purple cat baby shower cake with petal sides

Back in December, my good friend Diana threw a baby shower for her sister Leona, and she had asked me to make the cake and cookie favors for the cat-themed event.  Diana and her husband, owners and creators of Bumble Ink, had designed the cat logo for the shower invitations, so we decided I would use the same cat logo for the cake!

The baby shower colors were to be purple and green, but after a few sketches Diana and I decided that the cake would look better with just purple and white.

Diana's sister had requested anything chocolate, so I decided to make a moist chocolate cake, filled with decadent chocolate mousse.  I split each cake layer in half horizontally, giving me four layers of cake, and three layers of mousse (with a cream cheese buttercream border so that the mousse wouldn't ooze out of the cake!).

Then I did a quick crumb coat with cream cheese buttercream, and let it set in the fridge before proceeding with the petal sides.

Once the crumb coat was set, I piped my petal sides, starting with the darkest purple on the bottom, the medium purple in the middle, and white on the top.  To see more of my petal cakes, see here, here, and here (you can also see the original tutorial over at Hungry Housewife).

After piping a congratulations message on the top, I piped the outline of the cat logo, and then filled it in with a Wilton star tip.

I finished it off with a Wilton tip #2 for the details on the cat's face, and then I was done!

At the baby shower, I loved that Diana's daughter spent some time just sitting and staring at the cake ...

... until finally she could finally have a bite!

Congratulations Leona!  We can't wait to meet your new little one!

blackberry oreo ice cream, and the newest addition to our family!

As some of you may already know, three weeks ago I gave birth to my third baby!  This explains why I've been M.I.A, in case you were wondering!  But in the weeks right before I gave birth, I became really obsessed with Oreo cookies.  Especially in ice cream.  Maybe it was because I was very pregnant!  Or maybe it's just because I love Oreo cookies.  In any case, I made lots and lots of coffee oreo ice cream, as well as mint oreo ice cream.  (Those are my two current favorites!)

But after making multiple batches of each, I wanted to try something new.  So I started flipping through my copy of Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones, Bi-Rite Creamery's ice cream book (which was given to me by my good friend - thanks, Diana!).  And that's when a recipe for blackberry ice cream caught my eye.  Now, I've made Blackberry Frozen Yogurt before, but for some reason I have yet to make it in ice cream form.  So I decided to try it out - with a twist.  I've heard of blackberry chip ice cream before, basically blackberry ice cream with chocolate chips or chunks in it, so why not try it with Oreo cookies instead?

I started by cooking my blackberries with sugar on the stove for about 10 minutes, until the berries broke apart and the resulting fruity syrup had reduced.  Then I pureed it and strained it, and then made my ice cream base (the usual egg yolks, sugar, heavy cream, and milk, cooked on the stove to form a custard).  Once that was ready, I combined the custard base with the pureed blackberries, and let it cool in the fridge overnight.

The next day, I was ready to churn my ice cream!  I added my chopped Oreo cookies during the last 5 minutes of churning, and then I let it set in the freezer overnight.  And then it was time to taste it!  The blackberry ice cream was smooth, creamy, and tart.  At first I wasn't sure if the Oreo cookies went well with the blackberry.  And then I decided, yes, Oreo cookies go well with everything!  Or maybe that was just my pregnancy taste buds talking!

And now for a few pictures of the newest addition to our family, baby Micah!  He joins his siblings Matthew and Melodie, and together they are now referred to as The Three Musketeers :)

sweet pea baby shower cake

Our good friends Cindy and Kai (the same couple who I made wedding cupcake pops for a couple of years ago) were going to have a large co-ed baby shower, and asked me to make a small cake for the dessert table.  The cake would not be intended to feed the guests, rather it would just be a little cake just for Cindy and Kai to enjoy together afterwards.  They mentioned that the colors would be yellow and green, and that they would like a "sweet pea" theme, so I set out to make them a little 6-inch sweet pea baby shower cake!

For the filling, I decided on freshly whipped cream and sliced strawberries, since I know Cindy likes her desserts on the lighter side and not too sweet.

For the cake, I made two 6-inch chocolate cake layers - the layers came out rather tall, so I decided to split them in half, giving me 4 chocolate cake layers.

Then I whipped up a batch of cream cheese buttercream, colored the majority of it a golden yellow, did a quick crumb coat of frosting, and then covered the sides with a basketweave design using a Wilton #47 tip.

