Cake #10 - David's Spider Man Cake

Cake #10- David's Spider Man Cake

For David's 5th birthday, he asked me to make his cake! I was quite flattered and told him SURE I would make his Spider man cake (Venom in particular), and got to work, thinking about the design. Then his mom, my sister Kathleen, sent me a few pictures he pulled off the internet on awesome spidey cakes! But yikes, they were all really complicated, involved, challenging, hard.

The one he REALLY wanted was a 3 layer cake, all different colors..with fondant buildings all along the side to make it look like the city, plus a red spider web on the top. Then he also wanted a Spider Man and a Venom toy (both of which were hard to find at that time, but which became our "present" to him)  and they were supposed to be shooting a web from the top layer, PLUS chocolate candy webs. At first I thought "wow" there's no way I can do that, but had enough time to contemplate my options, and decided to tackle it. That little guy is just the best, and so worth every drop of energy  that went into it .

I had to make 3 graduated layers, using my round wedding cake pans, with the smallest one on the top. I filled the top layer short so it wouldn't be that thick, and used black gel icing to create the web on it after frosting it red. I decided to use my cake plate dividers, knowing I would probably lose some aesthetics and it might look a little more lopsided, but felt it was worth it to have the ease of actually removing the top 2 layers to cut and eat, than it would be to slice through two or 3 layers (neatly) of different sizes, and the weight of both layers might affect how lopsided it was anyway.

 

 

To decorate, I used ready made fondant and black markers to serve as the buildings on the side, and the edible markers to draw the windows. It was tedious but it came out pretty good...as long as it stayed in my fridge.

I pulled out the chocolate melts and using a small bottle with a cap (candy makers bottle) put the melted chocolate in the bottle (actually melted the chocolate in the bottle) and drizzled thick strands of chocolate in the shape of partial webs on wax paper and let them sit for a couple of hours before removing them to insert in the top of the cake, vertically. I made a few extra just in case I broke them (and one or two did) and again assembled them at the party location. Turned out rather good, all things considered. Yay. 

 

The daunting task was like the time I tried it before--transporting such a delicate cake, to an offsite location and to be stored outdoors in the heat of the day, until cake time. This time I froze the layers so I could transport them and then assemble them when we arrived. That worked much better and our shady spot helped keep it from melting.

I had to make a dozen or so cupcakes too to match, just so the little ones would have something easy to grab. Found the candy spider man topping pieces at the local craft store. The only heretofore unmentioned challenge, was, like all darker colors, getting the icing tint to go dark enough. Fortunately, I just used a lot and the colors deepened nicely. Happy Birthday David.

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.

Cake #7: Baby Shower cake

     Hey there people that enjoy cake! Well, Decathlon is finally over and I have time to write. Ok, so where are we? Hmmm... 
     This week's cake is one I have mentioned before but haven't made a post about. I mentioned it in Margaret's cake post for her baby shower. This week I'm going to talk about Kathleen's shower cake and cupcakes. They're a little similar to Margaret's. It's the same cradle design but the cupcakes are different. So, for those of you that have seen her boys, David and Mikey, this was the shower for her oldest, David.
     She made...sorry, I've got writer's block today :-)

     She made both the cupcakes and the cake vanilla and made a whole vat of her butter cream frosting which she made into many different colors: yellow, blue, light blue, and the normal white.  So, she frosted it as you see to the right. Kathleen's cake was a little more fun than Margaret's cakes. Well...so says the crayons on the wheels of the cradle. Now, both of the baby shower cupcakes had toppers on them. Kathleen's cupcakes had shiny, purple sprinkles and a semi-clear baby binkies on them.
     One little fun fact, before we bring this post to an end. We played a game with the binkies, at the beginning of the shower people were given one of the cupcake topper binkies on a piece of ribbon and had to wear them as a necklace. Now, throughout the whole shower if, during a conversation, you used the word "baby" and the other person recognized it, you had to give your binky to them. At the end of the shower, whoever had the most binkies won...well, I forgot what they won but ... it was a good idea. Which reminds me... Well, that's it for today so until next week!
    

