Layered Ombre Cake

A week after making Lincoln's superhero cake, I decided to make a stacked 4-layer ombre birthday cake for my sister-in-law's and my birthdays (I'm 1 day older).  I went with my usual boxed cake, but I tried a modification I saw on Pinterest to make a boxed cake taste like a bakery cake.   It said to add an extra egg, substitute melted butter for the oil (and double it), and use milk instead of water.  Which I did, except for the egg; I thought 3 per box was plenty.  I even used whole milk since I had it.  I decided to go all in for my birthday.

I made 2 layers at a time.  I divided one batch of batter into 2 bowls and then pretty much just eye-balled the coloring.  And since I was stacking 4 layers and had just eaten 2 cake tops from Lincoln's cake the previous week, I wanted to minimize the damage to my waistline by minimizing the amount of leveling my layers would need.  To do that, I pulled out my trusty cake strips that I made when I took a Wilton cake decorating class a few years ago.  Mine are literally strips of old towel sewn together.  I get them sopping wet and then pin them to the outside of the cake pan.  And look at how even those cake tops are!  I didn't even have to level them.

Once I had my 4 layers baked, I let them cool and then stacked and applied a crumb cake using a new frosting “recipe.”   I mixed a can of the Wilton premade buttercream with a can of cream cheese frosting.  It gives a delicious taste and great consistency.  It's not cost-effective if you make cakes a lot, but it was well worth it for my purposes.  Those 2 cans were enough for the stacking, crumb coat, and the final layer.  

And then I waited with breathless anticipation until I got to cut the cake.

And it turned out perfectly!  I could not have been more pleased.   Not only did the ombre coloring turn out perfectly, but it tasted incredible. Basically, this cake was oh-so-decadent.  I highly recommend the cake mix modification.

AND I get to cross off one of my 32 by Thirty-Two goals!

Lincoln's Super Hero Cake

I went pretty simple on Lincoln's birthday cake this year.  I was inspired by this cake but wanted to have darker buildings, so I decided to pipe chocolate into rectangular shapes to form the skyline around the perimeter.  I've found a few tutorials on piping chocolate, but basically I just bought a bag of wilton candy melts (they were way cheaper at Michael's), put them into a plastic sandwich bag, and microwaved until they got soft.  I didn't want the chocolate runny and scalding, so I watched it closely and kind of kneaded the bag to get the heat spread and chocolate melted.  Then I placed a layer of parchment paper over my template (I just drew some rectangles in word).  To pipe the chocolate, I cut a small piece off a bottom corner of the bag, and then piped the chocolate into "rectangles."  It turns out I'm not all that great at piping, but oh well.

To make the "lights" on the skyline, I went the easy route and bought a tube of Wilton Ready-to-Use Icing.  I used my regular tip and coupler, and piped little dots all around the cake.  Then I went back and kind of tapped them down so they weren't as pointy.

That's about it.  I put some superheroes on it and a little "4" candle and called it good.  Lincoln LOVED it, and that was my priority.

Another successful birthday cake venture!

Mason's Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake

I love to decorate cakes, but I rarely have occasions or time, so I only really get to indulge when my kids' birthdays come around.  And as evidenced by Lincoln's car cake and monster truck cake, I take full advantage.  So it's no surprise that I've been brainstorming for my baby's 1st birthday cake for about 3 months prior to the actual event at the end of August.  But it finally got here, and here's my story about Mason's first birthday cake.

For the first birthday my kids haven't really had a preference for a theme (obviously), so I had free reign across the board.  I'm a huge fan of cupcakes for the first birthday, so that narrowed the scope considerably.  I considered a fish, a simple number, or balloon cupcakes (which I did for Lincoln's first birthday), but in the end I went with the one that kind of made me gasp: The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

And I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  Due to several lessons learned, it didn't turn out the way I had been picturing, so it took me a little while to shift gears and admit that it wasn't actually a hot mess.  Does anyone else do that?

The cake consists of green cupcakes (I used mini cupcakes), and a slightly bigger head that is red.  I think you could do this really simply, but I wanted to experiment with some techniques.

