Birthday Bash and Fried SD card

I've been in Oregon for the past month--another medical school rotation for my hubby. The girls and I tagged along since I have 3 brothers up in Portland and places to stay and family to see.

My sister-in-law Ellen had a birthday while I was there, and I just couldn't pass up the chance to make her a birthday cake. It was a surprise. I kept it a secret from her for a couple days, doing all the decorating at my other brother's home. This was an idea I had seen on Wilton awhile back and have been wanting to do. It is their Make Some Noise cake idea. It was a super cute idea using 3 tiers of cake. I made my tiers using a 7 inch pan, although they used an 8 inch pan in theirs.

This is Ellen. Love her to death. She is one of the funnest people to be around. Happy Birthday!

Now for my sob story--I took some darling pictures of this cake--all set out nicely, lighting just right, neat angles, etc--and what happened? . . . my SD card got fried in my computer. Yep. All the pictures were gone. So all I have to show for this cake is what others took on their phones. So sad. Sorry the pictures aren't the best. I hope you understand :)

I filled the bottom of the cake platter with chewy sweet tarts. They didn't last long--all the kids kept swiping them from the platter . . . okay, adults did too. I guess we can't blame everything on the kids.

Just a couple notes on this cake idea from Wilton--it uses quite a bit of fondant, so come prepared--especially if you want the white "frosting" between each tier to look thick and fluffy. I didn't use Wilton's imprinting roller for the texture on the swags. Instead I tried the texture tiles from Duff's line at Michaels. They worked ok--not great, but did the job more or less. I have yet to buy and use one of Wilton's textured rollers, so I really can't compare it to that yet, but I'm sure they would work fine.

Have a great day baking, napping, or doing whatever it is you enjoy doing!

Look Whooo is Having a Baby

As soon as we got back from being away for a month in Boston, I got started right away on a new cake project (it's so nice being home with all my cake supplies at my disposal--I've missed them!).

Hmmm . . . what could I possibly be doing with this owl cake . . .

and these owl cupcakes? Any ideas?

Well, take a look below:

A darling baby shower thrown for my dear friend Rachele who is due in about a week with her second little boy. The theme was "Look Whoooo is Having a Baby" with owls as the main decorating motif.

All I can take credit for was doing the cake and cupcakes. Erica was the one in charge of the event and finding all the ideas. Unfortunately, she went into labor early with her own baby and had to miss the shower, so our other amazing friends finished putting it all together, and we had a wonderful evening together.

I tried to keep the cake in blues, green, and browns to go with the color scheme that Erica gave me. The cake was a lemon cake with blueberry filling. It was truly scrumptious (but I really am very biased towards lemon cake, and you can't go too wrong with a blueberry filling).

I wish I could say my cupcakes were that good too, but I was very disappointed. They may look cute, but it was a new recipe (for a key lime pie cupcake) that I will not be doing again without some huge alterations to it. It turned out very dry and heavy. I'll have to work on that one.

All the decorations on the cake and cupcakes were from modeling chocolate I had made up. I just rolled out the chocolate and cut out my shapes using an exacto knife (except for the leaves and flowers--I had a cookie cutter for those).

Emily found the idea for these darling veggie shot glasses here

And she made these scruptious rolls. Their the "Magelby's rolls" for any of you up in Utah who knows what that is. You can find the recipe here.

These were probably my favorite part of the food table. The waffle cones with fruit is so eye catching and mouth watering. It just looks so fresh and yummy.

These darling punch stirrers were made by Paige (along with the delicious punch). The owls are from here and the idea from here.

And here is the cute guest of honor and mommy-to-be. Congrats, Rachele. We can't wait to meet your new little man.

What's New, Cupcake?

This has been the month of cupcakes for us. The reason being? We've been out in Boston staying with my brother and his family for the entire month of April while my husband has been doing a medical school rotation here. Since we are away from home, and I am without all my cake decorating supplies, I've focused on cupcakes.

Well, I also got this book several months ago and have been dying to try some of the ideas:
It is the sequel to "Hello, Cupcake" that I've raved about before. Like it's sister, this book is packed full of incredibly creative ideas. Want to see a peak at some of the ideas? Well, here are 2 of them that I did this month:

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away"--what a cute gift to give someone feeling under the weather. They are also the best gift for a teacher, and that's what these were made for. My sister-in-law requested I make these for her to take to her kids' teachers. It is amazing what you can do with a cake mix, mini-doughnut, some frosting, and candy.

