Minnie Mouse Cake

This Minnie Mouse cake is definitely one of my favorite cakes made to date.  It was requested by a friend for her daughter's 5th birthday.  I have seen this design done plenty of times and I was very excited to finally get the chance to replicate it.

The cake was 2 tiers of chocolate cake with oreos and oreo buttercream filling with a vanilla bean buttercream frosting.  All decorations were made with store bought fondant.  The ears and the bow were the only 2 things I made in advance.  I loved that the details were very simple (a lot of circles) but once the cake was assembled, it made quite the statement.

Alice in Wonderland Cake

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of making an Alice in Wonderland cake for a 4 year old's birthday party.  I had fun creating subtle references to the Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, and "Queen of" Hearts with this cake.

The flavor of choice was chocolate cake with oreo buttercream frosting.  I didn't think to make the oreo buttercream frosting just a filling.  So, this cake is actually filled and crumb coated with oreo buttercream frosting.  It made it a bit difficult to smoothly cover in fondant.

I gave this cake a mini topsy turvy look by trimming down the top tier.  I forgot to place the trimmed piece back on top of the cake to give it more of a slant.  It probably would've gave the cake a bit more support too as the layers of fondant weighed it down a bit.  The wrinkles at the bottom bothered me quite a bit.

Because I didn't want the hat to look squatty; I made it with 3 layer of cakes.  I love the height/look of the cake with the 3 layers.  Going forward, this will probably be the standard for cakes smaller than 6 inches.

Hot Wheels Theme Birthday

I had the pleasure of making this cake for a friend's nephew's Hot Wheels theme birthday last weekend.  As soon as she mentioned the theme to me, I knew I wanted to make a race track.  I decided not to cover the entire cake in fondant and I'm so glad that the paper towel method worked very well with my frosting this time around.

The cake was hand carved from an 8 inch square yellow cake using a template my brother created for me.  I filled, crumb coated, frosted, and decorated with vanilla buttercream frosting.  The only fondant I used were the red and black pieces.  The cars are from a Hot Wheels candle set I picked up from Party City.


Filled, stacked, carved.

Crumb coated.

Frosted.

Smoothed out.

In addition to the race car track cake, I made a dozen oreo cupcakes for the party.  I loved the oreo on the bottom concept from the oreo cheesecakes that I used it with the cupcakes.  The cupcakes were my go to white cake with chopped oreos and the frosting was my go to vanilla buttercream frosting with crushed oreos.

C is for Cookies.. and Cupcakes

Because I couldn't decide between the cookies and cream cupcakes and the snickerdoodle cupcakes, I decided to make both!

My sister's coworkers got to sample the snickerdoodle cupcakes (from Martha Stewart) which we both agreed tasted exactly like the cookie.  I stayed true to the recipe and stuck with the 7-minute frosting.  Nerve wrecking as I never worked with a cooked frosting before and I was unsure whether it would make it the next day.

My brother's coworkers got to sample the oreo cupcakes which was basically a white cake with chopped Oreo cookies (adapted from Cake Central) .  I frosted these two different ways as I so scared about the oreo whipped cream frosting (adapted from Annie's Eats) not being able to hold up.  The second frosting was an oreo buttercream frosting (adapted from All Recipes) which paled in comparison.  I loved the whipped cream frosting.  Taste like a scoop of ice cream.  I should've stuck to the whipped cream frosting as all the cupcakes were kept covered in the fridge overnight anyway.

The pile of dishes I had to wash every time I started a new recipe.  A pain to start and stop each time.  I need more mixing bowls for my Kitchenaid.

Poor Patches felt neglected.