Cake #25: Jon's Birthday

Today is Jon's 26^th birthday, so I had to bake him a cake (especially since he was so sweet and bought me a wonderful little cake back in January for my birthday!) Since he normally complains that my cakes are too feminine, I knew I'd have to make something especially manly for him.

I wasn't really sure what to bake for him... At first, I considered making him a faux pecan pie cake - a thin layer of tan-colored fondant lining a pie plate with a single-layer cake inside. (Jon happens to hate pecan pie (which I love!) Anyway, when I mentioned this idea, he didn't seem at all impressed by my idea; in fact, I believe he openly refused to eat such a cake! So, I had to come up with something else.

Jon also has a complete weakness for Hershey "Cookies 'n Cream" bars. So, I decided to simply make him a cake completely covered with candy-pieces. I stenciled his name in Oreo crumbs and then added small chucks of chocolate to cover the cake. To finish the look, I added more cookie crumbs along the bottom to form a simple border.

I hope he likes it!

Cake #24: Dirt Cake for Kids

This afternoon, I had my first "Kids in the Kitchen" for the children at my library. I had the children make very basic dirt cakes with fun gummi worms. Each child was given a cupcake (which I had baked the night before) and they began by frosting them with store-bought chocolate frosting. Then, I gave each child a plastic bag with 2 Oreo cookies; by squeezing and pounding the bags, the children made their dark soil. (The kids really enjoyed getting to smash the crap out of some Oreos!)

We made two holes in the cupcake tops by inserting a straw and pulling it back out (the kids also enjoyed sucking the cake and frosting from inside the straw.) Finally, we added two gummi worms to the holes to finish off the garden look...though I'm not sure how many worms there are in the Arizona desert!

The kids greatly enjoyed making (and eating) their little dirt cupcakes. The only thing that I didn't like was the speed at which the kids worked. From start to finish, it only took about 15 minutes to complete their cupcakes. Guess they'll just have to make two cupcakes next month!

Cake #23: Goodbye, Dan and Jan

Two of my co-workers are being transferred to a different department this week, and I was somehow coerced into baking the cake. I must admit that I had a great deal of difficulty in selecting a design; apparently going away cakes aren't that popular.

My original plan was to frost my cake in this blue icing and then add several expressions of farewell (So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.) My plan was to write the words on wax paper and then freeze them so that they could easily be transferred to the top of my cake; sadly, the frozen buttercream transfer technique did not work with single letters/words - instead the icing merely stuck to the wax paper, refusing to "transfer".

This left me again having to resort to a "plan B" at the last minute. (I mean really, does it seem like I'm getting worse and worst with each cake I make!) My first though to salvage this cake was to merely write free-hand across the top of the cake; however, after make first letter, I quickly decided that wasn't an answer (and I now had a large "G" to cover!) So, I resorted to using the Wilton templates I purchased long ago.

While I did have much better luck with the stencils on this attempt, the letters were many times too small for the size cake I chose. If the letters had been 2-3 times bigger, this design might have worked. I will say that I love the gumpaste daisies; they look so nice and are amazing easy to make!

Cake #22: Starry Night

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been wanting to try my hand at a frozen buttercream transfer. After seeing Van Gogh's Starry Night on cupcakes in the book Hello, Cupcake, I thought it would make the perfect design for my first buttercream transfer.

After last week's failed attempt at baking a sheet cake, I decided I was going to break down and actually buy a Wilton cake pan designed specifically for sheet cakes. Since my cake last week had been so short, I decided I was going to compensate for this by using more mix. The directions on the cake pan called for approximately 7 cups of batter; I mixed two mixes (which should have yielded 9-12 cups.) My original plan was to use ¾ of the mixute in my sheet cake and then make an additional dozen cupcakes; however, when I started pouring the batter, the pan didn't look "full" until I had used all but the last cup...and what's the point of making just 3-4 cupcakes? So, I simply added the remaining cup in with the rest.

Well, 15 minutes into the baking process, I smell something burning; when I opened the oven, I discovered that the batter was erupting from the pan and coating the oven's bottom! Fortunately, I was able to add a cookie sheet beneath the cake to catch most of the spillage. Although a mess, I must say the end result was quite satisfactory; my cake was the prefect height and nearly flat.

To decorate this cake, I used a buttercream icing that was actually made with half shortening and half butter; this mixture was much more creamy than the all shortening mixture I usually use. It also taste much creamier - in fact, one friend compared it to the icing found in the middle of a twinkie. To make the buttercream transfer, I merely printed a color book outline of Van Gogh's painting, and started adding the color. I'm not entirely sure that Starry Night was the best topic for a buttercream transfer, but the idea of copying it free-hand just wasn't an option. The technique itself was fairly simply...although I would definitely using an easier picture next time. I will also warn that it is completely necessary to throughly tape the wax paper to the coloring sheet - I only used two small pieces of tape, which resulted in the paper warping (which led to unslightly line across my design.)

I finished the cake off with a quick shell border around the top and bottom, but the creaming icing and the warm weather didn't combine too well - resulting in the loss of several shells in the bottom left corner. Overall, I did enjoy experimenting with buttercream transfers and will definitely be trying this again in the future!

Cake #21: An Attempt at Elegance

When I first began baking this cake, I had hoped to try my hand at a frozen buttercream transfer; however, when I pulled my 9" x 13" cake from the over, I discovered that my simple layer cake was completely lop-sided! I don't know whether it was my pan or the oven rack, but one side of my cake was about 1½" while the other side was well over 2½".

Since my dream of a perfect layer cake with beautiful buttercream transfer was out the window, I made an attempt at salvaging the cake by cutting it in two and creating a layer cake. While this seemed like a good solution, the two layers failed to align, thus creating large gaps that were extremely difficult to frost.

Fortunately, the formal, yet simple, design for the top, which came from the Wilton Course 1 book, proved itself a good mask for some of the problems. This first usage of my Wilton comb on the sides leaves a lot to be desired; I choose to believe that had the cake itself been better shaped, the comb's results would have been much more satisfactory.

Although this cake is far from my original vision, I am rather proud of my salvage job! I know it's not 100% perfect, but I am fairly happy with the end result.