Ethan's 1st Birthday Cake

After a full day of baking and kneading and coloring and decorating...

I was pretty pleased with the finished product.

Of course it wasn't perfect. But it sure tasted good. A big thanks to my hubby for his input on the track.

Ethan's Oreo Cookie Race Car Cake


Cake Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter, softened
4 egg whites
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/4 cups milk
15 coarsely chopped Double Stuff Oreos

Cake Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. (Better Homes and Gardens suggests 375, but I find my edges dry out at that temp. Could be that I have a cheap oven, though.) Allow butter and eggs to stand at room temp for 30 min. Meanwhile grease pan. (I used the number 1 mold, but a rectangular 13x9 or two 9 in rounds would work.) In medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.

2. In mixing bowl beat butter with electric mixer on medium speed for 30 seconds. Gradually add sugar, about 1/4 cup at a time, while scraping sides and beating on medium speed until well combined. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes more. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Add vanilla. Alternately add in flour mixture and and milk to butter mixture, beating on low speed until just combined. Fold in Oreos. Spread batter into prepared pan(s).

3. Bake for 25-35 minutes (20-25 if using round pans) or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool on wire racks for 10 minutes then remove from pan(s) and allow to completely cool on racks.


Creamy White Frosting Ingredients:
1 cup butter flavored shortening
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar
4 1/2 tablespoons milk

Directions:
In a medium mixing bowl beat room temp shortening and vanilla on medium speed for 30 seconds. Slowly add half of the powdered sugar, beating well. Add 2 tablespoons of milk. Gradually beat in remaining sugar and milk to reach spreading consistency. (Frosts middle, sides, and top of two 9 in rounds. Even though Better Homes and Gardens says to half the recipe for a 13x9, I knew I'd need extra for applying the M&M's and I didn't want to run out. So, I made the full amount and had probably about 1/2 cup leftover. And I tinted mine blue.)

Katie's 2nd Birthday Cake

Here it is. I'd say it turned out pretty well. In all the commotion I forgot to take pictures of it. Thanks, Mom, for snapping a few shots before the party started. Easily the most even cake I've made to date. And Katie loved it! Well worth staying up till 11 pm to finish it the night before.

More Fun with Fondant

So, I made this cake yesterday. I'm going to meet my friend's baby today. (Her name is Adi, as you can see from the top of the cake.) I'll be making dinner for them and I wanted to have a special dessert, too. This is what I came up with. (I really hope Heather doesn't check my other blog and see this post before I can surprise her later.)

It looks pretty darn good from these first two angles...

but here you can start to observe the "pumpkin effect." Ya know how pumpkins aren't perfectly round? Well apparently, neither are my cakes! So annoying!

The reason being, I used a boxed cake (which is a little thicker batter than the homemade recipes I've tried) because in the past I've had better luck with them not sticking to the pan. Well, not this time. And of course, even a little un-eveness rears it's ugly head when you have a border with straight lines.

Because this is a mini cake (I think the bottom tier is only 6 inches in diameter) I had to use my pyrex glass bowls to bake the cake layers in. You should have seen how uneven the layers were when they came out of the oven! Oye. (What gives, anyway? Air bubbles? Batter too thick? If you have any ideas, leave a comment...)

So I did the best I could as far as letting them cool, chilling them, evening them out, doing a crumb coat, and then frosting the final time. (That crumb coat is a thing of genius, I tell you! So glad I saw that tutorial. [A crumb coat is just a thin layer of frosting over the entire cake and then giving it time to set up by placing it in the freezer for about 30 min.] It really made frosting it to coat SO much easier.)

I'm hoping that the recipients won't mind that it's not totally perfect. It sure does taste good! ( I outta know. I ate the pieces I trimmed off the top, even though I told myself I wouldn't...)

I'm also hoping that it's one of those situations where because I am intimately familiar with the cake I see EVERY imperfection and everyone else will barely notice...???

Lessons learned: 1) I need a mat and ruler if I am ever going to do ribbons again. Too frustrating trying to use the roller as a guide for the cutting tool. 2) I'm going to start putting parchment paper on the bottom of the pan and making the batter from scratch. (Because that should keep it from sticking and the homemade recipes are thinner, hence no super- duper, un-even, pointy mound on each layer that is impossible to trim evenly. 3) After I mixed each color I rushed rolling it out. I need to remember to let it chill in the fridge for at least 15- 30 before working with it. 4) To make the ribbons easier to apply to the cake, maybe I can chill them before I apply them. Maybe they won't flop all over if they're a little cooler? 5) I should just give in and take a class. (But I'm too cheap, so I won't.) Besides you learn more from your failures than you do from your successes, right?

On the plus side, look how nice my gumpaste bows turned out! (Just extra practice, not part of the cake project.) I'm getting better all the time.

