since my original plan flopped. I was able to salvage things I had made for the first design and add them to this cake. I like how it turned out. I almost wish I had done this design to begin with, since it was so much easier! Although to be honest, leaving the cake almost "naked" was a little scary for me, since you really need smooth frosting to pull if off, but I feel like my technique has improved greatly and I felt good about the overall appearance.

And here was my little 4" smash cake. So little and cute!

Another shot of the cake, pre-border and swirlies.

This was the "special tool" I used to make my candles. I pushed gumpaste through a frosting tip. It took several hours and my thumbs were very sore by the end. Trust me, a better tool is next on my shopping list.

Post party.

topsy turvy failure

2011-03-14T13:49:00.000-07:00

To celebrate my second daughter's first birthday, I attempted a topsy turvy cake (also known as mad hatter or wonky cakes). It didn't go so well. First off, I think I made a poor choice of cake. It didn't carve very well. It was very crumby...

...which led to the frosting not staying on very well. I also think I put too much frosting between the layers. (We tasted it and it was uber sweet.)

I then attempted to cover it with fondant, not thinking about the fact that the top is much wider than the bottom. After the fact, Kurt asked me why I didn't just cut a strip of fondant and put that on the bottom, since I was going to put more fondant on top. Unfortunately, I didn't think I had enough fondant for a do-over.

To add to my frustration, the cake layers were sliding and collapsing. Here are the two tiers I was going to use for the cake. They should same height and the same angle on top. I think this may have had something to do with using too much frosting. I would also add more internal support on a future attempt.

The top tier worked much better in many respects, since I had learned from the bottom tier. Unfortunately, I still hadn't figured out how to balance the dang thing. This tier leaned in ways it wasn't supposed to. I was very close to giving up at this point (okay, and at several points before then), but I went to bed, hoping I could figure out a solution the next day (this was still two days before the birthday party).

Well, the next day I made the mistake of leaving my 3-year-old alone in the room with my cake. I thought it was hidden, but apparently not. Those holes are from prodding little fingers. At this point, I asked my husband what he thought I should do. His vote was to abandon ship. So I did.

Here are my sad, squished and poked tiers.

To give you an idea of how squished my cake is, here it is next to cake #2. The second cake is 4 inches tall (without the candles). The first (blue) cake was originally 4 inches tall at its lowest point, and 8 inches high at its high point. Maybe the angle was too steep as well. All I know is, this cake did not work. I'd like to attempt another topsy turvy cake in the future, but until then I'm going to try to figure out how to make it better. :)

Cake for Fam

2011-02-08T11:42:00.000-08:00

I started decorating cakes many miles from home, so when I went back to visit, Kurt's family wanted to taste these treats I'd been posting pictures of. Well, I guess I was a little out of my element, because things didn't turn out quite the same. Apparently cakes are stickier at higher altitudes.

I didn't take any pictures of the final product, but here's the cookies and cream filling that went in it. The cake was chocolate mud cake and it was frosted with ganache.

Score!

2011-01-10T07:25:00.000-08:00

A very nice lady in the ward had some character cake pans she no longer wanted, so she gave them to me! I was over the moon when I came home with my new pans. It's like Christmas all over again! So, if anyone wants a character cake or would like to borrow a pan, let me know!

Here are the pans I have:
Superman (I don't have the face mask to go with it, but I could just make it with frosting)
Batman (looks similar to the superman one, but with bat ears)
Reindeer
Rocking Horse
Lamb Chop
Hulk Hogan (WWF)
101 Dalmatians
Ballerina Bear
Bugs Bunny
Holly Hobbie

I also had the teddy bear pan already.

Just FYI, I was finding those links without looking at the pans, so the pan may not be exactly the same, but it should be at least close. Also, character pans don't have to be used for what they were originally made for. For example, the 101 dalmatians one can easily be decorated as a golden retriever or black lab if you want. Bugs Bunny can be the Easter Bunny. Between the Superman, Batman and Hulk Hogan pans, I could probably replicate any male superhero (or wrestler) you want. And I think I could probably make Lamb Chop into a convincing Dora the Explorer.

Flowery Cake

2010-12-15T20:01:00.000-08:00

When I set out making this cake, I had pictured a very simple design. Smooth white cake with little white dots, completed with a ribbon around the bottom and one simple flower. Funny how things change... I can never get my frosting smooth enough to pull off a "simple" cake and it drives me crazy. My husband thinks I'm too hard on myself. One of these days, though, I am going to pull it off. Just watch me.

Okay, so you're probably wondering why the cake has two different tops. The first picture of the post was the end product. This last picture is what the cake originally looked like, but I hated it. It looked too slapped on and non-cohesive. But I liked the pictures a little better, which is why I'm including it.

The cake was chocolate mud cake with two layers of cookies and cream filling and frosted with cream cheese frosting. The flowers are made from fondant.

Practice Cake

2010-11-28T20:37:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to practice some basic buttercream techniques, but I didn't want to take the time to make a cake (plus I'm trying to eat a little better). I'd heard of people decorating cake pans, so I decided to try it out. I have cake pans that are 3 inches deep, so they look a little more cake-like than than the normal 2-inch ones.

Here is some practice on the ruffle piping and stringwork. I chose not to color the icing so I could re-use it.

Black and Red Cornelli

2010-11-19T05:51:00.000-08:00

I had an extra cake and icing, so I decided to use it.

