Happy Chinese New Year

I had an incredibly busy time leading up to Valentines Day. My mixer was on overdrive!
When somebody asked me to make a cake for the Chinese New Year, I could not resist. I knew there would be no time to make the Chinese symbols out of sugar but I also knew they were important to the theme of the cake. So, I improvised! I found something in the party store that I could use. I cut up money bags and sealed them in plastic which I put on the sides of the cake. In between the symbols, I piped branches and placed plum blossoms, which represent good fortune, on them. When it was time to decorate the top of the cake I decided to cut the symbols out of the rectangles and place them in the center of the blossoms. I liked the way this looked and wish I had done it to the sides as well. Time was an issue, so I had to leave well enough alone.
This cake was a 10" vanilla layer cake with chocolate butter cream frosting.

Cake For Two

These little darlings are 4" vanilla layers cakes. They are both filled with butter cream as well as frosted with it. The dark one is chocolate (obviously) ganche which I spiked out with a spatula. The top of the white one is covered with white chocolate ganache. Okay, there is a story here. What a mess! First of all, I had cut the circles out of a sheet cake, stacked them and proceeded to frost them. They crumbled and stuck to the frosting, it was extremely messy. So I patched them and carefully applied the crumb coat and let it set in the frig. The second coat of frosting went on nicely, yay! But then, I applied the white chocolate ganache and it caused the butter cream to fall off. Maybe I did not let it cool enough. The dark chocolate ganache behaved so differently. So I removed it all, except from the top and reapplied the butter cream. I gave them to an old friend who thought they were beautiful. The third cake that is pictured is also a 4" vanilla layer cake with butter cream frosting. I covered it with a pourable fondant that was I tinted pink, VERY pink! I can't decide it I like it or not. what do you think?

oh, so sweet cake bites

I decided to try my hand at cake bites again since I had leftover cake pieces and butter cream. This is chocolate sourcream devils food cake mixed with buttercream frosting and shaped into little balls. They were then dipped into a dark chocolate glaze and since it is Valentines Day and they needed something pink, I covered them with pourable fondant (much tastier than the packaged fondant I had previously used) and I topped them with some darling little sugar hearts.
Donald brought some into work and so many people loved them. I will be making a ton of them this week :-0

SMASH CAKE

This Cake was made to be destroyed :( . It is a "Smash Cake" for the 1st Birthday of a set of twins. Their Mom is a professional photographer and she did a photo shoot of the twins, Leah and Gavin, having a blast with their cake. You can see them as soon as they are posted on www.summerlifephotography.blogspot.com. I can't wait to see the twins in action.
This is what the cake looked like when it left my kitchen.

Birthday Cake for Walt

This cake was made to celebrate the birthday of someone I hold near and dear to my heart. I felt attached to this cake and did not want to see it cut (although I did want to eat it). Alas, it was cut and served and everyone LOVED it! This is an 8" chocolate sour cream layer cake with cream cheese frosting. A lovely combination indeed! The flowers are made from royal icing and lightly sprinkled with pink sugar.
I think this would make a lovely cake for a small wedding.

P.S. I have no idea why one of the images is rotated.

If you love chocolate....

Who doesn't love a good brownie? This is a Martha Stewart recipe that I added a dark chocolate glaze to. It is hard to describe how good they are. Let me try; mmmmmmmahhhhhyummmmm!!!! I will be making them for Valentines Day this year.

Let me know if you would like me to make some for you. Be on the look out for my Valentine Sugar Cookies!

with glaze this time

Someone made a request for this cake. I made it again, but this time I baked it at 350 for 40 minutes instead of 375 for 50 minutes. Last time it was a little to done around the edge. I also made a glaze out of clementine juice and powdered sugar. I squeezed the clementine wedges with a garlic press, very effective. Here's some picture of an uncut glazed version.

intrigued

I was so intrigued by this cake recipe that I found on Smitten Kitchen's blog. The recipe for Clementine Cake is by Nigella Lawson and I just had to try it. I was easy, though time consuming and it is so delicious!!!! There is no flour in it so it would be great for those with a wheat intolerance. I am sending the rest of it in to work with my husband or else I will eat it all.


p.s. Next day, the powdered sugar that I so lovingly dusted on top of the cake got absorbed into the cake. Thinking that I did it too soon after the cake came out of the oven, I dusted more sugar on. Within minutes, it too was absorbed. Next time I will glaze it!

For Shirley

I made this cake in honor of my friend Shirley. She recently passed away and I brought this to a pot luck which was held after her memorial service. Shirley was an awesome and beautiful woman and I will miss her tremendously.

more holiday cakes

I made two red velvet cakes for the holidays. I used the McCormick recipe and found it to be quite tasty. Unfortunately, I was not there when they were cut open, so I have no picture of the inside. They are both 10 " layers, with cream cheese frosting and filling. I decorated them with very simple piping because I just loved how they looked. Sometimes, less really is more.

