The Cinderella Castle Cake

 

 

 Something that I've seen done and wanted to try my hand at was making a castle cake.  I figured go big or go home, so I decided to start with this not-very-well-known one:

 

 

And I went to work!

 

 

 

Now obviously, I'm still a beginner when it comes to castles.  And it doesn't really look like the Disney castle unless you are told that is what it is.  I have nowhere to go from here but up!



New Wedding Pics!

 

 

 

Over Memorial Day weekend, I did cupcakes and a display cake for a another wedding.  Last summer, I had done a tasting for them with miniatures:

 

 

The final flavors that had been decided on were:

 

Caramel- An old-fashioned caramel cake recipe topped with a caramel-infused buttercream frosting

 

 

 Red Velvet- A chocolate cake with a red tint to it, then topped with a thick cream cheese frosting

 

and

 

 

Key Lime Pie- A cake infused with fresh lime zest and lime juice.  It was then frosting with whipped buttercream, fresh lime curd, graham cracker crust pieces and candied lime peel. 

 

The table displays after everything was set up (thanks to my parents!):

 

 

 

And here was the display cake for the head table:

 

It was also a red velvet cake, covered with white fondant.  And I even got to try my hand at fresh flower arranging!



The Surprise Going Away Party!

 

I was contacted by my friend Julie, who I previously made a barbershop themed cake for here and was asked to make some (other) kind of barbershop themed cake.  It was for a surprise going away party for Bill and Dean, two members of the Sioux Emperians chorus as well as bass and baritone from The Siouxland Vocal Band, respectively.  I had wanted to do something that looked classic, so I used this as my inspiration (thanks to Dave's great idea):

 

 



 

And this was the finished product:

 

 

Yes, I did cut their pictures out of a professional photo of the group and put them on the cake.  Creepy?  You bet!  It seemed to go over pretty well though.  The cake itself was a caramel mocha marble with a peanut-butterscotch whipped cream cheese frosting. 

 

 

Photo Dump



Another Music-Themed Birthday Cake!

 

 

This was a cake I made for a longtime family friend, Ric.  The theme was 'Barbershop', as Ric is a long-time barbershopper.  The design I eventually settled on (rather than basic 'barber pole' or 'men with mustaches' which is what goggle images was offering me) was 'what would the backseat of my dad's car look like about 20 years ago?'  A random smattering of barbershop-related things are all represented.  There's the sheet music, the pitch pipe, the striped vest, the bowtie and even the white straw hat.   

Surprise Birthday Party Cake!

 

 

 

My church choir's totally awesome pianist Dylan turned 18 on the first Wednesday in March, and spent his first birthday as a legal adult wth us.  How fun.  But he's totally awesome, and so the decision was made to throw him a surprise birthday party after choir practice and I was asked to make the super secret birthday cake.  This is what I came up with:

 

 

 

The flavor was a chocolate orange with raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream.  The piano was made from simple black and white chocolate that I melted and then formed.  Unfortunately, the top didn't stay up without cracking, but it still turned out pretty good. 

 

 



Christmas-Themed Cupcakes!

 

 

 

Every year, on Black Friday, instead of going out to fight people for cheap laptops and toaster ovens, our family has a 'Family Fun Day'.  This year was the 12th year we've done it.  It has transformed over the years, and within the last couple, it has become a tradition for my mom and I to bake on Family Fun Day while the boys work.  In addition to the dozens of peanut blossoms and kringla and over a hundred dark chocolate sea salt caramels, we found time to try four different kinds of cupcakes. 

 

The first one we tried was what I was calling a 'Pear Tree' cupcake.  It's a pear cake, which is similar in texture to an apple cake.  It had a ginger flavor in it as well.  The frosting is a dulce de leche butter cream and it's garnished with candied ginger, which is amazing if you've never had it. 

The second one we tried was a 'Hot Cocoa' cupcake.  The chocolate in the cake batter was  'Swiss Miss' cocoa mix and the baked cupcakes really tasted like hot cocoa versus plain chocolate.  I made a marshmallow buttercream for the frosting and garnished it with a little hot cocoa powder and then chocolate-covered marshmallows.  It was pretty good, but very rich. 

The third one we tried was an 'Eggnog' cupcake.  Eggnog is a pretty polarizing flavor, and if you don't like eggnog, you wouldn't like this one.  It really tasted like eggnog.  The batter had eggnog and rum extract in it and the buttercream on top had more rum and fresh nutmeg.  Very tasty. 

 



 

And the last one we made was a 'Peppermint Stick' cupcake.  This one was pretty basic, but I wish I'd taken a picture of the inside of it, because it was pretty.  I made my basic vanilla bean cupcake batter and seperated it into two bowls.  I added peppermint extract and red food coloring to half of it and then put the batter into two squeeze bottles and swirled it in the papers instead of scooping it.  The frosting was a very basic peppermint buttercream and I crushed up some candy canes for the garnish. 

 

All in all, they turned out pretty well I think.