Birthday Zombies

The final birthday cake request of the year came from my middle son. He wanted a Plants vs. Zombies cake. Again, I didn't find a lot of (amateur) PvsZ cakes on Pinterest, so I had to go my own route. This one is actually really easy to make as long as you own a set of THESE - no, I didn't make fondant creatures because who has time for that???

So, here are the mechanics of the cake:
1. I made my cake of choice (he wanted lemon with a lemon curd filling) in two standard-sized square cake pans.
2. I frosted the cake with regular ol' white buttercream frosting.
3. I scored a 6x6 checkerboard pattern into the top of the cake lightly with a butter knife.
4. Using two different shades of green frosting, and a leaf/grass frosting tip, I filled in each square in different directions to create the "game board."
5. I took the left-over green frosting and created grass blades on the sides of the cake, just to give it a little extra flair.
6. I placed the figurines in a somewhat believable manner.
Voila! PvsZ cake that took very little time.
Here it is with its thrilled recipient!

Buttercream Creeper Cake

My now NINE-year-old requested a Minecraft Creeper cake this year for his birthday. Since I love making these cakes for my kids, I agreed. I spent some time googling and looking on pinterest for ideas and was really surprised to only find about two Creeper cakes out there, so I was pretty much on my own after looking at how to get the initial shape (I am not into fondant for lots of reasons for these kid-cakes and that was pretty much what I saw).
So, here is what I did:
1. I made my favorite chocolate cake recipe and baked it in two 7x11 Pyrex baking dishes.
2. I turned them out to cool and then on a cutting board, sliced longitudinally about 1" off all the way down both sides of one cake to create the body - removing the rounded edges.
3. With the other cake, I created the head to be a little bit wider than the body, and square. With the rest of that cake, I made two feet, also square.
4. I placed the cakes on a foil-covered cookie sheet and then iced the entire cake with green buttercream frosting (and it was really good buttercream frosting).
5. Using green sugar-sheet, an exacto knife, and a metal ruler (I'm an architect, remember, always at home with a ruler and an exacto knife), I created a whole bunch of 1.25" squares.
If you've never used sugar sheet, it's awesome! You can cut it with an exacto knife or scissors just like paper, then you peel off the plastic backing and stick it right on the cake. It is edible (though not terribly tasty). A great way to accomplish these sorts of designs without using fondant or going nuts with detailed frosting.
6. I placed the squares throughout the body and feet in a somewhat random geometric grid pattern.
7. Using black sugar-sheet, I created three more 1.25" squares for the eyes and part of the mouth. Then I cut a fourth square, cut it in half vertically, and used it to create the sides of the mouth.
8. To clean up the edges of the cake a little bit, I piped a line of frosting around the base of the cake, and a narrower line to outline the different sections of the top of the creeper.
9. I finished it off with a happy birthday message and green candles.
This was actually a pretty easy cake to make compared to that dinosaur I made back in June. And it was a hit!

For my third son's birthday, I hear I am going to be creating a Plants vs. Zombies yard. Wish me luck! Be back in September.

Birthday Dinosaur

We celebrated my youngest's third birthday this weekend. More than anything, he wanted a blue stegosaurus cake. I enjoy a cake challenge (I really do), so I spent a good couple of weeks thinking about it and was really anxious to make it a reality.
I didn't take any photos of the process, mostly because I had food coloring and frosting all over my fingers, but I can describe the process for anyone who might want to recreate it.
Here goes...
The body:
~I started with three round 9" cakes and one 8" square.
~I cut off about 1/3 of each of two round cakes for the body, and stuck them together with a lot of frosting.
~The third round cake I cut out the tail (sort of a J shape, that I then had to tweak when I put the whole thing together).
~Out of the left-overs of that third round, I cut the head - sort of half an oval that was two cake-widths wide.
~I cut the 8" square into 4 equal pieces and then cut one leg out of each quarter.
~There were some left-over chunks, and so I used those to add shape to the head and a couple of triangles to connect the flat tail piece to the hump of the body.
~Then after I put the whole thing together, I frosted the heck out of it.

