Pink Ruffle Cake

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First let me say that my picture taking skills leave a lot to be desired......  Someday when I have the time (aka - never) I will learn more and maybe buy a better camera.  But for now this is all I got!!

I have seen ruffle cakes all over the Internet and on facebook and I really wanted to try one.  This is an experiment after all and if I only bake and decorate what I know, then what's the point.  So a pink ruffle cake it is!!

I baked a six inch chocolate cake and made vanilla buttercream.  I colored my frosting pink with Wilton Gel.  I wasn't sure how much frosting I would need.  This technique uses a lot of frosting so I doubled my recipe and it was just enough.  I had only a small amount leftover.

After my cake was baked and cooled I crumb coated it.  I filled a disposable piping bag with my icing fitted with tip 104.  Now I started my ruffles.  You need to frost the ruffle columns with the wide part of the tip closest to the cake.  I tried to make my columns all the same width.  Start piping frosting and then go back and forth to get the ruffle effect.  Keep completing columns until you have gone around the entire cake.

I had to be careful to make sure I kept my columns the same width, that they went straight up and down (some are a little curvy) and that I kept them close together.   I didn't want to see any cake in between my columns.  The crumb coating helped with this too.  When I got to the top I started at the outside and did ruffles around and around until it was covered.

I think this decorating technique looks great and actually wasn't that hard.  It would be perfect for a shower or birthday cake.  Another one on my list of "can do's!"

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Lemon Tool Birthday Cake

My husband, Rob's, birthday was November 27th.  I wanted to make him a really special cake.  Unlike me his favorite thing is not chocolate (hard to believe we ended up together!)  He does like chocolate but not his favorite.  When I asked him what flavor he wanted for his birthday cake he said lemon cake and lemon frosting.  Now I like lemon, but I wanted a cake that everyone could enjoy (like me and my chocoholic father!).  So we settled on lemon cake with vanilla buttercream frosting.  I didn't want to cover the cake in fondant because that really isn't his favorite.  So I frosted it in buttercream (recipe is below), smoothed the buttercream and did the border and decorations in fondant.  I honestly think that using fondant to cover a cake is easier than smoothing buttercream.  It is so hard to get it to look smooth and perfect.  Something I definately need a lot more practice at!

I searched on Cake Central for a lemon cake recipe.  I found one by TasteandSeeCakesAZ (modified recipe below).  I baked the cake and leveled it.  We tasted the cake that we had to trim off and it was excellent.  So I frosted it with buttercream.  I rolled out a yellow piece of fondant and cut it into a 1"thick strip.  I then used my black edible marker from Americolor to draw on the tape measure. 

I also have a tool candy mold so I colored fondant and pushed it into the mold to make tools for the top of the cake.  Only problem I had is that I had to make and eat the cake in one day.  The fondant tools could have really used more time to dry out and harden. 

I have also heard that gumpaste would be good for this type of decoration.  But I don't know anything about that yet.  I need to add it to my list of future experiments.  Other problem with doing the cake in one day is that I had to take the pictures at night when it was finished and with no natural light.  So bear with me :)

The cake came out ok and Rob loved the lemon flavor.  Very suprisingly so did my Dad!!!   I really wanted this cake to be spectacular since it was for Rob's birthday.  At first it was going to be a tool box cake, then a cake in the shape of a drill.  I really just ran out of time.  It was so hectic here.  I did learn a very important lesson though and that was to leave myself enough time and to plan out your cake.  Believe me, having a plan is essential and will save you a lot of stress!

Buttercream

2 sticks (1 Cup) plus 4 tablespoons butter, softened.  I use unsalted butter.

4 cups powdered sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 teaspoons hot water

-Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth.

-Add vanilla and hot water and beat again until smooth.

Makes enough to cover 24 cupcakes or one cake.

Lemon Cake

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter

1 box (3.4 oz) instant lemon pudding

1 teaspoon lemon extract

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream (8 oz)

zest of 1 lemon

4 eggs

2 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)

3/4 cup whole milk

-Cream butter and sugar in electric mixer on medium high until smooth.

-Add pudding, lemon and vanilla extracts, lemon zest and sour cream and combine.

-Beat in eggs one at a time.

-In a separate bowl combine remaining dry ingredients.

-Alternate adding dry ingredients and milk a little at a time until all is combined.

-Bake in greased cake pan at 350 degrees until done, about 30 minutes.

-Cool in pan for 10 minutes.  Finish cooling on drying rack.  Frost when completely cool.

Dad's 75th Golf Birthday Cake

My Dad loves to golf!  For his 75th birthday I decided I would make him a golf cake.  There are so many great ideas out there.  I wanted the cake to look like a golf green.  I baked a double layer chocolate cake with rich buttercream frosting as the filling.  Dad loves chocolate so it is a perfect filler for him!The rich chocolate buttercream recipe is from The Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook.  It is very rich and should be classed as a dessert all by itself - it is so yummy!  I have the recipe at the end of this post.

I made a double batch of buttercream frosting and colored it green.  I used wilton green, wilton blue and americolor forest green.  Getting the green I wanted was probably the hardest part.  I kept adding more and more coloring.  The frosting was looking very minty so I added some blue which made it darker like I imagined a golf course would look.

I frosted the entire cake in the buttercream.  Drew outlines for my golf green, water hazard and sand trap.  The rest of the top of the cake I frosted using tip 233 to make it look like grass.  I liked doing this because it hid the buttercream and so that didn't have to be completely smooth.

I wanted the cake to have a water hazard and sand trap.  For the water hazard I used piping gel.  I colored it blue and frosted underneath it with white so the blue would show thru.  Looking at it now I wish I had made it a darker blue - maybe next time.  I used my mortar and pestle to crush graham crackers to use for the sand trap.  I had to travel with the cake and I didn't add the graham crackers until we got to our destination.  I didn't want them to soak into the buttercream.

I also have somewhat of a scrapbooking addiction and I used my Cricut machine to cut out the flag and 75 for the golf flag.  I used a wooden dowl for the flag pole and voila - I was done!!  I think Dad enjoyed it :)

Rich Chocolate Buttercream

2 (1 Ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate
2 (1 Ounce) squares semisweet chocolate
1 cup butter, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract


- Melt chocolate
- Beat Butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy.  Add chocolate, powdered sugar, and remaining ingredients.  Beat until spreading consistency.

My First Fondant Cake!

I decided to experiment with fondant.  How hard can it be right?  I heard that the homemade marshmallow fondant was much cheaper to use and tasted better than regular fondant so I decided to see what all the fuss was about.  I used a standard marshmallow fondant recipe I found online:

16 oz marshmallows
2lbs confection sugar
2 Tbsp water
2 Tsp vanilla

Making the fondant wasn't as hard as I thought but it was VERY sticky!!  My advice to anyone would be to grease everything that will touch the fondant with Crisco - a lot of Crisco!  So I made my fondant, baked a square cake and decided to cover it with my fondant. 

I colored my fondant green.  It came out kind of tye dyed because my fondant wasn't warm enough when I was mixing the color in (I think?!)  When I colored more fondant blue I made sure the fondant was warmer and it was much easier to color.  But I think the tye dye looked pretty cool.