Dad's 60th Birthday Cake

My dad, Sasha (Alexander), turned 60 this year.  We traveled to Spencer, NY to celebrate.  My mom requested that I make the cake.  She was there when I was making Thuy's Baby Shower cake and thought Dad would really like it.  Especially because candy bars are his favorite.  He has a stash of them in the side table next to the couch in front of the T.V.  I thought the shower cake was a bit cartoonish for such a celebration.  I decided to upgrade the maturity level of the cake (thank you, the Interwebs).

The cake is chocolate with raspberry filling and chocolate frosting.  The barrel is Kit Kats and black ribbon.  The ice is marshmallows.

My Dad is Russian.  Most images I saw had beers in the barrel but I thought he would enjoy something a little stronger.  Happy 60th Birthday!!!  "Огонь!" to many more.

Thuy's Baby Shower Cake

My friend, Thuy, is due with her first baby November 9th, 2015.  She is having a baby girl.  I am co-hosting a BaBy-Q to celebrate the little munchkin's arrival with our mutual friend, Jill.  The decor includes pigs because it was a Jack and Jill shower BaBy-Q.  I got busy making the cake the week before.  I like making anything fondant related well ahead of time.  In the warm weather especially.  The pigs took about two hours to make from pink fondant.

My brain went completely blank with this cake.  I forgot to take any pictures before I stacked the cake.  It is a chocolate cake with raspberry filling (everyone is asking for this cake lately) and chocolate buttercream frosting for both layers.  I used store bought Dark Chocolate frosting to make the mud on the top of the chocolate cake layers because my chocolate buttercream wasn't dark enough.

The cake mimics a wooden barrel with pigs swimming inside enjoying a mud bath.  The Kit Kats on the outside of the cake do a good job making the cake layers look like a barrel.  I love that I didn't have to be super careful with smoothing out the frosting because it was hidden.  It saved me a lot of time.

It took me about an hour and a half to frost, stack, Kit Kat and decorate with pigs.

  

Given how easy it was to put together, the cake looks very fancy.  It is one of the cutest cakes I have made.  

My favorite part is the pig butts sticking out of the "mud."  I cannot wait to meet the little munchkin!

Vika's Graduation Cake

My cousin, Vika, is graduating high school (so hard to believe!).  We are going to her graduation party this weekend.  I am honored to be making her graduation party cake.  

I baked the cake at home.  Once we were at my parent's house I put the chocolate layers together with raspberry jam and frosted.

I covered the small cakes with blue fondant to make the cap.  The cap's square is cardboard which I covered with blue fondant to match.

I made the tassel with white and blue fondant free hand.  Those are the colors of her high school.  I am really happy how realistic the tassel turned out.

The bottom layer is just buttercream frosting.  I skipped the fondant this time.  It saved a lot of time.

The final cake also had a white fondant paper scroll on top. 

Happy Graduation from high school to Vika!  She makes us proud.

Kiley's Butterfly Cake

Our friends, the Taylors, are baptizing their daughter, Kiley, this Sunday.  I am honored to be her Godmother and as such I begged to make her a cake.  Cait, Kiley's mom, picked out the cake design.  Early Saturday morning I baked the cakes.  The bottom layer is strawberry shortcake while the top is chocolate raspberry.  I use Ree Drummond's recipe for strawberry shortcake because it has a nice dense crumb and the filling is fresh strawberries.  The chocolate cake recipe came from Ina Garten.  I am trying this recipe out for the first time.  It has great reviews online.

The chocolate cakes came out nice and moist.  I am pretty excited to try them.  I made them bigger than they need to be for the top layer.  I love baking in square pans.  The cakes seem to always rise more evenly.  I barely need to level the top most of the time.  Usually it's only to make the cake the same height.

Strawberry shortcake layer is ready to be iced.  I am using cream cheese frosting in the middle and buttercream frosting to cover the two layers together.  

