pink velvet ruffle cake with strawberries and whipped cream

As soon as I had finished making this frilly green tea ruffle cake, I already knew that I was going to make it in pink. And soon. In fact I made it exactly two weeks later, for my mother-in-law's birthday, as she was in town visiting us from Hawaii. She loves all things pink. And since she loves red velvet cake (thus this red velvet cheesecake rose cake that I made for her a few years ago, which happens to be THE most popular post on my blog), I decided to try making this pink velvet cake that I saw on I Am Baker's site a few weeks before!

With her recipe, I made four 6-inch cake layers (but decided to only use three of the layers). I filled each layer with pink whipped cream and fresh strawberries, and then covered the top and sides of the cake as well.

And then came the fun part, piping the ruffles! As with the green tea ruffle cake, I started from the middle, and kept going until the top of the cake was covered with a huge swirl of ruffles.

Then I continued with the ruffles along the sides of the cake, from top to bottom.

Boy, do I love the frilly look of this cake.

Here's a shot of the inside of the cake, with the sliced strawberries peeking out. Unfortunately, I wasn't so pleased with this part of the cake. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but my pink velvet cake layers turned out rather dense and heavy. Not the light and fluffy cake that I was going for, although the flavors of the cake combined with whipped cream and strawberries was still a great combo.

Happy Birthday to my mother-in-law!

matcha green tea ruffle cake

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, this green cake would be perfect! (Especially since it kind of resembles a head of cabbage!) But actually, I didn't make this for St. Patrick's Day, I made it for my coworker Kim, who loves anything green tea! For the past few years I've been baking her green tea birthday cakes. Last year's was this green tea rose cake, and she liked it so much that I thought I'd make it for her again this year! But this time instead of piped roses, I decided to do a ruffle cake piped to resemble one large flower!

The green tea cake is a chiffon-style batter, with whipped egg whites to lighten it, and plenty of green tea powder to give a strong green tea flavor.

I baked my batter in two 8-inch cake pans, and once cooled I made a large batch of freshly whipped cream, which I then flavored with a paste made of green tea powder mixed with hot water.

Then I filled my cake layers, and covered the tops and sides of my cake with the whipped cream.

Then came the fun part - piping the ruffles! I used a Wilton #104 petal tip and started my ruffles in the center of the cake, using my turning cake stand to turn the cake while I piped.

Then I just kept piping ...

... and piping, until I had covered the top of the cake with petals. 

At this point, I thought it looked quite pretty, and considered stopping and leaving it as is. I really liked the look of the ruffles on top of the cake with the straight sides.

But then I decided that I needed to keep going with my original plan to pipe ruffles all over the entired cake!

I'm so glad that I did, because the finished the cake came out so pretty! So girly, frilly and ruffly!





Hope you enjoyed the cake, Kim! Happy Birthday!

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!

pink ruffle flower chocolate mousse layer cake for a baby shower

My best friend Sue is expecting a baby girl, so when we were planning her baby shower, I knew I wanted to make her some sort of pink girly cake! I thought maybe I'd make another piped rose cake, perhaps in ombre, but then I decided I wanted to make a ruffle flower cake instead!

I asked Sue if she wanted a chocolate cake filled with chocolate mousse, or a vanilla cake filled with fresh fruit and whipped cream, and she immediately chose the chocolate. Then she thought, well maybe her mom would like a lighter, less rich cake, but I told her "this baby shower is for YOU, and since you want a chocolate cake, that's what you're going to get!"

So I baked up two 8-inch chocolate cakes, and sliced them in half horizontally, giving me four layers. Then I whipped up a rich bittersweet chocolate mousse (no raw eggs of course), to fill between each cake layer.

For the frosting, I made a cream cheese buttercream and tinted it pink, and used an offset spatula to cover the sides and top of the cake.

For the ruffles, I used a Wilton #104 tip to pipe vertical ruffle "petals" all the way around the sides of the cake.

Then I used the same tip to pipe petals all over the top of the cake as well.

I actually ran out of frosting by the time I reached the center of the "flower", so I had to use a bit of strawberry cream cheese filling that I had leftover from the strawberry macarons I was making for her baby shower dessert table. (More to come on the dessert table!)

For the final touch, I carefully dropped a few white sugar pearls onto the middle of the cake, for the center of the "flower".

I loved the way the cake turned out! And I'm actually really glad that I ran out of frosting, because having the center petals piped with a paler pink gave it a nice touch!

Happy Baby Shower, Sue!

Stay tuned for the rest of the baby shower dessert table!