Cross Shaped Communion Cake

On Sunday it will be time for my son to make his first Communion. I will be making a cheesecake for him. I am still thinking of ideas of how to decorate it. If you have any, let me know.

I made a cake for my daughter for her first communion last year and it was a simple cake, cut into a cross shape. I made it from three 9"x9" cakes, cut and stacked to look like a cross. It became a two layer cake. I used a double batch of my old chocolate cake recipe. Then I crumb coated it in buttercream, coated the top in buttercream and the sides in yellow fondant.

Here is another version I did for a friend of mine a couple of years ago:

How to form three 9x9 cakes into a large, 2 layer cross:

1. cut all three cakes in half down the middle (giving six 9" x 4.5" rectangles)
2. cut two pieces in half again (giving four pieces 4.5" square and four pieces 9" x 4.5") 
3. arrange the pieces to form the bottom layer of a cross using half the pieces. Fill with your favorite filling and arrange the other pieces to make the top layer, cross over as many seams as you can, to help hold the cake together.
4. Decorate the cake. Using little pink star drop flowers with green leaves at each corner is another decorating idea that was beautiful. Here is a primitive drawing of the assembly steps:

Best wishes to all first Communicants out there!

Simple Easter Cake

Welcome to the first day of Spring! We had lovely sunshine here and it got me thinking of Springs past. Which made me remember the cake I made for Easter one year. Since I didn't bake anything other than pizza today, I thought I would share that cake.

It was probably a chocolate cake with chocolate fudge filling, but it may have been a carrot cake, I don't remember exactly.

Either way, I covered it in yellow buttercream and did a basket-weave around the sides to simulate a woven basket. Then, using a #4 piping tip, I made grass from yellow buttercream. I fashioned a little chick from fondant and put him in an open plastic egg.

I "filled" the rest of the basket with empty plastic eggs. I could have filled the eggs and used them as party favors and that would have been more fun, but it would look the same.  I made the handle purely from fondant, but I really should have added gum paste to make it harden and hold up. As a result, the handle drooped and fell onto the plastic eggs before I presented the cake. No big deal; it wasn't meant to be eaten anyway. I finished the cake with "Happy Easter" piped in green on the foil base.

I haven't forgotten the promised birthday cake either. I'm thinking of scheduling the party for this weekend so you might see it by then! For now, Happy Spring!

Two Tier, Two Layer Chocolate Birthday Cake, part 2

Today's Thursday! I was supposed to present the big, beautiful cake, right? Well, we all got sick, sick, sick. So I canceled the party for this week and we'll see what next week will bring. I will finish the cake still. It is in the freezer. I did feel well enough to finish the decorations for it. Here they are

I feel sad that I couldn't even present my little girl with her cake on her birthday, but we are too sick to eat it today anyway. I'm also sorry to any loyal readers out there that there was no post yesterday - I had nothing to tell you other than I was laying down sick all day. I'm feeling much better now and tomorrow is shaping up to be a normal Friday! See you then!

Surprise Birthday Cake

This is the result of my finding out about a friend's birthday the day before it happens. What fun!

On Thursday evening, she invited me and a few friends over for coffee on Friday morning. So, I went to sleep thinking, "I should make a cake for her!" I woke with the children at 6am, fed them crepes like usual and started baking my standard chocolate cake at 7 am.

The cake was out of the oven and cooling in a snowdrift at 8:00. I made up a batch of chocolate fudge icing and a batch of buttercream icing while the cake baked. Then I hustled 2 children to the bus stop, filled the almost cool cake layers with the fudge icing and put the cake in the fridge. I took the third child to pre-school and returned to decorate the cake (I used the time in the van to think of how I would decorate the cake).

When I returned to my kitchen, I slapped on a crumb coat of buttercream and quickly rolled out the white fondant. I used the Wilton's "wide glide rolling pin" and their "roll and cut mat".  Those tools made my job easy. I used the Wilton "Italic Make Any Message Press Set" to imprint "Happy Birthday Melissa" on the white fondant. I rolled out a few pink fondant/gum paste hearts and a length of "ribbon" and applied them to the cake with a dab of water. My drive called saying she was on her way which meant I had 10-20 minutes so I added the blue piping at 9:30, to finish the cake. Melissa was very surprised and delighted!