You could also give these to someone special with a note "you are the Apple of my eye."

The next one I tried out was this darling cupcake cake of a golf course. I threw it together last minute and was unable to find green cupcake liners like it called for, but se la vi (I probably just totally messed up that spelling).

It was for my brother's 37th birthday. My favorite part?--the white gumballs covered with white non pareils. They are the cutest little golf balls.

There are so many other ideas in this book--some darling, and some quite disgustingly funny (like the cockroaches and rats ideas). This book has made my favorites list, and will be well used in the future.

Sugar and Spice

Last month I helped host a baby shower for my friend Melanie who is expecting a baby girl any day now. Since it is her first girl and she has been all boy and blue until now with her little 2 year old toddler, we wanted to inundate her with pink for this shower. We used a color scheme of 2 shades of pink, brown, and white--so girly and so perfect for the shower. The theme was "Sugar and Spice." We did a savory and dessert crepe for the meal with a cookie buffet for dessert. Mmmm...let's just say that I was in heaven eating the banana and nutella crepes that my friend Marci made. That sure takes me back to my quick trip to Paris while on study abroad. I was in charge of the cookie buffet. I had found some recipes I had been wanting to try, and of course, they had to involve some kind of pink. The first was a recipe I found here on Bakerella's site. I bought a few bags of the valentine's M&Ms in February so I could do these. Yes, they did come with red ones too. And darn-it-all, they just didn't match so I had to get rid of them...oh, don't worry, I didn't let them go to waste ;). I discovered the key to baking these cookies so they look good and colorful--when making up the cookie dough, save a handful of M&Ms out. When you roll the dough into balls and put them on your cookie sheet, stick a few more M&Ms around the top. Those will then stay on top of the cookies when they back, so you can actually see the pinks and whites.

The other 2 were a Meringue drop that I colored half of them pink and left the other white, and a Chocolate Crinkle cookie that I rolled in pink powdered sugar before baking. I had some difficulty getting the powdered sugar pink, but with some determination and a ziplock back full of powdered sugar and some pink food coloring paste, I finally got it pink.

What else goes better with cookies than some milk? I loved how this matched the whole color scheme.

We had such a fun time visiting together and seeing all the cute, girly baby clothes that Melanie received. With 2 girls of my own, it's safe to say we love pink around here.

Dinosaur Birthday Cake

It was birthday time again. This time for my friend Melanie's little boy. It was a dinosaur themed party, using the colors red, lime green, and light blue. I wish I could claim this as an original design, but for this cake I went to google images for inspiration and fell in love with a cake from the Artisan Cake Company in Portland, OR, and I ended up making one similar to it.


As you can tell from my last few cake adventures, I have fallen in love with making and using modeling chocolate. This time I molded my dinosaurs and trees out of it. I feel like a kid playing with Play-doh sometimes. Everytime I work with the stuff my older daughter wants to "play Play-doh" too (although she wants to use mine because she's discovered that the stuff actually tastes good).


I have to admit that my triceratops was my favorite of all the little guys that I made. Too bad they're not still around. I'd want one as a pet :) The sand was made from crushed up graham crackers--pretty good sand, but two days after doing this I saw on Cake Boss that they use brown sugar for sand. Duh--that would have looked so great if I would have thought of that earlier. Next time, I guess.


I know, I know--my little sea creature/loch ness monster dude isn't really a dinosaur, but he was just too cute that I had to include him. You see him eyeing that little cake?! He brought his appetite with him.


I found the trick to the waves was to ice that part of the cake in blue, then put dollups of white icing next to the edge of the blue, and using a small angled cake spatula, pull the white down and into the blue.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Andersen! Here's to another great year.

Valentine's Chocolate Box Brownie

This year I wanted to surprise my wonderful husband with something. I saw a similar idea to this a while back on Bakerella's site, and decided that with a few tweeks, this would be perfect for him. Here is how I did it:

I started off by making some red modeling chocolate out of a bag of red Wilton candy melts and corn syrup. It is super easy to make and great to work with. I decided to do this instead of using red fondant as directed in Bakerella's instructions because I can make it myself for cheap, and get a really rich red color. I also haven't found a good recipe yet to make homemade red fondant that is really red, and I hate spending so much on a little amount of fondant at the store. You can find the recipe at the end of the post.

