whale birthday cake

For the past few years I've been making celebration cakes for my friend Irene, including her baby shower cake, her baby's first birthday cake (a smash cake and a tiered cake for her guests, as well as Korean Hanbok cookies!), and now, a cake for her baby's second birthday!

It's pretty much tradition that I made her a nectarine and cream cake (it all started with her baby shower cake!), but this time she wanted a strawberry and banana cake for baby! She wanted a whale cake to go with the nautical theme, and then I would make a second larger cake for the guests (which would be a nectarine and cream cake, of course!)

Somehow I forgot to take pictures of the cake and the filling, but you'll have to trust me when I tell you that I made two 6-inch vanilla cakes (recipe in my book!), sliced them in half horizontally to give me four layers, and then filled each layer with freshly whipped cream and sliced strawberries and bananas. Then I whipped up a batch up buttercream, tinted it sky blue, and did a quick crumb coat with it before smoothing it out, chilled it in the fridge, and then doing a final smooth coat on top.

Then it was time to add the whale details! A few days previously, I had made some fondant pieces to decorate with - the white ribbed piece for the whale belly ...

... two round pink circles for cheeks ...

and then I piped the eyes and mouth using black frosting with a small round tip.

Next I added two blue fondant whale flippers, and the final touch was fondant pieces for the water coming out of the whale's spout!

Now, I had modeled the cake after a picture of a whale cake that Irene had sent me, but after I was done I wasn't sure if it was fully apparent that this was supposed to be a whale. In fact, after I was done assembling my cake, my 8-year old son walked by and asked, "What is that? Why does it have a beard?"

Hmmmmm...

Anyway, Irene did a fantastic job with the food and decorations for the party! Everything was beautiful and delicious! Too bad the whale cake melted in the hot sun though! Aaack! By the time it was time to cut the cake, the whale looked like it had bangs made out of a wave of frosting! (I'm so sorry, Irene!)

Happy Happy Birthday, Aaron!

floral wreath cake for mother's day

After making this Hello Kitty wreath cake for my birthday back in April, I became obsessed with wreath cakes. I was seeing them all over Instagram, with beautifully piped buttercream roses and peonies - they were all so pretty! And then, the talented I Am Baker came out with yet another wreath cake tutorial, this time using easy rosettes! I had to make one for Mother's Day!

I had also recently made a bananas and cream birthday cake, and it was such a delicious combo that I wanted to do it again for Mother's Day ... but this time with coffee chiffon cake! Yes, I know. Coffee and banana? What? But years ago I had made this cake using a banana cake recipe from David Lebovitz's book, "Ready for Dessert", and I was intrigued that the cake batter called for bananas and espresso. While in the end I couldn't really taste the espresso in the banana cake, it must have been a good flavor pairing if David Lebovitz put it together in a recipe, right?

So I baked up three 6-inch coffee chiffon cakes, and filled them with freshly whipped cream and sliced bananas. And then covered the entire thing with more whipped cream, smoothing it with an offset spatula.

For the rosettes, I tinted my whipped cream with soft pink food coloring and used a large star tip to pipe rosettes along the perimeter of my cake.

Then I added a bit more coloring to make a darker pink, and used a smaller star tip to pipe mini rosettes here and there on top of the large rosettes.

And finally I used a leaf tip to pipe little green leaves, for a pop of color.

I loved the finished look! And it was so easy! 

And if you're wondering about the coffee and banana combo, it was delicious, to my surprise!

Happy Mother's Day!

banana cream birthday cake with handmade fondant monkey topper

The first time I made something for Julieta, I made various Hello Kitty desserts for the dessert table at her bridal shower. I had never met her before, and she had found me through the blog. I was delighted to be making Hello Kitty dessert for a fellow Hello Kitty lover!

Before I knew it, Julieta was contacting me about making baseball cookies, this time for her baby shower! And then this past year, she asked me to make a monkey cake, this time for her son's first birthday party! How time flies! And how exciting it is to me that I got to make goodies for her for such major milestones!

A few weeks before the party, I started on making the fondant monkey, as it would need time to dry completely. I used Wilton fondant for this, tinted chocolate brown with a tiny bit of black to give it a deeper brown. I rolled out and shaped all the parts I would need, and used a bit of water to attach them together.