The chocolate cake is nice and moist.  I think I found my favorite chocolate cake recipe.  I was a little nervous adding hot coffee to the batter but it worked wonders.  Delicious!  In between the two chocolate cakes I put raspberry jam.  It adds nice flavor and it's not too sweet.

Icing with buttercream took some time but the cakes are finally ready for fondant and stacking.  

Already looking pretty smooth before adding buttercream fondant.

The cake is ready for the final touches.  I made a bow and some butterflies to go on the cake out of fondant last weekend.  It takes a while in humid weather for fondant to harden so I wanted to give it as much time as I could.

The decorations are all edible because they are made of fondant.  I used edible pearl dust on the butterflies to give them a little sparkle.  I cannot wait to share this cake with my Goddaughter and her family.  

Sadie's Ladybug Cake

This morning I am happy to say I finished an adorable ladybug cake for a one year old, Sadie.  Sadie's mom, Kim, works with Nick.  She heard I make cakes and asked if I would be interested in making one for her daughter's birthday party today.  I haven't done a project in a while so I eagerly accepted.  Kim sent me a few pictures as examples for what she envisioned for the cake.

We used these images to put together a unique cake.  She wanted a square cake for 35-40 people with a ladybug on top.  We decided to do fondant only on the ladybug and keep the cake just buttercream.  The details on the cake would include red and black dots, flowers, grass detail around the edge of the cake and writing on top.

I started to make the fondant flowers Tuesday.  They took about 20 minutes.  Next, I made the frosting on Wednesday.  That took about a half hour.  I made two batches of the vanilla buttercream I usually use for my cake projects.  Thursday night I baked the cake.  Two 12"x12" square cakes for the main cake and two 6"x6" circles for the ladybug.  On Friday, I frosted the cakes and made the ladybug.  The cake is very plain before all the details are added.

I used one of the 6"x6" circles and covered it with buttercream frosting and red fondant.  I added the black fondant for the head and the other details to complete the centerpiece.  It took me about three hours to frost and make the ladybug.

I am happy to say that Saturday I got to do the fun part of putting it all together and throwing on the finishing touches.  It took me an hour to do the grass detail around the cake bottom, attach the flowers and the circles, put the ladybug on top and finish it off with a message.

The finished cake with the flower petals that I decided to add on last minute.  I never took a picture with the writing on top of the cake.

I am glad I split up the cake over the course of a week.  It wasn't nearly as tedious doing it this way.  I will be using this method from now on.

I heard the birthday girl enjoyed her cake.  Happy Birthday to Sadie!  She is a cutie.

Thuy's Bridal Shower Cake

Today I am making a bridal shower cake for one of my favorite people and best friends, Thuy.  She is getting married in September.  We are celebrating the upcoming wedding by throwing Thuy a bridal shower this Saturday.

I am keeping things simple and doing a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream frosting.  The filling of the cake is strawberry jam.  I am doing a six inch circle tier on top of a nine inch circle bottom tier.  The top tier will have fondant detail while the bottom will be decorated with buttercream rosettes ombre style, which is all the rave right now.  The accent color for the cake is purple since it's Thuy's favorite.  It is also the main color for the shower and the wedding.

I was under a time crunch because I had afternoon plans.  I ended up getting this cake done in about four hours, including baking and all.  I was proud to pull it off.  Plus, it didn't look all that bad either.

I cannot wait to try it tomorrow. 

Ayla's First Birthday Cake

Nick's co-worker, Kristy, had come back to order a cake for her daughter's first birthday.  I was very excited for a repeat customer and happy that she thought of me for another cake.  Her daughter's party theme was jungle animals.  Kristy send me some pictures of the table cloth and party accessories so I could see them for myself.  She also made it easy on me by designing her own cake.  The cake she wanted was two tiers with the bottom tier decorated in stripes and the top tier decorated in dots.  Topping the cake is a giraffe that matched the party decorations and a candle in a shape of a one.  It is a super cute design and perfect for a little girl's party.  As for the cake itself I did vanilla with vanilla buttercream for both tiers and in between the layers.