I originally made the cake for my smash cake, but while it was cooling on the rack, I took a short trip upstairs and when I came back, a corner had mysteriously disappeared. So I baked another one. I guess I should have known better than to leave a cake within the reach of a 3-year-old. :) The cake is white cake covered in cream cheese buttercream and regular buttercream.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

2010-11-13T10:32:00.000-08:00

I got the idea for this cake from Coco Cake Cupcakes and I love how it turned out! This was for a friend whose son was turning one and they love the Very Hungry Caterpillar book.

Complete with chocolate feet.

Polka Dot Smash Cake

2010-11-13T10:20:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine was taking pictures with her one-year-old and wanted a cake for him to smash during the photo shoot. I was going to make dots with fondant, but it turns out that's a choking hazard, so we used melting candy/chocolate instead.

I made a "1" to go on top. It was too tall for the box, so I didn't add it to the cake before my friend picked it up, but I'm sure you can imagine it sticking up in the middle of the cake.

Rubber Ducky, You're the One...

2010-11-09T19:59:00.000-08:00

I volunteered to make a baby shower cake for a girl from church. Unfortunately, she had the baby early and the shower was cancelled. But since I had mostly made the cake already, I invited everybody over who was going to go to the shower.

Don't laugh at my ghetto photo box. It really did help with the lighting. I'm thinking about making a real one, just so I can build a portfolio. I think a great picture can make or break how the cake looks to someone who didn't see it in person.

The cake was a butter vanilla pound cake with swiss meringue buttercream and filled with whipped ganache. I really liked each component individually, but altogether I don't really think it worked. The chocolate overpowered everything else and it all seemed too sweet. I'd like to try making it again sometime but filling it with maybe a vanilla pudding, or something like that. You live and learn, I guess.

Chocolate Ice Cream Cake

2010-11-09T10:57:00.000-08:00

A friend asked for a chocolate ice cream cake for her birthday.

She wanted chocolate cake with caramel filling, and chocolate ice cream, then covered in chocolate ganache. I was nervous about the ganache, but we decided to go for it. I spread it on top. It looked fantastic. Something deep inside me told me to stop there, but I just had to keep going, just to see.

It didn't look so fantastic. The ice cream would melt and the ganache would slide off.

I tried to patch it, but since I had to do it between bouts of stuffing it back in the freezer, it didn't look the greatest. But hopefully it tasted good. :)

Incidentally, I made chocolate pieces to put on top that spelled Happy Birthday. If you're wondering why certain of the pieces look discolored, then good eye. I had just enough of one kind of chocolate to do all the pieces, but as I was piping into the mold, my bag broke and spilled out my precious chocolate. So I had to melt a different kind of chocolate for the remaining pieces. :(

Cupcake in a Cup

2010-11-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

My daughter's preschool was having a bake sale for election day, so I thought I'd contribute some cupcakes. It just so happened I had some extra cupcakes and frosting from doing a friend's birthday the day before. I seem to always have extra batter or frosting on hand these days...

Before I delivered them, I found out they needed to be individually packaged so people would be able to transport them home. What? You think these are going to make it home? Since I don't have any individual cupcake boxes (and they're super expensive anyway), I decided to put them in a cup. I have cups that are the perfect size.

Haha. Good luck getting that sucker out without getting frosting all over your fingers.

I couldn't help but remember the quote from Wall-E: "Oh, I see the ship's log is showing that today is the 700th anniversary of our five year cruise.... So, be sure next mealtime to ask for your free sep-tua-centennial cupcake in a cup."

Just as a side note, the chocolate swirl cupcakes were a bit of an experiment. I wanted to see if I could do a swirl without the fancy bag and tip, so I made these with a ziploc bag. I just filled a bag full of icing, cut a small hole out of the corner and swirled. Just be sure to grab the bag from the middle, otherwise you don't have as much control on the icing as it comes out.

Halloween Snickers Cake

2010-10-31T15:28:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to make a Snickers-inspired cake and yesterday I finally got my chance.

Layers of snickery goodness. Okay, you can just see the ganache. I put it there so the filling wouldn't leak out.

The verdict: delicious!

I had extra white melting candy leftover from making the "boo!", so I decided to make some embellishments as well. My ghosts looked more like jellyfish, but I loved how my swirls came out.

I really need to get better lighting. I swear it looked better in real life.

Snow White

2010-10-23T17:04:00.000-07:00

A friend requested a Snow White cake. I was grateful to get another shot at the doll cake since I thought my Tinkerbell cake looked a little boring.

I admit I was pretty proud of this cake. My favorite detail? The sleeves. I thought they would be the hardest part to replicate, but they came out pretty good. The cake was chocolate mud cake filled with cookies and cream and iced in cream cheese frosting.

Pink Birthday Cake

2010-10-23T15:25:00.000-07:00

I made a marble cake filled with ganache and frosted with buttercream icing. The rosettes in the middle of the cake were for putting on candles. And just so you don't call correcting me, yes, I know I accidentally crossed the "d" in "birthday". I fixed it before my friend picked up the cake. I guess I just need more practice writing. :)

Here's what the sides looked like. A scroll/dot combo.

Pink Princess Cupcakes

2010-10-16T13:20:00.000-07:00

A friend asked if I could make pink princess cupcakes for her daughter's fifth birthday party. This is what I came up with. I thought they turned out pretty cute. I scoured the internet to find a template for a tiara I liked. Most of the ones I could find featured fondant tiaras, but I really liked the delicate look of the melting wafer crown.

