Baking a Ombre Cake

Tomorrow is my daughter's 'under the sea' 3rd birthday party.  I wanted the cake to be shades of blue to go with the decor and chose to make four layers, each with a different shade.  Light purple, light blue, mint green and white.

The baked cake color results...

For the frosting, I made a basic buttercream and dyed it to match the cake layers, and also had a bowl of white frosting.

I put on a thin base layer of frosting to the bottom and top layers, and then froze the cakes for a bit before adding the final coats of frosting.

The end result was a multi-colored cake.  Not sure if I loved the frosting colors or my new cake decorating turntable the most.  Why didn't I buy one of those sooner!?

The finished product with a seastar, three light blue candles and a sparkler '3' candle.

The inside of the cake...

Birthday Love

This year I was fortunate enough to spend my birthday in gorgeous Maui.  Upon our return we had a fantastic dinner made by my mom.  Followed with a chocolate chocolate cake decorated by my two lovely children.  As you can see from the photos below my kids must really think I'm special.

A golf flag, horse, trumpet, clown head, santa, balloons, two people talking on phones (one apparently trampled by the horse), and many candles.  Nothing says love like a body-less clown! 

The cake was very good and my kids were so proud of the cake they helped make and decorate.  Thank you B & C! You're the best!

Patriotic Food

Last night we had some friends over for a BBQ and to decorate the bikes and wagons that our children will ride in the annual neighborhood parade.  I made a few patriotic treats for the evening!

Fruit Sparklers.... long skewers with blueberries, raspberry and a piece of watermelon shaped as a star.  I did discover that these are pretty top-heavy.  Be warned!

And a red, white and blue cake!  A single layer 9" vanilla cake topped with vanilla frosting and decorated with blueberries and raspberries.  I will admit that I used a box cake mix and frosting to keep the day easy.  I did bake two 9" rounds, but saved the other 9" for our family dinner tonight!

This morning was the annual parade and "That Guy" (his license plate) lead the parade of kids.

We celebrated the 4th with smoked ribs, corn and another patriotic cake.  Today's cake had a big blueberry star surrounded by halved strawberries.  I love summer fruits!

And to cap it all off... a big fireworks show! :)

Powdered Sugar Patterns

Even the most basic cake or brownies can look dramatic with the help of a piece of paper and powdered sugar.  My grandma used to put paper doilies on the top of a cake and then gently sprinkle powdered sugar over the entire cake and doily.  She would then carefully lift up the doily and the cake would be left with a delicate pattern.

If you don't have a doily (I'm guessing you don't...neither do I...), you can cut out basic shapes from a piece of paper.  Or even print out a design or letter on your computer to cut out.  Hearts, stars, four leafed clover, initials... the possibilities are endless!

Below is my grandma's famous Daffy Cake.  To give it a more personal touch, I cut out a 'K' to lay on top of the cooled cake.  I let my son sprinkle powdered sugar on top and I carefully removed the 'K' to reveal a fun personalized pattern on our cake. (and yes, I did cut out a piece of cake in the corner... I couldn't wait when it came out of the oven!)

Position your pattern on the cake or brownies and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Carefully remove the paper to reveal your fun pattern!

Special Cake for a Special Girl

Tonight we had a family birthday party for my little C.  I wanted something girly, feminine and simple.  I made mini tulle pom poms and made a garland for the big cake, decorated in white frosting.  I then made a pattern of pink pearl balls on the sides of the cake.

C's personal cake was decorated with white frosting as well, with pink balls along the top and bottom edges.

Sometimes even the most simple decoration can make a big, and pretty statement!

Chocolate Cake with Rich Chocolate Frosting

For my family's get together today I made a cake that starts with a box of Devil's food cake mix.  The frosting took a little more effort, with almost 15 minutes of letting it mix in my stand mixer on medium speed.  That was a long time to wait and unfortunately, I wasn't a huge fan of the frosting result.  If you do want the recipe, please email me.  Otherwise I'd rather save recipe space for items I'd make again.

Always a bummer to not be blown away by a chocolate dessert.  Granted, the cake was perfect flavor and texture, and so rich I could only eat half a slice!  It was the frosting that sank this cake's chance.

