camouflage rose birthday cake - vanilla cake filled with lilikoi cream

For my husband's birthday this year, I made another camouflage inspired cake (surprise surprise!), as I typically do every year. I had recently been experimenting with multi-colored piped roses while making a unicorn cake for my daughter's birthday, so I thought for hubby's birthday it would be fun to do multi-colored piped roses in camouflage colors!

My husband is from Hawaii, so lilikoi (passionfruit) is a favorite flavor of his. On my mother-in-law's last visit, she had brought fresh lilikoi pulp, which she had frozen, seeds and all. So I decided to use a bit of this in his birthday cake!

After baking up two 6-inch round vanilla cakes (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book), I let them cool and then sliced them in half horizontally, giving me four cake layers. Then I made a small batch of fresh whipped cream, sweetened with powdered sugar and a bit of vanilla extract, and added several tablespoons of the strained lilikoi pulp (seeds discarded). I also brushed each cake layer with a bit of lilikoi juice, just to amp up the lilikoi flavor, before filling it with the lilikoi whipped cream.

Once the cake was filled and assembled, I used whipped up a batch of buttercream frosting to cover the top and sides of the cake. (Just a quick crumb coat - at this point it didn't have to be perfect, since I would be covering it with piped roses later on.)

Then I tinted a third of the remaining frosting brown, a third green, and left the final third white. I used a bit of each color to fill my piping bag, which was already fitted with a large star tip.

Then I proceeded to pipe rosettes along the sides of the cake.

I finished by piping rosettes to fill the top of the cake as well, and filled in the gap with little swoops and curls.

I thought it turned out pretty cute!





And I could definitely see myself doing the multi-colored rosettes in a variety of colors!

Happy Birthday, my love! Hope you enjoyed your cake! :)

father's day fruit tart with oreo cookie crust

Usually by the time Father's Day comes around, we have had a ton of cake. In between multiple birthdays (including my own) and Mother's Day, we always have cake. So lately I have been making pie for Father's Day!

This time I decided to go with a simple yet refreshing no-bake cheesecake pie, decorated with fresh fruit. So I used this Martha Stewart recipe, except I decided to go with an Oreo cookie crust instead of the graham cracker crust. (This recipe at Crazy for Crust makes the perfect chocolate cookie crust, in my opinion!)

After letting the pie chill in the fridge overnight, I was ready to decorate with fresh raspberries the next morning. I wanted my raspberries to spell out the word "DAD", so I used cookie cutters to make marks in the pie as a guide.

And then I just fit my raspberries inside the outlines!

So simple! And tasty! The creamy pie filling, with chocolatey cookie crust, and fresh tart raspberries - the pefect combination!

Stay tuned to see what I make for Father's Day this year!

Happy Father's Day!

camouflage inspired polka dot birthday cake

I usually make my husband some sort of camouflage inspired cake for his birthday, and last year was no exception! I had seen a fondant polka dot cake on Sweet and Saucy's instagram account, and I thought it would be so cute in camouflage colors, but with the polka dots done with frosting instead of fondant!

I baked up four 6-inch layers of fluffy chiffon cake, which I let cool while I prepared the filling. My husband is from Hawaii and has fond memories of eating freshly picked lychee from his grandmother's tree, so I decided to make him a cake with lychee filling. Unfortunately, fresh lychee is hard to find over here, so I had to use canned lychee, which I let drain over a strainer while I whipped up some fresh whipped cream. Then I chopped up the lychee into little pieces.

Once all the components were ready, I assembled the cake. I filled each layer of chiffon cake with freshly whipped cream, which I smoothed out with a spatula, then chopped lychee, and then more whipped cream on top before adding the next cake layer.

For the frosting, I whipped up a quick batch of cream cheese buttercream, and frosted the top and sides of the cake with it. (I typically frost my cakes with a quick crumb coat, let it set in the fridge for 30 minutes, and then frost it with a final coat, with I smooth out with an offset spatula).

Then it was time to pipe my polka dots! I divided the remaining frosting into four small bowls and colored them black, brown, dark green, and light green. Then I used disposable pastry bags fitted with medium round tips, and started randomly piping different colored blobs of polka dots.

While it started out looking really ugly, I kept piping polka dots and eventually I wound up with a kinda cute cake!

I still think I like the petaled camo cake the best though! ;)

Stay tuned to see how this year's cake will turn out!

rum raisin pie for father's day

By Father's Day each year, we are usually all caked out. With our youngest son's birthday in February, both of our moms and my brother's birthdays in March, my birthday in April, Mother's Day in May, and my husband's birthday in May as well, that's a lot of cakes that we have eaten by June! So by the time Father's Day rolled around last year, I figured the hubby would enjoy a nice pie instead!

