pink sprinkles birthday cake with gold birthday topper

My friend Hsing has a daughter named Avery, who just had a birthday this past February! And I was beyond flattered when she asked me to make her a birthday cake! She sent me a picture of a adorable pink cake, with rainbow sprinkles and a gold birthday cake topper, so I set out to make exactly that!

I started with my favorite chocolate cake recipe (which you can find in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), which I halved and baked in two 6-inch round cake pans. Once they were cool, I sliced them in half horizontally to give me four cake layers, and then filled each layer with freshly whipped cream and sliced strawberries.

Then I whipped up a batch of cream cheese frosting, which I tinted with pink gel-based food coloring, and then covered the top and sides of the cake with a quick crumb coat.

After letting the cake chill in the fridge for 30 minutes, I did a final coat, and smoothed it out as best as I could with a long metal spatula.

For whatever reason, I had a hard time smoothing out the top of the cake this time. It could have been that the weather was super warm, or maybe it was that it was the middle of the night and I was super tired, but it just turned out way messier than I had wanted! But I went ahead and added the rainbow sprinkles to the bottom of the cake, and then let it chill overnight.

In the morning I was ready to add the gold acrylic cake topper, which I had bought a few weeks earlier on Etsy.

It was the perfect finishing touch!

Hope you had a happy Birthday, Avery!

rainbow sprinkle birthday cake with beaded border

In addition to the whale birthday cake that I made for my friend Irene's son, I also made this larger cake for the guests! It's practically a tradition that I make her a nectarine and cream cake, so that's what we decided on again! And this time, I was able to use fresh nectarines straight from the nectarine tree in our backyard!

I baked up two 10-inch round vanilla cakes (recipe in my book!), and sliced each cake in half horizontally to give me four layers. Then I filled each layer with freshly whipped cream, and sliced nectarines. Then I covered the whole thing with vanilla buttercream.

After a crumb coat, a quick chill in the fridge, and then a final smooth coat, I was ready to decorate!

To get the number "2" in the middle of the cake (see here for more examples of my rainbow sprinkles cakes), I drew it on waxed paper, cut it out, and placed it on in the middle of the cake. Then I piped a beaded border around the perimeter, and then added my sprinkles while the frosting was still sticky. I let the cake chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes, and then I was able to peel off the waxed paper "2", and voila! A number "2" surrounded by sprinkles!

Here's a shot of the inside of the cake!

Happy Birthday Aaron!

glittery shamrock cookies for st. patrick's day

Last year for my daughter's St. Patrick's Day party at school, I signed up to make cookies (of course). And since my cousin Yvonne had given me this adorable jar of green shimmer sprinkles, I just had to use them!

I started with my favorite sugar cookie dough that I always use (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), rolled it out until about 1/8" thick, and used a shamrock cookie cutter (which I believe is from a Crate & Barrel cookie cutter set that my friend Diana gave me years ago).

Then before baking the cookies, I brushed them lightly with egg whites, and added my sparkly green sprinkles. 

I had used the cookie cutter to help me out so I wouldn't get sprinkles everywhere, but in hindsight I think I shouldn't have done that because it left me with bare edges that had no sprinkles!

Then I baked them at 350F for 10-12 minutes until the edges of the cookies were golden.

I thought they came out pretty cute, and using the sprinkles was much easier than outlining and flooding each cookie with royal icing. But I still felt the edges were too bare, so I ended up piping green royal icing around the edges, just to give it a more finished look.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

rainbow sprinkle first birthday smash cake

In addition to the Princess Leia cookies that I made for my best friend Sue (who was having a Star Wars themed first birthday party for her daughter Leia), I also made a rainbow sprinkle smash cake for the birthday girl!

Since this would be the first time Leia would be trying cake, we didn't want to go with anything too overpowering, so we decided to go with a vanilla cake, filled with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. So I baked up two 6-inch vanilla cake layers (half of the recipe of the vanilla cake from my boo, The Hello Kitty Baking Book), let the cakes cool, and sliced each one into half horizontally, giving me four cake layers. Then I filled each layer with freshly whipped cream and chopped strawberries (normally I slice the strawberries, but in this case I wanted them in little pieces for baby Leia).

