Baby shower cake

Here is my latest cake! I made it for a good friend who is pregnant with a baby girl. I designed this cake to match the invitation. I had a lot of fun making this cake! The booties were especially fun, and surprisingly easy. I love the way they turned out! If you're interested in making the booties, click here for the video how-to and here for the pattern.

The booties. Too cute!

The baby shower set-up

The mother of honor

Lemon cake with lemon filling and frosting

Minion Cake

I received a very special cake request from a friend (we go way back!) for a cake for her boyfriend. He likes these characters called "Minions" from the movie Despicable Me, so she asked me to make him a cake with the Minions on it. I loved making the little figurines! Most of all, I loved seeing my old friend again after 10+ years and catching up!

I made the fondant myself and usually it turns out great, but the last few times its been giving me grief. I'm wondering if it's the marshmallows I'm using or the fact that it's so dang hot here, because lately it has been tearing real easily and turning out lumpy and bumpy when I put it on the cake. So it didn't look as great as I had hoped.

However, the recipients of the cake loved it! My favorite thing about making cakes (besides eating them) is seeing the happy expressions when they see the cake! Makes my day.

Red Velvet cake with homemade cream cheese frosting and vanilla pudding filling.

I love this pic!

The Curious Case of the Shrinking Cake

Did you know........that a cake shrinks about a quarter of an inch within about 24 hours?? I didn't know that either, but according to Duff Goldman from Ace of Cakes, it does!

Hmmm...that would explain the buckling here (to the left, just above the yellow flower):



Truthfully, I have never noticed any shrinkage, besides this here cake. And it could have very well been the icing sliding off the cake from the heat. Who knows. Perhaps I've never noticed the shrinkage because the fondant hardens a little after a time and creates a sort of cast around the cake. The most likely case would be because I'm a pig and eat the cake as soon as humanly possible.

So what to do about it? Duff Goldman recommends when trimming the bottom of a fondant cake, trim it a bit higher than you normally would so the fondant will stay smooth and straight when the cake shrinks.

Any Old Fruit Cake Recipe

Here' a treat for you! This cake recipe is from my great-grandmother and is called Any Old Fruit Cake. It's a little different; it tastes is similar to a spice cake but sweeter, and its very moist and dense.

1 qt plumbs, apricots, or whatever fruit you have canned (canned in mason-jar qts)*
1/2 C vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 C sugar
3 C Flour (abt)
4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
1 C chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Combine fruit, oil, and eggs. Combine dry ingredients and add to liguid ingredients. Beat for two minutes with electric mixer. Add nuts if used. Turn into oiled baking pan. Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

*drain 2 quarts of fruit, making sure you have one full quart of the pulp for this recipe (use juice for a drink or jelly)

Frost cake with cream cheese frosting and enjoy!

p.s. I have no idea how this cake works with decorating. It's super yummy and nice for a change, though!

A Humbling Disaster

There are always moments in life that remind us just how far we are from where we want to be.

I had one of these moments last week when I was out of town. My sister graduated from college and I told her I'd make a cake for her. I didn't have enough room to bring all of my supplies with, so I just bought a few tips, a decorator bag, and some gel colors, thinking I could work with just buttercream.

Whoops!

I'll be brief:

warm cake + cold, stiff frosting + too much water (to compensate for stiff frosting) = complete disaster.

Being in a rush and having no plan doesn't not help either.

Strawberry Cake Filling Fecipe

While my previous cake may have been a visual failure, the taste sure made up for it!

This is the filling recipe I used, and its super quick and easy to make. I think it is best paired with plain white cake (since the it's already so sweet and you don't want to distract from the flavor). I used plain vanilla icing, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to mix in some pureed strawberries to the icing.

I found the recipe here , but it's short so I'll just post it:
2 1/2 cups coarsely chopped fresh strawberries
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

1. Bring all ingredients to a boil in a heavy small sauce pan, stirring constantly and crushing berries slightly with back of spoon.
2. Boil 2 minutes to thicken, stirring constantly (mixture will be slightly chunky).
3. Pour into bowl and cool completely.

So easy and so delicious!

Foodwriters-A Failed Attempt

I bought some Wilton FoodWriters the other day thinking they'd by fun to try. They're basically markers filled with food coloring. You can buy a pack of 5 for like $4. I planned on using them instead of painting on the cake surface like I had tried (somewhat successfully) before. I even practiced working with the food writers before attempting to use them on the actual cake, and everything was looking alright. However, I didn't take into consideration when I was practicing (on a flat surface) that the surface of the cake would be perpendicular, thus forcing me to use the markers vertically which makes it hard for the "ink" to flow.
SOoOooo...when I drew on the cake with the markers held like that the lines came out either too faint and blotchy (using the tip) or too thick (from having using the sides of the marker since basically no ink came out of the point). Pooh. I wanted to draw more (as you can tell there is too much of nothing on the cake), but I stopped because what I had already drawn was turning out so icky.
I think the top turned out okay. I didn't put too much effort into making the strawberries, so they're not amazing. Meh.

Nevertheless, this cake turned out absolutely delicious, thanks to the delicious, sweet, fresh strawberries I used. I'll post more on that in a bit!

Foodwriter markers. They don't work too well on the sides of a cake. Perhaps they'd work well writing a message on the top of the cake.