circus carnival cake with fondant mustache baby topper

Remember this chevron baby gender reveal cake that I did for my friend Monica? Well when it was finally time for the baby shower last fall, they asked me to make the baby shower cake as well! The shower was going to have a circus theme, so Monica sent me a pictures of of circus cakes that she wanted me to replicate. The two main attractions of the cake would be the toppers - one would be a fondant baby with a mustache, and the other would be a fondant lion.

For the fondant baby, I shaped the baby's head and body out of fondant colored with ivory gel-based food coloring, and also rolled out pieces for the arms and feet. For the diaper, I rolled out a long strip and wrapped it around the baby.

And for the face, I used food markers to draw on the eyes, mustache and smile. 

For the lion, I colored fondant with orange and golden yellow food coloring, and then rolled them out. For the head I used a circle cookie cutter, and for the man I used a flower cookie cutter, but for the rest I just used a knife to cut out the shapes that I needed (the bangs, tail, ears, etc).

The cake itself was a chocolate cake, filled with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. You've seen me do this several times before, so I only have an instragram photo of this part :)

The top tier of the cake was a 6-inch cake, which I covered with cream cheese buttercream.

I used this basketweave tip to pipe circus-like verticle stripes with red frosting.

The bottom tier was a 10-inch cake, which I covered in blue cream cheese buttercream, and then piped a rainbow border along the bottom of the cake. (I originally only did red, orange, yellow, and green, but it ended up looking more "candyland" than "circus", so later on I also added blue to the border).

To support the top tier of the cake, I used five bamboo skewers - four of them were cut to the height of the cake for the top tier to rest on, and the fifth was full length and would go through the center of the top tier, to ensure that it didn't fall or slide off.

Then I piped large rainbow polka dots to the bottom tier, before assembling the tiers and adding the toppers. (I also added a little curl to the top of the baby's head, at the request of the mom-to-be!)

When I went to deliver the cake to the baby shower, I was blown away by all of the circus-themed decorations - everything was so adorable! From the mustache tablecloth, to the giant marquee circus letters at the dessert table, the circus-themed games, photo booth, and table decorations, everything looked perfect!

Congratulations Sofi!

neapolitan cupcakes

While I made this tokidoki unicorn cake that I made for my daughter's 5th birthday party, I still had to make cupcake for her class party at school! And after seeing these neapolitan cupcakes from Cooking Classy, I couldn't get them out of my head! So I of course had to make them for my Melodie!

Two different batters were made for the cupcake - for the bottom a moist chocolate cupcake, and for the top a fluffy vanilla cupcake.

During baking, the chocolate batter must have bubbled up to the top to make little spots in the vanilla batter, an unintentional effect which I actually thought was really cute because it reminded me of leopard spots!

Instead of the strawberry frosting in the original recipe, I decided that I wanted a light and fluffy strawberry whipped cream for my frosting, which I loved because it ended up tasting like strawberry ice cream! So I whipped up some heavy whipping cream, a bit of confectioner's sugar, a few spoonfulls of strawberry jam, and a few drops of strawberry extract. And some vanilla extract and a pinch of salt.

I used this Wilton star tip to pipe on the frosting in a cute and swirly design.

Look how cute they are when unwrapped!

Cut in half, you can see how the chocolate batter must have bubbled up into the white batter. But no matter, I still thought they were adorable.

And the taste? They overwhelmingly reminded me of neapolitan ice cream sandwiches, especially because of the strawberry whipped cream!

Happy birthday my little Melodie! Hope you enjoyed your birthday cupcakes!

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!

hello kitty tortilla chips

I must confess that at first, the only reason I made these was to use up a giant bag of tortillas that I had in the fridge. It was Superbowl weekend (Superbowl 2014, that is. Yes, that's how long it's taken me to post this), and so I thought I would make my tortillas into yummy cinnamon-sugar crisps for us to snack on. So I found this recipe from Martha Stewart and kind of adapted it. They came out really good! And they were super easy to make!

I started by brushing olive oil (instead of butter) on both sides of my tortillas, and placing them all in a single stack. Then I cut them into wedges, arranged them on my baking sheet, and sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar.

Then I baked them at 375F for about 10 minutes, and they came out crispy and delicious. So simple!

I still had more tortillas to use up, so I thought I would make a batch of just plain salted baked tortilla chips. Even more simple! And still delicious!

Now if you've been following my blog, you already know that I often suddenly decide to make things Hello Kitty, such as these Hello Kitty macarons so many years ago, or these Hello Kitty meringue cookies, Hello Kitty pocket pies, and even these Hello Kitty tartlets! (I could name so many more, but the list would go on and on ...)

So ... I got the idea to use a cookie cutter to cut out Hello Kitty shaped tortilla pieces, instead of cutting them into wedges!!!

I'll admit that after baking them, the details of Hello Kitty's face because a little bit distorted from all the bubbling in the tortillas.

But in my opinion, they still came out adorable!

Happy Superbowl weekend!

morning buns

I recently became obsessed with making things with homemade laminated dough - croissants, pain au chocolate, and kouign amann to name a few. They all basically start with the same dough - a yeasted dough that is wrapped around pounded or flattened butter, and rolled and turned several times to make layers in the dough. Then you can turn the dough into various things! Plain with egg wash for croissants, filled with dark chocolate for decadent pain au chocolate, and turned with lots of sugar for a caramelized sugar kouign amann. Another type of pastry you can make is morning buns!

To make the morning buns, you roll out your laminated dough into a large rectangle, and cover it with a mixture of sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon (and some recipes call for grated orange zest, but I skipped that ingredient). For reference, I used this recipe by Martha Stewart for the dough, and this recipe at Cannella Vita for the filling and baking directions.

After sprinkling an even layer of filling, carefully roll the dough into a long log.

And then carefully cut 2-inch segments with a sharp knife. (You should end up with 12 segments).

Then place the segments in a buttered cupcake or muffin pan, cover with plastic wrap, and let them rise.

I was supposed to let them rise for an hour, then cover with plastic wrap and let them rest in the fridge overnight before baking them, but I was impatient and baked them after the first hour! As a result, my morning buns were not as puffy and they should have been.

But I didn't mind because I got to eat them sooner ;) and they still tasted great! Enjoy!