For the monkey's face, I tinted the fondant with ivory, rolled out a snout, and used a heart-shaped cookie cutter to create the part of the face around the eyes.

After adding an ivory tummy and feet, I used an edible marker to draw on the eyes and the nose.

Hey little guy, you're cute!

For the cake, Julieta wanted a bananas and cream cake. So when it was time to make the cake, I baked up two 10-inch round vanilla cakes (recipe from my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book), and sliced each cake in half horizontally to give me four cake layers. Then I filled each layer with freshly whipped cream and sliced bananas.





I ended up not using the fourth cake layer, as it would have ended up too tall of a cake! So I stopped at three layers.

The party colors would be yellow and light green, so I made bright yellow buttercream, and added a light green beaded border. Then I used a small round tip with chocolate brown frosting to pipe the baby's name.

And the final touch - the fondant monkey topper!

Hope the little guy enjoyed his monkey cake! Happy Birthday, Daniel!

hello kitty floral wreath cake

Every year for my birthday, I make myself a Hello Kitty cake of some shape or form. And this past year was no exception! At the time (this was back in April), I was so inspired by I Am Baker's wreath cake, that I knew I wanted to make it, but with little piped Hello Kitty's added to the mix!

I was in a strawberries and cream mood, but I wanted it to be really light, so I made a chiffon cake instead of my regular vanilla cake. Since I've found chiffon cake to be tricky to slice, I divided the batter into three 8-inch round pans to give me three layers of cake (instead of baking up one big cake and then slicing it into three layers).

Once the cake was baked and cooled, I filled each layer with freshly whipped cream and sliced strawberries.

With a bit more whipped cream on top of the strawberries, to seal them in.

After the last cake layer was stacked, I covered the top and sides of the cake with more freshly whipped cream, and smoothed it with an offset spatula.

As I Am Baker mentions in her wreath cake tutorial, you can pipe a ring of frosting on top of the cake to give the wreath a bit of a "lift" above the rest of the top of the cake. So I dutifully followed her instructions!

Then I began to pipe my "flowers", using colored buttercream and various sizes of open star tips. (Note that I whipped up a separate batch of buttercream, just for the flowers!)

I added more and more piping in other colors using other star tips...

... until I was happy with my wreath.

I could have left it just like this, because it was already so cute! But, I needed me some Hello Kitty!!!

So I piped my Hello Kitty faces with whipped cream, using a large round tip for the face, and a leaf tip for the ears. (See more on how I pipe my Hello Kitty faces! There is also a quick tutorial in my book!)

I used a small round tip to pipe black eyes and whiskers, and a little yellow nose. And for the final touch, I added heart confetti sprinkles to form the bow.

Wheeeee!!! Happy Birthday to me!!! :)

banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and fruit leather flower pom poms

By the time I got to the sign-up sheet for the Teacher Appreciation Week luncheon at my son's preschool, there was nothing left to sign up for.  Literally nothing - all the slots were full.  But I wanted to make something to bring anyway, and since we had an abundance of overripe bananas at home, I decided to make banana cupcakes.

At first I was just going to top the cupcakes with a simple cream cheese frosting, but then a few days before the luncheon I saw this post at Best Friends for Frosting, which linked to this tutorial at Wedding Chicks - edible DIY flower pom poms made out of fruit leather!  Genius!

Making the pom poms was fairly simple.  The hardest part was getting the petals to stay put.  But the tutorial said to use toothpicks to help hold the petals in place while they dried, and that seemed to help.  But even though I let them dry overnight, they were still a bit soft and floppy the next morning.

The night before the luncheon, I made my banana cupcakes using my mom's banana bread recipe (stay tuned for a post on her banana bread later).  One batch of batter that would normally fill one 9-inch loaf pan ended up making 16 cupcakes.

I thought perhaps the cupcakes might come out more like muffins, since the recipe was meant for banana bread, but I sampled one after they were baked, and it was actually the perfect texture!

Next I whipped up a batch of cream cheese frosting and used a 1M tip to pipe large roses on top of the cupcakes.  And then I topped them with my pom poms.

I had only made 6 of the fruit leather pom poms (they were more time-consuming to make than I had anticipated!), so I topped the remaining cupcakes with sugar pearls and non-pareils.

I hope all the teachers enjoyed the cupcakes!  Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!