2nd Attempt at Katie's 2nd Birthday Cake

Ok. The third time better be the charm because the fondant turned out SO much better, but the cake layers gave me a bunch of trouble. The layers out of a box were no problem, but the homemade layer was a disaster to get out of the pan. Lesson learned: You cannot "glue" a cake back together with yummy frosting and expect it to look good. Hence, the giant canyon and lumps all through this cake. Oh well. The fondant turned out really well. I loved the gel food coloring! I can never go back to liquid drops. I just need to remember to let the gel icing letters dry before putting them in the cake. (And no more cakes from scratch for this project!)

The circle cookie cutter represents the "2" candle that I keep forgetting to pick up. I decided that it would look better to have the candle on fondant clouds rather than the clubhouse circular cutouts. Next time I need to dust the cloud with powdered sugar to make it look less shiny. And that darn leg is still too long. Also just noticed that the black accents on the window panes are too thick.

This time I also opted for grass accents instead of a border of grass along the bottom. I couldn't get the grass border to look right. I think this looks so much better. (Don't laugh at my canyon. Next time the cake won't break and slide off.)

I also used the smallest roller guide for thinner accents this time. Much better. Still didn't seem to need anything to help the accents adhere to the cake. Just applied them to the cake when it was right out of the fridge.

Still not sure that the doghouse is worth it. This time put black accents on the handy hot air balloon (per Travis' request) and it looks a lot better. I'm so much happier with the colors this round. Very "animated."

1st Attempt at Katie's 2nd Birthday Cake

(This post is more for me than anyone else. Want to document what I learned before I forget.)

Make 2 batches of marshmallow fondant for a 3 layer, 9 inch round cake. 1 batch to cover the cake and 1 for the accents.

1 batch of Marshmallow Fondant:
*(1 1/2) 10.5 oz bag mini marshmallows (Not Great Value, but Market Pantry is good. Jet-Puffed is best. Should probably use name brand to cover cake and store brand for accents and designs.)
*(1) 2 lb bag powdered sugar, sifted (Actually about a cup shy of the whole bag. Go by texture, not measurements.)
*2 tbsp water
*shortening

Directions: Grease microwavable bowl, mixing bowl, dough hook, and spatula with shortening. Put marshmallows and water in bowl and microwave about 60-75 seconds. Stir. It should be a gooey, lumpy, sticky heap. Put about 1/2 bag sifted powdered sugar into mixing bowl. Add marshmallows and food coloring, if desired. Mix on low until sugar and marshmallows are mixed. Keep adding sugar and mixing until it looks like dough. Grease counter top and hands. Finish kneading by hand until it's like a soft cookie dough. Refrigerate in a sealed plastic bag (not saran wrap like in the tutorial or it might dry out) for a few hours. It should be a little hard to knead so that it doesn't get to warm when you roll and cut it.

Covering cake with fondant: Tutorials said to grease counter and dust with powdered sugar. I didn't want my color to fade, so I skipped the extra sugar and it worked out fine. Not sure how much of a difference it would have made. Roll out fondant using a greased fondant roller. I like the little guides because it's so much easier to get it all an even thickness. Tutorials said to ice the cake and let it crust up before applying fondant. Then, either apply piping gel or spray with water to help the fondant stick to the cake. I sort of did that. I let it cool in the fridge and applied it without piping gel (because that's just one more thing to buy.!) or water. We'll see how that turns out. Tutorial said to make it about 1/4 inch thick to hide the bumps of the cake. Fondant needs to be rolled out to a width that is the height plus the diameter of your cake. Keep picking it up and and putting it down between rolls so it doesn't stick. When it's the right thickness and width place roller over the middle of it. Flop over one side of the fondant, hold the roller at each end, and quickly line it up and roll it onto the cake. Lift and pat the fondant until it smooths and lies flat on the cake. Tutorial said to use a fondant smoother, but I'm not sure how much of a difference it made. Cut the excess off with a pizza cutter, it's way easier than that little fondant cutter. Refrigerate immediately.

Notes for improvement:
liquid food coloring is a pain to mix into fondant by hand, will try gels
cakes from scratch don't come out of the pan as easily as boxed mixes, nor do they keep as long
icing from scratch doesn't keep as well ( at least the one I tried didn't)
it takes 2 .25- 2.5 ready-made frosting containers for a 3 layer, 9 in round cake
skim the mound in the center of bottom and middle layers before "assembling"

*Going to try a more vibrant sky blue color next time. (And not let it dry out. Arg!) Blue slide is too dark. Leg is too long. Pink stars will have the letters of her name on them. Circles on top of cake will hold "2" candle and will be pink, purple, and yellow or the same color as the blue slide will be. Next time will do accents on windows and door in black. Not sure if it's worth it to include Pluto's doghouse.