I rolled out my red modeling chocolate about 1/8" in thickness and cut one heart the size of my heart cake pan, and one about 1/2" larger around. The easiest way to do this is roll it out on wax paper, then trace the heart on another piece of wax paper in both sizes needed, cut out the heart, lay it on the modeling chocolate, then use a knife to cut it out.

This can be done a few days in advance, and left on the wax paper until needed.

You then need to bake your cake in the heart pan--whatever flavor you want--or if your husband doesn't like cake you can do as I did and bake . . .

a yummy heart shaped brownie. Delicious. Level it off and place it on top of the larger modeling chocolate heart. Now if that doesn't look good enough, just wait . . .

Yes. Ganache. Everything tastes better with ganache. I made up a batch to act as my icing to glue things together. You can use frosting if you want, but nothing is much better than some rich ganache.

Carefully spread it over the top and sides of the brownie. The sides can be a wee bit tricky, so do those especially carefully. It doesn't require a lot of ganache, so if you are like me and make a full batch, you may have a lot left over. Put it to some good use. I recommend microwaved smores with a layer of it as your chocolate. Mmmmm.

Next place the smaller red heart on top. The ganche will help it stick to the brownie.

For the sides of the box, roll out the rest of the modeling chocolate into a long strip.

Cut a band long enough to wrap around the entire brownie, and wide enough so that it sits up about 1/2" higher than the box. Then starting at the top center of the heart wrap the piece around the entire box and cut off the excess. The seam smooths together quite well with the modeling chocolate.

And there you have a completely edible Valentine's box. Now what to fill it with? . . .

Well, I decided that if it was going to be for my husband, it would have to be one thing--chocolate covered strawberries. His favorite. These are quick to make. Just a bunch of washed and dried strawberries (really dried--we don't want any water ruining our chocolate), and some more candy melts--this time white and cocoa colored. Melt them according to the pkg. instructions and dip away. Once they've hardened you can decorate with the other color. I found that an easy way to do this is pour the chocolate into a ziploc bag, seal, and snip a TINY hole in one of the corners. Then all you do is squeeze while moving you hand back and forth.

Oops. That one in the center got a little too much . . . I might have done that on purpose. I mean really--I can't just let my messups go to waste.

Fill the box with the best ones. Do what you like with the rest. That shouldn't take too much imagination :)

A Valentine's treat sure to put a smile on his face.

Well, we had a great Valentine's Day. My 2 year old wanted to make something for daddy too, so we used up the rest of the brownie batter to make a small brownie heart that we covered in lots of ganache, and she went to town on decorating.

Isn't her creation beautiful? She had a blast decorating it, and her daddy LOVED it.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Modeling chocolate recipe:

1 140z pkg wilton candy melts

1/3 cup light corn syrup

Melt the candy melts according to pkg instructions. When all melted stir in corn syrup and stir until all incorporated. Turn out onto some wax paper and let set up for a couple hours, then wrap in saran wrap and store at room temp until needed. Usually works better if you make it up at least a day before hand.

When ready to use it start kneading it until it is smooth and can be rolled out. It may be pretty hard at first so you might need to knead a little at a time until it is pliable and easy to use. Sprinkling a little cornstarch on your surface will help prevent it from sticking. I like to roll it out on wax paper for that purpose too.

It can be stored for several weeks at room temp.

Tangled

I got to do a Tangled/Rapunzel themed cake this week for a friend's daughter who was turning 4. I have to say, I had a lot of fun making this cake. I got to try a few new techniques that I have been wanting to do, and had fun learning as I went along.


What would a Rapunzel cake be without the tower? I molded this tower out of rice krispy treats, and covered it in modeling chocolate. I heard on Cake Boss one time that modeling chocolate is definitely something good to have in your "arsenal of cake decorating methods"--and now I see why. It is easy to smooth out seams when covering something, and is great for molding shapes and objects.

This was my favorite part of the cake--the quaint rock bridge--also made out of modeling chocolate. Can I have one in my backyard? Blue piping gel over a blue piece of fondant made a very real looking river.

The cascade of hair was fondant with gumtex. I put some wire in it to give it a little more structure. I tried texturing it a little with a razor blade to make it seem a little more like hair, then brushed it with some gold luster dust.

The trees were also a modeling chocolate experiment. It worked. I just wish I would have thought earlier to make a little "Wanted" poster for Flynn Rider to stick on one of them.

A few final touches with some candy rocks, piped grass, and fondant flowers made it a fairy tale ending.