For the cupcakes, I marbled my mom's chocolate cake recipe with a vanilla butter cake recipe I found online.

I made two different tiaras. The yellow ones are actually a different template than the white. The frosting is buttercream.

A Crushed Dream

2010-10-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

So, I did a little research into what it takes to get licensed to sell cakes, etc. from home around here. Turns out you need a commercial kitchen in your home, separate from the one you use for your family. So, yeah, that's not happening. Another option is to rent out a kitchen somewhere, but that kind of defeats the purpose of working from home. So I guess I'll just keep on practicing. Or doodling, if you will. ;)

Good Enough

2010-10-11T07:49:00.000-07:00

My husband wanted me to throw out the frosting leftover from our daughter's birthday so we wouldn't eat it, but I didn't have the heart. So when our friends threw a potluck, I thought it would be the perfect compromise. Plus, I thought it would be the perfect chance to try my hand at petit fours (little cakes).

Things didn't really go as planned. I debated between making a cake from scratch and using a box mix, but in the end I decided on a box mix since it's cheaper and quicker. The cake broke when I was trying to get it on an appropriate surface for decorating. Then I decided to freeze it so it would cut better.

I heated up the leftover chocolate ganache so it would spread smoothly over the cakes. To be efficient, I put a dollop on each cake to later smooth. Well, the cakes were still frozen. Let's just say I got a refresher course on thermal equilibrium. I had wanted to spread the ganache on the sides of the cake, but that was pretty much out of the question.

I topped it off with the leftover cream cheese frosting (it was cream cheese--I remember now). Well, good enough, right? The kids loved them and that's all that really matters.

Tinkerbell Cake

2010-10-10T18:08:00.000-07:00

I made a doll cake for my daughter's "friend birthday party".

There is a special pan for making doll cakes, but I decided to buy a ball pan instead and put half a ball on top of an 8 inch round and cut the cake down to size. I thought I could get more use out of a ball pan. We'll see.

I cut a hole in the middle of the cake and put my saran wrapped doll in the middle.

I didn't make the hole big enough. Either that or Tinkerbell has freakishly large hips. Perhaps a little of both.

I was in a time crunch, so remaking the cake wasn't an option. This is what I came up with, and you know what? No one noticed.

Ta Da! I think I may have gone too large on the dress, but then again, who doesn't like a lot of cake?

Just add some wings.

And some flowers. I wanted to add words but I was short on time. This was my only picture of the finished product. I'm bummed it turned out blurry. The cake was my favorite cake--chocolate mud cake, filled with ganache. The ball part was a white cake. I think I did cream cheese frosting for the frosting. Either that or plain buttercream. I can't remember now. Either way, it tasted good. :)

Present Cake

2010-10-10T06:08:00.000-07:00

For my daughter's family birthday party, I decided to make a present cake. I had all the the stuff leftover from other cakes I made so it went really fast.

I had to dry the pieces of the ribbon so they would hold their shape.

The finished product. I thought it turned out really cute. It was a white cake with cream cheese frosting.

Ice Cream Cake

2010-10-09T11:06:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to make an ice cream cake for a while, and since my husband's birthday was coming up and he likes ice cream (really, who doesn't?), he was a willing guinea pig. I tried my mom's chocolate cake recipe that I grew up with. I didn't know how long to cook it since I was using a different pan than the recipe called for, and apparently I opened the oven way too early. You can't tell from the picture since I already somewhat "leveled" the cake, but it fell in the middle and had tall sides. But it still tasted good, so I used it anyway.

I froze cookie dough ice cream inside some saran wrap inside an 8" pan so it would match the cake size.

Covered in whipped cream.

And added Reese's Pieces (my hubby's favorite). A few things went wrong (for example, it's not a good idea to put the ice cream as the bottom layer), but it tasted good, so I was happy.

Orange Dreamsicle Heart

2010-10-09T10:01:00.000-07:00

I hosted recipe swap in September. The theme was desserts, so of course I baked a cake. But instead of trying my favorite recipe, I tried a new one. I read about a recipe for an Orange Dreamsicle Cake that was supposed to be really good, so I thought I'd try it. Well, my computer had died by this point, so instead of checking the recipe, I thought I'd wing it. I had the building block recipe already printed, so I wasn't completely going off nothing. However, I think that's the last time I try winging a recipe, at least for a while. It wasn't a bad cake, but it wasn't nearly up to my expectations. The cake was dry and the orange flavor wasn't very strong.

I made a syrup from orange juice and sugar and added that to the cake to help the dryness and flavor. I put cream cheese frosting on it. Naomi helped me decorate it. Okay, she only helped me a little, but in my defense I do much better when I'm going off an image and I had to completely freehand this without looking at anything. She added the smudge on the bottom of the trunk (it looks a bit like a squirrel if you use your imagination). I think the only thing I really liked about this cake was how smooth the cream cheese frosting was (I tried a new recipe). I thought the cream cheese frosting was overpowering for the orange cake, but somehow the flavors went much better together the next day. I'm not sure if it was just because the cream cheese frosting is not as strong when it's cold or if the orange flavor really did intensify overnight. Maybe a combination.

