Dad's Birthday

Dad's Birthday
June 2009

Our family and friends descended on Washington, DC to celebrate my Dad's birthday in June. After a day sailing the Chesapeake Bay on the Schooner Woodwind (a must do if you visit Annapolis) we gathered together to watch a photo show celebrating his life.

My sister Karen discovered a new trick from M&Ms. You can order personalized chocolates with words AND photos. Crazy fun! Our colors were green and yellow, a nod to my father's distinguished career designing tennis facilities, along with blue for the ocean and platinum to honor to occasion. The first photo is from his actual childhood album, and the second was taken last month in Disney and shows that he is still a kid at heart!

Boxed M&M Party Favors

Close-up of the M&M Photos

To continue the dot theme I surrounded the cake with green and blue chocolate wafers tinted to match the candies. The cake was a light vanilla with lemon curd filling.

Happy Birthday Dad!


The Cake

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PARTY: PART TWO

To ensure that everyone coould party, there was a separate gathering in Florida. Since it had a beachy-Floridian theme I sent down cookies packaged as party favors for the guests. Lesson of the day-- just because the USPS marks it fragile, does not mean that they will stop the herd of elephants from trampling it during the overnight mailing process. Apparently no amount of foam or bubble wrap could protect them from whatever crushed the box. Oh well!

Before

After

Red Martini Cake

Red Martini Cake

June 2009

This cake was for a happy hour party, so it needed to be hip enough to stand on its own in a swanky bar AND be worthy of the chic birthday girl.

The triple layer chocolate cake is filled with red raspberry filling and covered in vanilla buttercream with a touch of lime. On top of the buttercream is a crazy drizzle of red chocolate. Not only does the chocolate create a great design, but when it hardens it actually creates a "chocolate cage" to support the weight of the real martini glass.


To give the cake a sophisticated feminine touch I added red flowers cut from red modelling chocolate. The same flowers were applied to the inner rim of the glass so that you would get the chocolate when you drink rolls over it. Yumm.



Two contrasting birthday candles on each side of the glass and the party was ready to roll.

Happy Birthday Amy!

Cake Details:

Cake: Chocolate birthday cake

Filling: Red raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream

Icing: Vanilla buttercream with a touch of lime

Decoration: Melted chocolate "cage" and flowers made from modelling chocolate

Seaside Beach Cake

Seaside Beach Cake

March 2009

The sound of the waves crashing, the feel of sand between your toes, and the smell of salt in the air... what's better than a day at the beach? This cake celebrates the crashing of the waves and the search for the perfect seashell.



Cake Details:

Cake: Chocolate
Filling: Chocolate ganache
Icing: Vanilla buttercream
Decorations: Molded marshmallow fondant shells painted with luster dusts, piped buttercream and fondant pearls

Princess Tiara Cake

Princess Tiara Cake

February 2008

I love how this cake came out. Fine, I am partial to girly cakes and princesses, what can I say?! It was for a fabulous princess-themed 1st birthday party and I was really excited that the birthday girl was already decked out in her princess dress when I arrived to set up the cake. Adorable.

I've seen a few tutorials on making a tiara/crown out of royal icing and I thought this would be an excellent chance to give it a try. It was a giant disaster. They looked lovely on the mold, but always ended up as shards of sugar during the drying process.

Royal icing tiara before it was reduced to powder. You can almost see it slipping out of my hand here.

So I tried a new tactic. I used a more simplified version of my template and rolled gumpaste into thin lines. This gave it much more structural stability and more flexibility for attaching embellishments like beads and glitter. And every princess knows it is all about the accessories.

Here are the two final gumpaste tiaras getting packed up for the car. The bottom one ultimately earned a place on top of the cake.


Cake Details:
Cake: One tier chocolate and one tier vanilla bean
Filling: Raspberry and buttercream for the chocolate cake layer, and chocolate ganache for the vanilla tier
Icing: Vanilla buttercream
Decorations: Fondant circles and beaded border and a handmade sugarpaste tiara with edible glitter (though no one actually ate the tiara I hope)

Sparkly Cupcake Cake

Sparkly Cupcake Cake

February 2008

I had a hard time titling this post because of the recent wave of "cupcake cakes" which are trays of cupcakes spackled together with icing. I am morally opposed to this plan because I appreciate both the stand alone cupcake and the traditional birthday cake model. I have never found cutting up the cake to be THAT difficult, and I think most people can handle the anticipation for the full 90 seconds it takes to circulate plates and forks. Don't worry, I just stumbled off that soapbox and will now continue with today's cake.

So, back to our story. This cake has a picture of a cupcake on it (which is very sparkly) and was served with a tray of cupcakes that had coordinated frosting. This way people choose between vanilla bean cake and chocolate cupcakes. A little something for everyone! I like this plan because I really like birthday candles to be in a real cake, but I would never deny anyone the fun of a cupcake. Especially not on their birthday.

Cake Details:
Cake: Vanilla Bean Birthday Cake

Filling: Chocolate ganache and mini chocolate chips

Icing: Vanilla buttercream

Decorations: Piped buttercream and fondant decorations with edible glitter

* not appearing: Chocolate cake and buttercream cupcakes in yellow and pink with rainbow sprinkles.

