Happy Sunday! This week I bring to you a Princess Cake! But this is a very special Princess indeed. I belong to a volunteer group called Icing Smiles. The is a wonderful organization that uses local bakers to provide special occasion cakes for families who are dealing with a serious illness for their child. I answered the call to provide a cake for Brooklyn.

Brooklyn is 5. Brooklyn was proudly celebrating her End of Treatment Day! Yup, she's in remission and we are all so very very happy to see her healthy. This little blonde angel was SO surprised to see her very own Princess Cake she dissolved into shy giggles. It was totally adorable.

The cake was for a small family group so I made a 6 inch and a 4 inch cake to stack. The idea was to give a princess dress and crown look, there's even a bow in the back! The cake was a white cake filled with butter cream filling...Brooklyn's favorite. I then cut out an 15 inch circle of fondant and laid that over the 6 inch cake. To figure out how big of a circle you need to cover a cake you want to use the measurement across the top (6 inches) by how tall it is times 2 (4 + 4 = 8) for a total of 14 inch circle needed for this cake. I wanted overflow so I cut it one inch larger but you can just stretch out the 14 inches so it drapes properly. Then I cut out 3 inch circles in the pink fondant and layered them onto the cake. Finally I piped the purple butter cream onto the lower tear, added the candy pearls, and let it set up.

Now the top tier I wanted to make into a crown. Easier said than done since I wanted it to be soft to eat. So I cut out a strip of the white fondant and used a circle cutter to make the scalloped edges. I layered that onto the already fondant covered 4 inch tier with water. I then folded over the tips of the scallops to give it more body and then used some plastic wrap rolled up to keep the tips steady while they set up for an hour. During that time I rolled the pink filigree and allowed that to set up for the hour as well. When all of that was ready I removed the plastic wrap, adhered the filigree with water and then piped the butter cream decorations. Finally I stacked one cake on top of the others. I made the dowels shorter than normal for this cake so that the crown would sink down just a bit into the bottom tier making the "skirt" look like it's flouncing. Then I twisted pink fondant ropes into a belt and attached a bow made from more twisted rope to finish off the skirt.

Last item was to pipe out the detail and wording on the board and then it was ready to take to Brooklyn! I hope to be able to do more cakes for this organization and I realize that not all of the kids will be healthy and happy when we arrive with the cakes. Some will be actively fighting an illness. So this time I took my 12 year old son with me so he could see the happy ending that so many of these kids get and all of them deserve before he helped me deliver a cake to an ill child. 

We arrived at the University of Davis Cancer Center and was lead back to a room past the chemotherapy treatment room. My son's eyes got as big as saucers. I could tell it was freaking him out a bit and told him after that if it freaked him out how does he think it feels for those kids who are undergoing treatment?! A small lesson at life for my son with wonderful effects.

We walked into the room with the cake to meet Brooklyn and her family and for a second didn't know which kid in the room was her! She was completely healthy. It was so wonderful to see. When she realized the cake was made just for her and even had her name on it she was so very surprised and happy. 

 Brooklyn is the little girl to the right...see, you never would have guessed that for the past 18 months she's been battling leukemia! From one very sick little girl to one happily celebrating her End of Treatment Day. We were SO very happy to be allowed to be a part of it and to bring such a big smile to her, and her family's, face.

See you next week with a new cupcake! Remember to visit us over at Facebook for daily tricks and tips! 

Cat

 Happy Sunday! And Happy 12th Birthday to our son Jack! We had a small family birthday party for him today and he chose a Minecraft theme. Minecraft is a computer/video game that he plays with his friends on the computer and on Xbox. 

Surprisingly enough there isn't much out there with party supplies available so the cake was a major help in the decor area of the party. I'd love to say it was simple to do but it really wasn't. I will tell you what I did do so if you do decide to try it yourself you will have some idea of what you are getting yourself in for before you actually start. 

I started with a 10x10 layer of cake that I leveled. I then cut that into four pieces and stacked them 2x2 with filling in between. Then I froze them.  When they were completely frozen I cut the levels into them with a serrated bread knife. Then I crumbcoated it all with buttercream and let it settle over night.

The next day I made all of the colors of fondant by using gel colors and white fondant. Except for the black and red which were made from Duff's fondant. I rolled the balls of fondant out on a cutting mat and then cut half inch long strips and then cut them half inch wide to make the squares. I let those dry on a mat for one hour so the fondant would firm up a bit. 