After mixing all the frosting colors that I would need for my sweet pea design (chocolate brown, green, darker green, and ivory for a flesh tone), I piped the sweet pea in the middle of the cake, followed by a congratulations message in chocolate brown frosting.

The baby shower was a blast; there were lots of games and activities, and they had a mix of all their favorite foods and desserts.

My favorite part was the hands-free baby bottle beer drinking contest!

Congratulations Cindy and Kai!  Thanks for inviting us to celebrate with you, and I hope you enjoyed the cake!

pink and white baby shower cookies and macarons

To go along with the elephant baby shower cake that I made for my friend Helen's baby shower, I also made elephant cookies, onesie cookies, and pink strawberry macarons for the dessert table!

For the elephant cookies, I used my favorite sugar cookie and royal icing recipes.  Once the dough was chilled, I rolled it out, cut out my elephants, then baked them at 350F for 10-12 minutes.

Once they were cooled, I outlined them with pink stiff royal icing, and then filled them in with pink runny royal icing.

After letting the cookies dry for a few hours, I used a darker shade of pink to pipe the outline and the ears, and then the eyes with black royal icing.

For the onesie cookies, which I've made several times in different colors (see here, here, and here), I followed the same steps, except that I made them white with pink outlines, and little pink heart in the center of each onesie.

Then I let the cookies dry overnight, before wrapping them in cellophane bags tied with raffia and a custom favor tag.

Next for the macarons!  For the macaron shells, I used the same recipe as I did here, but made them pink with strawberry filling like I did here.  Except I made them a darker pink.  Then I piped them on a silpat, and let them rest for 20 minutes before baking them.

They came out of the oven with beautiful ruffled feet!

Then I filled them with cream cheese buttercream mixed with fresh strawberry puree.

You can click here to see more pictures of the baby shower, which was featured on the Hostess With The Mostess blog!

elephant baby shower cake

My good friend Helen just had a baby girl this month, and had asked me to make a cake for her pink and white baby shower a couple of months ago (which is also featured this month on the  Hostess With The Mostess blog!).  I had happened to see a cake that she had pinned on her Pinterest board, and I quickly realized that I had already seen this cake before on Hello Naomi's blog, while drooling over her gorgeous cake creations!  What better inspiration to model my cake after!  So I decided to replicate the adorable fondant elephant, but I wanted to do the cake covered in cream cheese buttercream instead of fondant.

I started by making my fondant elephant almost a week before the baby shower, in order to give it time to fully dry.  At first I tried molding the elephant body and then attaching the trunk and legs, but I couldn't get it to look smooth.  So I ended up molding the entire elephant out of one piece of fondant.  Then I rolled, cut, and attached pink elephant ears on either side, and used an edible Foodwriter pen to draw on the eyes.  For the balloon, I shaped it out of pink fondant, and then formed floral wire into a spiral and stuck it into the bottom of the balloon while the fondant was still moist.  Then I let both the elephant and the balloon dry for the rest of the week.

Helen requested a vanilla cake with strawberries and whipped cream.  I had already made this exact combination a number of times but with different vanilla cake recipes - first for my son's Superman birthday cake, then a year later for my son's Spiderman birthday cake, and then again for my cousin's blue whale baby shower cake - but in my opinion they were all too dense.  I was searching for a really fluffy vanilla cake instead.  I decided to go with Sweetapolita's recipe once more, but instead of adding the whipped cream to the batter at the end, I decided to try using sour cream.

Once the cake had baked and cooled, I set out to assemble it, alternating layers of cake, freshly whipped cream, and sliced strawberries.

Then I whipped up a batch of cream cheese buttercream, colored most of it pink, and applied a quick crumb coat of frosting.

I let it set a bit in the fridge, before applying a second coat of frosting.  Next I used white cream cheese buttercream to pipe the baby's name on the side of the cake, and also piped little dots in sets of four all over the cake.  To finish it off, I piped a white beaded border along the bottom of the cake.

And finally, I added the fondant elephant topper!

Then it was time to bring it to the baby shower!  Stay tuned for the rest of the pink and white desserts that I made for the shower!

Congratulations, Helen!  Little Marni is so precious and adorable! :)

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Update - To see the other goodies that I made for the dessert table, click here!