minecraft diamond pickaxe birthday cake

Oh man. I'm so behind. I made this cake a year ago, for my oldest son Matthew's 11th birthday. And here we are, one year later, and he just turned 12!

He had requested another minecraft cake. But this time he wanted a giant Minecraft diamond pickaxe topper. I guess they use them to mine diamonds in the game? Anyway he showed me a picture of what he wanted, so I made it for him, out of various colored fondant squares that I had cut out one by one with a mini square cookie cutter.



And then when I assembled the topper, I realized that I had made it waaaaaay too big. Ooops!



For the cake, he had requested vanilla cake filled with whipped cream and STRAWBERRY JELLO. Hmm. Interesting combination, no?

To get started, I whipped up two batches of my favorite vanilla cake (you can find the recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!) and baked them in two 8-inch round cake pans. Once cooled, I sliced them in half horizontally to give me four cake layers. And then I filled them with freshly whipped cream.

And the Jello. I had made the Jello layer in advance, by chilling the prepared Jello in two 8-inch cake pans that I had sprayed with nonstick cooking spray so that I would come out easily. I did have a few cracks in the Jello while I attempted to place the layer on the whipped cream, but it was mostly in one piece.

After assembling the cake (four cake layers, three layers of whipped cream, and two layers of Jello), I covered the tops and sides with swiss meringue frosting (recipe also in my book!). I usually do a quick crumb coat, let it set in the fridge, and then do a final coat, which I then smooth out with an offset spatula. Then I put everything in the fridge to set overnight.

The next morning, I was ready to decorate! First I piped his name in the middle of the cake, and then I added a few of the fondant squares that I had made previously. Just to give the cake a bit of a pixelated look.

Next came the number candles (which I had bought from Party City, I believe).

And then came the topper! I really did make this way to big. And truth be told, it kept falling off the cake, it was just too big and heavy! 

In the end, I got mixed reviews on the jello / whipped cream / cake combination, but the birthday boy loved it so that's all that matters!

Happy Birthday, Matthew! We love you!

baseball cupcakes

My oldest son Matthew started Little League baseball earlier this year, and it was so much fun! He had a great time making new friends and being part of a team, and we had a great time going to all his games and eating concession stand food! (My new favorite guilty pleasure is chili cheese fries - so good!)

Part of the Little League experience was interacting with the other parents, and taking turns being in charge of "team snack" at the end of each game. When it was our turn, we decided to make baseball cupcakes, along with mini ham and cheese sliders, and goodie bags filled with snacks, fresh fruit, and juice.

For the cupcakes, I used my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe (in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), and topped them with cream cheese frosting. My method for creating uniform domes of frosting is to use a piping bag fitted with a large round piping tip, and do kind of an up-and-down pumping motion when piping the frosting from the center of the cupcake. The up motion releases more frosting, while the down motion kind of pushes the frosting outwards, forming a nice round dome. (You can see more of this in my basketball cupcakes post).

Then I used red frosting and a small round piping tip to pipe the lines on each baseball, similar to how I pipe my baseball cookies (see here and here).

Overall, we had a great baseball season, even though we lost more games than were won!

Little League season ended in the beginning of summer, and then when school started my son decided to try out for his middle school baseball team (he started 6th grade this year). To our surprise, he made it! 

Here's to more baseball cupcakes in our future!

yin and yang kung fu cupcakes

My two older kids are learning Kung-Fu, and last summer (or was it the summer before that? I'm really behind!) for the annual picnic I signed up to make cupcakes. When it came time to actually make the cupcakes, I had no idea what to do! Piped Kung-Fu frosting figures on the cupcakes? Chinese characters? And then when I looked at their Kung-Fu uniform, it came to me. Yin and Yang cupcakes. (It was printed on the sleeves!)

So I started by baking up my favorite chocolate cupcakes (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), as well as my favorite cream cheese frosting. I added dark cocoa powder to half of the frosting, and left the other half white, and then used a disposable piping bag fitted with a small round tip to pipe my Yin and Yang design.

I added the dots (chocolate dot on the white site, white dot on the chocolate side) to complete it.

The cupcakes were a hit, although when one of the Si-fu saw them he asked, puzzled, "Yin and Yang?" I just smiled, but I wanted to say "Yes! It's on your uniforms! I didn't know how else to decorate cupcakes for a Kung-Fu picnic!"

Anyway, all the cupcakes were eaten, so that's a good sign. Ha ha! The End.

minecraft cookies

To go along with the Minecraft cake that I made for Matthew's 10th birthday, I also made these Minecraft cookies to include with the party favors, as well as to pass out to his class the day of his birthday at school.

For the cookies, I made my favorite sugar cookie recipe (from my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), chilled it, and rolled it out to 1/8 inch thick. Then I used a set of nested square cookie cutters to cut out shapes (I originally got mine at Williams Sonoma, but they don't carry them anymore so these cutters are pretty close), Then I baked them at 350F for 10-12 minutes until the edges were golden brown.

For the icing, I made a batch of royal icing (recipe also in my book!), and tinted the majority of it green (I used a combination of leaf green and forest green to achieve the perfect Minecraft green color!). Using stiff green icing and a small round tip fitted into a disposable pastry bag, I outlined each cookie, and then filled it in with runny green icing.

After letting the icing dry for several hours, I used stiff black icing (colored using Super Black) to pipe the creeper face on to each cookie, and then filled it in with runny black icing.

Then I let the cookies dry complete, and they were done!

I wrapped each cookie in individual cellophane favor bags and tied them with raffia, and Matthew passed them out to his classmates at school.



I also included the cookies in each favor bag at his video game birthday party at home.

Hope you had a happy birthday, my Matthew!