fantastic four birthday cake

I've had the privilege of making birthday cakes for Marni (my good friend Helen's daughter) every year since she was born! This year Marni turned four, and she was having a four-way joint party with her classmates from preschool, so the theme was Fantastic Four of course! Helen and I brainstormed on ideas for the cake, and eventually we decided that it would be a strawberries and cream cake with the Fantastic Four logo on the top, and each of the girls' names pipes on the sides.

For the cake, I used my favorite vanilla cake recipe (in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!) to bake up two 8-inch round cakes, which I then cut in half horizontally to give me four cake layers. Then I filled each layer with freshly whipped cream and sliced strawberries.

Once my cake was filled, I whipped up two batches of cream cheese buttercream and covered the top and sides of the cake with it, smoothing it out with an offset spatula.

Next I used a toothpick to trace the outline of the Fantastic Four logo, and filled in the white portion with a medium star tip. I also traced out the names of each girl along the sides of the cake, and used a small round tip to pipe their names.

To finish decorating the cake, I tinted the remainder of the frosting with royal blue food coloring, and used a medium star tip to fill in the rest of the Fantastic Four logo, as well as the sides of the cake.

And then it was done!

The girls' names along the sides of the cake - Sabrina, Lauren, Emma, and Marni.

Hopefully all of the girls liked it!

Here's a shot of Marni with her birthday cake(s)!

And one of all the birthday girls!

My kids enjoyed themselves as well!

Happy Birthday Marni!

purple and white flower bouquet cupcakes

Since I have three kids in two different schools (my youngest is still in preschool), I had two sets of cupcakes (on two different days) to make for Teacher Appreciation Day last year. Since everyone seemed to like the flower bouquet cupcakes that I made for the elementary school so much, I decided to do the same for the preschool, except with a different flavor cupcake and a different color frosting. So I decided on carrot cake cupcakes with purple and white frosting!

Once my cupcakes were baked and cooled, I was ready to start decorating!

As I discussed in my last post, the piped flowers were made using these Russian piping tips, and during my first time using them I learned two important things:

1. Your frosting needs to be at the right temperature. Too warm and your flowers will look like shapeless blobs. Too cold and the frosting won't squeeze through the holes in the tips.

2. Use a very large piping bag. I normally use 12-inch piping bags, but I would suggest using a larger one so that you won't have to refill the bag and the coloring on your flowers will come out more consistent.

But once your follow those two points, the flowers were pretty easy to pipe, and they come out pretty darn cute!

Again, I used green frosting and a leaf tip to pipe leaves in the gaps between the flowers, and the pop of green makes each flower stand out.

Enjoy!

pink and white flower bouquet cupcakes

Last year for Teacher Appreciation Day, I signed up to make dessert for the teacher luncheon, and ended up making these flower bouquet cupcakes for the elementary school! I've made floral themed cupcakes for Teacher Appreciation Day before (see here and here), but this time I decided to test out my new set of Russian piping tips. 

Let me just say that the tutorials I saw on these tips made them look so easy, but I actually had a hard time with them! For my first attempt, I popped the piping tip into my pastry bag, filled it with frosting (I used an offset spatula to place white frosting on the sides of the bag and pink frosting in the middle), and excitedly piped my first flower ... but the frosting must have been to soft, because the "flower" came out as a big blob, with no flower definition at all. So I placed my pastry bag (still full of frosting) into the fridge to let it firm up a bit. But I must have left it in the fridge too long because when I attempted to pipe my next flower, the frosting was too hard and wouldn't squeeze through the holes in the tip! *Sigh*

Anyhow, once you get your frosting to the right temperature and piping consistency, the tips do end up piping cute and easy flowers. Once my chocolate cupcakes were baked and cooled (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), I started on the decorating. For the "flower bouquet", I piped once flower in the middle ...

... and then piped flowers around the center flower, until the top of the cupcake was full of flowers.

Then I filled in the gaps in between the flowers with green frosting and a leaf tip.

I thought they turned out pretty cute!

The other thing to point out is that every time you refill your piping bag, the placement of the center color may come out differently. In the ones above, the pink isn't really in the middle of the flower, and kind of seeps to one side. Below are the flowers that came out after I refilled my piping bag.

The pink came out more centered and even.

So I suppose if you want flowers that are all consistent, then use a large piping bag (mine are 12-inch) so you can fit more frosting without having to refill.

I've also seen people do only one color, which came out nice as well, and in that case you won't have to worry about the inconsistency in color placement.

Enjoy!