A little on the wild side

I'm home sick today and thought I'd catch up a little on blogging. :) Today's subject: Diaper Cakes. I made the above diaper cake for my sister-in-law's baby shower. It had a jungle theme, so the white tiger was appropriate as the topper and I chose the ribbons to go along with him.

I thought I'd do this tutorial-like so I took lots of pics as I assembled it. Here's what you need:

1 base (I used a cake cardboard circle the same diameter as the cake covered in blue wrapping paper)
1 pole-like item to use as the center (I used an aerosol air freshener)
approx 60 size 1 diapers (newborn diapers usually are outgrown before the entire package is used)
at least 63 rubber bands in varying sizes
Gift wrap tissue paper or burp cloths (which I didn't use)
Toppers and other decorations (baby themed)
Ribbons

I first started by rolling up all of the diapers with the crease on the outside. (That's my dad's hands.) I secured each one with a small rubber band.

Next, I prepared the base and center and positioned one layer of diapers around the air freshener, securing the layer with a medium sized rubber band.

This is where the tissue paper comes in. You could wrap each diaper in tissue paper, giving the entire cake the appearance of being white, but since green was used so much in the jungle theme, I decided the leave the diapers as they were. I added two more layers of diapers to the bottom tier of the cake and secured each with a large rubber band.

Then I wrapped a wide ribbon around the bottom tier - covering the rubber bands - and taped the ends together. Then I tied a medium width ribbon around that and tied a tight knot

leaving tails so I would be able to tie a bow to them later.

The repeated these steps for the second tier of the cake, only using two layers instead of three.

Then I made two bows and tied them with the tails.

Finally, I used the remaining medium width ribbon to tie a bow around the tiger's neck and I set him on top of the cake. Success!

More cakes for boys

My dad's favorite cake is Pineapple Upside Down Cake. Which I don't get. Sounds gross to me. That's why I refuse to make it for him.

And when he's tired of it, we have this:

Pineapple Pudding Cake

yellow cake mix prepared according to package
16 oz. crushed pineapple, drained
2 packages 3 oz. instant vanilla pudding
1 1/2 c. cold milk
9 oz thawed cool whip

Prepare yellow cake mix according to instructions. Let cool. Drain as much juice as possible from crushed pineapple. Spread all over top of cake. Mix both packages of pudding mix with milk. Fold cool whip into pudding. Spread over cake and refrigerate.

Yet another cake that was made for a boy.

My friend Debbie has a baking blog: The Joy of Baking. You should definitely check it out. I stole one of her ideas for this cake:


Debbie's cake was a plain yellow cake, with chocolate ganache in between layers and on top with a white chocolate drizzle. I did mine with a 8-inch triple chocolate fudge cake, almond-flavored butter cream frosting and a vanilla cookie drizzle over the strawberries.

And it was easy to put together! I made sure I used a lot of frosting in between layers and on the sides. The pirouette wafers stuck easily to the sides. The *only* hard part (besides not eating it before it was time) was finding enough wafers that hadn't cracked in half. (I ended up using 2.5 packages. Can I say that I DO NOT enjoy having to go to Wal-mart multiple times a day?)

More cakes for boys

So, obviously I don't check my million and four email accounts often enough or else I could have linked you all to this blog: www.tiepedia.com/tie-blog, which I was directed to by Matt himself. If I had been checking all my email accounts regularly, I would have linked his post before Father's Day. :(

Anyway, check out tiepedia.com.

I went way out of my comfort zone making this cake for my sister's 17th birthday party. She had a luau/pool party but originally requested a ice cream sandwich cake, which I didn't think was feasible so I persuaded her that she actually wanted a sand castle cake.

I started out a few days ahead of time by baking two 9x13 vanilla cakes to serve as the base (and the vast majority of the cake), which I cooled, leveled and froze until I was ready to build the cake. The morning of the party, I baked another vanilla cake in a castle cake mold. While it cooled, I mixed up my go-to butter cream frosting with pure vanilla flavoring. (I normally use clear flavoring, but since the frosting was going to be covered in graham cracker crumbs, it didn't matter that the flavoring was brown. And if I had been smarter, I would have tinted the frosting tan so white spots didn't show through the graham cracker crust.)

I layered the two frozen cakes and covered it with frosting. The I leveled the castle layer and positioned it on top of the cake.

At this point I wasn't sure how I was going to get the graham cracker crumbs to stick to the sides of the cake so I took a break to mold some fondant shells.

I took a handful of white fondant, worked in rose tint until the fondant was almost uniform. Then I worked in some copper and ivory tint just a tiny bit so that there were streaks. I pressed a bit into a shell mold, trimming the excess, and the brushed each with pink, white, or gold edible pearl dust and set aside to firm up.

Then I mixed graham cracker crumbs (I bought a box of crumbs so there would be one less thing for me to do), quite a bit of cinnamon, even more white sugar, some dark brown sugar (all three to taste), and edible gold glitter (to give the "sand" dimension).

