Viva Pinata Cake

Marlene's friend Grayson wanted a Viva Pinata Cake. Since he is not a fan of chocolate, I made a vanilla butter bundt cake. It was cut into various pieces to make a snake type Pinata. I usually do not like cakes covered in start tip dots, but it worked very well for the pinata. The kids loved it and there was nothing left over to take home.

Baby Shower Cake in Chocolate

When Beth asked for a cake fore her baby shower, she wanted it to be covered in chocolate. I made a chocolate cake and layered it with cookies and cream filling. The cake was covered with chocolate butter cream. Over that I poured a thick layer of dark chocolate ganache. The decorations are made out of white chocolate. And, yes, you guessed it, for all we know, it is going to be a boy.

Spring Flower Cake

For my friend Paula's birthday I made one of her favorite cakes. Here we have a Banana Cake filled with vanilla pastry cream. I made this cake once for a dinner party and Paula took home a piece. The whole day she was looking forward to have the cake after dinner, but when she got home she discovered, that her parents had visited and eaten the cake. It was a great disappointment. This time she got a piece, but still no leftovers. The last piece had to be split three ways by popular demand.

Spiderwick Chronicles Cake

It was a last minute decision to make Logan's birthday cake according to a Spiderwick Chronicles theme, so I kind of ran out of time for all my ideas. But here it is. Butter-vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting. The house is made out of chocolate cookie dough. The recipe worked pretty good since it did not run during baking.

Red Velvet Wedding

When my friend Christie got married, she wanted a red velvet cake. And since the wedding was held in the Chinese Room of the Smith Tower she wanted an Asian inspired design. So we settled for a three layer square cake (12", 8", 4") with white cream cheese frosting and red and violet royal icing flowers.

Roses

When Lisa turned 50, she wanted a carrot cake with white frosting and flowers. Since there would be children at the party, Lisa was concerned with crisco flowers. We decided on royal icing for the flowers. which turned out pretty cute.

Aquarium Cake

One of my coworkers wanted a cake for her niece, who turned 2 years old. Since the little girl likes fishes, we decided on an Aquarium cake. The inside is a funfetti cake with cream cheese frosting. I realized later, that transport might be difficult and the next version will have to have a wider base.

More Tie-Dye Cakes

The last cake had so much response, that here is another version. These are three different cakes ordered for a 40th Wedding anniversary. We had chocolate, butter and carrot cake. And just to let everyone know, I can pipe other numbers than 40; you don't have to wait until 40 to get it!

Guess how Old?

This cake was for a "round birthday for a friend of mine. I thought 60s and tie-dye went well together. It was a fabulous lemon pound cake with lemon cream cheese frosting.

Babyshowers

Several of my co-workers have been expecting babies and so we had a wave of baby showers. Here are some cupcakes, that I made for the various occasions.

Topsy-Turvy in Blue

This weekend the son of a friend of mine got married. They wanted a grooms cake for the rehearsal dinner in his favorite color blue. So we decided on a topsy-turvy cake with three layers in 12", 8", and 4". The cake itself was a white chocolate cake with an espresso custard filling, covered in cream cheese frosting.

Princess Castle

Castles are in fashion this month. This one was for a girls 4-year birthday party. We have a chocolate base and a golden butter cake castle.

Beach Party

This was a birthday cake for a 6 year old boy. It was a beach party theme so I made a larger version of Marlene's last birthday cake. It is a 12 x 12 yellow cake in two layers with cream cheese frosting. the sand is graham cracker crumbs. The beach people are Teddy grahams. I tried to make fondant palm trees, but this spring is just too moist and they just disintegrated. Thank goodness for plastic.

My home is my Castle

It has been a while since I made a castle. This one has a 16 " round chocolate cake base and is made out of a yellow butter cake. I dug a mot, lined it with marzipan , and filled it with blue jello. The kids at the party loved it and when they kept asking their parents for more "water" they actually meant jello.

Strawberries and Cream

It is the time of the year for strawberries. When I was a child I loved strawberry cake best, so I have made many different versions of strawberry cake. But I think this new one is definitely one of the best. It is a Americas Testkitchen recipe. What could be wrong with three layers of buttery cake, strawberries and various configurations and plenty of cream?

Easter Cake

Here is my first attempt on a marzipan cake. While the look of fondant cakes is not completely unappealing to me, I definitely don't like the taste and most of the things that go with it. I know that marzipan is an alternative to fondant and so I tried it. The kids helped, hence the cookie cutter Easter decorations. The result was a Georgian Chocolate Pound Cake in 4 layers put together with apricot preserve and then, well, covered in marzipan. It worked better then I thought and I loved the flavor.

Ballerina Cake

I guess it was just a matter of time. My girls have their own opinions about cake. When I asked Amelia what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday, she was quite specific. I was to be a pink cake, with ballerinas in pink, blue and purple, and she wanted frogs on it. So her it is. A two layer Funfetti Cake with cookies and cream filling. The ballerinas are made of chocolate/candy melts and the frosting is the usual cream cheese frosting.

Cowgirl Boot

My friend Christie celebrates her birthday every year at a line dancing bar and so we thought it appropriate to have a cowboy boot cake. It was a yellow butter cake with (chocolate) cream cheese frosting. The cake was cut out of a 9 x 13 square cake.

Hannchen Jensen Torte

As many of you know, it was my birthday as well. And so I hosted my annual Tea Party. I like to make German tortes for this occasion. My friend Thomas has been raving about the Hannchen Jensen Torte for years now, and so I decided to make it. I absolutely love it. It is two thin layers of yellow cake, baked individually, with a meringue and slivered almonds on top. The filling consists of a layer of raspberries and whipped sweetened cream. Like in many German tortes the top layer is precut, to not completely destroy the slices during cutting and serving.

The result is a complex blend of flavors and textures in each bite.

Indiana Jones Cake, 2nd Edition

Last weekend was Jay's nephew Samuel's birthday. Sam wanted an Indiana Jones Cake for his birthday, too. So that gave me the chance to revisit this "Temple of Doom". I skipped the stratigraphy cake and made it only chocolate, since no actual archaeologists were present this time. And instead of baking the dome in a bowl, I used the Betty Crocker baseball pan, that gives you the option of creating a hollow cake to be filled. Since it was the Temple of Doom, I filled it with sour gummy snakes. I lost the flowers as well and made the greenery more jungle like. I was very happy with the result and I think the half dozen 9-year olds agreed. Compare it yourself.

Indiana Jones Cake

I always wanted to make an archaeologist cake, so Jason's birthday gave me a good opportunity. The cake is made out of pound cake. I divided the dough in three, with a sour cream pound cake with chocolate chips, chocolate pound cake and almond cake. This made for "stratigraphiy" in the rocks. Everything is covered in a cream cheese chocolate frosting. I did not want the strong flavor of chocolate overpower the cake, so I chose a more mellow chocolate cream cheese frosting.