Buttercream Ruffle Cake

After much success with my strawberry cake recipe last week, I went ahead and made the same cake flavor again for my cousin's birthday cake.

When my husband and I sampled the extra cupcakes, we both agreed that the taste and texture was just as good as the last time.  Since this cake was for my cousin, I was able to stick around and taste the actual cake as well.  Unfortunately, the cake was dry and dense; not like the cupcakes at all.  However, I suspect that the cake was not as moist as I anticipated because this time around, I grabbed a container of nonfat yogurt instead of full fat yogurt.  This would definitely make a difference in moisture.

To decorate the cake, I went with a popular buttercream technique that I have seen on Pinterest.  After crumb coating the cake, I scored lines up and down the side of the cake about 1 inch apart to make sure my ribbons would be the same size as well as straight all the way around.  The ribbons were made using the #104 tip with the smaller end facing out.  I ran out of frosting or else I would've added at least a quick border around the top of the cake.  For the lettering, I used my candy mold again to keep it simple and clean.

Cocoa Caramel Cake

My niece won first place in the Made By Kids category at the Cake4Kids CakeOff-4Kids event this past weekend!  Under my supervision, she baked, frosted, and decorated both a tasting cake and a show cake (which we ended up serving that night as well).  They were chocolate cakes with a salted caramel buttercream frosting.

Instead of having her use Hershey's cocoa powder in my go to chocolate cake recipe, I supplied her with a "premium" can of Ghirardelli cocoa powder.  It definitely changed this chocolate cake recipe for me.  I don't think I can ever go back to every day grocery store brand now.  (To make matters worse, I recently purchased both E. Guittard and Scharffen Berger cocoa powders to do a comparison in the near future.)

The best part of the night was when I let her decide whether to use coffee or boiling water with this recipe and she replied with the most logical answer, "Kids don't drink coffee!"

The show cake included a base made of candy melts and extra candy melts as "sprinkles" on top.  She piped on the frosting using a 2D tip.  I was trying to teach her to do swirls but her making drop flowers worked out a lot easier.

Not wanting her to deal with hot bubbling sugar, I prepared the salted caramel sauce for her which she simply added about 1/2 cup to my go to vanilla buttercream recipe.  I was afraid of burning the caramel; so, I took it off the heat a lot sooner than necessary; hence, it didn't turn out as amber.  It might explain why the taste was too subtle in the frosting.  So, I let her drizzle the caramel sauce all over the top of the cake and it turned out really good!  People thought the tasting cake was her show cake as well.

My Niece, The Future Baker

I can't believe that Cake4Kids.org's second annual CakeOff-4Kids event is already taking place next month!  I entered last year and won the best decorated category but this year, I wanted a chance to taste the 50 cakes by other volunteers.  However, my 10 year old niece will be entering the kids' 15 and under category.  In preparation for the event, she asked to come over and make a cake for her Dad's birthday party this past weekend.  She did an amazing job!  I was quite impressed with her piping skills.

Cake was Baking Illustrated's Yellow Layer Cake which is now a go to yellow cake recipe for me.  It wasn't too sweet and very fluffy.  She frosted the cake with the Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Frosting.  The writing was done with melted candy melts.

A Giant Cupcake Cake

I'm not really sure where this Killer Cupcake is from but it was on my brother's girlfriend's Evite for her birthday party this past weekend.  Last year, I made her the R2D2 cake and Star Wars sugar cookies; and it was my sister's great idea to make the Killer Cupcake on the Evite into a cake for her this year.

I have been waiting for an excuse to make a giant cupcake cake with a candy liner since I've seen it done around the blogosphere.

I've used a mix of blue candy melts and white chocolate bark to make the cupcake liner.  After two coats and 30 minutes total in the fridge, it popped right out of the pan.  Reminded me of the time I made the cupcake bites (cake truffles).

The cake didn't fit perfectly into the candy liner so I did trim the edges a bit.  Because of the lack of frosting covering the bottom layer, I did torte it 2 times and piled the frosting on.

I also torted the top half of the cake, filled, and crumb coated it with frosting before covering it with fondant.  Because the top layer ended up narrower than the bottom with the candy liner, I trimmed the fondant a bit wider to make it appear like the "frosting" is spilling over.

With the leftover batter and frosting, I made some cupcakes as well.  The yellow cake is one of my go to recipes while the chocolate frosting was a new one from Hershey's.  I do not know why it took me this long to discover this frosting.  It is one of the simplest frostings I've come across while tasting so rich and full of chocolate flavor.  Definitely, adding this to my go to list.

UPDATE: The cupcake image which was on the Evite that I was inspired by is by Natalie Dee.

Cupcake Bites

 I'm going to be baking a few different cake flavors in the next two weeks for a tasting; so, I had to make room in my freezer which was already full of cake scraps.  I had bags of lemon cake, chocolate cake, strawberry cake, and vanilla cake.  Unfortunately, I had to toss the bag of strawberry cake and vanilla cake as those suffered from freezer burn.  After my last somewhat successful attempt at one of Bakerella's creations, I decided to give it another go.  This time, I was inspired by her cupcake bites featured on The Pioneer Woman Cooks.

First, I started out by throwing the lemon cake and chocolate cake scraps into my food processor and giving it a few quick pulses to turn them into uniform size crumbs.  Then, I added a bit of vanilla buttercream frosting and mixed everything together until I got a consistency I wanted.  (No pictures of this step because I didn't realize how blurry they were until I uploaded them.)

Next, I rolled the mixture into cake truffles and placed them in the fridge for a few hours.  Just before taking them out of the fridge, I microwaved the chocolate candy melts in a plastic bag.  This made it easier to fill the candy mold.  Then, I dropped the cake ball right on top of the blob.  At this point, I realized all my cake balls were a bit too big for the mold but I really didn't want to reroll.  So, it made it a little trickier to handle during the second coating.

A few seconds in the freezer and they all fell out of the mold a lot easier than I expected.  I was trying to pry them out at first but then realized they just fall out when you flip the tray upside down, hah!

Then, I filled a condiment bowl with the pink candy melts and simply dunked the exposed top, trying to cover everything up until the edge of the chocolate covering.  To finish off the cupcake look, I added a bunch of sprinkles.

Hello Kitty Cake Pops

Inspired by Bakerella's blog, I jumped into making my first batch of cake pops.  After losing a few heads and ears in the bowl of candy melts, I made a good two dozen cake pops before calling it quits.  At the same time, my edible ink pens were refusing to write on smoothly anymore.  The bow was made using jumbo sprinkles and mini m&m's.  Thank goodness these things freeze well as I still have another two dozen cake truffles left.