qiaohu tiger cake

My friend Helen asked me to make a Qiaohu tiger cake for her daughter Marni's 2nd birthday, for her class party at preschool. Even though I had never heard of Qiaohu before, I of course agreed right away! Anything for Marni! Especially since I wasn't able to make her a cake for her 1st birthday last year (I was so busy baking for the book!)

For the cake itself, Helen requested the same cake that I had made for her baby shower - fluffy vanilla cake filled with fresh strawberries and whipped cream! So I baked up a batch of vanilla cake (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!) in two 8-inch pans, and once they had cooled I split them in half horizontally (giving me four cake layers, although I only ended up using three of the layers).

Then between each cake layer I spread on freshly whipped cream and fresh sliced strawberries.

For Qiaohu's ears, I had baked up a half dozen vanilla cupcakes with the same batter. I sliced the tops off of four cupcakes, and filled them with freshly whipped cream.

Then I did a quick crumb coat of the cake and cupcakes with cream cheese buttercream (tinted golden yellow), sliced off a bit of the stacked and frosted cupcakes, and fit them onto the cake as ears. Then I used a toothpick to draw on Qaiohu's details before piping the outlines with black and white frosting.

Next was filling in the details with piped stars for the face and ears, piped lines for the tiger stripes, and a piped swirl of ovals for the eyes.

After a piping a bit of brown frosting for the nose, he was done!

What kid can resist a cute winking tiger smiling back at you?

I also piped a quick birthday message on the cake board to complete the cake! ("yuan yuan" is her nickname!)

Hope you had a happy birthday, Marni!

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!