Dinosaur Cake

So actually this is my favorite cake of all times. I loved it so much and so did every kid in the birthday party.


Alright so it took one chocolate cake mix and one golden butter cake mix. I did both because you never know what the kids like. For the icing I used Wilton butter cream powder mix. So after i made the icing I divided it half and half. 
The dinosaur is an easy find any walmart, target, etc..

Making The Cake

Alright the main part of this cake was making a dozen cupcakes and then the two layer cake.

In order to dye the icing i used store bought regular blue and green food dye along with wilton brown icing dye these three all together gave me the brown color. Almost the whole jar of brown and like five drops each of the the other. The green icing is two different things. First dye it light almost mint green for the base and then I used green mist for the rest of the color.

To do this and to make sure that that green spray is not everywhere I iced the bottom half first with the mint green and then misted it.

After doing this then all you have to do is ice the top in brown.

This gives the entire thing a rustic camo jungle look. Which was perfect because the party was hosted at Jungle Quest Jacksonville Fl.

Next was to ice the cupcakes using the brown this requires an icing bag or ziplock and a star tip.

After these are done you can add the writing to the cake. In this case the mother requested the candy letters and the Big T saying. Along with this is the dinosaur. Now depending on the one you choose when placed on top the dinosaur may fall fowards or backwards in my case it did both. To counteract this i used a toothpick under the tale creating support. 

So the last thing is at the party just place the cupcakes around the cake and light the candles. The cake when over great. 

Special Thanks to Melissa Richardson for giving me the chance to make the cake and for being the first customer that I have ever had. This is my start lets make this happen. 

21st Birthday Party

So for my aunts 21st birthday she wanted cupcakes covered in hot pink fondant with alternating designs. 
We ordered stencils offline cake mixes from the store and by choice she wanted the Duff brand pink fondant which is available at most craft stores


Making the cake
the actual baking was super easy any cake mix, you know what to do 
the tricky part however was both the filling of the cupcakes and the fondant work.
The original plan was to spray paint the designs on with color mist by Wilton but the issue with that is the high oil content in fondant made the mist just sit and run over the fondant. In order to help with this i just sprayed it heavy through the stencil then i blow dried the design.

Proceeding this I made the c's with silver luster dust by painting it over the stencil. I made the circles by using a two inch cookies cutter and then shaping them to size. 
The filling was only hard because my bag kept breaking and I was very tired. 
Overall I think it was a simple cake and I think it turned out alright. 

the C

 

Strawberry Shortcake

So every Tuesday night my family and I get together for dinner. This week was my grandmothers choice and we spent an hour rolling our dumplings for the chicken. But her favorite dessert is strawberry shortcake.

I made my cake fresh from scratch.

~Making the Cake~

ingredients:

3 cups cake flour                                                                       

1/2 teaspoon salt                                                                         

1/4 teaspoon baking soda                                                           

1 cup unsalted butter

3 cups white sugar

6 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream

 So to start with cream together your softened butter, extract, eggs, and sour cream.

Okay so after this you should preheat your oven to 300 degrees depending on altitude this may very heres a chart that may help with that.

http://www.pillsburybaking.com/bakers_corner/high_altitude_baking.aspx

However assuming that you are at sea level like me then it is time to sift together all the remaining dry ingredients.

Once these are sifted smooth (no clumps in the sugar or flour) add these to you wet mix.

blend on low for a minute then put it on high until everything is well blended and the batter is thick.

oil and flour your pan then pour the batter into it until the pan is 2/3 full. I did mine in a load but a bunt will work as well.

Bake the cake for 75-90 minutes or untill the toothpick comes out with some crumbs. Once done place pan on cooling rack for 30 minutes then remove the cake and let cool for another hour. After this tightly wrap the cake in clear wrap and place in the fridge. This will keep the cake nice and moist.

when cut the cake should be crunchy around the outside and dense in the middle

.

so finally add your strawberries and whip cream and serve. I use publix frozen strawberries for this.

Alvee's Sweet 16

My friend Alvee was having a Sweet 16 and I made the cake. There was another cake but this one was supposed to be for the big bang. This was the second time that I ever got to work with fondant.

~Making the Cake~

I made the cake just like I would any other time however it was 6 layers of cake. So this took four cake mixes and a lot of butter. I tend to only make mixes from scratch when I am requested to do so. But for this cake I did chocolate yellow chocolate. Then I did yellow chocolate yellow for the top part. I dyed the fondant fairy wing pink or so it was called. Then I made the circles white and light pink with some silver luster dust. The pink balls border are strawberry gumballs from a wedding store. They taste HORRIBLE but they make for a great border on cakes. I placed the cakes on a 14 in board because the cakes are 12 and 8 in.

~Cake Support~

With these cakes it is sooo important to have plenty of support underneath them because they will both collapse or more often then not fall in transport. In order to do this after cutting the cakes so that they are even and flat the next step is cutting wooden dowel rods to place in the cake I usually do six. One in the center and five around those in a circle pattern respectively. I do this before I put the fondant on them so they never show. I also leave the small cardboard pieces under the small layer to sit between the big and small layer. 

Once again my fondant work is pretty rough but Im working really super hard to make it better. This week I am making a cake and cupcakes for two birthday parties so look for the post on those. 

Boredom of the Weekend

I will post probably every Tuesday because that is my main cooking day. But this weekend I made these cupcakes. I take NO credit for the cute idea because I got it from confessionsofacookbookqueen.blogspot.com/

Because I was away from home and I did not have all of my usual tips and bags I cheated and used the Pillsbury easy dream icing that comes in a can with a tip on it. I also used Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix. I used Wilton silicone cupcake wrappers to bake them in and then I just used regular sprinkles. I usually do more original flavors and cupcakes with fillings or many colors. But after seeing the idea I had to try it.

            Making the Cupcakes

I baked the cupcakes and let them cooler for and hour. While waiting my Aunt and I peeled the wrappers off of 12 mini Reeses and icing them with a quick swirl motion starting from the out ring and work inward. We then sprinkled them with the topping. We then put these in the fridge so the icing would harden and be able to take the placement on the cakes. The last thing I did was ice the cupcakes with the same swirl and and sprinkled these. Now that both pieces are made you just have to place the mini piece on top of the cupcakes and refrigerate to avoid any icing slips. 

My First Wedding Cake

So this was my first wedding cake i actually did this two years ago. At the time i had never worked with fondant and to this day i have only had like 3 opportunities to work with it. Like I said I know the work is rough but I still put a lot of work into it.

Making the Cake

The actual cake part was simple. I used a 12in, 10in, and 8in round pan set. It took 6 Betty Crocker Golden Butter Recipe cake mixes, and all of the ingredients needed to make the cake mix. I used Wilton fondant because at the time I didn't know how to make my own. Then I bought the calla lilies on the cake aisle.

I baked the cakes which of course took like four hours because of the size and thickness of the cakes. I then rolled the fondant using a standard rolling pin and powdered sugar. After letting the cakes cool for 24 hours I put the fondant over the top and cut to size. I rolled the links of fondant out to cover any gaps at the bottom. 

The last thing was to brush the cake with silver luster dust to cover some sugar folds. I placed the flowers under the ropes along with some pearls and wrapped them around the topper. The cake was then done. I did not put it in the fridge because it dries out the fondant and the cake. But I did wrap it with a lot of cellophane in order to help with transport.

the fondant that i used