Tag Archives: Sour cream vanilla cake

Fall Flower Cupcake Bouquet

20 Friday Jan 2017

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I made this fall flower cupcake bouquet as a special gift for a friend to take to her grandmother’s 80th birthday.

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I loved working  with these fall colors. The cupcakes were an assortment of chocolate, vanilla, and red velvet flavors, all with vanilla buttercream.

I variegated the icing colors in the piping bags to make the flowers look more realistic and used 3 different Wilton piping tips to pipe the petals: #18 for the green hydrangeas; 1M for the red roses; and #81 for the yellow mums.

 

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Once the cupcakes were piped, I popped them into the fridge for a bit to firm up. I used wooden skewers and foam blocks to arrange them in the basket, then added green and orange tissue, silk leaves, and a few fronds to add height and interest (I made sure nothing “foreign” touched the icing…:0).

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Hope you had a great 80th birthday, Louise’s grandma!  

I really enjoyed making your cupcake arrangement!

Nautical-Themed Baby Shower Cake

06 Friday Jan 2017

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I did a bunch of baby shower cakes last year and I’m so behind on posting, I’m only now getting to them. I also had orders for lots and lots of nautical or ocean-themed cakes. Not sure if there were enough to qualify as a “trend,” but it seemed like a wave of them during the summer and fall months (no pun intended :0).

This cute baby shower cake was fun and used a number of different icing and fondant techniques, so I thought I’d share…

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The mom-to-be knew just what she wanted in terms of style, I just added a few tweaks of my own.

For the cake, the bottom tier is a 9″ round chocolate and the top is a 6″ round vanilla.  Both are filled and iced with vanilla-bean buttercream  The decorations and boat are made from homemade marshmallow fondant (except the red, I buy that because it is so hard to make large quantities).

The little sail boat is made from brown fondant with lots of tylose powder (to make it stiff); I used a woodgrain stamp on the sides to make the fondant look like wood.  The biggest trick was letting the sails dry long enough to stand up and stick to the skewer, which goes down into the top tier to hold the boat in place and keep everything together.

 

The baby boy was fun to make….There’s actually a cute little body under the blanket (wish I would have taken a picture).  I wanted the details on his little face to be subtle and soft, so I pressed them into the pliable fondant  with a needle tool and added a little dot of flesh-colored fondant for a nose. I drew his hair on with an edible marker…so cute.

The anchor and lifebuoys (that’s really what they’re called) are cut using cutters and the roping is 2 strands of fondant twisted together.

The bottom tier is iced with a rough surface to look like the water using a dark to light ombre technique.  The top tier is similar, just more smooth-iced.

This was a fun cake for an excited mom-to-be.  It was back in November, so I’m sure she’s a happy (and exhausted) mom by now.  Congrats, Maria!

Disney’s Frozen Elsa Doll Cake

26 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by in Cakes, Cupcakes

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Doll cakes are making a comeback. Really.

I haven’t had a request for one in 4 years, but have made 3 in the past month… Crazy!  This most recent one was for a darling little girl who just turned 3.

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I remember my mom getting me a doll cake for my 5th (I think?) birthday. I’m pretty sure she didn’t make it and, when I laid eyes on it, I thought it was the most wonderful, glorious thing I’d ever seen  in my life (wish I had a picture).  It was covered in thick pink and purple icing and, up until that point, was the most treasured thing I’d ever received for a birthday (until I got my horse, Cactus, when I turned 10).

Because I raised such a fuss when it came time to cut (i.e., “destroy”) it, my dear mother only cut cake out of the back of the dress to preserve it as long as possible….I recall we kept it for waaayyyy too long (it got pretty stale so my mom eventually threw the uneaten cake away).

Of course this was all before the Disney princess craze, so it was just a regular old Barbie Doll, but I loved that Barbie forever…

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This was a 4-layer  vanilla cake (9″-8″-7″-6″ rounds) with blue vanilla-bean buttercream between the layers.  After carving, I iced on a thin crumb coat, inserted Elsa, and popped the entire cake into the fridge to firm up.

 

The blue rosettes (tinged with white) were piped on with a Wilton 1M tip and the ruffles around the bodice were piped with a 104 tip.  I added small snowflakes cut with my punch cutters and crystal sugar flakes to add the illusion of snow.

I also made a dozen chocolate cupcakes with blue rosettes and adorned each with a single fondant snowflake.

A fondant inscription was added to the cake board.

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So fun to make and brought back many happy memories of my own childhood.

 

Happy Birthday, Claire!  I so much enjoyed making your Elsa doll cake and cupcakes!

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Disney Descendants Cake and Cookies

23 Monday May 2016

Posted by in Cakes, Cookies

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Loved making this cake and cookie combo for a sweet little girl who turned 6 this past weekend…her party theme was Disney Descendants.

 

I must admit I didn’t know much about the Descendants movie and characters until I did a Descendants cake for Gianna last year .

 

 

Arianna’s cake was a 2-layer, 10″ square sour cream vanilla and double chocolate cake, iced with vanilla bean buttercream.  The details are a combo of homemade marshmallow fondant and royal icing.

I piped the heart, crown and Maleficent horns onto waxed paper and let them dry overnight, then transferred them to the iced cake….it was infinitely easier than cutting those small details out of fondant… The lettering , mirror, and apple were hand cut from fondant.

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The cookies I did in 3 different designs to match the cake…

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Happy birthday, Arianna!  Hope you had a great one…I sure enjoyed making your treats! :0)

Harry Potter Cake W/ Golden Snitch and Wand

28 Monday Mar 2016

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I loved, loved, LOVED making this cake for the daughter of a friend.  It was kind of a last-minute order and I wasn’t sure how much detail I’d be able to add as I had a few other orders already that week, but I ended up getting really into it as the Harry Potter books are definitely favorites around our house and I had lots of brains to pick about details.

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The cake is a 9″ 3-layer sour cream vanilla cake with cookies and cream filling, smooth iced with vanilla-bean Swiss meringue buttercream. The details are all made from homemade marshmallow fondant.

The most challenging part by far was the Golden Snitch (if you’re not into Harry Potter, that’s the golden ball with wings they use to play a popular game called , a competitive sport in the wizarding world of Harry Potter…but of course you all knew that).

I did it by rolling a ball of yellow fondant about 1.5″ in diameter and letting it dry overnight.  I made the wings by covering wooden skewers with more yellow fondant cut to look like feathers. After carefully sticking the wings into the semi-dried ball and getting them positioned, I propped them up and let it all dry for a few days to harden (it took some creative thinking to keep them from drooping down!). When it was finally all dry, I painted the entire thing with edible gold luster paint.

For the wand, I molded chocolate fondant around a chopstick and added details to make it look like Dumbledore’s elder wand (my kids just happened to have a replica that we picked up at Univeral Orlando last year…not exactly the same, but you get the idea).

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The glasses were hand-cut and molded from black fondant which I let dry for a few days. This part was a little tricky, too, as the fondant pieces were so thin.

The Gryffindor scarf I made by laying alternating pieces of red and yellow fondant side-by-side and very gently rolling them together and then cutting to size.  I “fringed” the ends by cutting narrow strips up about 1/2-inch. Somehow I managed not to get a picture of the fridge…duh.

All in all, it was a blast to make.  The only detail I would add if I made it again given more time, is an “HP” written in classic Harry Potter script on the side. Happy birthday, Braiden, it really was a pleasure creating your birthday cake!