Flavors and Fillings

2010-09-19T14:51:00.000-07:00

Cake Flavors
chocolate mud
white
sunrise (cupcakes only)
banana
carrot
red velvet

Frostings
vanilla buttercream
cream cheese buttercream
chocolate buttercream
chocolate cream cheese buttercream
peanut butter buttercream

    Certain designs require a certain type of frosting, for example, for brown- or black-colored frosting, I recommend a chocolate frosting. All other colors require either vanilla or cream cheese buttercream.
    I do not yet offer fondant-covered cakes (still practicing!)

Fillings
any of the frostings listed above, as well as:
ganache
whipped ganache
cookies and cream
caramel
lemon curd

Popular Sizes
8 inch round--serves 20
6 inch round--serves 12
cupcakes (dozen minimum)
9X13 inch double layer sheet cake--serves 36
13X18 inch double layer sheet cake--serves 72
doll cake--serves 15 or 24, depending on height of skirt
other sizes available, including more round sizes,
    hexagonal, and even heart-shaped!

***serving amounts based on Wilton serving chart
    this is for a piece of cake cut 1.5 x 2 inches

Someday...

2010-08-31T14:45:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me once if I had thought of turning this into a business. I admit I would love for that to happen. I would love to get paid to do something I enjoy. :) I don't feel like I have enough experience to charge professional prices, and I think it may be illegal in my county to sell food from a home kitchen, but for now, I'm going to keep practicing. But just for kicks, I designed myself a logo. What do you think? I'm also not sure about a name. I decided from the very beginning my name is too hard to spell to use as part of a company name. I thought of "Cake Doodling" because I feel like I'm just playing around, or "doodling" in the cake world. "Doodle Cakes" is just a variation on that. I appreciate any feedback. :)

Cuppies

2010-08-31T06:20:00.000-07:00

Since cupcakes are all the rage these days, I thought I'd try my hand at making some more adult-friendly cupcakes.

I baked some white cupcakes and filled them with pudding. Some had lemon. Some had chocolate. I'd like to learn how to make pudding from scratch, but I thought I'd use pre-made for practice. Besides, I couldn't find a recipe for lemon pudding that didn't have a bread-like consistency.

My husband and I tried to come up with a name for this one. It's filled with lemon pudding, topped with buttercream frosting and orange zest. The best we came up with was "Citrus Sunrise" but it doesn't quite feel right. Any suggestions?

This one is filled with chocolate pudding, frosted with buttercream frosting and "sprinkled" with chocolate chips. I thought it was super delicious as long as I got enough pudding inside. Name, anyone?

And, since I am a chocoholic, here is the one filled with chocolate pudding and topped with chocolate glaze and chocolate chips. It didn't look as pretty as the others, but it sure tasted good!

Melted Hearts

2010-08-31T05:50:00.000-07:00

At the superhero party, the kids fought over who got to eat the fondant superheroes. One boy in particular had actually watched me making them earlier that week, so the anticipation for him was even greater. He just knew it was going to be the greatest thing he had ever eaten. After all, if it looks good, it must taste good, right? Well, he took one bite and said, "Ew! That's gross!" Sorry, kid. Fondant really doesn't taste that good. I've actually avoided using fondant for that very reason, but it's so easy to work with, I decided with the superhero cake, the only way I could pull it off was by using fondant. But the experience got me thinking. Melting wafers taste much better, but they're harder to work with, especially for small details. But why not do small accents with melting wafers?

So I played around a little to find ways to incorporate melting wafers more easily. Here is my melting wafer "sucker". I used small cookie cutters to shape the melting wafers. I found it worked best if I coated the whole cutter with shortening before pouring in the melted wafer. It was still tricky to remove the cutter from the melted wafer, but with a little more practice, I think I can get it down pretty well.

But then my 2-year-old got a hold of the sprinkles...

Superhero Cake

2010-08-26T16:37:00.000-07:00

A friend asked me to make a superhero birthday cake for her son and I got pretty excited. I've seen lots of fun superhero cakes and I've been wanting a chance to try it out. So, here it is. I love how this cake turned out. I make the decorations to go on the cake before I frost it, so I'm never quite sure how it's going to look all together, but as I started putting the cake together last night, I was so excited with the result. This is hands down my favorite cake I have made so far.

I made the "cityscape" with melting wafers and royal icing. The symbols and characters are made out of fondant.The small details, like the "s" on superman and spiderman's stripes, are painted on with food coloring. Originally I was going to make everything out of melting wafers, but as I spent hours outlining batman's figure and pondering on whether or not adding all the colors I needed would completely distort my hard work, I decided it wasn't worth it. So I went to fondant and, relatively speaking, whipped it out. It doesn't taste as good but it sure looks a lot better and is so much easier to work with!

The bottom layer of the cake is cinnamon chocolate mud cake filled with chocolate ganache and frosted in buttercream. The top layer is vanilla butter cake filled with chocolate buttercream and iced in regular buttercream.

And since I know you're all dying to see more, I put together the images of the cake as it was put together.

dinosaur sprinkles

2010-08-26T12:44:00.000-07:00

I made some cupcakes the other day. I was excited to try out the new tray I got. It was on clearance at Michael's and I thought it was a lot cuter than taking cupcakes on a cookie sheet. I also tried out making chocolate stand-up thingys, but they didn't work out so hot. I put shortening in it to make it less temperamental, but it made it too soft. I didn't follow a recipe, so I don't know if it's the proportions I used or if I need to use solid chocolate. I didn't measure exactly, but it seems like I put about a tablespoon of shortening with a cup and a half of chocolate chips.

two tiers

2010-08-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to try my hand at making a tiered cake for a while, and since my in-laws were in town, they agreed to help watch the kids so I could have time to try it.