After of the squares were set I started placing them onto the cake one or two at a time trying to replicate the way the video game looks with the dark brown, light brown, black, tan and light grey squares. I have to say I used my son for reference as well along the way to make sure I was at least getting close. The last step on the cake was the "grass" area which are 2x2 inch squares. 

Finally it was time for the characters. If I were making this for a client I would need to use the plastic licensed characters so I could sell the cake. But, since this was for my son, I was able to make them from fondant.  I made the "creeper" first since I had used this character to make the invites and it was on the water bottle labels as well. Once again it was a process of working on the piece and then asking my son if I was getting close, work a bit more and tweak the design a bit until he was happy with it. Then came "Steve" which is the main character in the game. I made him section by section, put the sections together with toothpic pieces and then let it dry flat for a few hours to firm up. Then I stuck him onto the base drum with toothpics in the feet and then used toothpics to attach him standing up onto the cake. I did the exact same thing with the pigs and the TNT. I used the leftover colored fondant to make the cubes and just set them onto the one terrace. Finally I cut out a bit of the "grass" and placed the candles, securing them in with the same black icing I used for the lettering. The lettering was last. 

Now...you might ask how long it took to make this cake...7 hours. Yup. 7 hours. It is very very labor intensive and time consuming. Here is a photo of the cake table. My son and his friends were very happy with the cake and thought it was really cool and funny.

For the next two weeks I will be on vacation so I won't be posting here until I get back. When I do I'll be telling you all about a very special program I'm involved in and a Princess Cake I finished this week. See you then!

Cat

Happy Sunday! And Happy 2nd Birthday to our Grandson Parker! Parker is a huge fan of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and a Super Fan of Mickey Mouse himself. 

To get an idea of what a huge fan of Mickey our little man really is, here is the photo of the first time Parker and Mickey met (click on the photo to see the larger version):

Parker was only about six months old and, yes, Mickey obsessed even then. So when it came time to decide upon what design of cake to make for his second birthday, the first birthday he would really be a participant in celebrating, we just knew it had to be Mickey Mouse themed.

As I have mentioned before, you have to be careful when it comes to Disney items and copyright law. Now for this cake I'm pretty safe since it's for my own grandson but I still used a plastic licensed character for the top of the cake and didn't make one out of fondant. Just to be safe.

The cake is lemon chiffon, Parker's favorite cake, with lemon curd butter cream filling. The filling is so good I swear we could just eat it like a dessert pudding all by itself! And it's incredibly easy to make. Are you ready for this top secret recipe? 1:1 ratio of lemon curd to butter cream. Yup...that's it. I use the lemon curd you find near the jam in the grocery store. You could, of course, make your own and then determine how strong you want the lemon taste to be in your filling.

I started out by covering the tiers in fondant. The bottom tier is covered in light blue colored homemade vanilla marshmallow fondant. The top tier is covered in Duff's brand of red fondant. For any really dark color I choose Duff's because it tastes good and the color is a really true color without a chemical dye taste. On this cake the red, black and green are all Duff's fondant and the rest of it is my homemade fondant.

Then I started on the bottom tier. Now I will tell you that this cake took me about 5 hours to finish. There is just that much detail to it. I used round and oval cutters to create the clubhouse as well as the trees and clouds. The trees and clouds started out as ovals that I used a tapered fondant tool to dent the sides and then I stretched the shape to make the tree and cloud shapes. 

The hand was not so easy. I had to hand cut that one out with an exacto knife. It took me forever. Seriously. I had to trace it out on the rolled out piece of fondant and then cut it out and then, using a ball tool as well as a tapered tool, I smoothed out the edges. Yes, it was a pain but I'm really happy with how it turned out so it was worth the extra time and effort. It was then time to stack the top tier onto the bottom tier. 

The top tier included the stars on wooden skewers. Yes, those were done a few days ahead of time. I cut out double the amount of stars needed for the name letters as well as extras for the top tier and then, using water as glue, pressed the two  stars together around the skewer. I waited till they were totally dry and then piped on the black Disney Font lettering. 

Here's a trick behind the lettering. Yes, you can use Google and find the Disney Font. But the best version of that for this is actually the "stitched" font. You can see how the letters actually go together better and it makes it easier to pipe. 

