Another Birthday Party!

My DD just had her 18th birthday. She wanted a Disney Princess birthday party. Eighteen! Really? Disney Princess?! I decided to make a castle cake and individual princesses for each of the guests.


Since the castle was going to be mostly for looks, I just made a giant rice krispie treat base. I almost forgot to take "before" pics!














Here it is frosted!












The start of the decorations











Cute Kenzie and a finished castle
















The birthday girl wanted Belle. Fortunately, she turned out the best!










Here's the other girls

It's a party at the castle! Is everyone here for the ball?








It took me most of a day to do all the cakes, but it was worth it! They were a big hit!

A Birthday Party!

Wow! Where does time go? I haven't posted to this blog FOREVER! I've made cakes for a couple of events recently so I thought I'd better update my blog.

We had our RS birthday party last month. I wanted to do another fancy cake, but since I was in charge of the event, I just didn't have time.

Here's how we decorated the RS room. Thank you Enrichment Committee (and DH) for all your help!

I made tissue paper pom poms that turned out pretty cute! I got the idea for them from Martha Stewart.

Here's a table setting. We used aqua fabric from last year and I cut out tissue circles to use them as confetti. I made aqua chocolate suckers in the shape of a music note with a scripture attached as a take-home favor. They stood up in a green gum drop.

Here's my cake. It was so easy and turned out very "party-ish"! Since I didn't have much time for cake decorating, I just did a copy-cat of a Nothing Bundt Cake. It definitely tasted better than it looked. I think all that frosting scared alot of people off but my family was happy when I came home with lots of leftovers. There were some delicious cakes there! I wish I would've gotten pictures of all of them!

My good friend, Nancy Hanson, came and performed a few songs for us for our program. She is so awesome & fun!

An Easter Birthday

My MIL's birthday happened to fall on Easter this year. It's the first time this has happened in her lifetime and won't happen again for another 200+ years. We invited them for Easter dinner. We grilled a lamb roast on the rottiserie that turned out excellent. We marinated it in olive oil, garlic and fresh rosemary overnight and then used a spice rub on it. We put together the spice mixture from 14 different spices. Here's the rub recipe we used:

Raz el Hanout

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

3 teaspoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons ground coriander

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground cardamom

1 teaspoon ground allspice

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon mace

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon Kosher Salt

3 tsp tumeric

2 tsp nutmeg

We served the lamb with a shiraz wine/honey /lamb dripping reduction along with couscous, grilled asparagus with sea salt and a green salad. We didn't get any pictures of our meal because we were too busy plating it and trying to eat it while it was warm.

Now I'll get to the SWEET part of the meal- the cake. I saw this cake done on a local tv show and deicded it sounded light & fresh. And can you believe I had to go to 3 different stores to find an Angel Food Cake mix? (Thanks Harmon's for finally coming through for me!)

Key Lime Coconut Angel Food Cake
Ingredients:
1 round angel food cake
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup lime juice (preferably Key lime)
1 teaspoon grated lime zest
1 container (12 ounces) Cool Whip
1 cup flaked coconut
Key limes and strawberries for garnish
Method:
Cut cake hortizontally into 3 rounds. In a separate bowl, beat milk, lime juice, and lime zest with a whisk until smooth. Add cool whip, only to combine.
Spread 1/3 of cool whip mixture in between the first and second layers, and an additional 1/3 in between the second and third layers. Use the remaining mixture to "frost" the entire outside of the cake. Sprinkle with coconut. Garnish with cut limes and strawberries. Makes 12-16 servings.

Here's how it turned out. I was a little disappointed with the taste. Not bad, just not as scrumptious as I was hoping for. It looked pretty good though.

A yummy piece of art

I volunteered to bring a cake to a church function in March. I thought it was the perfect chance to make a 3 tiered cake covered in fondant- something I've been wanting to do for a long time. There's no way my family could eat a 3 layer cake! The process started out difficult since I had so many ideas I wanted to try! First I had to narrow down what I was going to do. Not just how the outside of the cake looked, but what flavors I was going to use inside. Here's what I decided: white fondant with black swirls and roses on top for some color. The bottom layer was chocolate cake with pistachio filling. The middle layer was a sour cream white almond cake with strawberry and buttercream filling. The top layer was sour cream white almond cake with chocolate hazelnut filling. Each flavor got rave reviews and depended on the person's taste which one they liked best. The recipe for the sour cream white almond cake I got from Recipe Zaar and it was one of the best cakes I've made. The texture wasn't fly-away-light like you get from a mix. It had a great texture and flavor! Here's the link if you want to try it. http://www.recipezaar.com/69630

This was only my second attempt at working with fondant. I used the easy MMF recipe again. (recipe at: http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-1949-2-Marshmallow-Fondant-MMF.html) I took a few pictures as I was putting the cake together. I still need to work on leveling but it didn't turn out too bad.

Here's a picture of it stacked with the fondant.

Now I just needed to add the scrolls, ribbon and roses. I was going to use an impression mat to help guide me on my scrolls, but it didn't work out too well so I used a toothpick and free-handed my scrolls before I piped them on with royal icing. I added a ribbon around the base of each layer to match the roses. Then I just stuck the roses in the top and I was done. I took me about 5 hours just to put the cakes together and decorate them. I had made the frosting, fondant, cakes and fillings previously so I'm not sure how long total it took me. Not a quick project but it was fun to do and see the end result. They used the cakes as center pieces on the tables. What do you think?

CUPCAKES!

Here's some tasty cupcakes I made. They're carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Yum! I've decided cupcakes are so cute and "individual". ;) They almost have their own personality.

Happy Birthday!

Here's a cake I made for a Japanese girl's birthday who lived with us. It's the first time I've tried any kind of fondant. I found a recipe online for a marshmallow fondant (mmf) that was really easy and cheap. I guess it turned out okay for a first try. Now I need to practice leveling and getting the cakes smooth. I looked for edible pearls for the top but I couldn't find any at short notice so I just used plastic pearls.

BitterSweet Indulgences

I wanted a blog to share my interests in baking, cake decorating, desserts and anything sweet! It doesn't hurt if it's chocolate!