Strawberry Cake

I was browsing the internet and came across a strawberry cake that had rave reviews and looked pretty good.  It uses a white box cake mix as the base and calls for a few 'extras' to add a great fruit flavor.  I served this at a pool party tonight and everyone seemed to like it and the kids couldn't eat it fast enough.

The overall flavor of the cake is very fresh and tastes like you're eating an actual strawberry; one of my favorite fruits. Only downside is that its pretty sweet, but that just means this cake will serve a larger group than normal if you do slightly smaller slices.

I predict I'll be making this again, maybe for my daughter's 2nd birthday party.

Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting, adapted from Bake or Break recipe

18.25 oz box white cake mix

3oz box strawberry-flavored instant gelatin

16oz frozen strawberries in sugar, thawed and pureed

4 large eggs

1/2 c. canola oil

1/4 c. water

Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly grease/spray 2 9-inch round cake pans.

Combine cake mix and gelatin in a large bowl. Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat in 14oz of pureed strawberries, eggs, oils, and water until smooth. Pour batter into pans, dividing the batter equally between them.

Bake 25-30 minutes, until a wooden pick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool in pans 15 minutes. Then, remove from pans and cool completely on wire racks.

Frosting:

1/4 c. butter, softened

8oz cream cheese, softened

Remaining 2oz of frozen strawberries in sugar, thawed and pureed

6 c. confectioners’ sugar

With an electric mixer, beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed until creamy. Beat in strawberries. Gradually add confectioners’ sugar and beat until smooth.

Spread frosting on cake, covering between layers, on top, and on the sides. Garnish with fresh strawberries.

Happy Birthday to C!

My little baby turns one today, and we're having a big family party tonight.  Just like her brother I drew the invitations and made fondant decorations that match the design for the cake. 

For the big cake I used three - 9" rounds, dividing each layer to put frosting betweeen.  For C's mini cake I used one - 9" round and cut out two small circles using a ramekin as a guide.  I then stacked the two smaller circles on top of each other.

A fun idea for a birthday party.  Take one photo from each month of the child's life, or one photo from each year for an older child.  Here I took a photo from Charlotte's birth, and then a random photo from each month and glued the number of the month on the pics. 

The cakes and the invite waiting for the party to begin.

Want to surprise your guests?  Make each layer of your cake a different color!  This is fun for birthdays, football games (team colors!), 4th of July, etc.  If you're making a cake with two - 9" rounds, divide the batter in half and add food coloring to each.  Bake, divide the cakes and then alternate the cake layers as you frost. 

Happy Birthday to my sweet girl.  Hopefully you can use some of these ideas for a future celebration!

Happy Birthday Tony!

If you love carrot cake, you must try the recipe in the Bride & Groom's first cookbook.  It is delicious and calls for two jars of carrot baby food.  A secret ingredient that makes the cake extra moist.  Let me know if you want a copy.  It will knock your socks off.

Brownies

Tonight I'm hosting a pool party for the alumnae association I belong to.  To get in the sorority spirit I made some brownies and gave them a personal touch. 

You can do this with any dark or chocolate cake/brownie and powdered sugar. 

If you have a larger cake you can lay a doilie on top of the cake and sprinkle with powdered sugar.  Gently lift up doilie and wah-lah!  A beautiful design!

To make the Kappa and Gamma above, I cut the letters out of stiff cardboard that the brownie mix came in.  GASP.  Yes, I used brownie mix.  I know, not really my style, but we're running low on time people!  I cut the brownies and then lay the K and Γ randomly throughout the pan and sprinkled the powdered sugar.

Have fun with this!

Blueberry Crumb Cake?

Recently I was made aware of a fun baking blog called Bake or Break.  I saw a recipe for a Blueberry Crumb Cake that requires three cups of blueberries.  Perfect because I have about four cups of them sitting in my fridge about to go bad.

I made this cake for a dessert when Tonya and Austin come over for dinner tonight.

The batter for cake is pretty thick.

Three cups of blueberries scattered over the cake batter base.

The finished product.

We all enjoyed this dessert.  But I think it should be renamed Blueberry Coffee Cake.  It had the distinct flavor of a breakfast treat and did not hit the spot for dessert.  Maybe a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream would have helped?  But, if I were to make this again I would serve for breakfast.

Definitely go ahead and give this recipe a try.  We all scarfed it down for dessert, and we all scarfed it down for breakfast the next morning.  It is pretty light and highlights the blueberries well.