Just for kicks, I threw on some fondant dots. Next time I think I will make the bottom tier taller and maybe the top tier shorter. To support the top tier, I inserted drinking straws cut to the size of the cake into the bottom tier. The top tier is on cardboard to even the weight distribution. The straws worked fine to support the top layer since it was small, but the straws were hard to spot in the cake, which could make for a surprise to anyone who got a straw in their piece of cake. I may use wooden dowels next time since they're easier to spot.

We ate it on Emma's five-month birthday, so I added her name to the top. Next time I think I'll make a background for the name, since it was too fragile by itself and broke in several places. Actually, I expected that, but I wanted to try it anyway. :)

Christmas Pound Cake

2010-08-09T06:25:00.000-07:00

As I poured the glaze on this cake, my two-year-old saw me and said, "sprinkles!" Since I was just trying out a new recipe anyway, I let her pick some sprinkles and put them on. Can you tell?

Usually I level off the top of each layer so the cake looks more smooth, but I just threw this one together. It was easily the fastest I've ever made a decorated cake. (Before you say how "smooth" it looks, I might add this doesn't affect the top as much as the middle of the cake. The center had a big gap and the cake leaned in, looking slightly hourglass shaped.)

The cake was a cream cheese pound cake. I topped and filled it with leftover chocolate glaze from my birthday cheesecake. I discovered after it was mostly gone that it paired well with strawberries and whipped cream. Oh, well. I guess I'll have to make it again to really explore that combination. Darn.

Birthday Cheesecake

2010-07-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

First attempt at a cheesecake. I found a recipe for a chocolate peanut butter cheesecake in a cake book I adore, so I had to try it. :) I sort of messed up a bit with a step in cooking it, but it still turned out well.

I added a chocolate glaze and sprinkles.

Swirls of peanut butter and chocolate cheesecake. It was delicious. :)

Cake Pops

2010-07-25T18:07:00.000-07:00

I saw these on a blog called bakerella, and had to try them for myself! They didn't turn out quite like I expected, but they were still pretty cute.

Here's another shot. I had trouble getting the melting chocolate/wafers to work the way I wanted. It was never the right consistency. I think chocolate ganache might work better, or I might try the "bark" the recipe calls for. I've never seen chocolate bark before, so hopefully I could find it. Our local grocery chain, Wegmans, seems to have about everything you can think of.

Cake Pops are made from combining a baked cake with a can of frosting., You roll it into balls, then freeze for 15 minutes. (You can find full directions on bakerella's blog. There's a link to it in my side bar.) You finish them off by dipping in melting chocolate, and then adding a popsicle stick and sprinkles. Everyone seemed to like them. I thought they were okay. If I make them again, I'll have to use homemade frosting, since I think it tastes so much better!

James's Birthday Cake

2010-07-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine asked me to make a cake for her son's birthday. I was so excited! It was really fun making this cake. She told me the theme was "bikes", so this is what I came up with. The cake is chocolate mud cake with cookies and cream filling and cream cheese frosting.

I also made some cupcakes to go with the cake. The cupcakes were yellow cake with chocolate chips and chocolate frosting. I admit I cheated on the cupcakes. I haven't found any non-chocolate cake recipes I like, so I used a box mix for these. But I have found that with box mixes, name brand really is better. And with the Duncan Hines box mix, you actually can get 24 cupcakes! I was using Pillsbury brand before, and with Pillsbury, you can really only get 18 cupcakes, so I guess you get what you pay for. :)

Here are some close ups. I love how these "candles" turned out. Since I had filled the cake with whipped cream and the party was to be outside, I wasn't sure how the cake would hold up in the heat. These "candles" are actually shish kabob sticks that I melted candy wafers onto. I stuck them in the cake so the cake wouldn't slide around if it got too hot.

I had images all around the cake that I made by "painting" melted candy wafers onto cellophane. This little dog was my favorite. I thought he turned out so cute.

This was the most intricate candy plaque I "painted". He turned out better than I expected, even though one of his freckles looks more like an eye. :)

Here is a close up on the bicycle cupcakes. I had a printed out picture of a bicycle under wax paper. I piped royal icing onto the wax paper and let it dry. Then I put them on top of the cupcakes. I thought they turned out really cute.

Silky Smooth

2010-06-24T15:52:00.000-07:00

Since I had already baked this cake, I thought I may as well decorate it (it was supposed to be the bottom tier to my father's day cake). I tried a new frosting out. I wasn't crazy about the way it tasted by itself, but paired with the cake it was pretty good. And I loved working with it. This is the smoothest I've ever gotten a cake, and my sides looked perpendicular to the top for the first time ever (usually the sides look rounded at the top). I did try out a new icing technique, so maybe it was me rather than the new icing. :)

See how smooth that is? Okay, that really is the frosting. It had a much different composition than the frostings I'm used to. I love that smooth look. I was cutting it pretty close on the frosting quantity, which is why my loops aren't more even. :)

Doomed

2010-06-21T07:39:00.000-07:00

I made a cake for Father's Day. Or at least, I tried. I've never had so much go wrong. It really just wasn't meant to be. First of all, I made my own fondant. I burnt it. I figured, that's okay. It's made out of marshmallows, and burnt marshmallows actually taste good. Besides, only a small portion got burnt.

