Amy's Birthday Cake

One of my very best friends celebrated her birthday this past June (yes I am a little tardy on my post) by having a little get together with family and friends at one of our local tropical restaurants. We sat on the outdoor deck sipping umbrella drinks, enjoying coconut shrimp appetizers and dancing to the live reggae band. It was amazing! And I surprised her with a fabulous birthday cake, decorated just for the occasion. But I couldn't make her just any old birthday cake, I had to go all out! So I decided to make Tres Leches, a wonderful cuban sponge cake dessert drenched in three types of milk and topped with meringe. Then I decorated it just like a regular birthday cake!
Enjoy the photo's below...
Yellow fondant flowers. I rolled out some pre-colored fondant and used one of my small 5 point flower cutters and let them dry out for about 1 day before decorating the cake.

My gumpaste hibiscus flowers took a little more work. I tinted the gumpaste shades of orange and red. Then I rolled out the gumpaste pretty thin, and used an orchid petal cutter, which gives you the three teardrop shapped leaves. So each hibiscus has two orchid petal cut outs, for six leaves total. The first cut out is laid in the bottom of a cupcake holder, then brush the edges of the petals with gumpaste water, and then the second cut out is laid offset of the first cut out. Then I placed a stamen (non-edible) in the middle of the hibiscus and sprinkled edible glitter flakes on top for some added flair.

Next I contructed some simple palm tree's. The base of the trees are chocolate piroulines. That is easy enough! Then I rolled out some pre-colored fondant and cut out about eighteen leaves using a small leaf cutter. To get the first set of leaves to stay put on the top of the tree, I placed three leaves overlapping each other on top of the pirouline, and then I inserted a tooth pick down inside the pirouline that held the leaves in place. Then I layered more leaves on top using gumpaste water to hold them in place. They needed to dry standing up, so I placed a tooth pick halfway into a block of styrofoam, and placed the pirouline on top of the tooth pick.

Here is the Tres Leches all ready to be decorated. Ahhh, a blank canvas. Not for long!

I piped a pink buttercream shell border around the edges, and sprinkled some brown sugar for a sand effect.

Then came the real fun! I added the palm trees, hibiscus flowers, yellow flowers, and more brown sugar sand to create an edible tropical paradise!

An up close shot of the hibiscus flowers...

And finally to complete the cake, I piped a Happy Birthday message in more pink buttercream!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cuppy Cakes

Yes, they are as wonderfully delicious as they sound! My sister and I love peanut butter and chocolate, so I made these little treats for her as a present for her birthday. I won't spill her age because that wouldn't be nice, but I will say she is my older sister! :)

First I mixed a basic chocolate cake mix in my stand mixer, following the directions on the box, and after the batter was completely mixed, I added about 2 Tbs of melted peanut butter and mixed that in really well. As a side note, this gave the cupcakes a hint of peanut butter flavor hidden inside the chocolate flavor. Next time I will probably use closer to 4 - 6 Tbs of peanut butter to see if this gives it more of the peanut butter flavor I was going for.


Did I mention peanut butter cups were going into the middle of these?!?! Oh Yeah! So I unwrapped 24 miniature peanut butter cups. And for quality control purposes, I made sure to sample a few pb cups while I was unwrapping. I'm sure I don't need to remind you that this is a very important step. ;) Next I divided my batter equally into two gallon sized baggies.


I clipped the corner off of one side of the baggie and then I filled each cupcake liner about 1/3 full. Then I placed a peanut butter cup in the middle of each cupcake liner. A good trick is to place the peanut butter cup upside down, so there will not be any air pockets inside your cupcake. Finally, clip a corner off of the other baggie and fill the cups up to 2/3 full. And off to the oven they go!


OK, my girls are baked and ready for more peanut butter! After the cupcakes cooled off for about 30 minutes, I melted more peanut butter and drizzled it over each cupcake! Then I let them completely cool for about four hours, before I decorated them.



Ahhh, time to make them pretty! I made my chocolate gnache frosting in advance the day before, so it had plenty of time to set up. I swirled on the gnache with a 1M tip and placed my fondant flowers (remember these?) on top, and voila! Gorgeous little beauties all ready to be enjoyed!


