hello kitty strawberry mousse cake studded with silver dragees

My friend Kim has a daughter who was graduating from high school a few months ago, and so she asked me to make her a graduation cake.  Since her daughter likes Hello Kitty, we decided that I would make a Hello Kitty cake!  I had all these ideas in my head - she wanted a strawberry cake, so I envisioned a pink cake similar to this one, with a black graduation cap on Hello Kitty, and some sort of cute piping on the sides of the cake.  But a few days before the cake was due, my friend told me that her daughter LOVED my Hello Kitty cake with silver dragees, and wanted a cake like that one!  So I reluctantly dropped my brainstorm ideas, and set out to make a strawberry mousse cake instead.

Before making this cake, I had yet to find a good from-scratch strawberry cake recipe.  In the past I've made Martha Stewart's strawberry cupcakes, which I love, but when I had tried it in cake form instead it was always too dense and moist.  So after a few online searches, I decided to try this recipe, from I Made That!, as it had great reviews and sounded delicious.  Plus, it used strawberry puree to give the cake a pink color, no food coloring necessary!  But when the cake came out of the oven, I was disappointed by the color of the cake - it was kind of a gray-brown color, and didn't look very appetizing (although it did taste great!).

So then I made a second strawberry cake, using this recipe from Confections of a Foodie Bride.  This recipe used cooked strawberry puree to give the batter a more vibrant color.  This time when it came out of the oven, it was definitely more of a pink color, although still not as pink as I'd like it.  But it had a great strawberry flavor, so I would definitely use this recipe again (although next time I might add just a drop or two of color!).  By now it was the middle of the night, so after the cake cooled, I wrapped it up in saran wrap, and placed it in the fridge for the next day.

When I was ready to assemble the cake the next day, I used my Hello Kitty sushi pan mold (which I've used several times for Hello Kitty tiramisu, Hello Kitty triple chocolate mousse cake, etc.) to cut out my Hello Kitty shape, and then placed it at the bottom of my mold.  For the middle layer, I made a strawberry mousse from my new copy of "Sprinkle Bakes" by Heather Baird, poured it into the mold over the cake layer, and smoothed it out with an offset spatula.

For the top layer, I made a white chocolate mousse from my "America's Test Kitchen" book (the same white chocolate mousse on the top of my triple chocolate mousse cakes), then poured and smoothed that over my strawberry mousse layer.

Then I piped a congratulations message on the cake round (since I didn't want to pipe it on Hello Kitty's face!), using melted chocolate.

And then it was time to remove the mold.  I had lined the mold with parchment paper, which made it super easy to unmold the cake!

To finish it off, I added silver dragees to form Hello Kitty's eyes, nose, whiskers, and bow.  And then I was done!

Congratulations Claudia!  Hope you had a wonderful graduation!

hello kitty strawberry rhubarb tartlets

What do you get when it's rhubarb season and you're at my house?  Lots and lots of rhubarb tarts!  This time I combined the Hello Kitty strawberry rhubarb tart from my last post, with another recent post on strawberry rhubarb tartlets, and so I made Hello Kitty strawberry rhubarb tartlets!

For the crust, I again made an all-butter pie crust, and divided the dough into 6 equal portions.  Then I  rolled each portion into a circle and carefully lined each tartlet pan.  After running my rolling pin over the top of each tartlet (to cut off the excess dough), I wrapped the extra dough in saran wrap and put it in my fridge, which I would use to make the Hello Kitty cut outs later on.

For the filling, I chopped rhubarb and strawberries into same sized chunks, and then tossed them with sugar, flour, and a pinch of salt.

After filling each tart pan to the top, I used the extra pie crust dough and a small Hello Kitty cookie cutter to cut out my shapes for the tops of the tart.

After brushing the tops with egg wash and dusting them with sanding sugar, they were ready for the oven!  I baked them at 350F for about 50 minutes, until they were golden brown.

My favorite way to eat these was to take bites all the way around the perimeter of the tartlet, so that I was left with just the Hello Kitty piece at the end, which I would pop in my mouth for the last bite!  Yum!

*** Update:
You can now find my recipe for Hello Kitty Strawberry Rhubarb Tartlets in my new book, "The Hello Kitty Baking Book"! Enjoy!

monogram wedding cookies

My cousin Yvonne got married to her longtime fiance Marvin a few weeks ago (YAY!), and I offered to help out my making wedding cookie favors!  Her wedding color was robin's egg blue, so I made blue and white "Y" and "M" monogram cookies, representing their initials.

As always, I used my favorite homemade sugar cookie and royal icing recipes, but you could of course use store bought..  Since I was making 200 cookies, I ended up making 8 batches of the sugar cookie recipe!  After letting the dough chill in the fridge, I rolled it out and used these Alphabet cookie cutters to cut our my letters.

When all of the cookies were baked (it was late at night by now), I stored them in airtight containers to keep them fresh overnight.  Then the next day I started on my icing.  I made two batches of royal icing, and colored half of it robin's egg blue (I used a combination of Americolor sky blue and teeny bit of lemon yellow), trying as best as I could to match it to the colors on the invitation.  I decided to make the "Y" cookies blue, and the "M" cookies white - by first piping a stiff icing outline around each letter, and then filling it with runny icing.

