A Flower Garden Cake

This could have been a Welcome Spring cake, or an Easter cake, but at our house it was a birthday cake for a four year old girl! She loved it.

It was a chocolate cake underneath, with a buttercream filling. Pretty standard stuff. Melody helped me make the 4 bugs on the cake and we had great fun doing it! Fondant and gum paste are just as much fun as play dough.

This is just a closer look at the details. The smiles on the bugs are an exact match of my pinky fingernail!

Happy Easter!

Hello there,

 Happy Easter to you and yours. I'm serving up a simple baked cheesecake with peaches on top for our Easter dessert. I made the "Happy Easter" piping from Royal icing and let it dry and placed it on the cooled cake. My children created these Ukranian Easter Eggs (Pysanky) yesterday.
Enjoy the holiday!

Happy Easter, Love Helen

Lightning McQueen Cake

I was asked to do a car-themed cake for a boy who absolutely loves Lightning McQueen. I challenged myself to do it in 3-D. I am thrilled with the results! Took about 5 hours to decorate the whole thing. I used parchment paper cut-outs to design numbers and lightning that would fit.

The red is all fondant. The other colors are fondant/gum paste mix and the white is buttercream icing. I covered it in buttercream first. This is what it looked like then:

I had the 3 inch toy car as my model. The cake was three 9x9" cakes that were trimmed and stacked in various ways. The final cake is about 7"x14"x2"high. When I was done, I wanted the wheels to look like they were buried in sand (since they were flat on the bottom) so I sprinkled brown sugar all around the cake. I'm super impressed with how this one turned out!

Smurf cake

Today's blog is just to show how I decorated the Smurf cake I made for my daughter's birthday. I used a shaped pan and filled it with my usual chocolate cake recipe for a 9x13" pan.

Then I covered the flat area with smooth white buttercream, and the rest, with stars. I used piping gel to make the black, and red fondant for the tongue. Pretty cute!

It was really easy to decorate this "shaped" cake! But it did use more icing than I expected. Stars take up more icing than smooth finish.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just wanted to share a little love this morning. Happy Valentine's Day! This is the cake I made to show my beginner cake decorating class how to decorate a Valentine's Day cake.

Love to All! Have a nice day.

Rhubarb Granola Muffins

Today's muffin recipe is from an old newspaper clipping. They are awesome! I can't even tell which newspaper they came from but it doesn't really matter! They are crunchy and good. I used Harvest Crunch cereal where it calls for granola so they contain lovely slivers of almonds. 

Rhubarb Granola Muffin Recipe

1 3/4 cups flour

1 1/4 cups granola

3/4 cup sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

2 eggs

3/4 cup milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups chopped (1/2 inch pieces) rhubarb

1/2 cup granola for topping

1. In a medium bowl, mix together flour, 1 1/4 cups granola, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg.
2. In a large bowl, beat eggs; whisk in milk, oil and vanilla; stir in dry ingredients until almost combined. Stir in rhubarb.
3. Spoon into greased or lined muffin cups. Sprinkle the 1/2 cup granola over the batter, pressing lightly on top.
4. Bake in preheated oven at 375degrees F oven for 15 to 18 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Pretty simple! Enjoy with your next cup of coffee or tea!

Cranberry Apple Muffins

Today's idea came from my husband, who asked me for Cranberry Apple Muffins. I adapted a Raspberry Apple muffin recipe in my Mostly Muffins Company's Coming cookbook. They turned out really good. He was happy.

Here's the recipe I made for 24 muffins:

Cranberry Apple Muffin Recipe
3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon (optional)
1/2 tsp. salt

3 large eggs
3/4 cup sour cream (or 1/2 cup sour cream and 1/4 cup yogurt)
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup milk

1 1/2 cups chopped cranberries, fresh or frozen
1 1/4 cups diced, peeled cooking apple

Topping:
3 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. cinnamon

Measure flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt into a large bowl. Stir. Make a well in centre.

Combine eggs, sour cream, butter and milk in a medium bowl. Add to well.

Add cranberries and apples. Stir just until moistened. Fill 24 lined or greased muffin cups full.

Topping:

Combine brown sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle about 1/2 tsp. over each muffin.

Bake in 375 degree oven for about 25 minutes, or until wooded pick inserted in centre of muffin comes out clean. Let stand in pan for 5 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool. Makes 24 muffins.