Then I iced the sides of the castle with butter cream frosting thinned with milk and sprinkled the graham cracker mixture on all of the horizontal surfaces. I mixed in a cup of melted butter with the remaining graham cracker mixture and pressed it on the sides of the castle and the cake. It worked okay, but the entire effect would have been better if I tinted the frosting.

Finally, I positioned the shells on and around the cake. These were helpful in hiding the "baldest" spots.

And I got to tell you - I'm not shy about it - this was the best tasting cake I've ever had.

Speaking of cakes for men...

...I made this one for one of the guys at work for his birthday.



I think it's very pretty, but I didn't say so to him. Wouldn't you want this cake if you were a gouty 38 year old man?

As for specifics, this is a Devil's food chocolate cake that I baked in a regular bundt pan. It baked fairly flat so I didn't need to level it. It's covered in a semi-sweet chocolate ganache (my first *ever*) and white cookie drizzle frosting. And left over fondant daisies that I had made two months before for a different cake. (Shh! Don't tell. And you should be eating fondant anyway, it's gross.) The yellow centers are yellow cookie drizzle frosting.

This is how I made the ganache:

I took four squares of baker's cocoa, slightly melted, and mixed with 1/4 cup of heavy cream until unified. Then I added white sugar to taste and poured it over the cake immediately. I kept going in circles around the cake until I used it all up, that's why there's a puddle in the middle.

Cakes for boys.

The cakes I decorate tend to have a lot of flowers on them. Which I love. So I've been having a hard making appropriate cakes for men. Below are ones I made specifically for persons of XY chromosomal type.


This was a six inch yellow cake with vanilla-flavored butter cream frosting I made for my (former) co-worker's teenage son who loves basketball.


This was an eight inch white cake with almond-flavored butter cream frosting. The stripes are made of one-inch wide strips of fondant.

And you can do it, too!

I know I promised a Banoffee post (yum, banoffee) but I'm still experimenting with recipes. In its place, I offer a fast and easy cake decorating post.



I made the above cake for my friend Lisa's birthday last week, with a total decorating time of one hour - which is four hours less than my normal decorating time.

I started off a few days ahead of time by baking a milk chocolate cake with pudding (from a mix) in 2 - 9" circle pans. I let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then on a wire rack for an hour. Then I leveled them, loosely wrapped each in plastic wrap, placed in the clean pans and froze until I was a ready to decorate.

When I was ready to decorate, I prepared a cardboard base (a plate is fine, too) and placed one layer on it. Then iced the top of that layer, placed the other layer on top of that, and iced the sides and the top. I used Pillsbury milk chocolate frosting (it was the cheapest kind).

I purchased these to use in the middle because I knew that I would be short on time (and I don't know how to make roses yet). Then I drew curlies around the edges and a rim around the bottom edge with vanilla-flavored ready-to-use cookie icing. I put it in the refrigerator overnight and took it to work in the morning.

When life gives you cherries...

I've been taking a cake decorating break. It's been nice: I've had time for my other hobbies, I've had time to relax, so on and so forth. I'm going to start up again shortly (Janelle and I are planning on an entire Saturday to make our first wedding cake), but I think I need to confess something first.

I'm not a big fan of cake.

Cakes you buy at bakeries have too much frosting on them and that frosting is usually too sweet for me. And then the cake, well, it usually doesn't taste that great without any frosting. So I stay away from cake when I can. I don't have birthday cake these days; I have pie. (In fact my next two - at least - entries will be about pie.)

I also stay away from cherries when I can. Not that there's anything wrong with the way cherries taste, I just happen to have had an unfortunate incident in my youth when the cherries in my stomach ended up in an obliging front yard after a long and winding car ride.

I've confessed all of this because I need you to understand that the next thing I'm going to write is the absolute truth: My favorite kind of cake in the world is Chocolate Cherry Cake, as introduced to me by my college roommate Natalie, and this is how you make it.

Chocolate Cherry Cake

1 chocolate cake mix
20-21 oz. can of cherry pie filling
2 eggs
1-1/2 c. chocolate chips
1 c. sugar
1/3 c. milk
5 tablespoons butter or margarine

Mix the cake mix, pie filling and eggs together and bake in a preheated oven for 30 minutes at 350*F. (Check the cake at 25 minutes)

After the cake is done baking and cooled down, in a sauce pan, boil the milk, butter and sugar for 1 minute. Remove from the burner. Stir in the chocolate chips until melted.

Pour the glaze over the cake and chill in the refrigerator until the frosting is set. Best served cold.

The Art of Ice Cream Cake

Juli previously asked how my family got along without an oven in my early years. The answer is simple: we didn't ever make anything that was made in the oven. I'm sure it was very frustrating for my mother, as we're big on turkey all year long. And we usually have a cake at least twice a month.

