Posts tagged food

My posts have seriously dwindled since I became pregnant. My priorities have shifted (so excited for this baby!!) and cake sort of fell off the radar when the fatigue and morning sickness kicked in…and stayed and stayed. On very rare occasions I crawl into the kitchen to bake—and this was one of them…

 The extra tall top tier is blue velvet cake with vanilla frosting, and the bottom is milk chocolate. I made the purple and green marshmallow fondant at home and handed over a small fortune to buy a little tub of Duff black fondant (because making black fondant at home is just insane). I think it turned out pretty good!

My dear Grandma was born on July 4th. This gives me the chance to make lots of patriotic cakes.

On a hot summer day, lemon cake with vanilla mousse filling and cool fresh berries on top is just the thing! My sister found the cute decorations at Michael’s.

Here’s a the naked cake (before the decorations):

Usually when I make a cake there is some drama involved. Something almost always goes wrong. This time, it all just fell into place. The cake, fondant, and frosting behaved beautifully…. 

…like it was meant to be. The only little blip is on the “congrats”. Someone (you know who you are) made me laugh while I was writing it, and well- now it has character. Here are some photos of the creative process. 

Congrats to Hailey, and all the rest of you 2011 grads out there!

Our big, extended family Mom’s Day celebration gave me the perfect reason to make this cake:

I’m not the best at placing flowers on a cake, so I got a little help from a friend : ) 

The top layer is dense, chocolate cake with cherry pie filling and a thick ribbon of Dutch chocolate icing to keep said filling from squishing out.

The bottom is lemon cake with vanilla mousse filling. The pink fondant was made using my favorite marshmallow fondant recipe. 

Kudos to my uncle Jeff for giving me a lesson on how to use my camera- I love this photo!

I wanted to make an elegant cake to follow Easter dinner, and decided on Red Velvet. The rich texture and red color make it the perfect choice. I’ve also been wanting to use this beautiful cake plate I got for Christmas:

The cake and its plate look like they were made for each other. I used Martha Stewart’s Red Velvet Cake Recipe with excellent results. I’ve included tutorials for both:   Red Velvet Cake Recipe and Cake Assembly.

I’ve seen cupcakes in teacups before, and think it looks so very dainty!. I found an inexpensive cup and saucer at Ross, and placed a vanilla cupcake inside. Then I started to experiment with different fruit garnishes… 

Next I tried some fresh hydrangeas… and then some fake hydrangeas

These egg cups are the perfect size for holding mini cupcakes! The heart-shaped Gobstopper candies are left over from Valentine’s, and the leaves are made of fondant:

I pushed yellow hearts part way into the frosting to make the little chickies below. I think big yellow jellybeans would work well too. I made the beaks out of fondant, and used a food marker to make the eyes.

These would make cute desserts/decorations for each place setting at an Easter dinner. Or you could give them away as charming little party favors.

Of course, rabbits are always an option too:

Are you picturing cute mini cupcakes inside?

Happy Easter!