I had a lot of fun making this cake.  I started on a Friday night with baking all the cakes and making the frosting after which I started on the giraffe.  I have to say making the fondant figurines is my favorite part of the process.  It is time consuming but it is rewarding and relaxing.  I forget about everything that is stressing me out at the moment when I start shaping the fondant into little limbs, figurines and etc... It's a perfect way to end a Friday night.

Overall, the cake took me a lot less time than I usually spend on a cake.  I actually noticed the improvement in my time.  It feels great when you realize for yourself how much you have improved.  I did have trouble when laying down fondant on the cakes.  I really need to figure out my problem with fondant.  Our love and hate relationship is getting in the way of my love of cake decorating.  I pulled through in the end and here is the finished result.

Audrey's Sprinkle Cake

This weekend was my bff's, Audrey, baby sprinkle. I was very excited that I could make it down for the event. Her neighbors and dear friends, Nancy, Liron and Taylor threw her a wonderful party. We had lots of snacks to munch on while we mingled. Played some really fun shower games and enjoyed watching Audrey open all of her presents filled with the cutest and tiniest baby apparel and toys ever! And, for the grand finale we had, you guessed it, cake.

I cannot take all of the credit for making this cake. I had help this time around from Nancy, Audrey's neighbor and friend. Nancy loves to bake and she offered to help bake the cake for Audrey's sprinkle. Nancy is this blog post's baking chef of honor :) I live in Boston and I was flying to Baltimore for the party so bringing a cake along on a plane was unrealistic. So I handed off my recipes to Nancy and she had them ready for me when I arrived to Baltimore. She baked a yellow cake and whipped up vanilla buttercream and chocolate buttercream (see below for recipe). Nancy had suggested we make a cake that looked like a castle and that we use baby bottle's for the towers. I loved her suggestions and got all the supplies ready to put the cake together.

We met up Saturday and Sunday mornings to put the cake together and decorate. It took us a total of 4 hours. I was so grateful for her help! She did a great job and it was so nice to have someone there to keep me company. I usually make the cakes on my own and after a few hours it can get quite lonely. I had a partner in crime and we had fun tasting the cake scraps and finding any excuse to eat the chocolate buttercream frosting. It is dangerous how good this chocolate buttercream tastes. I almost don't need cake to eat it :) We were finished after all the frosting, fondant and the finishing decorating touches made it on the cake. I must say we made the cutest cake castle.

We also took some pictures with the cake this time. I wish I though of doing this before with my other cakes.  I guess this makes it a unique blog post and I am ok with that. So here we are with Nancy on the left, our baking chef of honor, Audrey in the middle, the guest of honor, and myself on the right.

All the picture taking made us hungry and we dug in. Here is the cake inside out for your eyes to devour.

I know that I enjoyed both of my slices of the cake. I want to thank Nancy for helping and doing such a great job baking. Now we are all ready for Audrey's daughter to arrive hopefully sometime this coming weekend. Why Not?

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
prep time: 10-15min


Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks or 1/2 pound), softened (but not melted!)
3 1/2 cups confectioners (powdered) sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract or 1 teaspoon almond extract
4 tablespoons milk or heavy cream


Preparations:

Cream butter for a few minutes in a mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed. Turn off the mixer. Sift 3 cups powdered sugar and cocoa into the mixing bowl. 
Turn your mixer on the lowest speed (so the dry ingredients do not blow everywhere) until the sugar and cocoa are absorbed by the butter. 
Increase mixer speed to medium and add vanilla/almond extract, salt, and milk/cream and beat for 3 minutes. 
If your frosting needs a more stiff consistency, add a little more sugar. If your frosting needs to be thinned out, add additional milk 1 tablespoon at a time.
Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week.
Makes about 3 cups of Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.