Julie's Cake

These cakes were a request from someone who I baked for last summer. The first request was for a repeat of the chocolate chocolate chocolate cake from cake weekend. Since it was for a holiday party, I added hand painted fondant poinsettia flowers. The other request was for a white chocolate cake with white chocolate frosting and white chocolate ganache and fresh strawberries . Sounds yummy. I searched for a recipe for the cake all over the place and finally found one (cannot remember where). Then to find the frosting recipe..., not so easy. I was not liking the ones I found, too complicated. Then I remembered, The Cake Mix Doctor!!! I found a white chocolate cream cheese frosting that was easy and oh so delicious! Next, the white chocolate ganache. I found one recipe that I had to throw out because I did something wrong and it became lumpy. I was not happy. Then I remembered The Cake Mix Doctor again. And again, it was easy and delicious. The cake looked beautiful! All that white was stunning! I wish I could have taken a photo of the inside with the fresh sliced strawberries layered in between buttercream frosting, mmmmm! The sad part is, that due to bad weather, the party was postponed a week. The people already had the cakes, so I told them to seal the boxes with saran wrap and keep in the frig. It was to be consumed a week later and I do hope it was okay.
P.S. I just heard that the cakes were oaky and delicious too!

Red Velvet Cake Bites, oh so good!

This idea was inspired by Bakerella. I saw a post for Red Velvet Cake Pops on her blog (www.bakerella.blogspot.com) and thought,"gee, that looks easy". Ha! First of all, I have no experience working with chocolate so, I didn't know what I was getting into. It was very messy. The chocolate did not go on the cake nice and smooth like it appeared in Bakerella's pictures and it cracked after it dried on the cake. I was dismayed, all that work and they look terrible. I was ready to scrap the idea when I tasted it. Yummmm. I knew I had to salvage them. I decided to cover them with a white chocolate ganache. Great idea!! I also decided not to serve them on a lollipop stick, instead I would put them on a mini cupcake liner. They look like bon bons. This is how they became Cake Bites. I have learned a lot from making these and I hope the next time will be easier.

Going For Gold

I recently hosted a fund raiser for an organization I volunteer for. It was a Gold Home Party, so I made chocolate cinnamon cupcakes with dark chocolate butter cream frosting. In keeping with the theme of the party, I added gold accents to the frosting and used gold foil cupcake paper. The event was a success and the cupcakes were enjoyed by all!

For Richard on his 60th birthday

My mother-in-law asked me if I could make the cake for my brother-in-law's birthday party. I was so glad to have been asked because he is one the most awesome people I know! I kept thinking about what kind of cake I should make, what should I make, what should I make..... So, I asked him. Richard said " I would love chocolate on chocolate - dark on dark.... , can you have a dark chocolate fudgey type of "thing" between the layers...." Yay! I love chocolate cake! So I made a dark chocolate cake pound cake with chocolate chips mixed in and dark chocolate butter cream frosting.I then poured chocolate ganache all over the top and let it drip down the sides. I filled the cake with the same. I piped it with a dark and light chocolate butter cream. In case you are wondering about the placement of the dots on the side of the cake, I just followed the flow of the chocolate. This had to be the best chocolate cake on the face of the earth! Richard loved it!

pumpkin pie

Pumpkin Pie is an all time favorite and so easy to make. I use the recipe from the Libby's canned pumpkin.(not the canned pie) The only problem I had with this was the crust. The recipe that I have always used had disappeared from my cookbook! So I looked up a Martha Stewart recipe. It was easy and looked lovely until I started to roll it out. What a mess! It was so sticky and it frustrated me so much! My Husband, being the awesome person he is, went into town to buy me a Pillsbury pie crust! So all was well in my kitchen once again. I brought this pie to church and heard it was delicious!
I'd love to make one for you!

Appears to be the favorite

Apparently, I love this recipe. I always seem to be making it with slight variations. Maybe because I always seem to have ripe bananas. This one I made to bring to a friends house for an after dinner treat. Oh yeah, let me mention that this is the Banana Sour Cream Cake that you have seen here before. To boost the flavor this time, I added caramelized bananas to the butter cream filling. MMMMM!
I also added some brown sugar to the cream cheese frosting and to take it over the top, I dripped some caramel frosting on the top making this the sweetest cake I have ever had.
Since it is fall, I wanted to add fall colored butter cream leaves by trying a stripping technique I learned. The leaves were not coming out the way I had envisioned them so I just made swirls.
This is a perfect cake to share with people you love so let me know if you would like me to make one for your next occasion!

Since it is fall and a favorite time of year for me I was inspired to make a fall themed cake. Initially, for a "Project Runway" get together I made some cupcakes out of this recipe. They were so good that I decided to make a cake.
This is a chocolate cinnamon cake with caramel frosting. The frosting is what really put this cake over the top! The cinnamon flavor in the cake was subtle so I may use more cinnamon next time. The leaves featured on the top of the cake were made of fondant and hand painted with gel food coloring and clear vanilla extract.
I brought this cake to a Volunteer Appreciation Dinner that I attended with some friends. Often times, I get nervous that the taste will not live up to expectations so, I was very relieved when everyone who tried it, raved over it.
Let me know if you would like to have this cake for your next celebration!

P.S. I brought some cupcakes to my friends daughter who put it in the microwave for few seconds to warm the frosting. she reported that it was mmmmmgood!

I have been away, I have been busy, I am back!