Baking

Here’s what’s been going on at Stahrs Cakes.

December: There were lots of goodies made. Peppermint bark, peanut butter fudge, cornflake wreaths, lots of cookies. I attempted a cookie I saw on Pinterest. Chocolate Melted Snowman.

I used my own triple chocolate cookie recipe and white royal icing for the snowman but I used the same design I saw on Pinterest. I used a mini peanut butter cup for the hat and some red and green sprinkles for the eyes and mouths. They were cute and the kids say they are part of the Christmas cookie line up.

January started out with a Chocolate cola cake. That’s what my husband asked for our New Years dessert. So moist, chocolaty, rich. I dressed it up a little with miniature chocolate chips on the glaze.

Then my husband’s birthday with his red velvet cake with peanut butter buttercream. I’m not sure what my obsession is with mini chocolate chips but it does dress up a cake…

Since there are only five here, I made a six-inch round and torted the layers so it was a tall cake but still small to not waste.

Then my oldest daughter turned 11! Aside from her first birthday (which was chocolate cake), she has always asked for strawberry cake with strawberry icing. This happens to be the pinkest cake ever. This year she had a hard time deciding. She actually wanted to have peanut butter fudge. But when she asked if she would get her star-shaped cake (a tradition I’ve been doing since she turned one) and was told no, she decided on chocolate cake with strawberry icing.

And, yes, she got her little star…

I also had an order for a special birthday. Twin boys who were turning 11! Mom wanted them to have individual cakes but similar and didn’t want a lot of cake left over. So we decided on 6 inch one-layer cakes. Mom also said that boys were, well, boys and didn’t really have any ideas on what they want their cakes to look like. She had a picture of a cake she thought was neat and decided on gold, purple, and black for colors. I tinted chocolate icing black and covered and filled each layer with it.

I rolled out purple fondant for straight ribbons and white fondant for curvy ribbons. I used edible gold spray on the white. I also used a star-shaped cookie cutter for some star confetti. While I still used the same decorations, I wanted the cakes to be different for each of the boys. So I purposely placed the fondant decorations differently.