I piped the yellow lettering onto the top tier and then added the stars, which I made at the same time as the ones I put on the skewers and allowed to dry, to the red fondant. For me this wasn't an easy thing since the stars didn't want to stick easily. I ended up holding them pressed onto the red fondant for a minute each to make them adhere. Yes, my patience was wearing thin by this point! LOL! Next up was rolling all of those little balls of yellow fondant for the upper tier trim. When those were all rolled I ran a bead of the yellow butter cream around the tier and placed the marbles all around. 

Last touches were to stick in the skewers and place Mickey in his place of honor...after sticking the long center skewer from the top tier to the bottom tier and into the cake drum on the base. Then I used butter cream to stick Mickey into his spot and the cake was done!

Needless to say my grandson was simply thrilled when he saw the cake! Check out the Cherry Party Blog tomorrow to see the entire Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Party Plan!

Cat

Happy Sunday! Today brings Garden Party Cupcakes! With so much Spring in the air (finally IS in the air for those on the East Coast of the US) there are lots of outdoor parties being thrown. Parties for Birthdays, Bridal Showers, Baby Showers and even for our upcoming Mother's Day on May 12th. We figured this was a great time to point out how you can use after holiday sales for something other than the holiday!

 Forgive the cell phone photo here. This was taken at my local Raley's Superstore. I looked at this adorable kit a week before Easter and thought, "Wow, that's SO cute!" Then I looked at the price...OUCH! $12.99! That is when I thought, "hey, the day after Easter these are going on sale for 50% off! I'll come back then and see if they have any of these kits left." Sure enough. I went back on Tuesday and they had a whole bunch of them in the 50% off bin! 

Every holiday has lots of cute things you can use for parties at other times of the year. Valentine's day Heart candy for wedding favors for your Spring wedding. Pumpkins for your Harvest themed wedding.  Beach themed decorations after Memorial or Labor Day Weekends. Even sales on twinkle lights after Christmas. You can take total advantage of these sales and save lots of money.

The other idea behind these cupcakes was to show that you don't have to be a master cake artist to have something pretty to eat on your table. I have a weakness for pretty plates. I have a whole bunch of single plates that I now use as dessert serving plates. None of them match but they are all loved. This one looks like a big pink flower so I though it was perfect for today.

For some reason I seemed to remember that I had paper doilies somewhere in my stuff. Turns out I was wrong. So I took some paper coffee filters, scalloped the edges with my scissors to make them decorative and smaller, and lined the plate with them. Yes, paper doilies would have been easier but this worked in a pinch.

Part of the decoration was also the liners. There were two types of liners with this set, the ones with the green zigzag lines and the ones with flower. Because they didn't have an Easter Chick design on the outside edge, though the green ones did have bunnies on the bottoms, I knew they would work well for our theme.

Sadly, purple doesn't photograph well. The icing on these is actually quite dark and vibrant but I just couldn't get it to photograph that way. Anyway, I used a large open star tip and piped "roses" on the top of each cupcake. For the video tutorial of this just click here for the Rose Tutorial Video.

Finally I used the pretty picks that came in the kit to decorate and finish the cupcakes. Everyone loved them and not one person mentioned Easter!

I'll be putting up a Garden Party Plan tomorrow on the Cherry Party Blog so I hope you take a few minutes to see how easy throwing a Spring Themed party can be!

Also, check us out on Facebook. We are giving tips and tricks for Brides and Grooms for the next two weeks!

See you next week when I bring you a very Disney Themed Party Cake!

Cat

 Happy Sunday and Happy Easter Sunday to those of us here in the USA! We always have a family dinner for Easter and one of the favorite desserts we have is from our Aunt Kathy. For this blog I'm "re-naming" this dessert "Pistachio Pudding Pie" but in our family it's just known as "The Green Stuff". 

You begin with a dish. I used a decorative yellow pie pan here since it's Easter but usually it's a 9x13 pyrex pan. I'm working with a half recipe here since there are only 5 of us to feed today but normally it's the full recipe for a crowd. You start out with Ritz Crackers. Just the normal ones. 

Melt the butter and put the crackers into a zip lock bag. Now it's time to crush the crackers to make the crust! 

 Roll them out to a fine consistency. You want all of the crumbs to be the same size. After they are all crushed add them to the melted butter. 

 Mix the crumbs and butter well and then press them into your pan. Since I'm using a decorative pan and wanted to show the crust I pressed them all the way up the sides but you can just make a layer in the bottom of the pan. Now bake that for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

While your crust is baking mix the Jell-O Pistachio pudding with the milk. You can use a hand mixer or, like I did, use a whisk until it's completely combined and has begun to thicken up.

