blue funfetti birthday cake with piped shell sides

My friend Helen's baby had her first birthday exactly one month before my youngest baby Micah. She had asked me to make a funfetti birthday cake, but at the time I was so busy that I wasn't able to (so sorry, Helen!). But when it was time for me to make Micah's birthday cake a month later, I just couldn't get funfetti out of my head! So I made him a vanilla cake using my favorite vanilla cake recipe, and threw in a half cup of rainbow sprinkles to make it funfetti.

Then I baked the cake layers in two 8-inch pans. They came out so fun and colorful compare to the first funfetti cake that I made (I didn't add enough sprinkles to that one!)

Then I sliced each cake layer into half horizontally, and filled them with freshly whipped cream.

With the rest of the whipped cream, I tinted it a pretty aqua color (using Americolor Sky Blue), and used it to frost the outside of the cake.

Then for the sides of the cake, I drew inspiration from this adorable rainbow cake at My Cake School! I had seen it randomly the week before while browsing Pinterest, and loved the look of the piped shells covering the sides of the cake.

I loved the look of the cake, and almost just left it like this, but thought it needed a "birthday" touch added to it ...

So I sprinkled some multicolored round confetti sprinkles around the sides on the top of the cake to give it more of a "birthday" feel!

Micah certainly liked it - boy, does this kid love cake! He couldn't get enough of it!

I can't believe my youngest baby is already one!

Happy Birthday to my little Micah! We love you!!!

two triple chocolate mousse cakes with raspberries

I made these two triple chocolate mousse cakes two summers ago (where does the time go?!), but never had a chance to blog about them until now! The first one was an 8-inch version, which I made for a co-worker who was leaving the company (he went to work for Google - so jealous!).

And then second one was a smaller 6-inch version, which I made for a casual dinner/playdate with my good friend Cecila. Our kids get along so well, which works out great because then the adults can catch up while the kids play!

I've made this particular cake many, many times, and I always love it each time. I've decorated it simply with just a bit of whipped cream. Or I've made them into individual cakes like these, for a fun and elegant dessert. I've decorated the rim with fresh raspberries or halved strawberries like with this cake, which adds a nice colorful decoration as well as a nice tang of fruit to go with the rich chocolate cake. I've done a piped decoration on top, in this case a cute wreath mousse cake for Christmas. I've even made them in different shaped molds, such as this Hello Kitty triple chocolate mousse cake. So versatile! And the cake components themselves are pretty simple to make, you just need the time to be able to let each layer set before adding the next.

The cake starts with a rich chocolate cake for the bottom layer. The original recipe from America's Test Kitchen uses a flourless chocolate cake, but I prefer to use a regular chocolate cake recipe instead. Then the middle layer is a rich chocolate mousse, made with melted bittersweet chocolate and cocoa powder which is folded into freshly whipped cream. And finally, the top layer is a simple white chocolate mousse, with a bit of gelatin to help it set properly.

I don't know about you, but my mouth is watering just thinking about this cake again!

strawberry footballs with white chocolate laces

For Melodie's preschool Chinese New Year's party this year, the only thing left on the sign up sheet was "strawberries". So I signed up for that. But of course, I couldn't just bring plain 'ol strawberries, so I decided to dress them up with a bit of melted white chocolate. I melted some white chocolate chips on the stove in a double boiler, then let it cool slightly before pouring the chocolate into a ziplock bag with a corner snipped off (I was too lazy to deal with piping bags and tips - it was midnight by the time I got around to making these!), and then piped a bit onto each strawberry.

The next day, when my son Matthew saw me bring the strawberries to Melodie's preschool, and he whined, "Awww, but I won't get to have any!" I assured him that I had another package of strawberries at home, and that I would make some for him as well.

And that's when I thought to myself, wouldn't it be cute to pipe football laces on the strawberries, especially since it was going to be Superbowl weekend?

So I washed and dried my strawberries, and again used a ziplock bag to pipe my melted white chocolate. (Although I think next time I'll use a piping bag - the ziplock method is pretty convenient, but I can't stand how messy it looks!)

