coffee chiffon cake with dark chocolate sail sculpture

I love to make birthday cakes for my friends, and at one point last year I became obsessed with making chocolate sculptures to decorate my birthday cakes with! I had seen it all over Instagram and fell in love with the way they added such artistry to cakes, in such a free-form and abstract way. 

The first of many chocolate sculpture cakes that I ended up making throughout the year, this one was for my friend Hsing, who I met at work years and years ago. At the time we were the only females on our team, and although we are no longer at the same company, we still make it a point to meet for lunches several times throughout the year.

I typically make chiffon cakes for Hsing, since she she likes the type of light and airy cake that you can commonly find at Asian bakeries. This time I decided to make a coffee chiffon cake, filled and frosted with espresso whipped cream.

I typically do a crumb coat of frosting, then let it chill in the fridge for at least a half our, before adding a second coat of frosting and smoothing it out completely with an offset spatula.

While the assembled and frosted cake chilled in the fridge, I got started on making the topper. In a double boiler, I melted dark chocolate with a bit of coconut oil, and then poured it out onto a baking sheet lined with a silicone liner. Then I positioned the silicone liner insde of a glass bowl, using binder clips to secure it in a way that would provide an interesting shape to the chocolate.

Once the chocolate had cooled, I removed the binder clips and carefully removed the silicone liner, giving me a chocolate sculpture!

I secured it to the top of the cake with a bit of the espresso whipped cream, and then it was done!

I love the simplicity of this type of decorative cake topper, plus it's edible!

Hope you had a Happy Birthday, Hsing!

lego batman birthday cake with handmade fondant batman and chocolate lego pieces

I've been making birthday cakes for Doan's son ever since his first birthday, and his fourth birthday was no exception! This year the theme was Lego Batman, so we decided that I'd make a Lego Batman fondant topper, and since I already had a Lego chocolate mold, I decided to make colorful edible Legos to decorate with as well!

First I made the fondant topper in advance, in order to give it time to dry. I started by using black fondant (or you could use white fondant and tint it black), made a little log, folded it in half to make two legs, and then started them shaping them to look more like Lego character legs. (Using a mini rolling pin worked great for this!)

Then I formed all the various body parts - a torso, two arms, and two Lego hands.

Next, I made a cape, and formed the head and used fondant tools to add the details for the face.

After assembling the body parts using a bit of water applied with a food safe brush, I used yellow fondant to form the belt and the Batman logo.

An edible marker worked great for drawing the Batman logo!

And the final step was attaching the head, secured with a toothpick! Then I let Batman dry out for a week or so.

The day before making the cake, I made my chocolate Lego pieces to decorate with. I used this silicone Lego mold to shape my melted chocolate.

After pouring in my melted chocolate and giving it a few hard taps on the counter to release any air bubbles, I chilled it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes of so, making it super easy to pop them out. Then I stored the chocolate Legos in airtight containers until it was time to decorate.

For the cake, I baked up two 10-inch rounds of my favorite vanilla cake (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book! Note that the recipe is for two 8-inch rounds, so to adjust for two 10-inch rounds I used 1.5 batches of the recipe and adjusted the baking time.) Then after letting the cakes cool, I sliced them in half horiztonall to give me four cake layers, and then filled them with freshly whipped cream and sliced strawberries.

For the frosting, I whipped up two batches of my Swiss Meringue buttercream frosting (recipe also in my book!), covered the top and sides with a quick crumb coat of frosting, and then let it chill for 30 minutes before adding a final smooth layer of frosting. Then I place the entire cake in the refrigerator to chill overnight.

The morning of the party, it was time to decorate!

I added my fondant Lego Batman to the top of the cake, secured with a toothpick and a bit of buttercream on the bottom of the topper, and then piped the birthday boy's name on the front of the cake using a small round tip.

Then it was time to add my chocolate Legos! I used alternating colors, and secured them with a bit of buttercream on the bottom of each chocolate piece.

I thought it turned out super cute!

Doan later told me that all of the kids were fighting over the chocolate Lego pieces! ;)

Hope you had a happy birthday, Roland!!!

chess cake with handmade chocolate chess pieces

My friends Helen and Irene have a friend named Kristina, who asked me to make a birthday cake for her little boy several months ago. He really loves pineapple, and he loves to play chess. So we decided on a vanilla cake filled with pineapple and freshly whipped cream, topped with chocolate chess pieces!

I made the chocolate chess pieces in advance, and used this chess mold to shape my pieces with. First I melted my dark chocolate in a double boiler, and filled the cavities of the mold. After letting it harden in the fridge, I was able to easily pop the pieces out.

Then I once again filled the cavities of the mold, and while the chocolate was still warm I pressed in the corresponding other half of each piece. Then I let it harden in the fridge again, popped them out, and used a paring knife to trim any excess chocolate from the pieces.

And then I repeated the process with white chocolate.

For the cake, I used my favorite vanilla cake recipe (you can find it in m book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!) Since I was making a 10-inch cake, I make 1.5 batches of batter, and baked it in two 10-inch round cake pans. After the cake had baked and cooled, I sliced each cake in half horizontally, giving me four cake layers.

Next, I filled each layer with freshly whipped cream and chopped pineapple chunks that had been well drained.

Once all of the layers were assembled, I covered the top and sides of the cake with whipped buttercream, smoothed it out with an offset spatula, let it chill in the fridge, and then repeated the process with a second coat of frosting.

With the last coat of frosting, I smoothed it out as best as I could, before piping alternating beads of white and brown frosting along the bottom border of the cake.

Finally, it was time to top the cake with my handmade chocolate chess pieces! I alternated with the dark chocolate and white chocolate pieces, and used a little bit of buttercream on the bottom of each piece to hold them in place.



I loved the final look of the cake! The chocolate chess pieces created quite a dramatic effect!

The final touch was adding a little fondant plaque with a birthday message for the birthday boy! For this I rolled out white fondant, and then used a plaque cookie cutter from Cookie Cutter Kingdom to cut out my shape, before using an edible food marker to write the birthday message.

Happy Birthday Noah! Hope you loved your cake!