Too bad they're all gone, looking at them now is making me want another one!


And I had a few gum paste daisies left over from my last Wilton class, I couldn't let them go to waste now could I? No way, so here are some pretty daisy cakes too.

Fondant Flowers

I have been feeling pretty confident in myself when it comes to fondant lately. You know, as soon as Wilton hands you a piece of paper saying you've been certified, your confidence level just sky rockets! Actually, if you saw my first fondant creation, my experiment before I took the class, you would understand where I am coming from. OK, I'll show it to you, and you can even laugh at my expense, but I don't want to hear about it, OK?

Yeah, I know. It's pretty bad, actually there's really nothing pretty about it. But, what's that saying... something about knowing where you've been, or where your going... hmmm...Oh wait, yes "You can't know where your going, without knowing where you've been." That would be exactly what this cake is saying. In the future when I am banging out 5 tiered wedding cakes, covered in embossed fondant and bursting with gum paste flowers, I will still know that this was where I once was.

Now, wasn't I talking about fondant and confidence earlier? Yeah, let's get back to that! :)
So, as I was saying, after the disaster above, I whipped through 4 weeks of Wilton's Fondant and Gum Paste Course to turn out this lil' number...

... feeling much better with the fondant. So after the last class, I decided I had this fondant thing down. Why not try my own little project. I knew I had some cupcakes coming up due in my future, and planned out some really pretty purple flowers. Here is how I made them!

First I rolled out purple tinted fondant 1/4" thick. I then used my small 5 petal flower cutter to press out 12 little flowers. I worked on each flower individually from start to finish, to ensure that my flowers wouldn't dry out too quickly. I kept all of the flowers I wasn't working on under plastic wrap.

Then I dusted my flower former with cornstarch, and placed one flower in the middle of the former.

Next I rolled the ball end of my vainer inside each petal of the flower, to give it a cupped look.

This is how each petal should look after cupping the petals.

Next, I made an indention in the middle of the flower. This is where my flower center will go. I am using 4mm edible pearls as the center of my flowers.

Then I brushed a small drop of gum paste glue in the middle of the flower. This will glue the pearl to the flower, so it will not detach and roll away.

Immediately after brushing the gum paste glue, drop the pearl into place.

And here you have one completed little fondant flower! I placed my fondant flowers inside an empty egg carton to dry. I do have flower formers from one of my Wilton courses, and I do like them... However, I find the egg carton takes up less space and is more easily transported through out the house. And once the flowers have dried, you can close the egg carton and keep them safe from harms way until your ready to decorate.

Oh and not to worry, you will see these lil' guys again soon, adorning some cuppy cakes!

Fondant & Gumpaste ~ Wilton Style

I really meant to post this after class on Tuesday night, but it has been such a busy week! I finished Wilton's Fondant & Gum paste class this week. And how extremely convenient, that the very next day was my co-workers birthday! :) Needless to say she was the lucky recipient of a very finely decorated cake! So here she is, my Fondant & Gum paste Final Cake, in all her glory!

This is a french vanilla cake, frosted and filled with strawberry butter cream, and covered in fondant. The fantasy flowers and leaves are made of gum paste, and the border balls are fondant. And for that "little something extra" special effect, I covered the cake and flowers with cake glitter. Oooohh...Aaaahh!

All of my co-workers, including the birthday girl, loved the cake. Well, they loved the actual cake and the strawberry butter cream. They were all a little weirded out by the fondant and the fact that you really don't eat it. I mean it's edible and all, it just isn't as great as butter cream. Just as a side note regarding the fondant. For the purpose of this class, I used only store bought fondant for convenience and because it was recommended by the teacher that we learn with store bought fondant due to the fact that it is extremely consistent. I do plan in the future to give it a go with marsh mellow fondant, as I have heard the taste is much, much better!

What's next? Wilton's Course 3 Fondant & Tiered Cakes, which I am so excited about, but I have to wait two months to take it! Sigh, I guess I will just be doing a lot of baking and blogging until then!

OK, one last picture of my cake, this one is at a different angle :)