Matthew saw me piping them and said, "Hey, they look like footballs!" Awesome! I was starting to think they looked kind of silly!

Turns out I wasn't the first one to think of this though! There are a ton of strawberry footballs out there on the internet, and most of them are even fancier because they are dipped in milk chocolate first, and then decorated with white chocolate laces. Oh well, great minds think alike ;)

hello kitty pastel pom pom birthday cake and cupcakes

My sweet Melodie turned four this past December! Where does the time go?!?

Last year, she requested a purple Hello Kitty cake, which I made to for us to celebrate with at home, and then I made these Hello Kitty mini cupcakes for her party at preschool. But this year, she requested a "rainbow Hello Kitty cake", so I decided to make her a pastel rainbow pom pom cake!

For the cake layers, I made a white layer and a pink layer, and sliced each in half horizontally. Then I filled each layer with freshly whipped cream.

After a quick crumb coat with whipped cream, I let the cake set in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime, I colored portions of the whipped cream with pastel colors - pink, lavender, mint green, and sky blue - all using Americolor gel paste food coloring. 

I also colored very small portions with black, red, and yellow for the eyes, bow, and nose. After quickly piping a Hello Kitty face on the top of the cake (see here and here for more examples on how I do this), I started piping the pom-poms around it, by piping stars with a Wilton #18 tip.

Then I filled the sides with piped stars as well, varying the colors randomly.

I loved the finished cake! And so did Melodie!

As for her class party, I made matching cupcakes! Pink on the inside, pastel pom-poms on the outside, with piped Hello Kitty faces on top. (see here, here, here, here, and here for more example of how I pipe mini Hello Kitty faces!)

Happy Birthday to my little Melodie!

christmas tree cutout apple pie

Along with the strawberry Santas that I made for Christmas dessert this year, I also made an apple pie. But not just any apple pie; this one was decorated with lots and lots of Christmas tree pie crust cut outs! I had seen pies like this on Pinterest in the past, mainly with star cut outs for the Fourth of July. So I thought it would be fun to do for Christmas as well.

So I made my favorite all-butter pie crust, and divided it in half. I rolled out and fitted the first half into a 9-inch pie pan, and used the other half to roll and cut out Christmas tree shapes with a cookie cutter.

Then I peeled, cored, and sliced 5 apples, tossed them with flour, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and salt, and spooned them on top of the bottom crust. And then it was time to decorate the top with the Christmas tree cut outs!

To help give the crust a nice golden color, I brushed the top of the crust with egg wash, and then sprinkled on sanding sugar. After baking the pie at 350F for about 50 minutes, it looked like this!

My pie crust and the cutouts shrank quite a bit, but it was still quite tasty!



Hope you had a Merry Christmas!

strawberry santas

I am an avid watcher of the Food Network, so when I saw Giada make these adorable strawberry Santas on her show, I just had to make them for Christmas this year!

Her recipe is super simple and easy, and great for the kids to help out with piping and attaching the eyes. I started by cutting the tops off of the strawberries to make a flat surface for them to stand upside-down on.

Then I sliced a chunk off of the tip of each strawberry - this would became Santa's hat.

Next, I whipped up a batch of fresh whipped cream (Giada's recipe uses a mascarpone frosting, but I wanted something lighter so I chose whipped cream instead), and filled a piping bag fitted with a large star tip. I piped a big swirl of frosting onto the bottom half of the strawberry, topped it with the top half of the strawberry, and piped a little dot for the white fluff on top of Santa's hat.

The finishing touch was mini chocolate chips for the eyes, with the pointy side of the mini chocolate chips pressed into the whipped cream.

And there you go! Super easy, and super cute!

By the way, here's what happened when I walked away from the kitchen for just a few minutes! My husband is from Hawaii so he just had to create his own strawberry Santa, complete with coconut tree made out of mini chocolate chips and strawberry leaves! Mele Kalikimaka!

Hope you had a very Merry Christmas!