After the icing had dried (I let it dry overnight), I piped a dotted border around each cookie to finish it off.

Two hundred cookies later, I was done!

Finally, I wrapped the cookies in cellophane bags (one "Y" cookie and one "M" cookie in each bag), and tied them with custom favor tags and raffia.

The wedding turned out beautiful!  The ceremony was lovely, the food was deelish (lobster, filet mignon, cuban rice, and fried plantains!), and the Matthew and Melodie had so much fun dancing all night long.

Congratulations Yvonne and Marvin!  We love you!

purple ombre roses cake

My friend H introduced me to her friend S a few years ago, the day that the three of us stood in line at Macy's for hours to meet Sarah Jessica Parker at a perfume signing event.  It was so much fun!

After that day, I've bumped into S here and there, and we eventually discovered that we share a love for food and food photography.  Then one day recently, she asked me to make a cake for her birthday.  She specifically requested the rose cake (that I love to make), which uses the rose cake method from I Am Baker.  And since she requested either purple or white, I decided to make it a purple ombre rose cake, similar to my purple ombre petal cake, which would start with purple at the bottom and gradually grow lighter until it became white on the top.

For the cake layers I made my favorite homemade dark chocolate cake.  I only used half the recipe, which filled two 6-inch cake pans.  Then I filled the layers with chocolate mousse (recipe from the Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake from America's Test Kitchen).

Then I whipped up a batch of cream cheese buttercream, and did a quick crumb coat over the entire cake.

And then came the fun part - the piping of the roses.  I divided the rest of the frosting into three parts - I left the first portion white, then the next portion I colored a light purple, and the third portion I colored a darker purple.

Then using a Wilton 1M tip and I Am Baker's rose cake method, I covered the top of my cake with white roses.

Next came the lighter purple roses, and finally the darker purple roses on the bottom.

Isn't it pretty? :)

Happy belated birthday, S!  Hope you enjoyed the cake!

hello kitty strawberry rhubarb tart

After making the strawberry rhubarb mini tarts in a recent post, I decided to make one large strawberry rhubarb tart, with a twist - I wanted to use the extra pie crust dough to decorate the top of the tart with Hello Kitty!

So I made an all-butter pie crust, rolled it out, and carefully lined a 9-inch tart pan with the dough.  Then I rolled my rolling pin over the top of the tart pan to cut off the excess dough, and wrapped the extra dough in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for later.

For the filling, I again chopped rhubarb and strawberries into same-size pieces, then tossed them with sugar, flour, and a pinch of salt.

Then I filled my prepared tart pan with the strawberry rhubarb mixture, using a spatula to push the mixture out to the sides of the pan.

Next, I took my extra pie crust dough out of the fridge, rolled it out, and cut out a few Hello Kitty shapes with a cookie cutter.  Aren't they cute? :)

I only had enough extra dough for four Hello Kitty shapes, which I arranged on top of the tart.

Finally I used egg wash to brush on top of the Hello Kitty shapes and exposed pie crust, and then sprinkled on some sanding sugar.  Then I popped it in the oven and let it bake for almost an hour.  Once it was done and the crust was golden brown, I took it out and resisted the urge to cut into it right away, otherwise all the beautiful juices would flow out!  So I let it cool before cutting into it.

And there you have it.  Flaky crust, tart rhubarb, and juicy sweet strawberries, and all topped with Hello Kitty!  A perfect combination if you ask me!

*** Update:
You can now find my recipe for Hello Kitty Strawberry Rhubarb Tart in my new book, "The Hello Kitty Baking Book"! Enjoy!

panna cotta with fresh berries and balsamic vinegar

For Father's Day this year, I asked my husband what he wanted to do.  He decided that he would love for the family to spend the day at a lake near our house, so I obliged and planned a day of hiking and a picnic lunch.  For lunch I made ham and cheese sandwiches with farmer's greens, while my mom made sticky mochi rolls filled with shredded dried pork (pork sung) and chinese pickled mustard greens.

 

For dessert I had planned on making little portable jars of panna cotta and fresh berries, but I had waited too long to make them and didn't have enough time to let them set in the fridge.  So I figured we'd have them when we came back from the lake, and instead made them in cute star-shaped ramekins - a recent birthday gift from one of my best friends (thanks Reggie!).

I used Ina Garten's panna cotta recipe, which uses heavy cream, yogurt, gelatin, sugar, and vanilla to create a tangy and delicious and panna cotta.  I poured them into my ramekins until they were almost full, leaving some space at the top for the berries topping, and then let them set in the fridge.

After they were set (about 5 hours later), I topped them with fresh blueberries and raspberries.

Then I made the balsamic strawberry topping from the same panna cotta recipe, which combines sliced strawberries with balsamic vinegar and sugar, and poured that over the fresh berries.

I also made a few in the little jars that I had planned on, just so I could see my original vision come to life.  Aren't they cute?

I think these would also be great for a simple Fourth of July dessert!