College Graduation Cake

My boyfriend's sister graduated from college this weekend. As a gift to her, I made this cake for her graduation party. The inside of the cake is half vanilla, half chocolate. The frosting is buttercream, and the silhouettes are edible sugar paper.

The idea for the people came from a cake I'd seen on wilton.com. My boyfriend and I used their template as a stencil to cut the people out of the sugar sheet with an x-acto knife, and then placed them on the cake. The biggest challenge of this cake was baking it with two different flavors. It was easy enough to pour into the pan and separate, however one unexpected problem was that the chocolate side ended up cooking faster than the vanilla. It was hard to balance cooking the vanilla cake all the way and trying to not to overcook the chocolate side. Unfortunately, the chocolate side was a little more dry than I would have liked. Hopefully the fact that the cake looked so pretty makes up for it a little bit. Right?

25th Anniversary Suprise Party Cake

My cousin planned a surprise party for my aunt and uncle's 25th anniversary, and I volunteered to make the cake.



The cake is a super moist chocolate cake with a raspberry cream filling between the layers. It's frosted with vanilla buttercream icing and decorated with royal icing roses and rosebuds. The leaves, vines, and lettering are buttercream. 

It seemed to be a big hit at the party, people couldn't believe how moist it was. I've actually used this cake recipe before for other family events, but it's amazing how different it can taste depending on what filling and frosting it's paired with.

Mother's day/My Birthday cake

As much as I believe that one should not make their own birthday cake, and that food always tastes better when someone else makes it, I have a very hard time believing that a cake bought from the supermarket would even come close to something I would make myself. Considering my birthday fell on Mother's day this year, as it does every so often, I kept the mentality that this cake was for that occasion more than my own birthday.To be fair, my parents DID bring a little, chocolate, store bought cake to my birthday celebration. So technically, I didn't really make my own birthday cake, right?

I wanted to make something springy, so when I found the recipe for this lemon-marshmallow cake, I knew it would be perfect. I have a weakness for marshmallow and my mom loves lemon, so this cake was ideal for the occasion. I admit, I used a box mix for the cake itself. Didn't have the motivation or time to make a lemon cake from scratch. I did, however, alter it to make it a little healthier (though the filling and topping kind of cancel this out). The layers were brushed with a lemon/sugar-water solution, and then stacked with seedless raspberry preserves and a lemon curd/whipped cream filling. One thing I learned with making this cake: gravity + sugar solution= cake layers flattening out. All of the layers started out the same size, but the bottom ones got a bit squished from being so moist and bearing the weight of the cake.

My favorite part about this cake was the topping. Marshmallow cream, instead of icing, swirled on top. The best part? I got to use a tiny little torch to toast the marshmallow swirls. I absolutely love the presentation of this cake.

Strawberry-Chocolate Mousse Cake

May is going to be a busy month in terms of baking projects, and otherwise. So I'm going to try and be good about posting things in a timely manner. First project of the month is a Strawberry-Chocolate Mousse cake for my boyfriend's mother's birthday. She had suggested something chocolate and/or strawberry, so this is what I came up with.

The crust is chocolate graham crackers, crushed with a rolling pin by my boyfriend; the sides are lined with slices of fresh strawberries; the inside is filled with a semi-sweet chocolate mousse. The cake is topped with swirls of fresh whipped cream and more sliced strawberries.