Mother's Day Minis

Mother's day 2013 saw the last minute prep of mini white cakes with frosting and flowers. Below is a picture of the one I made for my husband's grandmother(known to them as "Gramma"). There was a matching one for his mom as well. This was a simple affair, but a fun little gift!

Rise and Shout

The end of April brought about the graduation of my husband from Brigham Young University. Since he is a die-hard Cougar fan, I had to make him a themed cake to that effect. Here is a shot of the outside.

As far as exterior decoration, it was pretty standard buttercream. I tinted the frosting the wrong shade though and made it more teal than Cougar blue, oops! I was busy making a Cafe Rio style dinner  at the same time as making this cake and the evening was late by the time I finished.

But the inside of the cake was rather exciting. I attempted to bake Blue "Y"s into the cake. This piece wasn't the best, but you can see on the bottom layer how it showed up. There were some pieces that looked better than others. I baked a 9x13 cake colored BYU blue. After it was cooled and then frozen, I used a cookie cutter I had made out of a can of soda to cut out the Y shapes. Then I placed them in a circle around the bottom of the round cake pans and poured the yellow batter over them. The cutouts were a bit too tall for the cake, so the tops of them were a tad above the level of the cake. Luckily the frosting hid all that! They also moved around a bit as the cake baked, making them tilt to the side, or become misshapen. Another method I read online that could work would be to make sugar cookies in your color and shape of choice and just barely bake them until firm. Then circle them in your cake pan. This method would have probably made for a better looking end result so I'll have to try it next time!

"What am I thinking? I can't eat this whole thing by myself!"

April brought with it the birthday of my coworker Coryn. Coryn has a deep, deep love for all things Pandas. Thus, the choice for her birthday cake was clear. I went online and looked at different drawings of pandas and found a design I thought I could do well. I opted for a more cartoonistic look over a realistic one since my skills are just not that good.

Method:
       Cake: To match the panda colors, I chose to make this a cookies and cream cake. The method for this was to simply crush up a bunch of cookies and mix them into a white cake mix. I baked a 9x13 pan and two 8" rounds to make the cake. The head was made of the two rounds, and the body was made with half the 9x13 stacked on itself. I had to use paper cut down to scale to play with the pieces until I could make it fit and look right. It helped that the look of the panda was cartoonish so I had some leeway.
       Frosting: This was my first attempt at making a cooked frosting. I started by making a Roux base and then adding in regular grain sugar, etc. It tasted good and was the perfect level of sweetness. It did have a hint of flour in the flavor, which I didn't care for as much, but it sure beat the greasy coating of homemade buttercream made with all shortening. The layers of the cake were filled with frosting and the sprinkled with more cookie crumbles. The black frosting was store bought since it's not easy to recreate that color at home.
       Other Decorations: I made the eyes with large marshmallows cut in half, and upside down chocolate chips for the pupil. It turned out pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself.

I put the cake on Coryn's desk the next morning at work. It took her a good half hour of having it take up half her desk space to decide that she probably should share it and not keep it for herself. Here is what she said, "What am I thinking? I can't eat this whole thing by myself."The rest of the office was grateful that she came to her senses:-D

February Birthday for Grandma

February finally rolled around and there was yet another birthday to celebrate. This time it was my husband's grandma who was turning 78 so Derek's cousin, HyeWon, suggested that we surprise her with a cake. We decided to experiment with a new kind of frosting by mixing in whipped cream with regular buttercream. The frosting tasted great, but it certainly melted faster than typical buttercream. I will have to search out a better whipped cream frosting for next time. 

My favorite part of making this cake was getting to do it with HyeWon. I taught her how to make roses and she picked it up quickly and did a great job. 

It was also HyeWon's idea to add the cute vines around the roses as well. They added just the right touch. 

January Cake #2

My second cake in January closely followed after the first. This Harry-Potter themed cake was my first attempt and making and using fondant.

I used the classic marshmallow fondant recipe. My base covering of the cake had a few rough spots, but it seemed to go on fairly well. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the process. Everything on the cake is covered in fondant except the wand.

The towers were made of toilet paper rolls covered in fondant. The roofs were of course ice cream cones.

The cauldron was made by wrapping fondant around a cut-off piece of plastic cup and filled with Jelly Bellies. I would have put Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans in them but I couldn't find them at any of the stores at that time of year.

The wand is a chocolate covered pretzel with wood lines drawn into it.

The words around the sides of the cake say "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good. . . "

Things I would do differently: 1)On the scarf, I would have put the colored pieces of fondant on the scarf after I wrapped it around the cake. The scarf stretched when I moved it to the cake and the pieces separated so they didn't have one smooth look. 2) I would make my fondant a bit more pliable than it was because it was difficult to shape and form due to stiffness. 3) I would get a bigger cake carrier since part of the scarf got squished in transit.

However, none of that mattered to Krista, who let out a big squeal when she walked in to see the cake. I think she liked it:-D

January Cake #1

January is an incredibly busy month for birthdays and such. Both my husband and I celebrate our birthdays in January, as well has my youngest sister-in-law who turned 12! So of course I had to make special cakes for them. Here are pictures the Lord of the Rings Eye of Sauron cake I made for my husband. I can't remember what flavor was inside, but it was probably something pretty normal like yellow cake with vanilla filling. It took a while to get the colors to mix just right to look like the eye. In the end I was pretty pleased with it. If I were to redo it, I would use paint brushes to run the colors instead of just a spatula like I did here. I will say that the Elvish written around the outside turned out fairly decent for a first go.