Twirly Girl's 3rd Birthday!

Twirly Girl loves pink and purple...and princesses.

So, a pink princess dress on the outside...

 

...and purple stripes on the inside.

The Historian decided this slice needed a little extra frosting for the birthday girl.

The kids and I had fun decorating together.

To make the purple stripes, I used the technique found here http://www.azcookbook.com/zebra-cake/ for making a zebra cake. I just colored half the batter purple and decided not to make as many stripes.

This is what it looked like after I trimmed the top and edges:

We just wanted a small cake, so I cut some small circles out of the cake, stacked them, and carved them down to make the skirt for the princess. (The doll is a mermaid toy that my girls already had that we washed to use in the cake.)

STATS:

Zebra Cake

http://www.azcookbook.com/zebra-cake/

Rhonda's Ultimate Marshmallow Fondant
http://cakecentral.com/recipe/rhondas-ultimate-mmf

Welcome, Baby Jenna!

My friends and I had a great time putting together a baby shower for our sweet friend, Shelly. The expectant parents already have a name picked out for their new baby girl...Jenna. I love her name, and I can't wait to meet Jenna when she comes!

Laura was in charge of the decorations, and the room looked so good! I wish I was able to take pictures of all of the decorations she put together. She decorated the walls with huge cactus plants, a boot and a sheriff's badge made from colorful butcher paper. The tables were covered in pink and brown tablecloths and pretty cowboy hats decorated with girly bows. Everything was so cute! Luckily, I was able to get a picture of the cute welcome banner she made.

We planned a western-themed shower and made western food to go along with it. We had Mexican Lasagne (courtesy of Colleen), Creamy Tortilla Soup (This soup was SO good, and Colleen posted her recipe here: http://myfoodiefavorites.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/creamy-tortilla-soup/), cornbread muffins (courtesy of Lesley), barbecue meatballs (courtesy of Amelia), Russian potato salad (courtesy of Liliya), fruit (Liliya again), homemade salsa and chips (courtesy of Kelly), and root beer floats for the drinks (Lesley again). I loved that Lesley called them "Sarsaparilla Floats." I am so grateful to have such fun and talented friends!

Amelia and Lesley planned some great games for the baby shower. Here's the cute sign Lesley made for the "Do You Know Your Baby Vittles?" game. We don't use the term "vittles" nearly enough, in my opinion.

Here's the cake I made for the shower. It's strawberry cake, filled with cream cheese frosting, covered with a thin crumb coat of cream cheese frosting, and then completely covered with chocolate ganache.

Here's a closeup of the baby cowgirl boots. I'll post a link to the template I used to make the fondant boots in the STATS section at the bottom of this post.

*UPDATE* I just realized as I posted this, that I attached the boot waist incorrectly onto the sole of the boots. The downward scallop should be at the front and back of the boot, not at the sides under the pull straps. And to think I so carefully placed the pieces exactly wrong. LOL! Oh, well. Live and learn.

Cake Anatomy

 

Strawberry Cake

1 (16.5 oz.) box of white cake mix
1 cup flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 (3 oz.) package of strawberry gelatin
8 oz. sour cream
1/2 cup pureed strawberries
1/2 cup citrus soda
3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Whisk together cake mix, flour, sugar, and strawberry gelatin in a large bowl. In a separate mixing bowl, beat together sour cream, pureed strawberries, citrus soda, and eggs. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet, mixing on low speed at first. Then, beat on medium speed for 2 minutes until well combined. Line a 9x13" baking pan with parchment paper and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Pour cake batter into prepared pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes then raise oven temperature to 350 degrees for another 20 minutes. Cake is done when a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

STATS:

Kathy's Custom Cakes Baby Cowboy Boots Template

http://media.cakecentral.com/modules/coppermine/albums/userpics/510013/BootTemplate2C.jpg 

Ganache Recipe, Tips, and Videos at Art and Appetite

http://www.artandappetite.com/2009/11/ganache-instead-of-buttercream/

Cream Cheese Frosting

http://www.texascottagefoodlaw.com/Resources/Recipes/TraditionalCreamCheeseFrosting.aspx

Happy 100 Months!

My son recently reached his 100th month, and we thought it would be fun to celebrate. Nathaniel and I had a great time decorating this together. He even helped me make the fondant!



Now, I don't know what to call this type of cake. Is it an exploding cake? A bursting cake? I'll go with "exploding." It's kind of hard to explain how I did this, so I'll just share the tutorial I used at the end of this post. After folding back the fondant, I used gel food coloring mixed with a little vanilla extract to paint the red and blue onto the curled fondant.

I used florist wire to hold up the red and blue balls (which were made of fondant and modeling chocolate). It's not a good idea, health wise, to put metal wire directly into a cake. So, I used straws to keep the wires from touching the actual cake we would be eating. Some people dip the wires into melted chocolate, allow the chocolate to dry, and then insert them into a cake.



I used Wilton gold luster dust mixed with vanilla extract to get the gold color.



Making the checkerboard surprise on the inside was fun!

STATS:

"Exploding" Cake Tutorial
http://translate.google.com/translate?client=tmpg&hl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fmka900.blogspot.com%2F2009%2F03%2Fvalentines-cake-in-process-of-making.html&langpair=bg|en

Rhonda's Ultimate Marshmallow Fondant
http://cakecentral.com/recipes/3183/rhondas-ultimate-mmf

Checkerboard Cake Tutorial
http://www.chefdoughty.com/blog/?p=967

Pink Polka Dot Baby Shower

I made a black cherry filling for the inside. Whenever you use a filling, you'll need a dam of frosting around the edge of the cake. The dam prevents the filling from leaking out the sides of the cake.



I used fondant mixed with modeling chocolate for the bow. This helped the bow dry faster, so it would keep its shape.



Here's a closeup of the bow. I used a Wilton embossing tool to decorate the bow.



The fondant gift tag:



All done! Congratulations, Lindsay!



STATS:

Rhonda's Ultimate Marshmallow Fondant
http://cakecentral.com/recipes/3183/rhondas-ultimate-mmf

Modeling Chocolate Tutorial
http://sugarsweetcakesandtreats.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-make-modeling-chocolate.html

Cake Bites

Here are a couple different cake bites I've made recently. I like them because they're a lot faster to make than cake pops. (They're the same thing, just without the lollipop stick.)

Anatomy of a Vanilla Cake Bite



White Cake Bites with Rainbow Sprinkles



Decorated with marbleized blue fondant flowers



Here's a great Cake Bite tutorial:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/03/cake-pop-lesson-1-the-cake-ball/

Sprinkles!

We were able to spend Christmas with my husband's family this year. My mother-in-law wanted to decorate a cake with my kids to celebrate Jesus' birthday. My children had a great time decorating the cake and it turned out really cute! They used lots of sprinkles, animal cookies, and M&M's.



Here's a look at the inside:



STATS:

Betty Crocker Vanilla Frosting
http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/vanilla-buttercream-frosting/39107a19-be94-4571-9031-f1fc5bd1d606

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Filling
http://cakecentral.com/recipes/7600/chocolate-chip-cookie-dough-icingfilling

Circus Animal Cookies
http://www.motherscookies.com/ProductDetail.aspx?product=17311