Dora The Explorerer Cake

Hey everyone! So sorry for the lack of posting lately... it just seems that summers are so busy. Every weekend there is something to do whether it be a party, a cookout, a trip to the cape... I'm sure you all know how it goes.

Recently we have been experiencing a bit of a heatwave as well... 90+ degree temperature don't really motivate me to bake... but soon I will be resuming my baking as I have a couple of orders coming up next weekend!

As for this post... a few weeks ago one of our good friends was having a birthday party for their beautiful daughter. They asked me to make the cake and I was VERY excited! Hailey LOVES Dora so it was only natural to make a dora cake!

I started out with 2 10inch vanilla cakes. I colored some of the cake batter purple and marbled it through the cakes just for a fun effect.

The layers were filled with a creamy "fun-fetti" type filling and the cake was frosted in buttercream.

To get the Dora image on the cake I used the piping gel tranfer method. I found a picture I liked of Dora... printed it...and then traced it on parchment paper using piping gel. Once it was all traced I transferred it onto the frosted cake.

Once I was satisfied with the transfer I began coloring her in by piping using a star tip. I had a colored picture to use as reference while I filled in the outline.

Here is the final product....








Hailey loved the cake.... she actually just dug in using her face! I was happy with how the cake came out and look forward to making more fun cakes like this soon!

I hope everyone has a great week and stays cool!

Baby Shower Cake and Cupcake Tower

This cake was a fun cake to make!

The flavors were simple... chocolate and vanilla with buttercream frosting.
The challenge was in the fondant work.

The top cake had a lot of adornments. Out of fondant I made a little baby covered by a blanket, a toy teddy bear, some blocks, a bottle and a ball.



For the cupcakes I molded little baby feet. I also put a few baby feet around the sides of the cake.



Here is everything all together.....

Happy Birthday Patrick

One of the adorable Bunker babies turned 1 last weekend and I was asked to make his birthday cake!

One of his favorite things is Sesame Street so I ran with that and made the Sesame Street themed cupcake tower.

I started with a 6inch chocolate cake for the top. It was frosted in white buttercream. To decorate it I cut out orange and green circles from fondant and also cut out a green "street" sign for the side of the cake. On the "street" sign cut out I wrote Patrick and the # 1. On the top edge of the cake I piped out the Happy Birthday message.



For the cupcakes I made Elmo and Cookie Monster.



The frosting was still the same buttercream just colored red and blue. I used 2 different tips to frost the cupcakes. The eyes were store bought and for Elmo I cut his mouth out of fondant and for cookie monster I used 1/2 an oreo in place of his mouth.

Here is the final product....






From what I hear Patrick loved the cake and happily destroyed 2 cupcakes!

Happy Weekend everyone!

Flag Cake

When I was browsing my favorite blogs I came across this awesome cake on Glorious Treats

Her tutorial is much better then mine will be but either way if you have the chance you should definitely try and bake this cake!

So I started out baking all the cakes I would need..

2 8inch red cakes
1 8inch white cake
1 8inch blue cake

Now from those cakes, I cut the 2 red cakes into layers and the white cake into layers.
Then from one white layer and one red layer I cut out a 4 inch circle.

The blue layer should stay thick... and a 4inch circle should be removed from layer.

These are all my cakes waiting to be stacked...




From all the original cakes I had one full red layers left and the cut out red and white layers. I put them into a ziploc bag and froze the leftover cake for cake balls at a later date!

Now onto stacking... start with a red layer, then white, then red, then blue. In the cut out circle in the blue layer stack the 4inch white layer then the 4 inch red layer. There should be a thin coat of frosting between each layer.

At the end of stacking the cake should look something like this...




To frost this cake I wanted something light and summery. I decided on a whipped cream frosting. It was super delicious.



I kept the outside decorations simple since the real suprise would be when I cut into the cake. I brought this cake to a July 4th BBQ and it was a huge hit! I wish the colors in the layers came out brighter... hopefully next time!







Either way this cake was a huge success and the flag inside was an awesome surprise!

I hope everyone has an awesome 4th of July!

Recipe:
Whipped Cream Frosting

1 8oz package of cream cheese
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
a pinch of salt
1 pint of heavy whipping cream

Directions:
Whip cream cheese, white sugar, vanilla, & salt until smooth. Slowly add in heavy whipping cream while continuously beating until firm peaks form. Add in 1 cup of confectionery sugar and whip for 15 seconds.