alphabet party cake

Max's cake was a hit at his alphabet party! This is how I created it:

1. Make brownies in an 8x8 square pan.

2. Cut the brownie in half and form a T (Max's favorite letter!)

3. Frost with peanut butter frosting!

4. Make a white cake in the square pan. I added chocolate cheerios to the mix! YUM!

5. Trim the cake as needed and cut it in half. Put it on top of the frosting.

6. Frost the cake with chocolate peanut butter frosting. Decorate with M & M's! I used Alphabits cereal for the letters on the cake and as decoration around the cake. (They were sprayed with Wilton red cake spray!)

Scrumptious Starburst Cake

I must admit, this is my favorite recipe so far...it was so delicious! I've had this idea in my mind for awhile, so I was thrilled when my husband signed me up to bring dessert to his work party a few months ago.

Since it was awhile ago, the doughdough is having a hard time remembering the recipes. Oops. I did figure it out though. Trust me, this cake is so good. And easy!

Lemon Cake

1 box Pillsbury Golden Butter Recipe Yellow Cake Mix

1 cup water

1/3 cup softened butter

3 eggs

1 small box lemon instant pudding

1/2 cup applesauce

Make the cake with the instructions on the box. (Or make any yellow cake.) Add 1 box of lemon instant pudding and 1/2 cup applesauce. The applesauce makes the cake super moist! Bake the cake in 2 8x8x2 square pans. I bought the pan at Orson Gygi; I only have one, I baked the cakes separately. Bake at 350 until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs attached.

Raspberry whipped cream frosting

Fresh raspberries

Junket Danish Dessert Raspberry Pudding/Pie Filling/Glaze (use the recipe on the box for fruit sauce. Any type of raspberry sauce would work great.)

Whipped Cream: 1 cup heavy whipping cream, 1 T sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla. Mix ingredients on low until sugar dissolved. Beat on high until soft peaks form. I use this recipe from America's Test Kitchen cookbook.

All I did was combine the ingredients to make a raspberry whipped cream filling to go in between the two square cakes. Make the fruit filling first, add the fresh raspberries and add extra sugar to taste. Then mix with whipped cream.

Lemon Whipped Cream Buttercream Frosting

1/2 cup heavy whipped cream

1 cup softened butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 cups powdered sugar

Rind from 1 lemon

Whip the cream until soft peaks form. Beat the butter until smooth in a separate bowl. Add the whipped cream and vanilla to the butter. Slowly beat in the powdered sugar and lemon rind. You've got yourself some delicious frosting! It tastes like frosting with an aftertaste of whipped cream. Or vice versa. I can't remember which, but it was awesome! Some of my husband's friends kept sticking their fingers in the bowl after I frosted the cake at his work party!

Decorating: Frost the cake with the lemon whipped cream buttercream frosting. Then decorate the top with Starburst! It took awhile, but it was worth it! It was the talk of the party! I had originally planned on covering the whole cake, but I didn't have enough Starburst. I think it turned out super cute just having the top covered!

Note to Self: Blog about recipes right after I make them...it will make things easier on me and my readers!

DJ Par-tay

It's about time I post about my husband's birthday, considering it was 2 months ago! So I threw a surprise party for him since he is the funniest person to scare. I pretty much pulled it off, although he said thinking back on it he had some hints. He used to "DJ" in college...as a matter of fact, the first time I met him he had on headphones and he couldn't hear me say hello to him. Little did he know I'd be after him. haha. So above is the turntable cake I made for him. I used a Costco cake, lots of black frosting (that looks purple-gray...does anyone know how to get frosting really black?), a twizzler rope, a black plate for the record with my husband's picture on it, and a round cake underneath the record. The other pieces are fondant covered in frosting.

Here's some of the decor that I threw together...I decided for sure like 2 days before that I was going to do the party.

Of course a party wouldn't be a party without cupcakes! I created a cupcake tower to go with the turntable cake. I used two black trays and plastic "champagne" glasses. I found the disco balls at a party store...they were keychains, I just took the keychain part off. The other cupcakes are headphones and records.

Couple of doughdough moments...I really wanted to make a disco ball cupcake. I'd seen some examples online and here's what mine turned out like. Lovely. Don't use marshmallow creme as frosting...it drips right off! And obviously the foil covered party mints did not stay close to each other. What was I thinking?!I have the hardest time in the kitchen because I don't do things in an orderly fashion! As I was making my record cupcakes, I ran out of cakesters when I knew I had lots left! I spent so much time looking through the pantry and through the mess in my kitchen over and over again. I finally gave up thinking I'd just make more of another kind. Well, the next time I threw something away, guess what I found?

Above is the headphone cupcake made from tootsie rolls.
I made the records from smashed sides of Oreo cakesters and mini marshmallows. Later I discovered something easier to make record cupcakes with-Oreo makes a new cookie and as usual, I can't remember what they are called. But you can see below I turned it upside down and plopped it on white frosting.

Sesame Street Birthday Party

I had so much fun making two cupcake towers and a cake for my friend's son's first birthday party! My friend and I looked on the internet and saw a TON of darling examples, so these are definitely nothing new! I used the examples we saw as inspiration to create the cake and cupcakes.