Now mix in the ice cream. This would have been easier for me if I'd let the ice cream soften up a bit but I really wanted to show you all how this looks. Incorporate all of the ice cream into the pudding until it's smooth. Now put that into the refrigerator for 25 minutes to allow it to set up. By the time you are putting your pudding mixture into the fridge your crust will be done. Remove it from the oven and let it cool completely.

 While waiting take your Heath Toffee Bars and dice them up. I place the bars onto my mat and start at an angle and work from one end of the bars to the other and then turn the mat around and work the opposite way and angle. 

 When your pudding mix is set up and your crust is cool it's time to put this all together. As I mentioned above, I wanted the crust to show a bit so I didn't spread the pudding mixture until it completely covered the crust. I let a bit peak out. If you are making a full recipe and just making a bottom layer of the crust then spread the pudding mix completely over the crust layer.

Now take the Cool Whip and spread it over the pudding mixture. Once again, I wanted the crust and pudding mixture to show but if you are making layers then make sure to cover the pudding mixture layer with Cool Whip.

 Now sprinkle your chopped up Heath Bars all over the entire dish. Try to refrain from eating the candy bar before it gets to it's final decorative spot on your dish...ok, ok, so eat a corner, no one will know!

Since this is for our Easter Dinner I wanted to decorate it up a little bit more. So I took a big scoop of Cool Whip and made a little "nest" for the center of the dessert and tucked in some spreckled chocolate "eggs". 

Now, to let you know how good this is. Family members who are reading this right now are finding their mouths are uncontrollably watering. My own family members here in the house have been chanting "Mom made the Green Stuff" and "Oh yeah! We have the GREEN STUFF for dessert!!!" all day long. 

So when you make this for your own family just whisper a little "Thank you Aunt Kathy" for me, ok? It will become a family favorite in an instant!

Here is the full, and half, recipe for you all!

“The Green Stuff”

Ingredients

2 rolls Ritz Crackers

2 sticks of margarine

2 boxes of Pistachio Pudding

1 ½ cups milk

1.5 quart of vanilla ice cream

1 tub Cool Whip

3-4 Heath Bars

Half recipe:

1 roll ritz crackers

1 stick margarine

1 box pistachio pudding

¾ cup milk

3 cups vanilla ice cream

½ tub cool whip

2 heath bars

Start by crushing Ritz crackers. (I use a large Ziploc baggie and roll over with rolling pin) Then melt 2 sticks of margarine and mix Ritz crackers into it. Bake 10 minutes at 350°. Then set out to cool.

Mix 2 Boxes Pistachio pudding with 1½ cups milk. Blend with hand mixer. Then mix in vanilla ice cream. Let sit in refrigerator for 25 minutes to set.

Then spread pudding/ice cream mix over cracker crust. Spread out cool whip on top. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Shave 3-4 Heath Bars and sprinkle over Cool Whip.

Serve and Enjoy!

Hope you guys enjoy our family secret recipe and had a great Easter! Let me know if you give this recipe a try and what you thought of it.  See you next week with a new cake!

Cat

Happy Sunday! Today brings Michele and Eric's Swirl Wedding Cake! The entire wedding palette was white and purple. I didn't get to see the whole set up, they were just starting when I brought in the cake, but it looked like they were using white as the base and purple as the accent so this cake will fit right in!

Now here is where popular "fashion" and individual taste came in to play. Michele saw, on Pinterest, a "Rose Cake". The design on a rose cake is like this one I did a couple of years ago:

But Michele doesn't really like roses all that much. She loved the idea of an all over swirl pattern but she wanted purple worked into the cake as well. When she saw my Valentine's Wedding Cake, with the little red hearts randomly placed on the cake, she knew just what she wanted...white swirls with purple swirls here or there. Because of this pattern choice butter cream was the perfect medium. And, since it is Spring and not hot outside, which could melt butter cream, I was able to grant her wish.

Now to make the cake is super easy. It's hard on the hands because of all the piping you need to do but it's not a hard pattern to recreate. Just like with the rose cake, you will be using an Open Star tip. The one you use with the Rose Cake is this one (Wilton 2110):

This tip only has a few points in the star and makes the pattern of an open rose easily. To make the swirls you want more points on the star. I use the Wilton tip #32:

You can see how there are many more "lines" when you pipe than the one you use for the rose. Perfect for the swirl pattern I wanted to achieve.

