15th Birthday Watercolor Cake

23 Sunday Sep 2018

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birthday cake, chocolate cake, fondant, marshmallow cream filling, watercolor cake

Ok, so I love these water color cakes and am excited whenever someone orders one because they are so fun to do. The other neat thing is that they are so unique…just like the person I’m making them for. No 2 cakes are the same.

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I’ve had the privilege of making beautiful Audrey’s birthday cakes for a few years now and it seems that she always has a specific design in mind. Colors, look, style, everything….which is fantastic for someone so young.

She knows exactly what she wants and it always looks great.

This one is a 5″ and 7″ 2-tiered cake with chocolate cake and marshmallow cream filling. The water color icing is turquoise, silver and white. And she wanted a silver fondant “15” on top. The silver and black plaque and name are also made from fondant.

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I loved the way it turned out, classic and unique–just like Audrey.

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Hope you had a very special 15th birthday, Audrey, I loved making your cake!

My Favorite Birthday Cakes….

16 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by Laurie in Cakes

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birthday cake, chocolate cake, ganache frosting, raspberry almond cake, raspberry mousse filling

I’ve made quite a few non-character, non-themed birthday cakes over the past few weeks. Just simple, happy, feel good celebrations cakes.

These cakes aren’t fancy or flashy or dripping with a theme. They’re just classy, understated, and say to the recipient “you’re special, so we got you a special cake.”

They are decadent, delicious, and not ones you’d typically make for yourself…or get at a bakery or grocery store. They’re one-of-a-kind unique and made just for that special birthday person.

I love doing these cakes, because it kind of lets me create what I’d like brought to the table on my own birthday.

Here are a couple of my favorites…

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This one is a version of the raspberry almond cake I posted a few weeks ago, only I added colored sequins on top for some color. It’s an 8″ sour cream almond cake with raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream.

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I made the plaques and stars from homemade marshmallow fondant; the plaques are painted gold with edible paint. I added the chocolate hearts kind of as an afterthought as I was making them for this drip cake I was doing at the same time…

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I love the look of these drip cakes, especially black on white. So dramatic. The cake was a 10″, 2-layer (one chocolate and one sour cream vanilla). There was a raspberry mousse filling between the layers, so I used raspberries on top. I used chocolate ganache for the drip and melted chocolate for the hearts. This one was for a father and daughter who celebrated their birthdays together ;0)

For this one, the birthday girl wanted rustic icing and fall-colored buttercream flowers.

I used a special petal tip and variegated icing to pipe the mums on pieces of parchment paper, then popped them into the freezer to firm up before adding them to the cake. Then I filled in with a star tip for the yellow flowers and leaves.

And then there is the humble-but-oh-so-yummy chocolate cake with whipped ganache icing and multi-colored sequins…mmmmmm. choc_ganache_cake_2

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Pool Party Birthday Cake, Cookies, and Rainbow Ice Cream Cake Pops

06 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by Laurie in Cakes, Cookies, Cupcakes

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birthday cake, rainbow ice cream cake pops, sugar cookies

So the phenomena of the “cobbler’s children have no shoes” is definitely a theme in our house this birthday season. In case you’re not familiar, the saying refers to someone who is so successful at something they don’t have time to provide that same service to his/her own family. I guess one could extrapolate it to “the baker’s children don’t get cool birthday cakes.”

So, anyway, my daughter’s birthday rolled around a few weeks ago and I was swamped with orders. On the day of the party, we awoke and frantically tried to figure out a cake that would be easy, fast, and fun for her celebration at the pool…

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This is what we came up with. She really liked the idea of an unconventional shape (a half sheet cut into fourths and stacked high), and I liked the fact that I could slice and serve it easily.

The cake was vanilla birthday cake flavor with multi-colored sprinkles folded into the batter. The filling was blue (her favorite color) buttercream sandwiched between each of the 4 layers. The effect of melted candles I did using melted white chocolate ganache pooled and drizzled over the edge of the cake. The melting ice cream cones were added to the top to give the cake some more height.

Keeping with the ice cream cone theme, the mini ice cream cones are rainbow cake pops dipped into white-then-blue melted white chocolate and sprinkled with nonpareils and a topped with a red candy “cherry.” Hannah and I made them after watching this great tutorial by Cookies Cups and Cardio. (I wish I would have taken a picture of them with a bite taken out!)

We also made cookies in the summer pool party theme…

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Despite the obsessive planning I typically do weeks in advance for most of our birthday parties, we were able to pull this one off in 1 day with minimal effort. Most importantly, the kids all had a great time.

It’s so nice to have a child who’s finally old enough to help with the decision-making and execution of her own party treats…especially one who’s always ready and willing to help.

Happy 9th birthday, my darling…you really are my star and inspiration!

hannah 2016 birthday

Birthday Celebration Sheet Cake

28 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by Laurie in Cakes

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birthday cake, chocolate mousse filling, double chocolate cake, homemade marshmallow fondant, sour cream almond cake, vanilla-bean frosting

This cake I made for a birthday celebration this past summer for a good friend whose kids were having a combined birthday party. Their mom wanted a festive cake with primary colors, decorated with stripes and circles. It’s a 2-layer, 12×18″ cake that feeds about 65 people, filled with chocolate mousse and buttercream-iced with fondant decorations. Hope you had a happy birthday, Nick and Katie…We sure had fun at your party!!

TMNT Cake

08 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Laurie in Cakes, General Information

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birthday cake, homemade marshmallow fondant, peanut butter mousse filling, TMNT cake, Vanilla-bean cake, vanilla-bean frosting

This cake I did for a dear friend a couple of weeks ago for her brother’s 30th birthday. Yes, I did say “30.” My husband saw the cake and thought I’d made a mistake…”isn’t it supposed to be 3?'” Nope. Davy was turning 30…And his sweet sis decided to surprise him with a blast from his past: the beloved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

The cake is a 10-inch 2-layer vanilla bean cake with peanut butter mousse filling and frosted with creamy vanilla-bean butter cream. I used a large star tip to do the ombre green “puffs” around the outside of the cake, which I thought gave it a kind of “reptilian” feel.

The TMNT topper is made from homemade marshmallow fondant. The manhole cover was made by covering a 5″ cardboard round with fondant and pressing on the brick imprints. The TMNT logo I hand-cut from green and black fondant. The figures are also supported on a cardboard round in order for the topper to be lifted off in one piece before serving. The hardest part was getting the somewhat heavy manhole cover to stand up and survive transport without ripping out of the cake. This took some engineering and lots of trial and error, but I think it was successful in the end. It was a fun cake to make for a good friend! Hope you had a great birthday, Davy!!