This recipe is originally from Rick Malgieri's Perfect Cakes book.

Blueberry Crumb Cake, Rick Malgieri/Perfect Cakes

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups blueberries

Preheat oven to 350°. Line a 9″x 13″baking pan with foil and butter the foil.

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Using a heavy-duty mixer on medium speed, beat butter and sugar until soft and light (about 5 minutes). Add whole eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla.

On low speed, add half the flour mixture and mix well. Add yolks, mixing well, then add remaining flour mixture.

Scrape batter into prepared pan. Smooth the top. Scatter blueberries over the batter.

Crumb Topping:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir in melted butter and combine with your fingers until the mixture is coarse crumbs. Scatter the crumbs evenly over the berries.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until cake is firm. Cool cake in pan on wire rack.

4th of July Cake

Today I was excited to attempt the patriotic flag cake I posted about earlier.  After baking two red, one white, one blue round cakes I ended up with a pretty awesome finished product. I'll definitely do similar cakes in the future! 

So tasty, and so cool to cut in to and see everyone's reactions!  The perfect end to a fun patriotic pool party!

Patriotic Cake

Do you know what you're making for the 4th of July?  I do!  Gotta love Elissa Berstein and her blog 17 and Baking.  She just graduated from high school in the area and has an award winning blog with some pretty impressive recipes and ideas.  I like this gal! 

Today she was on New Day Northwest, that daytime show on King 5 with the theme song that always gets stuck in my head (not a good thing).  She showed how to create a patriotic cake that is so simple I just can't stand it! Yes, I understand some of you classify my 'simple' as not being your kind of 'simple', but in all things baking - this is dang simple for the end product.  (Below is a screen shot I took from the show of finished cake)

You can create this cute cake with cake mix to save a lot of time.  Two boxes of any white cake mix is what you'll need (each box makes two layers).  Though you will end up with an extra cake layer as her recipe calls for three layers.  You'll just have an extra layer to snack on!

But, I think I'll be using all 4 layers to make my cake.  Why you ask?  Because if I want to be truely patriotic and serve a flag cake I'm going to be overly anal and put a red layer on the top and bottom of cake, just like our flag (the recipe has a white layer on the bottom and red as top layer).  

Like  I said, overly anal.  But, I can hear my grandma getting all giddy about seeing this recipe on TV and making it right now (and she would do the same thing with putting red layer on top and bottom...).  And, calling me and telling me all about it.  She would loooove this cake.

You can visit the New Day Northwest website and watch a video on how to make the cake.  Elissa does a great job explaining every step.  Enjoy!

The below recipe is pretty long and I haven't read through or edited, and have not baked this cake yet.  Or, you can use two boxes of cake mix and follow directions on box for 8" or 9" round cakes.  There is a recipe for cream cheese frosting at very bottom.  I do highly recommend you make your own frosting.  It doesn't take much effort and the end result is SO much better than the store bought stuff...

Red, White & Blue Cake Recipe, courtesy of 17 and Baking by Elissa Bernstein

Makes 3 - 8” (or 9”) rounds

3 cups + 6 tablespoons cake flour

1 ½ tablespoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups (scant) whole milk or buttermilk

6 large egg whites

1 ½ cup sugar

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

1 ½ stick (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature

¾ teaspoon pure lemon extract

Gel or powder food coloring

*If you don’t have buttermilk, make it by combining 2 tbsp lemon juice with two scant cup of whole milk for five minutes. Finally you want really soft butter, with the texture of mayonnaise.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and put a rack in the middle or upper third of the oven. Butter three 8″ (or 9”) x 2″ pans and line with buttered parchment paper.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the egg whites and buttermilk.

Cream the butter, zest, and sugar in a mixer on medium speed for a full 3 minutes until very light and fluffy. Beat in the lemon extract, then add 1/3 of the flour mixture, still on medium speed.

Beat in half of the egg-buttermilk mixture, then half of the remaining flour mixture, then the last of the egg-buttermilk mixture, and finally the last of the flour, beating until the batter is smooth. Beat the entire batter on medium high for two minutes until completely smooth and mixed.