So I baked the Lemon Chiffon cake as normal and froze it wrapped in Press and Seal wrap. Then the night before I was ready to decorate it I took it out of the freezer, filled it with butter cream and crumb coated it with butter cream and let that settle over night. 

I started out by icing the top of the bottom tier after placing it onto the foil covered cake drum. I didn't want to move it again once the swirls were on the sides of the cake and take a very good chance of marring one of the bottom swirls. When you make the swirls, or roses, you will see gaps in the icing. You can either leave them there or just fill them in with your tip. 

To begin the swirls, or roses, you have to keep your tip pointed straight at the surface. No angles with this pattern. Begin in the center of where you want your swirl and circle outward, being careful not to overlap your lines. You can find a video on I Am Baker that you can watch and get a better idea of how to do this. It's super easy. 

To make the pattern look random you actually have to make it not random at all. Plot out where you want your spots of color before you even start. In this case I started out with a spot of color at the top followed by two of white. Then the next line I started with two of white followed by one of color. Then one full row of white before making one with the color in the center followed by one full row of white. Just repeat that pattern all the way around the cake. I then filled in the open spaces and piped one row of swirls around the top edge of the cake.

To pipe the top tier I decided to ice the top of the cake and then move it into place on top of the bottom tier before piping the swirls. I followed the same pattern as the one on the bottom tier making sure not to line up the patterns so that the colored swirls would look random. The last thing you need to do is wait until the icing crusts up a bit and then gently press down any points that might be standing up from your piping.

As I mentioned, the only problem with this design is that it is a lot of piping so your hands will need a rest every now and then. I did use a semi-stiff butter cream recipe so that it would hold the pattern and set up quickly. 

I loved this color palette so much I decided to put together a party plan for it. So check out the Cherry Party Blog tomorrow to see how I would dress up the wedding to go with this beautiful cake!

And don't forget to check out our Facebook Fan Site for daily tips and crafts for your Easter weekend all this week!

Cat

Happy Sunday! This week brought a "Gender Reveal" Party. This is a lovely new form of the baby shower that can either take the place of one or be an extra gathering added to the happy experience of having a baby! 

Basically you invite family and friends to come over, make their guesses on what they think the sex of the baby is and then at the end of the party you cut into it and the filling or cake color reveals the answer! This is even more fun when the parents don't even know yet. What they do is have their ultrasound tech write down the answer and then put it into an envelope and seal it up. The parents then hand that to the caker so they can make the cake or cupcakes. That way, when the cake is sliced, even the parents get to hear the news for the first time!

For this particular party, the Mom-to-be collects hat boxes so I just copied one of hers for the cake. The only difference here is that the scroll work on her hat box is white and she wanted a pink and blue cake. 

This is what I call a "panel" cake. You roll out panels of fondant and adhere them to the cake. The buttercream crumb coat holds it onto the sides of the cake. So I rolled out two 15 inch long by 4 inch wide rectangles for the outside of the box and then rolled out a 10 inch round for the top of the cake. After that it was just rolling out the 3/4 inch white strips and then adding them to the cake. 

Piping is a bit more tricky. When using a light colored fondant and a dark colored icing to pipe the decorations you must always be aware that wherever you pipe is immediately stained. There are no second chances. There are two ways you can do this. Either freehand, which is what I did here, or use imprint tools. If you use the tools just make sure you don't press too hard onto the side. This is cake, it will dent and you can put holes into your fondant. But it is the way to get perfect piping so many use the imprint tools.

The trickiest part of this whole cake was the cording! The problem was that it was either too stretchy and broke, or too dry and broke. It took me a few times of trying to get it right. In hindsight I wish I'd used real ribbon for this effect. I really try not to use non-edibles on my cakes but in this case I wish I'd thought to do so before I started on the cake and was committed to the fondant cording.

Now the truth about cakers. We are never truly happy with our cakes. Once in a blue moon we will make one that we wouldn't change anything about. But usually we wish we had the time to change something, or re-do some part of it. The truth of the matter is that we know the only person that it's bugging is us. The clients are perfectly happy and don't even see the imperfection that is driving us nuts enough that we would re-do it if we could. However, this is what makes us better the more we work. The next time I have to do cording on a cake I'll know to either be ready for a patience wearing stretch of time or to buy non-edible cording or ribbon for it. For cakers it's a constant life of "live and learn".  And with each and every cake we learn. 

P. S. ....it's a Girl! See the whole party plan tomorrow on our Cherry Party Blog!

Cat