The birthday boy who turned 1!

Big Bird cupcake on a cake! I LOVE his legs! I was in a rush, so I didn't have time to make them look as good as they could have. They are made from mango laffy taffy sticks and fruit loops. I made the feet with fondant. Eyes are melted white chocolate, frosting, and mini choc chips. I made the beak from fondant. The feathers are made with a #61 decorating tip. I think a leaf tip may have worked well too.

Another view of the cake. My friend loved the sign she saw on the adorable cake by The Little Cupcakery. Click here to see the cake on flickr! Can I just give a shoutout to Australians?! So many of the cutest cakes and cupcakes I've seen were made by bakers in Australia! I made the sign with fondant...which was not my favorite thing to use for letters, I'm too impatient! I'll be posting about my fondant experience soon. (Get ready for a disaster averted!)

Mouths are made from Oreos, eyes are upside down white candy melts, blacks of eyes are made with a round tip and black frosting. Oscars eyebrows were my FAVORITE!! I used a basketweave tip and brown frosting. I also liked my idea to turn the cookie upside down for Oscar's mouth. Elmo's nose is a peanut m&m. Grover is seen in the top picture, made with a red m&m and a piece of red twizzler cherry pull-aparts.

Detail of cookie and big bird. Cookie Monster was SO easy! I just used a grass/hair decorating tip and stuck a cookie in his mouth! Below are a bunch of the Elmos! My friend and I's inspiration for the Elmo cupcakes came from Kara's Cupcakes. Be sure to hop over to her site to see her creations!

Shovelin' Sand Cake Tower

Yep, that's a cake! Here's the shovelin' sand cake I made today...I saw some cupcakes similar to this in the book Little Cakes from the Whimsical Bakehouse and I thought it would make an adorable cake. So I bought this sandpail, shovel, and sifter thing at Wal-Mart today and here it is! When I shared what I was doing with a friend, she said people have done this before, which doesn't surprise me. There are people out there who are a lot more creative than me! I used a 6X4 inch cake pan and cut the edges to fit the sandpail. I put a thin layer of vanilla buttercream frosting on top so the topping would stick. The "sand" is crumbled cupcake, which I saw in the book, too. Here's what the cover looks like:

I would HIGHLY recommend this book...the ideas in it are adorable! I only got a chance at the bookstore to peek in it, but it was enough to catch inspiration for this cake tower (shown below)! They have a cute website at http://www.whimsicalbakehouse.com/.

Here's a little sour patch kid with his "lifesaver!" This cupcake was my idea, but I bet someone has thought of this before, too. I used mirengue frosting with blue food coloring (see next post for the recipe) and used the back of a spoon to make the waves. Sour patch kids are my fave candy, so I thought to use them right away. I originally had some circular mini-pretzels picked out for the life preserver, but then I realized Lifesavers would be perfect! I LOVE going down the candy aisle, there are so many things you can use to decorate!


I didn't get a close look at the cupcakes in the book, so I tried this. I made the shovel from Airheads and a lollipop stick. Just use scissors to cut the pieces. I cut about an inch off of the Airhead and curved it to look like a shovel. I also cut the corners off of the bottom to round them a little. The handle on the shovel was a little difficult...I rolled the Airhead with a rolling pin to flatten it and cut out the handle piece. I cut out the middle so it looked like a handle. Then I cut out a thin piece to stick to the back of the shovel handle to make the handle stay on. The pail's handle is cut from Airheads Extremes.

Below is an example of the cupcake with the nut cup colored with a marker to make it look more like a pail. My idea was to have a whole cupcake tower ready with the pails decorated by the time my guests arrived, but as usual, baking took longer than expected!

Here's another idea for beach cupcakes. I just used the mirengue frosting and colored goldfish crackers.

Orange you glad it's Easter?

Here's the first cake I've ever decorated (other than writing happy birthday in messy writing)! I got the idea at Wal-mart in their Easter section. Everything is color-coded! The idea to use orange came from a fun store called Pioneer Party and Copy. They had cute premade birthday bags with everything orange (a Sun-Kist, Reese's, etc.) and a tag that said, "Orange You Glad It's Your Birthday?" Cute! So here's my Easter cake for the fam. I just used a cake mix in my new 6x4 inch round cake pan. I don't remember how long I left it in...I thought it looked done and took it out. Silly dodo that I am, I forgot all about the toothpick test! I was too excited to decorate, as usual. I added my orange bunny and jellybeans, and set up a photo shoot. My hubby gave me a new camera for my birthday last May, and I'm just now playing with all the settings. I love photography and look forward to practicing my skills on my new blog. By the way, this cake would be cute with jellybeans covering the entire cake; I just didn't have enough. I also tried to write "Orange you glad it's Easter?" with Wilton's edible food markers, but it didn't work. Maybe because I was writing on the side of the cake and the frosting wasn't that smooth? I'll need to try the markers again on something else to see if they work.

Note to self: Use a toothpick to stick in the center of your cake and make sure it comes out clean before taking the cake out of the oven! When we ate the cake on Easter, it was gooey in the middle. Oops!