One of my husband's favorite ice cream flavors is rum raisin, so when I saw Martha Stewart make this rum raisin pie recipe on her show, I knew that I would make it for him. The recipe starts out with making a flakey pie crust, which is first blind baked (with parchment paper and dried beans or pie weights).

I suggest freezing or chilling your pie dough after you've rolled it out and placed it in your pie dish - I skipped this step and look how much my pie crust shrank after baking! Doh!

Anyhow, after your baked pie crust has cooled, sprinkle golden raisins in an even layer on the bottom of the pie shell. Next you will make a quick custard on the stove, with a bit of rum stirred in at the end. This custard is poured over the golden raisins in the pie shell, and then the pie is baked until the center is set.

Once out of the oven, let the pie cool.

To decorate the pie, I made a little fondant "dad" topper, which I painted gold using edible cake paint. (I had just recently made this gold fondant monogram topper for a baby's first birthday cake, and was still feeling inspired!)

The pie ended up having really good flavor, but I must not have been diligent enough while stirring my custard on the stove, because the texture of the pie was a bit on the grainy side.

Nevertheless, it was a good tasting pie, and perfect for our Father's Day celebration.

Hope you have a happy Father's Day!

ombre watercolor camouflage inspired cake

The past few years, I've always made some sort of camouflage cake for my husband Grant's birthday every year. Such as this camouflage petal cake, or this pom pom camouflage cake, as well as this piped shells camouflage cake (which by the way, was also had a camouflage surprise, inside the cake!). This year I wanted to do something simple, and since I recently fell in love with this watercolor cake by Sweetapolita, I decided to make a camouflage-inspired watercolor cake!

I had also recently made this vanilla cake with fresh blueberries and lemon whipped cream, and decided to make it again for the inside of the cake. So I baked up two 6-inch vanilla cake layers (half batch of the vanilla cake recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book), and divided each layer in half horizontally, giving me four layers. Then I whipped up a batch of freshly whipped cream, flavored with fresh lemon zest and lemon juice, and filled each layer with the lemon whipped cream and fresh blueberries.

Next, I made my camouflage colors - I divided the remaining whipped cream into thirds, left one portion white, tinted the second portion green, and the third portion brown. Then using an offset spatula, I covered the top third of my cake with white whipped cream, the middle third with green whipped cream, and the bottom third with brown whipped cream.

Then I smooth it all out (a long metal spatula and a rotating cake stand works great for this!).

I loved it! Simple, rustic, and camouflage-ish.

And the inside! So cute with the dots of fresh blueberries.

Happy Birthday, my Love! Hope you enjoyed yet another camouflage cake on your special day! :)

father's day peach pie

For Father's Day this year, I decided to make a pie instead of a cake, since we had just finished a whole slew of cakes recently (my birthday cake, Mother's Day cake, Grant's birthday cake ...). Since we had fresh peaches in the fridge, and a few baby nectarines on our tree in the backyard, I decided to make peach pie, with pie crust cutouts on top to spell out D-A-D! (If you remember, I had wanted to spell out M-O-M in my Mother's Day cake, but that didn't quite work out).

I sliced up my peaches and nectarines, and tossed them with sugar, flour, and a pinch of salt. Then I made my favorite all-butter pie crust recipe, formed it into two round discs, and let them set in the fridge for about half an hour. Once chilled, I took out once disc and rolled it out big enough to fit my pie plate, gently eased my pie crust into my pie plate, and then crimped the sides.

Then I poured in my peach filling mixture. (The little teeny pieces of fruit are the baby nectarines from our tree!)

Then I baked it in a 425F oven for about 15 minutes to get the crust going, and then reduced it to 350F to bake for another 45 minutes or so.

Once the pie was done, I took out my second disc of pie crust dough from the fridge, rolled it out, and used alphabet cookie cutters to cut out pieces to spell D-A-D. (I only used less than half of the second disc of dough). Then I sprinkled on some sanding sugar and baked them on a cookie sheet at 375F for 10-15 minutes.

Once the cutouts were done, I placed them on top of the finished pie. (Note: you could also place the pie crust letters on top of the unbaked pie, and then bake the entire thing together, but I find that the cutouts don't retain their shape as well).

Mmmmm, pie...

Hope you all had a Happy Father's Day!