The Twelve Cakes of Christmas - (#1) Snowman

On the first day of Christmas, my true love baked for me...

...isn't that how it goes? Well, that's what I've been feeling like this holiday season. Jessica decided this year to bake 12 cakes in honor of Christmas. So starting today, we'll be posting one Christmas-themed cake a day until December 25th. Here's the first one to start it off.

Since we live in Florida and have no realistic chance of making a real snowman (despite recent freezing temps), Jessica decided to make an edible Frosty the Snowman.

This was a coconut cake with coconut custard and coconut buttercream from one of Jessica's favorite recipe books, appropriately titled "The Cake Book."

The cakes and buttercream prior to assembling.

The head (actually a cake ball), abdomen, and bottom.

The finished product.

I was reminded of the twisted snowmen from Calvin and Hobbes from my childhood. However, Jessica probably wouldn't go for making Killer Monster Snow Goon out of cake.

Check back tomorrow for the second cake of Christmas!

Maple Cupcakes

Last week was my work's potluck Thanksgiving dinner.  Of course I could have brought in stuffing, or green bean casserole, but I thought I'd use the opportunity to try out a recipe that I've seen.  This one was out of "Martha's Cupcakes" and it seemed perfect for the fall.  Here was what was needed for the maple cupcakes (and yes, that is a ridiculously huge bottle of maple syrup).

The cupcakes were pretty easy to make.  The cake itself tasted like a really sweet dessert pancake.  The frosting was really yummy too, and pretty unique.  If you have this book and want to make this recipe, though, I would suggest only making half of the frosting - there was a ton left over.  

Then, you just make little marzipan leaves (I used store bought marzipan to save time) and color it with some red, brown, and orange.  I couldn't believe it, but one tiny package made enough to cover all of the cupcakes.

All-in-all, I think these turned out pretty good.  They definitely looked pretty and made enough so just about everyone could have some.  I'm just lucky I got them out of the house.  I think Scott may have been sneaking bites here and there.

Diaper Cake

So...the cake in this post was not exactly edible.  My friend, Tiffany, is going to be having her first baby soon, so I decided to make her diaper cake for the baby shower.  This was my first attempt at a diaper cake, but I think it turned out pretty nice.

Of course it had to be all pink since she is having a baby girl.  The only diapers I could find had blue edges, though, so I had to kind of overcompensate with the pink. :)

The bottom tier is made with size 2 diapers and the top two are size 1.  (I don't like the idea of making the cake with newborn sized diapers since some babies are born too big for those.)  Each diaper is rolled and secured, and then they're bundled together to make tiers.  In this case, the bottom two tiers are bundled around a bottle.  Then the layers are stuffed with goodies for the baby.

Congrats Tiffany! 

Joshua's Birthday, Take 2

Some of you may remember a little boy named Joshua who turned 1 last year and got a Teddy Bear Birthday with a Teddy Bear Cake.  Well, he turned 2 this weekend, and this time his parents threw him a Super Why party.    I was asked to make a Super Why cake similar to this one found on Cake Central:

Now, I wasn't sure what Super Why was, so I did a little research.  It's a PBS cartoon where a young boy named Whyatt and his friends, the Super Readers, go into books to solve problems.  He calls up his friends using his "Super Computer" (which looks like a PDA), and then they have story book adventures.  I wanted to keep the cake similar to the picture, but of course I had to have my own spin on it.  

First thing's first - I needed to bake some cakes.

Then it was time to start icing the cake.  This was a yellow cake with raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream.

I think every super hero needs his face on cake, don't you?

I really liked the book in the original cake, so I decided to stick with that idea.

But then I decided to make a Super Computer as well.

Then it was time to add some finishing details with lots of bright colors.

 Add to that some fondant letters.

Put it all together, and you get a birthday cake fit for any super hero!  Happy birthday, Joshua!  

Jennifer's Baby Shower

OK, time for a more recent post. My friend, Jennifer, is having a baby (due in December), and she had her baby shower last weekend. It's a baby girl, and they shower was zebra themed, so everyone was having a lot of fun with it. When they asked me to do the cake, they told me that they wanted it to be kind of like this diaper cake that they found:

There were going to be about 30 people there, so I knew a 3-tiered cake would be WAY too much. I drew up a few different designs, but finally settled on one that I thought would make her happy.

So, I, of course, kept with the zebra theme when decorating the cake. Jennifer said she wanted vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream, so that was the bottom tier. The top tier was lemon cake with a raspberry buttercream for the people who wanted something a little different.

This was the cake without most of the little add-ons that I made - those were put on the cake when we got to the shower. The zebra and all of the coverings were made from fondant, and the pink "grass" was colored coconut.

When we got to the shower, they had a place all set up and ready for the cake. We could really see how the zebra stripes make good camouflage.

I added all of the little accessories. I had made mini cupcakes and little baby-themed chocolates, along with all of my fondant accessories. The ring that the cake was in was made from decorated chocolate bars. How cute was that?

Overall, I think the glowing mama-to-be was pretty happy with it.

Congratulations Jennifer and Shane!

Birthday Cakes

OK, so let me start by just saying how incredibly late I am in posting this. These cakes were for birthdays back in the beginning of June. I have completely dropped the ball with this blog, but I figure late is better than never. Anyway, here it is:

My friend, Tina, and her boyfriend, Tom, both had their birthdays during the same weekend, but they each needed their own cake. Tina wanted hers to be an orange dream cake with chocolate filling and chocolate ganache on the outside.

I have to say, it turned out pretty yummy. Good flavor choice, Tina.

Of course I had to add a little flair with my homemade candied orange peel for garnish.

So, once Tina's cake was all gone (which didn't take too long at all), it was time to move on to Tom's. It's been so long since I actually made the cake that I can't quite remember exactly what the flavors were. How sad is that??? I think they were my homemade chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream.

I didn't actually try any of this cake, but from what I understand, Tom was pleased. That's all I can ask for.