To make the cake, you use three layers of the white batter. Using food coloring, one layer is dyed blue, one is dyed red, and the last layer is kept white. Divide the batter in three equal parts (it’s about 9 cups total batter.). Pour one color of batter into one of the 3 prepared pans, smoothing the tops with a spatula. Bake 25-30 minutes, rotating halfway through, or until a thin knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool in the pans five minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack.

The three layers are leveled so they are all the same height. Let’s say each layer is 2 inches tall.

Using a serrated knife or cake leveler, slice the red and white layers horizontally in half. So you have a blue layer (2″thick ), two red layers (each 1″ thick ), and two white layers (each 1″thick). Set one white and one red layer aside, those will be the bottom two stripes of the flag.

Stack the blue layer, white layer, and red layer on top of each other. Using a serrated knife, cut a large circle through all three layers. I used a bowl as a guide. Now you have a ring of blue (2″thick), a ring of white (1″ thick), a ring of red (1″ thick), and three inner circles in each color (the blue is 2″ and the other two are both 1″). Set aside the inner circle of blue and the outer rings of red and white and use for a festive trifle or just eat it while still in the kitchen.

To assemble the cake, frost the bottom two layers together – set the uncut white layer on a plate and spread it with frosting. Top with the uncut red layer. Spread the uncut red layer with frosting, then set the blue ring on top. Use a spatula to spread a very, very thin layer of frosting around the inside edge of the blue ring. This will help keep the blue layer and the two top stripes together.

Place the white inner circle on top of the uncut red layer, inside the ring of blue. Frost, and top with the red inner circle. Frost the entire cake and voila, it’s a flag cake!

Cream Cheese Frosting, courtesy of The Joy of Cooking

Makes enough to frost and fill this cake

16 oz cream cheese

10 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

4 tsp vanilla extract

4 cups powdered sugar, sifted

Beat the cream cheese, butter, and extract together until combined. Gradually beat in the powdered sugar until the desired consistency is reached.

Gooey Butter Cake

One of our family favorite dessert bar is Gooey Butter Cake.  We became familiar with this addicting treat a few years ago when a friend's neighbor dropped off a warm batch.  When our friends asked for the neighbor's recipe they were told it was a family secret.

The next day I was putting cream cheese on a bagel and noticed a recipe on the side of the Kroger cream cheese box for Gooey Butter Cake!  I couldn't believe it!  The 'secret' family recipe wasn't so secret after all.  Paula Deen has a few variations of this recipe online too.

The bar is a two step process to make, but doesn't require many ingredients.  I only have a picture I have of this cookie is in the creating process.  They disappear too quickly to take an 'after' shot! :)

Gooey Butter Cake

Base:

1 pkg yellow cake mix

1/2 c. butter, softened

1 egg

Topping:

1 - 8 oz pkg cream cheese, softened

2 eggs

1 - 1 lb box confectioners' sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix together dry cake mix with butter and 1 egg. Pat base mixture into an ungreased 9 x 13 inch cake pan.

Cream together cream cheese, eggs, powdered sugar and vanilla. Pour over base mixture, spreading evenly. Bake for 35 minutes. May be slightly wobbly in center.

When cake has cooled top lightly with powdered sugar and cut in to small squares.

Very Chocolate Bundt Cake

My friend Jesica gave me a bundt recipe to try for Mother's Day.  She said it is one of the easiest recipes and extremely popular.  I had to check with her twice to make sure I wrote down the ingredients right - it couldn't be this simple.  Could it?!

After 50 minutes of baking and making the entire house smell like a chocolate factory, the cake was done.  I tore a little sample of warm cake off the bottom and loved it!  I can't wait to have a full slice tonight with some vanilla bean ice cream.  I highly recommend this recipe!

I couldn't decide on the final touch.  A glaze drizzled on top, berries, powdered sugar?  I opted for sifted powdered sugar to dust the entire cake and emphasize the bundt pan's design.

Happy Mother's Day!

Chocolate Bundt Cake

1 box Devil's Food cake mix
1 small box instant chocolate pudding
1 3/4 c. milk
2 eggs
1 - 12oz bag of chocolate chips

Combine the first four ingredients together with mixer for a few minutes.  Fold in chips by hand and pour in to a well greased bundt pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes (but start checking around 40-45 minutes depending on your oven).  Mine baked for 48 minutes and was perfect.

Yes, this cake recipe really is simple.  And is it very chocolatey!

Blake thought it was plate lick'n good! :)