Next, I made a crest out of melting candy wafers. I made it backwards. I had to do it over. But at least I improved my melting wafer technique in the process. The second one looks so much better than the first.

Here's a close up of the second one. Notice the fine crown and "Salt Lake". By the way, this crest is for the Real Salt Lake soccer team, in case you didn't catch it. My husband is a big fan.

I tried a new recipe for the cake. I had a hard time telling when it was done. I overcooked it.

Next, I kept falling asleep during my toddler's naptime, so all the time I had planned to use toward putting the cake together suddenly disappeared (it usually takes a few days to construct a cake). I wanted to made a two tier cake with a sculpted soccer ball on top. Didn't happen. Although I did cook the second tier of cake. It's still sitting in my fridge.

Then I colored my fondant. My colors never turn out the way I want. My red looks like pink. My blue is too light as well. I added black to make my pink darker, and it just ended up looking like dusty rose. My husband encouraged me by saying it looked more like the team color that way.

I rolled out my fondant and had trouble picking it up. As I put it on the cake, it cracked all over. By this point, I was pretty fed up with the cake. And since I was also trying to get a nice father's day dinner ready at the same time, I decided I just didn't have time to fix it. So I left it cracked.

And did I mention my daughter took a bite out of the crest that morning?

I made a little crown just to use some of my yellow fondant. Forget the soccer ball.

At least it tasted okay. The filling was cookies and cream. The cake was a little dry since it was overcooked and left in the fridge for a few days, but with enough filling, it all worked out.

I did learn a lot, and hopefully I can improve from my mistakes.

Chocolate and Drop Poppies

2010-06-13T17:04:00.000-07:00

Every time I set out to make a cake, there is a list in my mind of different recipes and techniques I want to try out. I wish there was some way to try everything at once! This cake ended up being more of a new recipes kind of cake, since I tried out three new recipes at once: Chocolate Mud Cake, Instant Pudding Mousse and Chocolate Ganache. The combination seemed to work out very well. But I ended up not having time to do the decorations I wanted, so I did some quick poppy-inspired drop flowers on the cake. Heaven forbid I not decorate a cake. :) I did like the color scheme. I just wish I had had enough time to try all the techniques I wanted! I made the mud cake because it's supposed to be good for carving (ie cutting shapes out of cake). But I guess that just gives me an excuse to make it again. :)

I started taking pictures of my cakes outside because the lighting in my apartment is awful! To demonstrate my point, the first picture is taken inside my apartment; the second from outside. Same cake. Which one do you want to eat?

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

2010-06-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to try this technique for a while. Turns out it's a good thing I wasn't making these for anyone, because I filled the cones way too full! But even so, I thought they turned out pretty cute. In case you're wondering, I used a yellow cake mix in the cone and used a cupcake pan to hold them up. I then topped it with a homemade fudge and then cream cheese buttercream frosting. I used Skittles around and on top for the top picture. The heart in the bottom picture is made out of fondant (Naomi wanted to make hearts). And, also in case you're wondering, these were sugar overload. They are every child's dream and every parent's nightmare. So, does anyone want a cupcake?

Dream Cakes

2010-06-02T07:44:00.000-07:00

The hardest thing about decorating cakes is that I want to try everything at once! There are so many styles and techniques I want to try that I couldn't possibly keep up. It drives me a little bit crazy, actually. So if anyone needs a cake for anything, just let me know! I know I'm a long way off from being able to make most of these cakes, but that's all the more reason I need to practice, right? So seriously, if you need a cake, let me know. I'll even do it for free. You just have to pick it up!

Black and White Cake

2010-05-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

I hosted a book club meeting yesterday. I already had a lot on my plate that day (get it? on my plate? anyway...), but my daughter wanted to make a cake, and who am I to say no? I have been fascinated lately with the elegance of black and white cakes, so I thought I'd try one out.

I have mixed feelings about how it turned out. I think with a little more practice it could look really good. I realized after I did the garlands on the side of the cake that I have a "garland marker" set that would be a guide to make consistent garlands. Oh, well. Next time, right? I made a chocolate cake mix with a cake mix extender recipe. I filled it with chocolate pudding. It wasn't as moist as I would have liked, but still pretty good. The frosting is all decorator cream cheese frosting (the black is chocolate), except for the ribbon roses, which are fondant. I thought it turned out pretty good and with some honing of my decorator skills, it might even look elegant. :)

Carrot Cake

2010-05-16T18:53:00.000-07:00

I have a winner. I finally made a cake that I feel pretty good about from both the appearance and taste aspects. Every time I make a cake, I come away feeling disappointed. So I decided I need to lower my standards. :) I thought I should go back to basics and practice some of the beginning cake decorating stuff. So here I did a shell border. I even got the frosting pretty smooth, which is something that always seems to foil me. And I didn't try to quadruple layer a very sugary cake. It was two layers of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, and it was just right. The cake was slightly dry, but the frosting made up for it. I admit I ate a little too much of it. It's a very simple cake, but I feel like I need to master the simple stuff before I can move on to the more fun cakes. Just you wait, though. Someday I'm going to make something amazing. :)

White Cake with Raspberry Jam Filling

2010-05-08T12:02:00.000-07:00

I decided I wanted to try making a tall(er) cake. I've also been wanting to try making a white cake and putting raspberry jam in it to see how it tasted.