Orchid Cake

Orchid Cake

August 2008

This weekend I was at home watching the Olympics (Go USA!) and decided to use my couch time to work on sugar flowers. I tested out a new orchid and this cake sprung up around that.

The first step in “growing” flowers is to roll and cut the petal and leaf shapes which are individually attached to thin wires. After the pieces are dried (overnight/several days) they are arranged in the shape of the flower and bound with floral tape (the green stretchy-sticky stuff). The porcelain-like flower is still pure white at this point.

One the flower is assembled and fully dried, the color is applied using pigmented dusts. First the base colors are added to the center stamen of the flower (yellow for pollen).



Next I used a pale green on the throat and placed the darker dotted pattern on with a fine tipped food color marker. The main petals also got a pale pink all-over.


A warmer pink lines the edges because when you look closely at photos of orchids there is a LOT going on in terms of color variety and shading patterns. The two onthe right have been shaded while the right hand flower is still pale.
The final step was to shade with a dark hunter green that was also applied to the leaves and then coat the whole flower with a shiny petal dust that gives it a slightly moist look.

Since the flowers have a pink and green influence I baked a pistachio pound cake recipe that I have been dying to try and covered the top with the pale pink rolled buttercream that I had left from the baby onesie cookies.

This vanilla frosting was a new experiment, but it wasn’t as thick as I like when decorating. Luckily, the focus here is really the flowers, so the borders can be simple. Win some, lose some! All in all, I am happy with this tasty experiment. The finished product:



Cake Details:

• Cake: Pistachio pound cake
• Filling: Chocolate ganache
• Icing: Vanilla icing with pink raspberry rolled buttercream on the top
• Decorations: Hand-made gumpaste flowers

Basketweave & Daisies

Basketweave and Daisies

March 2008

Happy Birthday Kat!

This birthday cake has a spring basketweave on the sides and is filled in with royal icing flowers and text piped on like vines in in a wandering garden.

Once the royal icing dries in shape and the leaves and details are added, these flowers really are quite cute!

The basketweave design is a classic Wilton skill. I think that my icing was a little bit dry, which gave it a great look similar to fraying straw that suited the theme well.

Cake Details

• Cake: Double layer in butter-vanilla
• Filling: Strawberry jam
• Icing: Vanilla buttercream (sans butter- it started as a class project)
• Decorations: Tinted buttercream, royal icing flowers
• New toys used: Basketweave tip #47

Anybody hear an echo...?

Snowflake Cupcakes

Snowflake Cupcakes

December 2007

I love snowflakes. They are my favorite thing about winter and as far as I am concerned there is no reason to have cold weather without snow. It's just a waste of coldness. But I digress..

Since Jason's birthday is on 12/25 I wanted to steer clear of the red and green, thus creating the perfect window for these cupcakes. Why blue snowflakes instead of white? Because they are pretty and the pure white icing looks like a little snowdrift with a big flake floating down to join in. Plus Erica reminded me that water is blue- like in the ocean, and I like the idea that snow is a little bit of ocean coming right to me for Christmas. Let's go with that.



How do you make these treats?

• Cake: White wedding cake batter with extra cinnamon and vanilla for a holiday kick.
• Filling: None
• Icing: Pure white vanilla butter cream with flecks of Tahitian vanilla bean
• Decorations: Blue "chocolate" candy
  

To make the snowflakes simply melt little blue chocolate disks over a double boiler, fill a piping bag and pipe snowflake shapes onto parchment (or a silicon sheet) placed on a baking sheet. Make sure that the lines are thick enough to provide stability to the design, and make more than you need because there will be casualties.

Tip: Place the baking sheet in the freezer while you are melting the chocolate. When the warm chocolate hits the cold metal it will set more rapidly and reduce spreading.

After you finish piping place it back in the freezer to set. Afterward you can pop them off and set them atop the frosted cakes.

Don't forget, no two snowflakes are alike:

Baby, it's cold outside!

Ginger - Lemon - Coconut Cake

Ginger - Lemon - Coconut Cake (aka "The Rachel")

August 2007

Rachel's birthday was the perfect occasion for a new cake. Since we both love Ginger and Lemon they seemed like a logical starting line. I did a few recipe searches and saw a few tropical inspired blends, so I went with coconut as well to even out the bite of the ginger.


Here is the recipe:


1 box yellow cake mix

2 1/2 tsp ground ginger

3/4 tsp freshly ground ginger (if you don't have it add more dry)


3 eggs (per package directions)

1/3 cup oil (per package directions)


1/2 cup coconut milk

3/4 cup ginger ale

[Coconut Milk and Ginger ale are substitutes for the 1 1/4 cup water in the directions. Do not add the water also or you will have soup.]