Then I whipped up a batch of cream cheese buttercream, and covered the tops and sides of the cake with it (crumb coat, then chilled for 30 minutes before applying the final coat).

The final touch was adding rainbow sprinkles!

In order to let the number 1 show up in white frosting through the sprinkles, I drew a big "1" on a piece of cardstock, then placed it on the cake before adding the sprinkles.

Here's a picture of the birthday girl enjoying her first cake ever!

Happy Birthday, Leia!!! Hugs and kisses from Auntie Michele! :)

naked funfetti layer cake

My good friend Helen asked me to make two cakes for her daughter's birthday this year - one was a Qiaohu tiger cake for her preschool class, and then second was for her birthday party! For the second cake, she had a specific look in mind. She wanted a naked layer cake, and she wanted it to look like Momofuku Milk Bar's birthday cake, except with my own vanilla cake recipe, filled with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, and minus the birthday cake crumbles. So cute!

For the funfetti cake I used the vanilla cake recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book, and folded in 2/3 cup of rainbow sprinkles at the end. (I also sprinkled on a few on top before baking, for good measure). I made two batches of cake batter to give me four 8-inch cake layers, although I only ended up using three of the layers.

I normally split my cake layers horizontally into two, but this time I wanted thicker layers - since it was going to be a naked cake and was not going to have frosting on the outside, I wanted the cake layers to really stand out. So I just cut the tops off of each layer, and then cut off the sides of the cake to expose the funfetti sprinkles inside. (Otherwise, you would just see brown cake layers with drippy funfetti - see this post to get an idea of what it looks like without the sides cut off).

I filled each funfetti cake layer with a good dose of freshly whipped cream and sliced fresh strawberries, and then used an offset spatula to go around the cake and smooth out the filling layers.

After I stacked and filled all three layers, I covered the top with cream cheese frosting, and used an offset spatula to create a rustic swirly design on the top of the cake.

Since Helen was going to have 60 people at the party, I also baked up a second cake, this time covered in frosting and with the number "2" outlined in sprinkles.

At the party, we added two long pink candles for the birthday girl to blow out.

Here's a shot of the inside of the cake, and also the Pink Panther cookies and rainbow cookies that I made for the party as well! (Posts to come for those cookies!)

Hope you enjoyed your cake and cookies, sweet Marni! You are TOO CUTE!

tokidoki unicorn funfetti cake

My daughter's 5th birthday was back in mid-December, and since she is currently obsessed with unicorns, I decided to make her a unicorn cake! I had recently become enamored tokidoki while giving a cookie workshop at Hello Kitty Con in October, so I decided to make a tokidoki unicorn cake!

For the cake itself, I decided I had to make it a funfetti cake of course, since my girl loves sprinkles and anything with rainbow colors.

I baked up two 8-inch cakes, and sliced them in half horizontally to give me 4 cake layers.

Then I filled them with freshly whipped cream and fresh strawberries.

To cover the cake, I whipped up a big batch of cream cheese buttercream, tinted the majority of it pink and covered the top and sides of the cake with it. For the sides, I used a star tip to pipe on a swirly ruffle design (similar to this cake and this one, done in Nikole Herriott's signature piping style).

Next I made a paper template of the tokidoki unicorn, placed it on top of the cake, and used a toothpick to draw the outline. Then I used the toothpick to draw on the details freehand, and piped the outlines and details with black frosting and a small round tip.

Finally I filled in the details of the unicorn with a small star tip, and filled in the eyes, hooves, and stars with a small round tip.

And then it was done!

It turned out so cute! I couldn't wait for my little girl to see it!

Here she is at her party, with her best friends from school.

And here's a shot of the inside of the cake!

Happy Birthday, my Melodie! I love you!