Category Archives: basic cakes

Landsharks

basic cakes, Decorations May 18, 2011 Leave a comment

One of my daughters signed up for Landsharks Running club through school this Spring.  She enjoyed it so much.  The practices and three meets.  She ran her little heart out.  So when it came time for the team to have a party, she wanted me to make a cake!  Of course, I obliged.  She insisted on chocolate cake with vanilla  buttercream and I had to put the Landsharks shark on the cake.

She goes to Odyssey elementary and their color was red.  I think the Shark looks kind of cool.  What do you think?

Easter Cake

basic cakes, seasonal goodies April 25, 2011 1 Comment

When I asked my family what they wanted for dessert on Easter, all 4 of them answered with “Cake”!  So I prodded further to find out what flavors and after some deliberation, everyone agreed to chocolate cake with peanut butter icing.

I also decided this year I was going to try my hand at home-made peanut butter eggs.  I’ve never made them before but being from Pennsylvania, I’ve enjoyed them many, many times!  I planned to put the two together.  Why not make an Easter basket full of peanut butter eggs?

I made two 6 inch chocolate cakes.  I torted and filled them with the peanut butter icing.  I did the basket weave with tip 21.  I tinted some peanut butter icing green to add grass to the basket for the eggs to have a place to lay.  I think it all turned out nicely.  What do you think?

Red Velvet

basic cakes January 8, 2011 Leave a comment

Today was my husband’s birthday!  His favorite is a red velvet cake with peanut butter buttercream icing.  You wouldn’t think those two go together since red velvet is usually paired with cream cheese icing but it is fantastic.  Very rich…read: needs a glass of milk to go along with the cake!

So I decided to not go frilly with his cake and just do basic borders around the top and bottom and be done with it.

This is a two-layer 8 x 3 inch round, torted, filled and iced with peanut butter icing!

Happy Birthday, my love!

Twelve

basic cakes December 24, 2010 Leave a comment

A customer emailed me to make a cake for her son.  He turns 12 tomorrow!  A Christmas baby!  He happens to love strawberry cake.  Since he’s a boy, she wanted it to look like a boy’s cake.  So we went with vanilla butter cream icing.  He also happens to have a black belt in Shotokan (a Japanese martial art) and wants to have shuriken which is the blade on the cake.  So this is how he’s getting it this year…

Happy Birthday, Mase.  I hope you enjoy your day!

Chocolate Ganache

basic cakes December 14, 2010 1 Comment

So if you are a chocolate lover, you would definitely love this cake.  It is a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream icing and chocolate raspberry filling.  Oh, and I can’t forget the dark chocolate ganache…

A client ordered this cake for her Christmas party this past weekend.  I know this cake is decadent because the first two rounds decided to stick to the pan.  You gotta love baking at this altitude!  No fear, the next two turned out perfectly (these were the cakes given to the customer, of course) but we don’t just waste cake around here.  So my family enjoyed the flopped one.  YUM!

Small Tiers

basic cakes, Creative Cakes, Decorations November 13, 2010 1 Comment

My mom bought me this pan set for an early birthday present.  I decided to try it out. 

First of all I love the way it makes the smallest cakes.  There 2 each 4 inch, 3 inch, and 2 inch in the set.  I have to say that I am not a fan of dark pans but these worked very well.  Second, I love how the cakes baked.  The whole cake was done in 30 minutes of baking time (which for here in Colorado Springs says something!)  The cakes cooled and I went to work.

I used my chocolate cake recipe and had more than enough left over.  In fact, I probably could have used the rest of the batter for another whole cake.  I used them for cupcakes instead, in case you were wondering!  I also used vanilla buttercream icing.  I wanted to try out the Duff Cake Tattoos to see how they worked and what they looked like on a cake.  They are edible and easy to use!  It makes the cake look pretty sharp, don’t you think?

Just to show how small the tiered cake rally is I put it next to a 5X7 of my husband and kids

After I made the cake, I was talking to my husband about it.  We both think it would be a cute cake to duplicate a wedding cake for an anniversary or for a fabulous birthday party with only a few guests!  For whatever reason, this is a fun, fancy cake!

Cadillac Lovers

basic cakes, Decorations November 3, 2010 Leave a comment

Anyone out there love Cadillacs?  This customer’s husband does.  In fact, he has a Cadillac CTS-V.  I’m not a car person but it is a sharp car.  So my customer ordered a red velvet cake with cream cheese icing.  She said he loves layers because it allows him to eat more icing!  So the cake is torted for more layers of icing.  She also wanted the icing to be tinted to a similar burgundy color of his special car.  And the cadillac V emblem would be fantastic.

I hear he was so happy with it that he made everyone wait until he took a picture before cutting it!  That’s what I like to hear.  He also enjoyed the many layers of icing.  Love that!

Computer Birthday Cake

basic cakes, Decorations October 8, 2010 Comments: 4

A customer asked if I could make a birthday cake for her husband who works at Hewlett Packard.  He fixes computer, servers, etc.  I asked what his favorite color is and went to work.  I started with a chocolate sheet cake with vanilla buttercream icing.  I placed the Hewlett Packard logo in the middle and used red tinted buttercream to fill it in. 

I made a laptop using graham crackers for the base.  I covered it with fondant and made the screen look like it had exploded with wires coming out…

I also used graham crackers to make a tower.  Again I covered it with fondant and made some wires to look like they needed repairing…

It was pretty fun to make computer parts for this cake.  Happy Birthday, Mr. A!

Cake Project

basic cakes, Decorations September 1, 2010 Comments: 3

Yesterday was my last cake decorating class. I’m sad it’s over because I loved meeting the people in my classes plus I learned some really great things! This class I learned to work with fondant and gum paste. I had tried my hand at fondant before and realized that I had no idea what I was doing. Now I know how to work with it and manipulate it to do what I want. It’s pretty cool stuff!

This is my final cake project. We needed to bake a cake and have it ready to cover with fondant and decorate with fondant, gum paste, or a combination of the two. So I chose to bake a chocolate cake, torte it, and fill and cover it will chocolate butter cream. In class, I covered it with pink fondant…

Then applied light pink leaves…

And inserted dark pink gum paste roses which I made earlier in the week so they were dry. I also added some fondant/gum paste leaves to make the arrangement real. I placed the finished cake on the cake board I made with my imprint mat the week before. And my project was complete.
I had fun in this class and look forward to working with fondant and gum paste again!
***I apparently never gave credit where credit is due. I was fortunate enough to find a class at Michael’s. My instructor was Charity St. John who was awesome! I totally recommend taking a class with her. But if you are not in this area you should check out your local Michael’s or Joann’s. Good luck!***

Basket of Flowers

basic cakes, Decorations August 3, 2010 Comments: 2

Just a peek at what those pretty daffodils look like on a cake. This is a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and yellow daffodils made in royal icing.

 

I also did the border in basket weave which is something new for me.

Enjoy!
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