And I'm sure it was frustrating for others, too. I remember my brothers and I once being babysat by one of the older girls at church (I was either six or seven then) and her wanting to make Christmas sugar cookies. We rolled out the dough, cut out camels and bells and stars, frosted the cut-out dough (I didn't know you were supposed to frost the cookies after they baked), and then couldn't bake them because the oven didn't work. There have been other times at church activities when us girls would bake and I didn't really participate because I didn't know how to bake and then was accused of having a bad attitude. (Can you imagine that???)

So, you would see how it was impossible for my mom to make our birthday cakes. We always had our birthday cakes from a bakery on Las Tunas Drive in San Gabriel, CA, Julie's. I always had white cakes with strawberry filling. Unfortunately, Julie's no longer exists (I believe it's a tire store now). Which means we had to come up with new plans of action for my much-younger-than-me sister Monica.

One year we had a Baskin Robbins' ice cream cake, which went over well but was very expensive. The next year, we tried to make our own. At the last minute. Which means we took the slab out of the carton, spread a bit of frosting on top and served. The next year, I took a little more time to plan and tried to melt two cartons of cookies n' cream ice cream in a 9x13 dish. That worked a little better, but I didn't give it enough time to melt and reset.

We gave ice cream cakes a break after that.

This past year, Monica asked for an ice cream cake again. And I gave it actual thought before I executed and came up with this, Snickers Ice Cream Cake.

This is what you need:

1/2 gallon chocolate or vanilla or caramel flavored ice cream
1 mix for white or chocolate cake, including eggs, water, oil as directed
caramel ice cream topping
salted peanuts
saran wrap
two baking pans the exact same size

On day one, I melted half a gallon of chocolate ice cream and poured it in a saran wrap-lined 9 inch round cake pan and put it in the freezer flat. (By lining the pan, you'll be able to pull the ice cream layer right out of the pan after it's set.) I made a white cake in a 9-inch round cake pan, only letting it cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then on a rack until completely cool (the rest of the cake batter I made cupcakes with), then leveled it with a serrated knife so that it was the same height as the ice cream layer. I wrapped it loosely but completely in saran wrap, placed it in the (clean) 9-inch pan and put it in the freezer. (Variations: chocolate cake with vanilla or caramel ice cream.)

The next day, I placed the layer of cake on a plate, drizzled caramel topping (I made my own, melting 20 caramels and mixing it with 2 tablespoons of milk) and salted peanuts on that layer. Then I pulled the ice cream layer out of the pan, pulled off the plastic wrap, placed it on top of the caramel drizzle, and then drizzled more caramel and peanuts on top of that.

Serve cold!

Don't stop me if you've heard this one before...

When I was in college, I may have loved this boy who may or may not have been called "George Thurmond" who loved my chocolate chip cookies. He used to devour them, with sound effects of rather a pornographic nature. "Herbal Essence commercial" is a politer way of describing it. Unfortunately, if he had known me better, he would have known that at the time I could not make a good batch of chocolate chip cookies to save my life. [I have since mastered the art: put the dough in the refrigerator for a hour or so. It's amazing how it helps!]

Yes, the secret comes out: the Pillsbury doughboy was a personal friend of mine.

Like boys that I may have loved, he fell to the wayside and he and I are no longer friends. I may have been hung up on him for a very long time. About a year after "George Thurmond", my roommates and I became friends with a group of boys who were everything to me: brothers, friends, neighbors, teachers. Every Monday night (and nearly every other night of the week) for two years, we would congregate together and sometimes I would make a special dessert.

One of my roommates at the time was Janelle, my best friend who will be featured frequently in this blog, who knew about the whole "George Thurmond" business.

One night I made an Apple Cinnamon cake, as an experiment, and received rave reviews. Of rather a pornographic nature. I was the first to notice: "Phil" *really* loved it. The words "Yipee ki yay" were used. And soon "Aaron" let me know that he loved it, too, although not so animatedly. Janelle, being the good-friend with-the-memory-of-an-elephant that she is, turned to me and said "Aaron just Thurmonded that cake."

To which I replied, "Phil also Thurmonded that cake like no one's Thurmonded that before."

Later on, this cake became known as Thurmond Cake, the food of legends, and now I will share the recipe with all of you.

Thurmond Cake

1 box spice cake mix (Betty Crocker is a personal friend, too)
21 oz. can apple pie filling
3 large eggs (or 3/4 cup egg substitute)
3 Tablespoons cinnamon sugar
Whipped Topping

Preheat oven to 350*F. Grease and flour 9x13 cake pan. Mix the cake mix, pie filling and eggs well. Pour half of mixture in cake pan, sprinkle with 1/2 of cinnamon sugar. Pour rest of mixture in pan, sprinkle with rest of cinnamon sugar. Bake for 28-30 minutes (check at 25 minutes). Let cool, and serve with dollop of whipped topping.