The Happy Caker

A friend of mine just started a cake blog. She is quite the little fondant crafter. I could only dream of such.

My very favorite are the chicken legs, mashed potatoes, and veggies cupcakes. So clever. I mean, the butter lump on the mashed potatoes just kills me.




Many other cake creations and fun ideas.

She's now open for business and taking orders. So if you are in GA... check her out!

http://thehappycaker.blogspot.com/

PiggyCakes

A dear friend of mine asked me to do a cake for her daughter's 4th birthday. The party had a barnyard theme based on the show Word World. After tossing around several ideas we decided pig cupcakes would be perfect. The birthday girl ADORES the color pink, pigs, and cupcakes so it seemed the perfect recipe.

This is the first decoration based project I've done. Luckily, the concept seemed pretty simple so I felt brave enough to give it a try!

Supply List:

- Cupcakes with pink frosting
- Strawberry Marshmallows for the Snout and Ears
- Candy Eyes
- Food Coloring Pens

#1) Frosted cupcakes. I used a strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting tinted light pink and a chocolate cake with white frosting tinted hot pink.



#2) Snouts. I used a pizza cutter to slice each strawberry marshmallow in half. I placed the sticky side down into the cupcake icing and drew on the nostrils with a large red oval and small black oval inside the red using the food coloring markers.



#3) Eyes. I opted for the easy way out when I found candy eyes at Michael's in the cake decorating section. SCORE!!! I loved that they weren't perfect. Some looked googly eyed. Some looked away into the distance. And some looked like dear in the headlights. Very fun!



#4) Ears. This was probably the most difficult part to figure out a method for. But, I conquered!!! I used the pizza cutter to slice a marshmallow in half. Then I folded the sticky side longways in on itself until it kind of looked like lips. It made the ends come to a natural point. Then, I flipped it over to the smooth side and sliced through the middle. When I stood each half up the sticky side started pulling apart creating a triangle shape for the ears.



#5) Repeat... 47 times (or however many you need!) Here are a few lovelies from my heard 'o pigs. (My favorite is the 2nd one down on the left! The eyes crack me up.)



I am so happy with the way these turned out! Lots of fun. Happy Birthday, Jules!!!

The Triumphant Return!

Birthday time for my sweet girl rolled around again... so I had to pull out the big guns and return to the kitchenaid. You only turn two once! Rainbows are kind of a big deal for 2 year olds. We had just seen a real rainbow in the sky after a storm last week. I had just ordered her a Hello Kitty shirt for her birthday which, ironically, had a rainbow on it. My husband had shown me some tie dye cupcakes online and it triggered the memory of this AMAZING rainbow cake I had filed away to try sometime. No doubt this was the perfect choice for my girl! The only problem... I came up with this idea the day before her birthday. It was crunch time!!!

I was able to find an excellent tutorial video which helped me through the process. It is a must watch if you want to attempt this! I opted for the easy way out because of my time constraints. Duncan Hines white cake mix and frosting saved the day! I separated the batter equally into six different bowls and added Wilton food coloring GEL to give it the rich, vibrant color. (According to the tutorial food coloring liquid is not as effective so I made the splurge!) Red was the most difficult color to create. It was very pink. I may have dumped half the bottle of gel in by the time all was said and done but thankfully after it came out of the oven it had turned into a bright red. Some of my cakes stuck to the pan, but as noted in the tutorial I just filled the pieces back in and it didn't show in the layers (just like they said!). I also used some of my handy tips from my SweetWise class to "torte" the cake (cut it across the top to make it even) and most importantly mash the cake down in trouble spots. I love this tip. Kathy said, "Most people think cake is so fragile. It's really not. If there's a part sticking up just push down on it." There was a bit of cutting and mashing to make the layers even. See the building process below: You can tell this cake was very tall. I used 2 box mixes and 3.5 cans of frosting. This was time consuming and truly a labor of love. But, it was all worth it! As an added bonus, the cake tasted surprisingly AMAZING. I'm guessing it was the frosting ribboned in between the layers that made the difference. But, she almost ate her entire 6 layer piece and the next morning asked me for cake at breakfast. Denied. But made me feel good that she remembered it and loved it. Happy Birthday Cherr Bear!