The spikes:
~I created the shape of one of the spine on a piece of paper. Then I laid it under a large piece of wax paper on the counter.
~I purchased a bag of candy melts at the craft store (in a dark blue color).
~I melted them in a pyrex bowl in the microwave and then poured the contents into a squeeze bottle.
~I traced the shape of the spines and then also filled them in with the melted candy. Moved the paper and traced over again. Repeated a bunch of times. Then I made a few smaller spines.
~I stuck two toothpicks in each of the big spines lollipop-style, so I could easily connect them to the cake later.
~I was having so much fun making stuff with the melted candy in a squeeze bottle that I made a bunch of embellishments that I wasn't sure what I was going to do with.
~After everything dried, I took a knife and trimmed all the spines so they were nice and sharp.

After I frosted the cake, I added all of the spikes and threw on some embellishments. Then, because where the cake meets the plate/cookie sheet/whatever always looks messy, I added some "grass" and "dirt" with the leftover frosting.
This might be my favorite kid-cake that I've ever made. I was really sad when we cut into it. Here is my masterpiece!

The birthday boy loved his cake!
We also had stegosaurus fruit salad. It was a fun party theme!

Birthday Monster Bash

Dusting off the ol' blog here.  It has been a LONG while since I posted mostly due to the little munchkin who's birthday celebration got me thinking I should write something again.  I hope to write another post about colic, because that has made this past year memorable - and not in the best sense.
Anyway, our littlest guy turned one this past week and so we had a big party for him - since, after all, it is our last first birthday party.  My older boys call him "monster" because he crawls and wrecks all their stuff, and the aforementioned many months of colic, so we decided to have a monster-themed party.  I did a lot of research on pinterest to get ideas and then I gave it my own interpretation.  I knew I wanted to made a "furry" orange monster smash cake.  I knew I wanted a monster-watermelon fruit salad.  We had to serve Odwalla C-monster drinks because he is our little C-Monster.  The rest just sort of evolved as I was preparing for the party.  It was great fun and I think it might be my favorite party theme of all the parties I've thrown for my kids. 

I tried out marshmallow fondant for the first time.  It was fairly easy to create and work with.  Pretty easy stuff.  I halfed the recipe I found online and had more than enough to create noses, horns, eye brows, etc.  It is simply half a bag of marshmallows microwaved with 1 tbsp. of water, then you stir in 2-3 cups of powdered sugar and the color of your choice.  Then stir and knead until you get a workable consistency.  You have to keep it covered constantly or else it begins to dry out instantly.  I also tried out a new frosting tip to create the fur.  I like how it turned out but that particular tip (usually used for grass) requires a lot of strength.  The whites of the eyes are two halves of a big marshmallow.  And that is a small cake-sized paper plate - so it's not a huge cake.

The cupcakes were a lot easier.  I used halves of small oreos for the eyes, with a mini chocolate chip for the eye.

The full spread.  We chose to serve foods that are favorites of our birthday boy.  He loved dinner.

I thought the fruit salad was really the crowning achievement.  I love how it turned out.  Secret to creating fun watermelon creations: use one of those cheap little pumpkin-carving knives.  It worked SO WELL.  Then I scooped out the insides and filled it with the salad.

Our birthday boy with his party hat.  I bought cheap party hats at the party store and embellished them with monster eyes.  He wore it for exactly long enough for me to snap a single picture, so absolutely no need to spend a bunch of money on one of those custom-made first birthday hats.  I feel lucky to have the picture.

A happy birthday to our littlest one and hopefully I will think of more things to blog about soon.



