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.  

Fun Fall Flavors!

 

 

 

In the middle of summer, when I was bored out of my mind and decided to start keeping track of all of the different cake-related things I was doing, I created a list.  A list of flavors.  And because I love to make lists, I divided that list into more lists.  I separated them into 'themes' and one of those themes was 'The Flavors Of Fall'.  Here's what I came up with.

 

 

 

 

 

The first one I made was an orange clove cupcake with a whipped cranberry buttercream.  The garnish on it is blood orange zest. 

 

 

 

The second one I made was a gingerbread cupcake.  It had a lot of ginger flavor to it.  On top was a molasses buttercream, crushed gingerbread cookie crumbs and a gumdrop.

 

 

 

This one was I think the overall favorite of the guinea pigs who tried them (my mother's co-workers).  It's a pumpkin cupcake topped with a pecan pie-like filling and then garnished with a dollop of Cool Whip.  Not whipped cream, but Cool Whip.  And it tasted exactly like Thanksgiving dessert. 

 

 

 

On the last one, I tried to create something that would taste like mulled apple cider, but it ended up tasting more like apple pie.  It was very good, but might need to be rethought in some places.  I started with a spiced apple cake.  I made a filling out of thickened apple juice filled with cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves.  The result was basically pie filling without the fruit in it.  Then I took the apples that I had stewed to get the juice and chopped them up and set them aside.  I topped them with a maple cream cheese frosting and then garnished with the chopped apples and some leftover gingerbread crumbs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Photo Dump

 

 

 

Here are more pictures of cakes I've made. 

 

 

 

 

And this was the first cake I did.  It's a Big Mac cake, complete with a side of (sugar cookie) fries!



New Chocolate Creations!

I have been trying to work with reimagining other kinds of desserts into cupcake form and came up with these new kinds. 

The first one is a chocolate chip cookie dough cupcake.  It's a chocolate cake with a cookie dough filling and a cookie dough frosting.  It's garnished here with a chunk of milk chocolate. 

The second one is modeled after a Hostess Snowball.  It's a chocolate cake with a whipped buttercream filling and then topped with marshmallow cream and pink sugary coconut. 

The third is a fairly basic cookies 'n cream cupcake.  It's a chocolate cake with a while chocolate sandwich cookie in the bottom of the cup.  It's topped with a vanilla & chocolate swirl frosting and crushed cookie pieces. 

And my personal favorite ( my parents and I each ate one to make sure they were okay) is a Take 5 cupcake.  It's a chocolate cake (yes, again) with a caramel-fudge filling and then topped with a peanut butter buttercream and then rolled in pretzel crumbs and garnished with chopped milk chocolate. 



Photo Dump

I have a ton of old cakes I've done for various projects on my computer that I'm going to try to post little by little.