floral wreath cake for mother's day

After making this Hello Kitty wreath cake for my birthday back in April, I became obsessed with wreath cakes. I was seeing them all over Instagram, with beautifully piped buttercream roses and peonies - they were all so pretty! And then, the talented I Am Baker came out with yet another wreath cake tutorial, this time using easy rosettes! I had to make one for Mother's Day!

I had also recently made a bananas and cream birthday cake, and it was such a delicious combo that I wanted to do it again for Mother's Day ... but this time with coffee chiffon cake! Yes, I know. Coffee and banana? What? But years ago I had made this cake using a banana cake recipe from David Lebovitz's book, "Ready for Dessert", and I was intrigued that the cake batter called for bananas and espresso. While in the end I couldn't really taste the espresso in the banana cake, it must have been a good flavor pairing if David Lebovitz put it together in a recipe, right?

So I baked up three 6-inch coffee chiffon cakes, and filled them with freshly whipped cream and sliced bananas. And then covered the entire thing with more whipped cream, smoothing it with an offset spatula.

For the rosettes, I tinted my whipped cream with soft pink food coloring and used a large star tip to pipe rosettes along the perimeter of my cake.

Then I added a bit more coloring to make a darker pink, and used a smaller star tip to pipe mini rosettes here and there on top of the large rosettes.

And finally I used a leaf tip to pipe little green leaves, for a pop of color.

I loved the finished look! And it was so easy! 

And if you're wondering about the coffee and banana combo, it was delicious, to my surprise!

Happy Mother's Day!

banana cream birthday cake with handmade fondant monkey topper

The first time I made something for Julieta, I made various Hello Kitty desserts for the dessert table at her bridal shower. I had never met her before, and she had found me through the blog. I was delighted to be making Hello Kitty dessert for a fellow Hello Kitty lover!

Before I knew it, Julieta was contacting me about making baseball cookies, this time for her baby shower! And then this past year, she asked me to make a monkey cake, this time for her son's first birthday party! How time flies! And how exciting it is to me that I got to make goodies for her for such major milestones!

A few weeks before the party, I started on making the fondant monkey, as it would need time to dry completely. I used Wilton fondant for this, tinted chocolate brown with a tiny bit of black to give it a deeper brown. I rolled out and shaped all the parts I would need, and used a bit of water to attach them together.

For the monkey's face, I tinted the fondant with ivory, rolled out a snout, and used a heart-shaped cookie cutter to create the part of the face around the eyes.

After adding an ivory tummy and feet, I used an edible marker to draw on the eyes and the nose.

Hey little guy, you're cute!

For the cake, Julieta wanted a bananas and cream cake. So when it was time to make the cake, I baked up two 10-inch round vanilla cakes (recipe from my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book), and sliced each cake in half horizontally to give me four cake layers. Then I filled each layer with freshly whipped cream and sliced bananas.





I ended up not using the fourth cake layer, as it would have ended up too tall of a cake! So I stopped at three layers.

The party colors would be yellow and light green, so I made bright yellow buttercream, and added a light green beaded border. Then I used a small round tip with chocolate brown frosting to pipe the baby's name.

And the final touch - the fondant monkey topper!

Hope the little guy enjoyed his monkey cake! Happy Birthday, Daniel!

hello kitty floral wreath cake

Every year for my birthday, I make myself a Hello Kitty cake of some shape or form. And this past year was no exception! At the time (this was back in April), I was so inspired by I Am Baker's wreath cake, that I knew I wanted to make it, but with little piped Hello Kitty's added to the mix!

I was in a strawberries and cream mood, but I wanted it to be really light, so I made a chiffon cake instead of my regular vanilla cake. Since I've found chiffon cake to be tricky to slice, I divided the batter into three 8-inch round pans to give me three layers of cake (instead of baking up one big cake and then slicing it into three layers).

Once the cake was baked and cooled, I filled each layer with freshly whipped cream and sliced strawberries.

With a bit more whipped cream on top of the strawberries, to seal them in.

After the last cake layer was stacked, I covered the top and sides of the cake with more freshly whipped cream, and smoothed it with an offset spatula.

As I Am Baker mentions in her wreath cake tutorial, you can pipe a ring of frosting on top of the cake to give the wreath a bit of a "lift" above the rest of the top of the cake. So I dutifully followed her instructions!

Then I began to pipe my "flowers", using colored buttercream and various sizes of open star tips. (Note that I whipped up a separate batch of buttercream, just for the flowers!)

I added more and more piping in other colors using other star tips...

... until I was happy with my wreath.

I could have left it just like this, because it was already so cute! But, I needed me some Hello Kitty!!!

So I piped my Hello Kitty faces with whipped cream, using a large round tip for the face, and a leaf tip for the ears. (See more on how I pipe my Hello Kitty faces! There is also a quick tutorial in my book!)

I used a small round tip to pipe black eyes and whiskers, and a little yellow nose. And for the final touch, I added heart confetti sprinkles to form the bow.

Wheeeee!!! Happy Birthday to me!!! :)

blogiversary and banana cream tuxedo cake

I totally missed my one year blogiversary.  My very first post was October 5th of last year, and I totally forgot about it until I suddenly realized one day in November that I had missed it!

To celebrate, I decided to recreate a cake that I had eaten at a birthday party a few months ago.  It was a banana cream cake - two layers of moist banana cake, filled with a thick layer of pastry cream, and covered with whipped cream.  And it was delicious!  To take it one step further, I wanted to decorate it like this tuxedo cake at Annie's Eats, with a gorgeous ganache glaze dripping down the sides.

For the cake I initially considered using my mom's banana bread recipe, which I love because it's so easy and very moist and delicious.  But I thought perhaps I should choose a recipe intended for cake, since i wanted a cake-like fluffy texture.  So I chose a recipe from David Lebovitz's book "Ready for Dessert".  It called for ingredients that I would never think to pair with bananas, including cinnamon and espresso!  I was curious to see how the combination would taste.

Once the cake was baked and cooled, I made a batch of pastry cream, using the recipe from my boston cream pie inspired cake.  After letting the pastry cream cool in the fridge, I piped a thick layer on top of a layer of banana cake, and returned it to the fridge to let it set.  When I though enough time had passed, I placed the second layer of banana cake on top, and placed it back in the fridge while I prepared the whipped cream frosting.

When I was ready to decorate the cake, I opened the fridge, and gasped when I saw that the pastry cream was oozing and dripping down the sides of the cake.  Not pretty.  I guess I didn't let it set enough.  But I tried not to freak out, and just used a spatula to scrape off the excess pastry cream and dump it in the sink.  What a waste.  At least there was still a thin layer of pastry cream in between the two cakes!

After covering my cake with whipped cream and piping a shell border on the bottom, I returned it to the fridge and then began to make my ganache glaze.  I used an Ina Garten recipe, and it was so simple to make - just semisweet chocolate, heavy cream!  I didn't want the glaze to melt the whipped cream on my cake, so I waited for it to come to room temperature first.  But perhaps I waited too long, because by the time I spread it over my cake, it wasn't drippy enough to ooze down the sides!

The next time I make this, I think I'd change a few things - a) I'd use my mom's banana bread recipe, as it is still my favorite; b) I'd lighten the pastry cream with whipped cream, which might help it from oozing out the sides; c) I'd spread the ganache when it's warm and still slightly runny.  But the cake still ended up tasting great, and I especially loved the flavor combination of all the components!  Bananas, chocolate, and cream - YUM!  Perfect for a blogiversary! :)