Birthday Pie

I am not a big cake fan.  I never really have been.  So for the last few years for my birthday, I've tried to mix it up a bit.  Last summer I was on an unfortunate elimination diet and ended up with a peach pie (sad, no chocolate).  This year I decided to make up for lost time by making my own chocolate peanut butter pie - even if it killed me (I have a very sensitive stomach).  Thank goodness for enzyme tablets.
It was absolutely, perfectly decadent and I highly recommend it - just the right balance of chocolate, peanut butter and cream cheese.  In fact, it rivals stuff I've had at the Cheesecake Factory.  It is an Emeril Lagasse recipe, found HERE.  I changed it up a bit, though - because I always do.  Instead of the rich chocolate sauce on top (which sounded like too much to me), I topped it with fresh whipped cream and chocolate shavings right before I served it.  I also eliminated the graham crackers and sugar from the crust and just made it out of straight crushed oreos and butter. 
Here is the finished product:

Doesn't that look like a much better alternative to cake?
There's also a funny anecdote to go with dessert.  A couple of months ago, our little family was at a church potluck.  Dessert was a whole bunch of pies.  Our 4-yr-old is very suspicious of pies.  When I told him that pie was dessert he said something to the effect of, "Pie is not dessert.  For dessert you can have cookies, ice cream or candy, but pie is not dessert."  He was adamant about this.  And then he ate an entire piece of banana cream pie - scraped the plate clean. 
When he found out that I was making a chocolate pie for my birthday, he said very worried, "Mommy, chocolate does not belong in pie."  He even pouted.  He even refused to help me make it.  I had to *force* him to lick the spatula when I was done.  He then scraped the entire mixing bowl clean.  I am wondering if we will have to discuss the merits of pie again in the future...

Baking with Cake Molds

For my younger son's first birthday, I decided he should have an airplane-themed party. Even at such a young age, he is fascinated by airplanes. I knew that he must have an airplane-cake. I started searching for airplane cake molds. Apparently airplane cakes are not very popular. Wilton's website suggested using a cross. I didn't want to do that. Finally I found the perfect mold and luckily enough, it came with a free miniature airplane mold as well. Score! I could make a small cake for the birthday-boy and a large cake for everyone else. The larger of the airplane molds was not very big - not big enough to feed the 12 people invited to the party - so I placed it on top of a 12" round. The smaller airplane cake was placed on top of a 6" round.

I don't have pictures of the step-by-step, but I did learn some important things while creating these cakes. Here's what I learned:
~~I decided to use the funfetti cupcake recipe that I posted earlier, in the hopes that it would translate well into cake. This turned out to be a mistake for a couple of reasons. First, I had to make 6 batches of it by the time I was done. Second, it is a butter-based batter which is fine for smallish cupcakes. They cook fast enough to remain moist. When cooking a larger cake, though, it takes longer in the oven and this really dried out the cake. I wish I had used an oil-based batter instead.
~~I ended up having to make the airplanes twice. The first reason was because I filled the cake pans too full. I should have kept it to less than half-full. The 6" pan above was just under half-full and the cake rose to just over the top of the cake pan. In the airplane molds, I had a huge mess. The little airplane's batter spilled over the sides. I couldn't get the larger airplane's batter to cook completely. When I took it out of the oven after far too much time, it was still a soupy mess in the middle.
~~This led me to the important conclusion that when baking large rounds (bigger than 9") or deep molds, to drop the heat down to 325 and let them bake longer and slower.
~~The last, and possibly most critical thing about baking in a mold is to grease, grease, grease! The first airplanes not only had all those other problems, but they also got stuck in the molds. The first time I used Pam. I had too much faith in it. The second time I used a fairly thick layer of shortening AND then floured the pans also. Both airplanes cooked beautifully the second time around and came out of the molds perfectly.

I used regular M&Ms for the windows on the big airplane and mini M&Ms for the windows on the smaller plane. I also used some chocolate non-pareil-like-candies for the engines on the large airplane and regular M&Ms on the smaller plane. I cut graham crackers into triangles, frosted them and used them as the tails. A note on frosting: for these kind of applications, the frosting has to be fairly stiff. In order to create frosting that was not sickeningly sweet, I added 8 ounces of cream cheese to the butter to help it out a little bit. Cream cheese is also a little more firm than butter. It worked well.
In the end, the cake was a little dry and certainly I've had nicer butter cream frosting, but I feel like when baking for an occasion like this, sometimes taste must be sacrificed a bit for the more artistic final product (in other words, it's really hard to bake a gourmet cake in a cake mold). After all, the one-year-old thought it was fantastic!