coffee chiffon cake with dark chocolate sail sculpture

I love to make birthday cakes for my friends, and at one point last year I became obsessed with making chocolate sculptures to decorate my birthday cakes with! I had seen it all over Instagram and fell in love with the way they added such artistry to cakes, in such a free-form and abstract way. 

The first of many chocolate sculpture cakes that I ended up making throughout the year, this one was for my friend Hsing, who I met at work years and years ago. At the time we were the only females on our team, and although we are no longer at the same company, we still make it a point to meet for lunches several times throughout the year.

I typically make chiffon cakes for Hsing, since she she likes the type of light and airy cake that you can commonly find at Asian bakeries. This time I decided to make a coffee chiffon cake, filled and frosted with espresso whipped cream.

I typically do a crumb coat of frosting, then let it chill in the fridge for at least a half our, before adding a second coat of frosting and smoothing it out completely with an offset spatula.

While the assembled and frosted cake chilled in the fridge, I got started on making the topper. In a double boiler, I melted dark chocolate with a bit of coconut oil, and then poured it out onto a baking sheet lined with a silicone liner. Then I positioned the silicone liner insde of a glass bowl, using binder clips to secure it in a way that would provide an interesting shape to the chocolate.

Once the chocolate had cooled, I removed the binder clips and carefully removed the silicone liner, giving me a chocolate sculpture!

I secured it to the top of the cake with a bit of the espresso whipped cream, and then it was done!

I love the simplicity of this type of decorative cake topper, plus it's edible!

Hope you had a Happy Birthday, Hsing!

easter egg birds nest cupcakes

Easter is coming up soon, so I thought I'd share these easter egg cupcakes that I made last year! I've always loved those Cadbury chocolate mini eggs, so I knew I wanted to use them to decorate the cupcakes, and I decided to make them extra chocolatey desserts by making them chocolate cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese frosting!

For the cupcake batter, I used my favorite chocolate cake recipe (you can find it in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), except I used coconut milk instead of regular milk. This is a great way to make this cupcake recipe dairy free, since the recipe also uses vegetable oil instead of butter. I often do this when I'm making cupcakes for my friend Reggie, who's daughter Rachel is allergic to dairy. 

Of course this specific cupcake was not going to be dairy free, because of the chocolate cream cheese frosting and Cadbury mini eggs, but if you still wanted to make these cupcakes you could always use a whipped dark chocolate ganache (and use coconut milk again instead of milk) and jelly beans for the easter eggs!

After the cupcakes were baked and cooled, I started on the chocolate cream cheese frosting (the recipe for cream cheese frosting is also in my book, you'll just need to add melted chocolate to taste!) Then to form my frosting "nests", I used a disposable pastry bag fitted with a small round tip, and piped circular rings of frosting all over the top of the cupcake.

Be sure to pipe more frosting around the perimeter of the nest, so that you can nestle your chocolate eggs in the middle of the nest!

Done! Super simple, and super tasty!

When I served these at my mom's house, my daughter actually went around to everyone asking for their chocolate eggs! So you may want to bring extra chocolate eggs for the little ones!

Happy Easter!

frozen elsa cake with white chocolate drizzle and fondant snowflake cutouts

My best friend Sue's daughter, Leia, turned four last May, and at the time she was super into Frozen, so she asked me to make her an Elsa cake! Just like the year before, Leia requested a chocolate cake, except this time we decided that I'd make it extra chocolatey and fill it with chocolate mousse (instead of the fresh strawberries and whipped cream filling that I did for her Curious George birthday cake!)

For the cake, I used my favorite chocolate cake recipe (in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), and baked it two 8-inch round cake pans. Then once the cake was baked and cooled, I sliced each one in half horizontally, giving me four cake layers. Then I filled it with a rich chocolate mousse filling, using a piping bag fitted with a large round tip to give me even layers of mousse which I smoothed out with an offset spatula.

For the frosting, I whipped up a batch of Swiss meringue buttercream, which I tinted turquoise using a bit or royal blue gel-based food coloring. Then I covered the top and sides with a quick crumb coat, let it chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, and then did a final smooth coat.

Then I let the cake chill overnight, and I was ready to decorate the next morning!

First I added a white chocolate drizzle around the top and and sides of the cake. (Note: I didn't spread out the chocolate on the top of the cake fast enough, so I wasn't able to get a smooth finish. Then again, it did look a bit like ice!)

Next, I added various sizes of snowflakes, which I had cut out of fondant a head of time using this plunge cutter. (Note: use lots of cornstarch on the cutter, because I had a really hard time getting the cutouts to come out!)

Then I added a piped beaded border using white buttercream, and then it was time to add the Elsa topper! We chose this funko pop figurine as the topper, because it was super cute, and plus Leia would have an Elsa toy to play with afterwards!

I thought it turned out really cute!

Here are some picture of Leia with her cake (Isn't she the cutest?! She has the best smile!)

Happy Birthday, Leia!!!

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.