captain america cake with flag inside and haupia coconut filling

My oldest baby Matthew turned seven yesterday! This was the first year where he invited his own friends to his birthday party (as opposed to us inviting our friends and their kids!) So he invited three kids from school, and then my family and our neighbors also came to celebrate with him!

This year he wanted a Captain America cake, so Captain America cake he got! On the outside AND on the inside! I've always wanted to make a flag-inside cake for July 4th or something, like this one at 17 and Baking, but never had the chance ... until now!

For the inside of the cake, I made two batches of vanilla cake (recipe in my new book!), divided and colored them, and baked them in 8-inch round pans. One batch of vanilla cake will make two 8-inch cake layers, so I ended up with four cake layers. Since I only needed three (one red, one white, one blue), I wrapped the fourth layer really well in plastic wrap and froze it for later.

To fill the layers, I made a haupia coconut whipped cream filling, based on Matthew's love of coconut (he recently decided that chocolate haupia pie from Ted's Bakery in Hawaii was his favorite dessert ever!). To give my whipped cream a nice coconut flavor, I used Trader Joe's coconut cream, since it was thicker and more concentrated than regular coconut milk.

To assemble the cake, I cut both the white and red cakes in half horizontally. The first white layer went on the cake round, and then I filled it with the coconut whipped cream. Then the first red layer went on top, along with another layer of coconut whipped cream.

Next I took a 4-inch cookie cutter, and cut out the middle of my blue cake layer (this layer does not get cut in half horizontally). Then I also used the 4-inch cookie cutter to cut out my remaining white and red layers.

Then I placed the blue ring layer on top, with the 4-inch white cake layer on the inside of the ring, more coconut filling, and then the 4-inch red cake layer. This is what makes the flag inside!

For the outside of the cake, I whipped up a batch of cream cheese buttercream (recipe also in my new book!), and did a quick crumb coat on the top and sides of the cake. Then I used a toothpick to draw my Captain America design on the top of the cake.

 Finally, I used used the markings to fill in the design with piped stars - white for the star, blue for the circle around the stars, and then alternating rings of red and white.

Matthew loved the cake! And it went perfectly with his Captain America shirt! :)

Although, he didn't even notice the flag inside! He didn't even realize it until I asked him about it on the way home! I had to show him a picture to prove it, and even then he asked "how come there are no stars on the blue part of the flag?"... (sigh)

He also only took one bite of the cake before running off to play with his friends, so he didn't even notice the coconut filling!

But, before bed that night we asked him on a scale of 1 to 10, how much fun he had at his party. At first he said it was a 10. And then he changed his mind and said it was 100! Awww...

Happy Birthday, my Matthew! Thanks for being such an awesome kid! :)

*** Update: You can also see the Captain America cookies that I made to go along with the cake, here!

chocolate coconut non-dairy popsicles

I've made these popsicles with two different recipes now, and each time they came out great! Although, both times I didn't start out with the intention to make popsicles :)

The first time I made these, I had meant to make non-dairy chocolate coconut ice cream, from the Bi-Rite book "Sweet Dreams and Sugar Cones". While the resulting ice cream had ended up tasting great, it was rock hard and almost impossible to scoop! Even after letting it thaw a bit, my scoops came out in jagged pieces. So I placed the whole container of ice cream in the refrigerator and let it melt down overnight, before re-freezing the mixture in this awesome popsicle mold.

Yummy!

The second time I made these, I had meant to make a chocolate coconut whipped frosting, for non-dairy cupcakes that I was making for my friend Reggie's daughter (who is allergic to cow's milk). I found this recipe at Oh She Glows, except that I added about 4 tablespoons of good cocoa powder, but even though I had separated the coconut cream from the milk, it still would not whip up stiff enough to be piped as frosting! So instead, I froze the mixture as popsicles, this time using a Hello Kitty popsicle mold that Reggie had bought me for a past birthday. :)

I'm so glad that both times I was able to turn my failed desserts into delicious popsicles!

mother's day coconut cake with surprise inside heart, fresh whipped cream, and raspberries

Last year for Mother's Day, I made this flower suprise-inside cake. So when my friend Helen sent me a link to this super cute typography cake, I got the idea to do a cake with letters "MOM" inside the cake when Mother's Day rolled around this year. I was so excited, I even bought these mini alphabet fondant cutters!

The typography cake used "edible dough", but I didn't know what that was (and it doesn't sound very tasty either), so I decided to make the letters cut out from chocolate cake! So I baked up a homemade 8-inch chocolate cake, let it cool overnight in the fridge, and the next morning I set out to cut my letters out of cake!