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice


Zest of the lemon

About 4 tbsp candied ginger



Directions:

1- Preheat oven according to package directions and butter two round cake pans.
2- Mix all of the dry ingredients together (cake mix, fresh ginger, ground ginger)
3- Mix wet ingredients (eggs, oil, coconut milk, ginger ale, lemon juice)
4- Combine wet and dry ingredients and split batter into pans. Bake according to package directions.
5- Take about 3/4 of the crystallized ginger and chop finely. Mix with lemon zest in a small bowl. (Option: Add a handful of sweetened flaked coconut)
6- Level and ice the bottom half of the cake and sprinkle with 1/2 of the crystallized ginger/lemon zest mixture.
7- Add the top half of the cake and finish icing it. Sprinkle the top with the remaining crystallized ginger/lemon zest mixture and decorate the edge with the rest of the crystallized ginger pieces.
8- Enjoy!

Note: I like whipped cream frosting since it isn't as sweet and doesn't compete with the subtle coconut and lemon flavors. But you can use your favorite vanilla or lemon based icing.

How's this for a birthday action shot? (Thanks La!) Thanks also to the staff at Bambule (http://www.bambuledc.com/) for an amazing dinner experience of Mediterranean tapas. Yummmm.

Cupcake Karma?

June 2007

Cupcake Karma?

For my birthday I received absolutely yummy funfetti cupcakes from my roommate Erin. I managed to take a picture before they all disappeared. Yum!

What is it about sprinkles that just makes things more fun? Is it the color? The crunch? I only know that with a few sprinkles and a candle you have a real party on your hands.

As Mr. Wonka would say, "A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men."

Thanks E!

Fields of... Purple

Fields of... Purple

June 2007

Sharon loves purple. Lots and lots of purple. So for her birthday I did a lush ring of purple star-flowers in whipped cream icing that I was hoping would fare well in this humidity. (I skipped the butter cream because of the weather.)

Inside, the cake is dense chocolate with black raspberry preserves and chocolate shavings as filling. I like to use all fruit as a filling to keep it from getting too sweet with all of that icing.

I originally intended to make a nice dainty ring of flower buds, but the whipped icing made such lovely / lively meringue spikes that I just shined 'em up with a little sugar. To give the white space more personality I gave it a good dusting of sanding sugar sparkles in pink, purple and green with a big decorative "S" for Ms. Sharon herself.

Elmo Birthday Cake

Elmo Birthday Cake

May 2007

Who doesn't love Elmo? I was thrilled to make an Elmo cake for Matthew's first birthday party.

This cake is vanilla with a variety of buttercream and chocolate frostings. The most fun was creating his "fur". I used a medium star tip to pipe in a random fill pattern, creating a fluffy base. Then I used the edge of a smooth spatula to break apart the webs and whip it up into a more random furry pattern. The eyes, nose and mouth were piped in and smoothed.

The highest compliment was that when I saw the pictures from the party there was a little girl sticking her finger in the frosting. That's four stars in my book.

Tess' Birthday

Star Cake

February 2007

Happy Birthday Tess- you're a rock star.

This is double vanilla chocolate chip cake with seedless raspberry jam between the layers. It is smothered in homemade dutch chocolate butter cream icing with a kick of almond extract for bite. The pink sanding sugar gives it just enough sparkle.

Darla's Peanut Butter Special

October 2006

Darla's Peanut Butter Special

Darla requested a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting. I don't know the exact Altoona recipe, but I think this one was yummy. Though I am not necessarily a fair judge since I think peanut butter right out of the jar is perfection.

Yaarrr- Birthday Ahoy

August 2006

For me matey Rach's b-day, thar be a pirate cake ahoy.

This cake was so much fun to make! The sand is crushed ginger sandwich cookies (from Trader Joe's). The creme filling gave it a little moisture and much better consistency than ginger snaps, which also would have worked. Swedish fish, decorative candles, and a piping gel treasure map completed the look. I spent so much time on the outside I don't even remember what kind of cake is inside. On vacation at the beach- something from a box I bet! (*wink wink)

Sarah's Raspberry Surprise

August 2006

A lovely summery creation, just for Sarah. Four layers of my favorite Chocolate Vinegar (egg less) cake with raspberry butter cream frosting and fresh berries. A wonderful pink color, brightened up even further with daisy sprinkles and an outlined forget-me-not.

Quilt Cake for the Best Roommate Ever

March 2006

I have the best roommate ever. No, really. Aside from the occasional bake ware probation I get put under, we have a great household. Last year my gift to her was a fondant recreation of one of her favorite hobbies- quilting. It came out well for a first attempt with fondant. It wasn't too hard to work with but it took a while to get a smooth covering without stretchy bits. And another chunk of time to time to get the pieces just right. But it was worth it because the finished product looked cozy.




Inside is a chocolate cake with white frosting. Although the fondant has a nice appearance of stitched cloth, it doesn't taste as yummy as vanilla frosting. So I made it removable.

The most fun was watching the guys poke at the sliced fondant. Apparently they haven't been paying much attention at all of these weddings. (Life lesson: Too much footloose = cake scarfage.) I had to assure them that it was just a different kind of sugar icing and they could eat it if they wanted or throw it out. These are the same guys who eat 10 day old burrito leftovers. One step at a time.