I used two 8X3 in pans to bake my cake (I used 2 cake mixes). I cut each cake in half and filled it with buttercream frosting and jam (the frosting was to prevent the jam from soaking into the cake), then stacked it all together. The resulting cake was 5 1/2 inches tall. I realized as I put the second cake on top of the first that I had not cut the cake straight across, so it ended up being a little crooked on top. I guess I could have cut the top off to make it even, but that didn't occur to me at the time.

Here is the finished cake. I wanted to use fondant, but I ran out of time. I also didn't have time to practice my writing before I wrote on the cake. Maybe you can tell. :) The pattern on the sides is just squiggly lines.

Here are some shots of the inside of the cake. I decided there's a reason you usually find this flavor in sheets and not tall cakes. That was a lot of sugar. I felt a bit sick between tasting the frosting during preparation and eating the final product. Not something you can really go back for seconds on.

Chocolate Swirl Cupcakes

2010-05-04T10:37:00.000-07:00

I made these cupcakes for my Sunday School class at church. I teach the 10/11/12 year olds. Most of them loved them. Turns out two kids in my class don't like chocolate (what?!). But they were super easy to make and they looked cute. They also tasted pretty good, too. I just used a cake mix and store bought frosting. They really were the fastest cupcakes ever! And by the way, I used to try to divide cupcake batter evenly into 24 cupcakes, but they always look so small and unappetizing. This time I just put in what looked right. I got 17 beautiful cupcakes. I think I could get by with stretching it to 18, but never again will I try to get 24 cupcakes from a cake mix. Never again.

Fondant Trial Run

2010-04-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to try out fondant for some time now so this past weekend I decided to give it a shot. Here is the cake pre-fondant. I made a chocolate cake with two pudding layers in the middle and chocolate frosting on top.

Here is the first layer of fondant over the cake.

And here is the final product. I put another layer of green fondant over the blue to make grass and added a bunch of flowers and a butterfly. I thought it turned out pretty well for a first try. The only thing I don't like about it is the fact that I had to use chocolate frosting to "glue" on the flowers and the frosting leaked out a bit. I just need to figure out a better system for adhering the flowers and I'm all set. :)

Butterfly Garden

2010-01-28T05:11:00.000-08:00

My brother-in-law gave me a cupcake decorating book for Christmas that I've been dying to try out. Last night I hosted a book club meeting, so I thought that would be the perfect opportunity to test out one of the cupcake designs I had been eyeing. These butterflies are made pouring melted candy onto wax paper in the shape of a wings (I had a pattern drawn out), then using a toothpick to merge the two colors and adding sprinkles. For a first try, I thought they turned out pretty good. There was definitely a learning curve, and I have room for improvement, but hey, that just means I get to practice more.
The two pictures on the left are of some of my earlier wings. The two on the right are from later on as I got a little better (well, the right two are the same pair, but one is just the wings, the other is with the antennae and body). It took a while to make the wings, but the more I did it, the faster I got. The great thing about this project was that I could do the butterflies ahead of time, which worked out great for me. It's so much less stressful finishing well in advance than scrambling to get all the last details. And I was even able to do it all while my toddler was asleep, which saved a lot of heartache and drama.

Chocolate Almond Cake

2009-12-04T17:50:00.000-08:00

Our ward had a function tonight where people were invited to bring desserts. I jumped at the chance to try out a new cake recipe without having the whole cake sitting in my house afterward. I found a recipe called "Best Ever Chocolate Cake" that I've been really wanting to try. In the end, if I had to choose between saying the cake was a success or a failure, I would say it was a success, but I apply the term loosely. I spent three and a half hours making this cake. If I spend that long on a cake, it had better be melt-in-your-mouth, heaven-on-earth delicious. But the cake was dry and the frosting was too runny. A bit disappointing for all the effort. My favorite part of the cake was the almonds sprinkled on top, which took about 30 seconds to do. And that wasn't even part of the recipe. That was a chocolate cake decorating idea I took from a Wilton magazine. I think I will do the almond/border combo another time, but next time I'll use a more deserving and hopefully less complicated cake.

Madeira Cake

2009-11-20T10:58:00.000-08:00

I tried out another new cake recipe yesterday, but this time it bombed. This is my second time trying to make a non-chocolate cake recipe from scratch, and both times I hated the cake. This time the batter seemed like the consistency of banana bread, and the final product tasted about like a sweetened biscuit. Not what you look for in a cake. My current opinion is that when it comes to white cakes, you're better off with a cake mix. You just can't top their moist and light texture.
I went ahead and decorated it, since I'd already spent hours playing around with the frosting to make the roses (I was having trouble, yet again, with the consistency). Unfortunately, I forgot to leave out some frosting for making green leaves, so I had to improvise with purple. It looked okay, I guess. If I could do it over again, I would have made the base frosting a light blue or something with more contrast to the pink roses.

I used two different frostings on the cake, a royal icing for the flowers and decorations, and buttercream for the base. By and large the best part of the cake (because we did eat some) was the buttercream frosting. Sooo good. I guess you can't go wrong with that much butter and sugar creamed together. I will definitely be using buttercream frosting again.

