Hello Kitty Cake

I absolutely love how this cake turned out! I don't do a lot of cake carving, so I'm happy I didn't screw it up. This cake was for my brother's coworkers' birthday party.   It's achocolate cake filled with chocolate buttercream frosting.  I used both marshmallow fondant (home made) and buttercream fondant (store bought) to cover/decorate the cake.  In order to get the bow to be in relief, I made it two days ahead and stuck a wad of saran wrap in the loops to make sure it dried that way.

Chocolate Pecan Butter Toffee Bark

The other day, I was flipping through the Williams-Sonoma catalog and found myself ohhing and ahhing over their candy gifts section.  Peppermint bark seemed like the more practical idea for a candy making newbie like myself but of course I skipped right to making butter toffee bark.

After scouring my go to cookbooks, blogs, and food sites, I came up with a few good tips that made it all possible.


I didn't have any almonds on hand, so I used pecans, which tasted all the same in this recipe.  I made sure to toast them first for 5-10 mins at 350 degrees, shuffling them around at least 2 times.


Once the butter toffee comes together, you have to be ready with your toppings. So, I made sure to have my pecans finely chopped and chocolate measured out.


I settled for the recipe from the BH&G New Cook Book which I tweaked a bit by adding some salt to the sugar, butter, water, and corn syrup.


I stirred the mixture only until the sugar dissolved. Then, I left it at a steady boil on medium heat. It took about 15 minutes before it came anywhere close to 290 degrees.

Holiday Baking Repertoire

I am so ashamed.  For someone who loves to bake, you'd think I would have accumulate quite a list of go to sweets for the holidays.  I definitely need to step it up this season.  Stay tuned for some great new ideas.  In the meantime, here's a flashback of some oldies but goodies.


This red velvet cheesecake cake won me first place at a company holiday bake off.  What's not to love about it; it's two layers of red velvet cake "filled" with an entire original NY cheesecake and then frosted in vanilla bean cream cheese frosting.
These are definitely the best brownies I ever made.  For the holidays, I like to mix Andes baking chips into the batter or pour half the brownie batter into the pan, lay a handful of York peppermint patties down, and then pour in the remaining batter.

Pecan pie bars were just added last year to my repertoire.  They were quite the crowd pleaser at my family Christmas party as well as the Cake4Kids table at the SCS Annual Auction last week.
I've made these red velvet cupcakes with vanilla bean cream cheese frosting for many different holiday parties over the past few years.  I've alternated between a few different recipes but my favorite one to date is this one.

Pandan Coconut Waffles (Green Waffles)

In my town, everyone is familiar with these "green waffles" that most Vietnamese bakeries and sandwich shops sell.  I've been meaning to try and replicate them for the longest time and finally got around to it over the weekend.  I didn't quite get the distinct pandan taste to stand out as much since I was only able to find pandan juice rather than pandan extract but I think I'm really close to replicating the infamous waffles.

Pandan Coconut Waffles
A Baked By Jen Original
Makes 12-16 (4-inch) waffles

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
4 tablespoons white sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 eggs, whites/yolks separated
1 5.6 fl oz can of Chaokoh coconut milk
1 cup pandan juice
1/2 cup cooking oil
1/2 cup shredded coconut (optional)
1-2 drops of green dye (optional)

In a medium bowl stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, cornstarch, and salt.  Make a well in center of flour mixture; set aside.

In another medium bowl beat egg yolks slightly; stir in coconut milk, pandan juice, and oil.  Add egg mixture all at once to the flour mixture.  Stir just until moistened (batter should be slightly lumpy).

In another small bowl whisk the egg whites with a fork until it forms bubbles. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

Fold in the shredded coconut and green dye, if using.

Pour 1 to 1 1/4 cups batter onto grids of a preheated, lightly greased waffle maker (use a regular or Belgian waffle maker).  Close lid quickly; do not open until done.  Bake according to manufacturer's directions.  When done, use a fork to life waffle off grid.  Repeat with remaining batter.  Serve immediately.

Train and Airplane Cake (Cake4Kids.org)

I baked and delivered another Cake4Kids.org cake today.  The child requested trains and airplanes which I was happy to oblige.  I can't believe I forgot to dye the frosting blue and to make sure there was enough room for train tracks though.  Hopefully, I'll be able to revisit this theme as I have lots of different ideas!







Cake was a doctored Betty Crocker white cake mix cake with vanilla buttercream frosting and marshmallow/buttercream fondant decorations.

The Betty Crocker brand cake mix had a funny after taste in my opinion.  I think I will be sticking to Duncan Hines and Pillsbury brands from now on as I had no problems with them here and here.