Cake #6



Yup, that is our overn for right now... and
that terrible sink as our ONLY sink.

     Well, first off I am so sorry for not putting a blog up in so long, but I've been busy with IB tests, High School tests, Decathlon and haven't found time to write and mom hasn't found time to bake since... well, take a look for yourself......(This is the part where you look at the picture to the left) So, where to start? Alright, so yesterday was my Academic Decathlon at Santa Margarita High School and mom was commissioned to make some type of dessert, and knowing her she made a cake. Our themes this year were Michelangelo for fine arts, Space for science, World Youth Day for religion, and presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison for social studies, and a book called Belle Prater's Boy for literature. So, she chose space.

     Now, I had no idea what she was doing with the cake until she let me use her computer and she forgot to close the picture of a NASA space shuttle : ) . So, she makes two large rectangle cakes and carves the base of the ship out of one and then takes a little strip from the other cake to make the 3D part of the cake.

     So, you know that at the bottom of the cake there's supposed to be three thrusters. She took three ice cream cones and stuck them into the cake and cut up a fruit roll-up into little strips and put them into the cones to make it look like fire was coming out of it, just before take off.

     She also made a couple of little star shaped cupcakes. She frosted them with black frosting and added some blue/purple srpinkles and it looked like a star. she put it around the cake to make the shuttle look like it was in space.

     So, we all enjoyed and nibbled at the cake since we had it, about 10 minutes from the award ceremony and we were all so nervous. We ended up with an individual 4th place medal for English/Grammar and a team 3rd place medal for the Super Quiz. So, until next week...hopefully :)

Hey Guys,
     Sorry for my procrastination with the blog but everything around here has been extra busy with Christmas and 2011 right around the corner. I haven't gotten a nice chance to sit down and write something and go hunting for the pictures. But, I promise you that the first week of 2011 there WILL be a new one up. It'll be a nice way to bring in the new year. So, have a happy holidays and here's an early happy new years since we are leaving for lake arrowhead this afternoon and won't get back till...Sunday the 2nd. So HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!! and I'll talk to ya'll next week with a new cake! :) Until next week!

Cake/Cookie #5 : Mexican Wedding Balls

      Hey Guys, Meghan Here! Well, we are certainly still in the fall season. Any of you feel that strong wind this morning? My mom had to sit through that from 8am-11:30am for script(a.k.a. our school's selling of gift cards). So, as you may have noticed by the title, we will be taking a break from cakes and be venturing into the land of COOKIES!!!!!!! Also, we'll be keeping up with the present instead of going back to the past. As some of you may know, mostly the ones that come over for Christmas, that my mom makes these powder sugar covered pecan(with all the dough) cookies and they are TO DIE FOR!

      But, they're just so good, how do we not get tired of them? SHE ONLY MAKES THEM DURING THE CHRISTMAS SEASON! Yes, we know that it's only...what? three days after Thanksgiving? But, we (as in Shannon, Kyle, and I) beg and plead ON OUR KNEES for these cookies as soon as possible :) . This is one of my mom's original recipes. Start off by turning whole pecans into finely copped pecans with a food processor by adding them to powdered sugar, vanilla, salt, and flour. Then, leave the dough in the fridge for half an hour so it hardens or when you try and roll them into balls, they'll just fall apart. So, now roll the slightly hardened dough into balls and cook 'em. Then immediately after they're out of the oven roll them in powdered sugar and then again after five minutes.

     The effect of rolling them in the powdered sugar twice is that when you do it immediately, the sugar melts along with the heated butter and gives a melt-in-your-mouth effect and then the extra rolling is just for adding some more flavor!

     Hope you are all enjoying this peek into my mom's cooking life.And I've seen the comments on my mom's Facebook and I really appreciate them and so does my mom!  Have a great week and good luck with the Christmas decorations. Until next week!