Frosting
Because of my 32 by Thirty-Two goal (#27 - try a new frosting recipe), I tried a new cream cheese frosting recipe rather than going with my tried-and-true buttercream recipe.  It tasted delicious, but it definitely didn't hold the shape like buttercream would have (to be fair to the recipe, I may or may not have completely ignored her two big tips).  This was my number one complaint with the cake and the source of the "hot mess" evaluation.  But once I let go of the goal image of nice stiff frosting, I could admit that the softer result doesn't actually look all that bad.
I also tried to use several shades of green but with the cream cheese frosting they all blended together a lot more than I had intended.

Modeling Chocolate
The red head is covered with modeling chocolate.  I used the directions provided here, and it worked like a charm.  Though while I was kneading in all that red food coloring, I was wondering if I could have just added it when I melted the chocolate?  I still don't know the answer to that question.

Alternative Baking Pans
The cake base for the head is just a white cake I baked in a (clean) canned chicken can.  It was the perfect size (and free!).  I lined it with parchment paper and used cooking spray for good measure, and it popped right out.  This is a technique I learned at my mother's knee.  She used to make teddy bear cakes for baby showers, and she would use different sizes of cans for the hands, feet, and ears.

Melting and Piping Chocolate
The green eyes, antennae, nose, and feet are all piped chocolate.  The technique is actually pretty simple, and I'd been wanting to try it for a while now.  I used white chocolate with green food coloring for the eyes.  To get the yellow around the green in the eyes, I piped a circle of yellow frosting and then just pressed the green chocolate circles in until I had the desired amount of yellow showing.  I used Dove dark chocolate for everything else. (side note: This is dangerous because after you've finished piping, you can literally just drink the rest of the chocolate.  It took serious willpower not to do just that.)

It was a fun birthday cake to decorate, and I'll definitely be using some of those techniques again.  Thanks for reading! 

Ten on Tuesday - April 17

1.  I'm well into Project Life now.  Playing catchup on 14 weeks is no joke, either.  I'll do another post to tell more about that and some of the lessons I've learned.


2.  One thing I've decided to work on to help with Project Life is to edit my photos on my phone rather than trying to edit them in PSE.  So I've been looking into some new iPhone and iPad apps for editing.  My new iPhone app I'm loving is Photogene2, and TouchRetouchHD on the iPad is like magic!

3.  I bit the bullet and ordered that purse I mentioned a few weeks ago.  I love/hate how big it is.  I love that I can carry my iPad with no problem, but hate that there's room for me to throw all kinds of other stuff into it as well.  So far I'm doing fairly well at taking things out in a timely fashion.  Though I did end up carrying Lincoln's alphaberry around for almost a week at one point.  And one day I walked out the door with his LeapPad as well.  Noticing a trend?

4.  I'm thinking about writing a Manifesto.  I guess they were all the rage this year instead of resolutions?  I decided not to do resolutions this year, so I didn't even notice.  But now I'm kind of liking the idea.  Did anyone write one?

5.  Looking for book or movie suggestions?  Check out the comments on this post over at I Am Momma, Hear Me Roar.  She asked for favorite books and movies and worst movies, and her readers delivered.

6.  Mason (7.5 months) is currently cutting teeth, so he wants to be gnawing on something At All Times.  I've never been a fan of the Gerber teething biscuits (WAY too messy), so I was excited to try this homemade recipe when I came across it on (where else?) Pinterest.  And it's awesome.  I recommend it.

7.  I kind of want to get my handwriting made into a font, but I want a cursive/script font, which tends to cost more.  Any suggestions?  I'm thinking something in the $30 range. 

8.  I saw this on Pinterest the other day (it doesn't have an original source to credit, so if you know it, please share!).  It's funny because it's true.  I've been saying this since Halloween.

(source)

9.  I'm adding a new motto to A Place for Everything, and Everything in Its Place.  The new motto is When in Doubt, Throw It Out.

10.  I tried that refrigerator oatmeal this morning, and I have to say it has potential.  But the banana peanut butter was not the greatest combo.  Maybe it was just the proportions.  Anyone tried any other refrigerator oatmeal recipes?