Cake #9 - Sweet 16, pink and brown with pearl candies, girlie cupcakes and CUPCAKE

Cake #9 - Sweet 16 pink and chocolate cup cakes, with heart and pearl candies - Shannon's Sweet 16, Party #2...girlfriends only. For this party we started with a brown and pink colored theme. Shannon drew the most beautiful invitation...with a music note theme and the matching colors. You would think it wouldn't be that hard to find things in brown and pink...classic baby shower colors these days...but alas, when looking for our Sweet 16 decorations, even balloons were NOT available in brown where we shopped. So since black and pink were in stock, we modified our colors slightly. I was still able to do the cake in chocolate, but after last night's case (Cake #8) being sooo chocolately, I altered the plan a little. I love a checker board cake...3 layers and each layer has a little plastic insert into which you first pour white cake, and in the next, the chocolate cake, finished with an outer white layer. Then you do the reverse for layer #2 and the reverse again for layer #3. But, what I found at the local craft store--Michael's to be specific--was a similar design for cupcakes...so I decided to use in for Shannon's cupcakes.  The first batch was made with white cake and chocolate frosting, and then the second batch the reverse. I had more white batter, so I decided to dye it pink with food coloring, and then fill the centers pink to fit out them. Then when they were frosted with the leftover super chocolately Hershey's Cocoal frosting from the night before, they were just perfect. 

However, cupcakes alone are not complete in my book. So, we used my 2 piece  vinyl cupcake shaped cake pan to bake one "large" cupcake to sit in the center of all of the cupcakes. That also had to be special, so I made it with chocolate cake in the base, and white cake in the top. I frosted it and the other half of the cupcakes with pink frosting, and used the pink for the "filling" in between the top and bottom layers of the cupcake.

I then used these awesome pink pearlized candies and it with the little heart candies , together made for a nice, girlie cupcake/CUPCAKE combo.

Cake #8 - Super Chocolate Hershey's Cocoa Cake and Frosting for Shannon's Sweet 16

Cake #8

Well,it's sure been awhile since we posted...3 years! A lot has happend in this time, but the cakes have continued to be baked, decorated, and lovingly shared. Here they are, to fill the gaps, one at a time, starting with the most current one--Shannon's Sweet 16 birthday cake and cupcakes. There were 2 parties...the big chocolate cake is from the family dinner. This was a "totally" Hershey's chocolate cake and Hershey's Cocoa chocolate frosting. Extremely chocolately. Both were recipes from the Hershey's classics...both available on the web. The buttercream is a standard, buttercream loaded with Hershey's Cocoa. The cake was actually a wedding tier (bottom tier) single layer cake...just cake and frosting. This one is so rich, that to add a second layer and filling or more frosting, would just be too much. I think.