Picnic Cake

If you want to have a great cake for a barbeque or a picnic, try one like this:

I made a double batch of white cake in two 9x13" pans. I stacked them with buttercream icing in between. I used my new "grass" tip (picture a tip with a flat top with 11 holes in it like a salt shaker) and made green buttercream "grass". To cover the cake took about an hour.

Then I applied the picnic blanket. It was made of rolled fondant mixed with gum paste. First, I made strips of red and white fondant/gum paste using my fondant ribbon maker set at 1/2 inch. I lined those up and rolled over them lightly with a rolling pin. Then, I cut strips in the other direction and lifted each of those strips and offset the squares to make the checkerboard. It was all laid out on my roll and cut mat, so when the checkerboard was done, I could "flip" it onto the cake.

All of the picnic items were formed in advance from a mix of fondant and gum paste.  They were left to dry for about a week. To finish the cake, I just placed the picnic items on the picnic blanket and piped the greeting with white buttercream icing.

The trickiest part was definately the picnic blanket. The squares didn't always want to stay together. The most fun part was making the little hot dogs and hamburgers. Those took about 3 hours to form, so it wasn't quick, but I would have been quicker if I didn't have to color the fondant first. It was worth the effort. Happy Picnic-ing!

Congratulations all Graduates!

Young and old, there's lots of graduations this time of year. My 5 year old just graduated from pre-school. I made a cake. This was for his class and their families to share at the ceremony tonight.

It was a 12" square white cake and the hat was a 6" round chocolate cake. Both were two layers, filled with buttercream. The top of the hat was a piece of fondant/gum paste that I made a while ago. So was the "scroll".

Here are the cakes after I crumb-coated each of them in buttercream and covered the square one in my Marshmallow Fondant. You can see the red fondant partly rolled in the background. I draped it over the round cake to become the grad cap.

I also used the "Congratulations" word I made from fondant at the same time as the top of the cap. I made them from Play Doh alphabet cutters. Play Doh tools are very handy with fondant. I had some mini M&M's, so I randomly sprinkled the top of the cake with them, to make it more playful - it was for a group of 4 and 5 year olds, after all! I finished it off with a trim of painstakenly placed M&M's around the bottom. I tried placing a few of them in a row around the base of the cap, but they didn't look right so I left it as is. That was fun! The pre-school owner asked me if I could make the one for next year and I agreed. What will I charge?

Congratulations all Graduates!

Rich Chocolate Cake with Buttercream Filling

This is actually part one of the birthday cake for my soon to be 3 year old. The original recipe calls for peanut butter and milk chocolate morsels and a creamy peanut butter milk chocolate frosting.

 But, I followed my plan from yesterday and made it with chocolate chips instead. I had to trim the tops flat and that is where most of the chips were, sadly. Here's the recipe:

Rich Chocolate Cake
2 cups all purpose flour
1 3/4 cups sugar
2/3 cups cocoa
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
1 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2/3 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 9" round cake pans.
Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixer bowl. Add milk, water, oil, eggs, and vanilla. Blend until moistened. Beat for 2 minutes (batter will be thin). Pour into prepared pans. Sprinkle 1/3 cup chips over each cake layer.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

I did all that, and then I trimmed the tops flat (where most of the chips were, but I'll save those for later).

Then I filled it with orange flavored buttercream icing.

I'll show you how I finished it and decorated it tomorrow! I will also tell you how wonderfully delicious it was, I hope!