Cake Decorating

Natalie Kay

Aka Natales, Ms. Kay, Nat, Nats, my beloved little sister. Okay, that last one she doesn’t respond to but maybe it will eventually catch on. 18 ahhhh, wow! honestly, I thought she was 18 a long time ago. About a year ago I was lecturing her about how important it is to vote and she said “umm Alexis, you DO realize I legally cannot even vote yet?” and I responded “wait, WHAT!?”. I often forget how much younger she is than me since she is one of my best friends. She has an independence that I look up to and a heart that never stops caring. I love her very much and I am so beyond thrilled she let me make her birthday cake.

The Cake

The cake itself is the funfetti cake from Molly on the Range. The recipe can also be found on Molly Yeh’s website mynameisyeh.com. I love anything with lots of color so I was so excited to try to make this cake.

   

I then had this grand plan to put freeze dried blueberries in the frosting for a deep purple-y blueish color. Welp that didn’t happen since I went to THREE stores and I couldn’t find any freeze dried blueberries. I found strawberries and raspberries. Heck, I even found freeze dried mangoes but of course NO freeze dried blueberries. I could have ordered them online; however, that would take at least two days and I did not plan that far in advance. So I tried to find a recipe online for blueberry buttercream that had fresh blueberries. It did NOT turn out as planned. The recipe was flawed so I had to amp up the powdered sugar to stiffen up the soupy mess.

I then had a grand plan to make a lemon curd to fill the inside (because, ya know blueberries and lemon are delicious together). Yet again I ran into some bumps. The lemon curd I made was thin and watery. It would just seep through the cake and not form actual layers. Soooo I was like hmm I will just make a lemon buttercream to fill the inside. Yep, that worked better. It is a more delicate lemon flavor than what I was hoping for but it sill works.

The decorations are made with marzipan because the cake was inspired by Molly Yeh. I was so excited about using marzipan because I thought it was going to taste like almond paste since they are next to each other in the grocery store. After putting a huge piece in my mouth, I realized it does NOT taste like almond paste. Haha oh well, you live and you learn. New cake, new experiences.

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Karla

My mom aka Karla is the most loving, caring, and thoughtful woman. I am very very lucky to have her not only as my mom but also as my friend. She is the person who is most frequently contacted in my phone because she is always willing to listen and always knows what to do. Love you mom!

Cake

The cake I made for my mother’s day was strawberry cake. So when I cut into the cake it was bright pink on the inside. The flowers on top are courtesy to my grandmother who gave me her old cake decorating supplies. I made the buttercream flowers a week early and kept them in the freezer so that they were ready to go when I wanted to decorate the cake.

I started with the buttercream roses and once I felt comfortable making those, I made some other flowers as well. I am still mastering the art of buttercream flowers; however, I had such a great time making these that I am looking forward to practicing again.

The chocolate on top was also a new experience. It took a while for me to even figure out how to write with melted chocolate but once I got that down I wrote a few “mom”s and drew some hearts. I am sooo glad I made extra because once I tried to pick up the chocolate it started melting in my hands. Ughh I should have thought that through a little more. However, I was able to piece letters together to still write out mom.

In the end, my mom LOVED the cake. She is so supportive of everything I do that she would have loved it even if it didn’t turn out. It was such a great learning experience to make a whole cake from start to finish. It took a lot longer than expected; however, it is all about the experience and how I can improve my skills for my next cake.

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Happy Spring Time Everyone!

It might have snowed last week but I am trying to not let that bring me down. I am always excited for when spring finally rolls around. I am not a fan of winter or snow so I am 100% ready for warmer weather. This time of year is so great because you can appreciate the warmth and sunlight after months of dreary snow and slush. Plus, it is at this time of year that I can start thinking about gardening again. It may be too cold outside to plant anything yet, but it is a perfect time to get my seedlings started inside by a window.

Easter Cake

Ah, right yes…the cake…the whole reason I am making this post. I made a carrot cake last year for Easter and it went over so well that I tried making another this year. I know carrot cake is probably the most basic Easter dessert so I tried to amp up my decorations so that my cake could stand out.

So I made a carrot cake recipe that I found on Food Network. I made it last year and it turned out so I did the same thing again so that I would know the cake would taste good. The frosting is a basic buttercream. Which I am aware that most carrot cake recipes use cream cheese frosting but I did not buy enough cream cheese (AAHHHHH) so I just made buttercream. I added blue food coloring to my frosting for the outside of the cake to make it a nice pastel color. Once the cake was frosted, I lined the bottom with rainbow sprinkles.

I then made the little “bird nests” out of sweetened dried coconut and sweetened condensed milk. I formed little nests, placed them in a parchment paper lined cupcake sheet and baked them in the oven. Once they were cooled, I placed cadbury mini eggs inside and put them on top of the cake.

So I made the cake in smaller baking pans so that I could get three layers instead of two. For the frosting in the center, I used the same exact buttercream but I left it white and added rainbow sprinkles.

That’s it! Not that hard at all and it turned out super cute. I hope you have a wonderful Easter!!

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Erica Got into Vet School

Woohooo!!! Go Erica!! Erica is my best friend of 19-ish years. We met each other in preschool when we were neighbors. Anyway, she got into multiple vet schools after working so hard for so many years. I am so proud of her and will happy for her no matter where she chooses to go. To celebrate her achievements, I made her a cake!

Note: this post does NOT contain a recipe, just some pictures of my cake.

I got some cookbooks for Christmas and this was one of the recipes from the cookbooks. It is a strawberry stack cake. The layers were basically cookies and there is homemade strawberry jam between each layer. On top is whipped heavy cream and the decorations are just a variety of things I found in my pantry.

The cake has 6 layers in total. I was worried about being able to cut into the cake since the layers were cookies, but the strawberry jam helped soften things up, plus I used a really sharp knife so it all turned out fine.

CONGRATS ERICA!!!

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I turned 23!

It’s my birthday!! Or it was a few days ago…here is my cake I made to celebrate.

Note: there is no actually recipe for this post, I was just excited about my cake and wanted to share.

I have had a lot of people ask me through my life if I hate having a Christmas birthday. Honestly, I love it! This is a wonderful time of year, plus my parents are also Christmas babies so we have so much to celebrate. I don’t really care if my presents get coupled together with Christmas because I don’t think I need any presents anyway. I am so thankful for all of the wonderful people in my life and I am just happy that they want to be around to celebrate.

Gingerbread Hoho Cake

I made these cute little gingerbread men a couple weeks ago when I made my other gingerbread cookies. They were just so adorable I felt as though I needed to do something extra with them. For the cake itself, I made a vanilla cake and added molasses and gingerbread spices to it. I was a little worried that adding more liquid was going to mess it up but everything turned out fine so I will jut pretend now that I knew everything was going to work out. The frosting comes from my Grandma’s Hoho cake recipe. I will add that recipe to the blog some other time. It is sinfully delicious. It is the type of frosting that you think about days later, wishing you savored it more when you had the chance.

Thank you to everyone who made my 22nd year so wonderful. I am so excited to see what 23 has it store for me!

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