Only, it didn't work. The cutters were so small, that I couldn't get the pieces of cake out in one piece! I suppose that's why the typography cake was made from "edible dough" in the first place - doh! I thought about using fondant instead, but who wants fondant baked into the middle of their cake?! So, I had to abandon my surprise-inside letters idea and settle for a simpler (and bigger) shape to cut out of chocolate cake. Hearts it would be!

Once I cut out a bunch of shapes, I made a batch of homemade vanilla cake. Except I've been toying with the idea of making a non-dairy white cake, so I decided to replace the butter with coconut oil, and I replaced the milk with coconut milk. It would be a coconut cake!

I poured a bit of the batter into the bottom of my prepared loaf pan ...

... and then placed my chocolate cake heart cutouts into the batter. (Note that I placed the hearts upside down, so that I could flip the cake upside down and have a flat bottom as the top of the cake, and then the hearts would be right side up. That sounded confusing, but I'm sure you know what I mean!).

The cake came out of the oven and looked rather flat. Darn. I suppose the problem could be either: a) I used coconut oil of butter, b) I used coconut milk instead of milk, or c) the fact that I've never baked my vanilla cake recipe in a loaf pan. (I'll have to experiment with this more!)

Once the cake cooled, I whipped up a batch of fresh whipped cream, and covered the top and the sides of the cake. (Note that if I were to make this a truly non-dairy coconut cake, I would use a meringue frosting instead of whipped cream.) I had just done this ruffled baby shower cake the weekend before, so I used the same piping technique on this cake. It didn't look quite as nice as the baby shower cake though, since my cake wasn't very tall it didn't have quite the same effect.

Before serving the cake the next day, I decorated the top with fresh raspberries. 

I just love the color combination of the cool creamy white with the bright fresh red of the raspberries!

I couldn't wait to cut the cake and show my mom the surprise-inside chocolate heart!

The cake wasn't quite coconut-y enough, but at least the heart came out quite cute, even though the words "MOM" inside the cake would have been way cuter. Guess I'll have to figure out a way and save that for next year. :)

Happy Mother's Day!

easter cupcakes - brown sugar pound cakes with browned butter cream cheese frosting

There are a couple things that led me to this combination of flavors for my easter cupcakes.  First, I've been drooling over various pictures of easter egg nests (see here and here), which made me to want to make cupcakes decorated with mini nests.  And second, I recently scarfed down a whole box of Samoas Girl Scout Cookies (it may or may not have been all by myself), and it reminded me how much I love the combination of coconut, chocolate, and caramel.  This led me to make these brown sugar cupcakes with browned butter cream cheese frosting (the caramel flavor component), decorated with chocolate-coconut easter egg nests.

The day before making the cupcakes, I assembled my coconut-chocolate nests.  I toasted some shredded coconut, then mixed it with melted chocolate.  I pressed the mixture into a mini cupcake pan, and pressed in my Cadbury chocolate eggs while the coconut-chocolate mixture was still warm.  Then I put the pan into the fridge so that I could easily pop the nests out after they had hardened.

The next day, I made the same brown sugar cupcakes as I did for my Thanksgiving cupcakes, but instead of topping it with the Bailey's frosting (somehow Bailey's and Easter just didn't seem to go together), I decided to pair it with the browned butter cream cheese frosting that I made for my Halloween cupcakes.

The cupcakes turned out moist and fluffy, with a slight caramely brown sugar flavor.  And it went perfectly with the browned butter cream cheese frosting.

I even had leftover batter, so I made a few mini cupcakes too.  Perfectly bite-sized for the kiddos!

Happy Easter!

trick-or-treat cookies

Last year at Halloween, we didn't get to pass out any candy because we went trick-or-treating at a friend's neighborhood and didn't get home until late.  So we had this huge unopened bag of chocolate candy left over.  Fortunately, I had just read an article on GOOP that had a recipe for cookies that are made with leftover Halloween candy.  It's a perfect way to use up your leftover candy!

I've made different variations of this cookie, but my favorite combination of candy is Almond Joy, Milky Way, and Hershey Bars.  The coconut in the Almond Joy, mixed with the caramel in the Milky Way, and the chocolaty goodness in the Hershey Bars makes a perfect combination!

Just chop up the candies and mix them into the cookie dough like you would with chocolate chips.

Use a mini ice-cream scoop to make uniform cookie dough balls, and then bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet for easy cookie removal (and clean-up!).

I'm planning on making these again this weekend with our leftover candy.  This time I'm going to freeze the cookie dough after I've scooped them into balls, so that they're easy to bake off a few at a time whenever we're craving some chocolate candy cookies!

Happy Friday!