Chocolate Cupcakes

2009-11-20T10:48:00.000-08:00

I tried making a chocolate cake from scratch for the first time. The recipe was HUGE. It was designed to make a cake that's 10 in round by 3 in tall. I halved the recipe and got 24 beautifully sized cupcakes (slightly more than you get from a mix). I loved the taste. I prefer it over chocolate cake from a mix. The down side was I felt like the texture didn't hold up as well over time, so it's really best eaten right away (but is that really a problem?). We had them in the fridge for a few days, and on the third day we just threw them out because they were getting a little grainy. They taste a little on the rich side, but I still liked them, and I'm not into rich chocolate cake. I thought a normal frosting might compete for flavor, so I went with whipped cream instead.

If you're interested, I put the cake recipe below. I included a few personal notes (some are repeats of what I said above).

Chocolate Cake

From The Art of Cakes by Noga Hitron (a fondant cake decorating book)

Ingredients:

2 cups cocoa

2 cups boiling water

1 ¾ cups butter or margarine, room temperature

3 ½ cups sugar

6 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla or almond extract (original recipe calls for rum extract)

3 ½ cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 10-inch round cake pan and line with parchment paper. Make sure the parchment paper extends above the rim of the pan, so that the cake has room to rise (this is a 3-inch high cake).

2. Mix the cocoa and water until blended, then set aside for 5 minutes to cool.

3. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes if you are using an electric mixer. Add the eggs and extract, and beat thoroughly. In a separate bowl, sift the flour and baking powder (I just whisked it after putting it in the bowl). Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture, alternating with the cocoa mixture, and beating well after each addition. (note: I found it helpful to add some of the flour mixture, then pour on some cocoa mixture before mixing so the flour doesn’t fly everywhere.)

4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and level the top with a spatula.

5. Place the cake in the middle of the oven and bake for about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

6. Cool the cake for 30 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack and set aside until completely cool.

Note: I halved the recipe and made cupcakes. The half recipe yielded 24 cupcakes. I baked them for 15 minutes. I also used unsalted butter (and ideally I think the eggs are supposed to be at room temperature as well).

Also: After I put most of the batter in cupcake liners I realized that there was butter mixture on the bottom that hadn’t been mixed in as well. This I ended up putting on top of some of the cupcakes, but it looked funny after cooking (although it tasted fine). I recommend making sure you mix all the way through the bowl (scrape it up from the bottom).

This cake is richer and firmer than chocolate cake from a cake mix (and better tasting, in my opinion). If using frosting, think light. I just put a dollop of whipped cream on these cupcakes and it was perfect. I would also like to try a cream cheese frosting (perhaps with chocolate curls as garnish) or adding whipped cream inside the cupcakes.

Alligator Cake

2009-11-18T12:34:00.000-08:00

For Naomi's second birthday, I made an alligator out of cupcakes. I got the idea out of a magazine (Ladies Home Journal). I thought it turned out cute. I also quickly fell in love with cupcakes. They are versatile and so much faster to decorate!

Areas to improve:
cupcake height--if you're using a cake mix, I don't care what the package says; you cannot get 24 cupcakes from a mix. I tried to, but I think I was still one short. This also meant that the 23 I did get were not overflowing the wrapper edge like you think of when you think of yummy cupcakes. The shorter cupcakes didn't look as good for the cake design, either. Better to have less cupcakes that look good than more cupcakes that don't.

Ninja Turtle Cake

2009-11-18T12:23:00.000-08:00

In jest my husband mentioned he wanted a Ninja-Turtle themed birthday party, so I made this cake in his honor. I used a teddy bear pan, but then modified it to look more ninja turtle-ish.

Areas to improve:
Time!!!
I think next time I'll plan my frosting colors one day, then decorate it the next. It took a long time to get the colors (close to) the way I wanted them.
I'd also like to get the triple star tip so I can put on the stars 3 times faster.

Frosting consistency--get it right before you start!
My frosting was a little stiff, which meant it took more effort to pipe the stars all over the body. I had such a hand cramp by the end. I finally fixed the consistency and the piping went a lot faster and smoother.

Wilton Class 1 Finale

2009-11-18T12:03:00.000-08:00

In November 2008, I took the first Wilton decorating class at Michael's. I can't seem to find my pictures from other weeks of the class, but here is my finale cake. Even though people insist it looks good, I thought it turned out horribly. I suppose for a beginner I did alright. I just wanted it to look professional on my first try.
After I got home, I took off the mis-matched yellow flowers (you can still see some yellow where the flowers were) and added flowers I thought matched a little better.

Areas I'd like to improve:
better frosting consistency--I thought my frosting was too dry, contributing to the cracked look (which may be hard to see in the pictures)
better shell technique (that's the border)
more interesting colors--I'd like to steer away from white as a base color
cake height--I was lazy and didn't tort my cake. I think a taller cake would have looked more elegant. (torting is basically cutting the cake through the middle so you can add filling to the cake, which also makes it taller)

The Beginning

2009-11-18T11:33:00.000-08:00

Since I've been on a cake decorating kick lately, I thought it might be fun to post pictures of cakes I've made and (theoretically) will make, as a way to track my progress. Perhaps I will also post favorite recipes and such for anyone interested.
So, to start it off, here is the Elmo cake and Cookie Monster cupcakes I made for Naomi's 1st birthday. The Elmo cake took forever to decorate, but it turned out pretty well. I came up with the idea for the cupcakes and I thought they turned out really cute. For the cookies, I just used pre-made cookie dough and cut the dough pieces in fourths to make small cookies for Cookie Monster to hold. His hand is made with the special fur decorator tip (I can't remember the number).