After having a facebook conversation, we all agreed it’s not sad at all when you make your own birthday cake. It started after my husband told how sad it was when I told him my plan. I didn’t think it was at all…I get what I want! Don’t you agree?

What makes this cake so amazing and the best ever? I really think it’s the coffee and the buttermilk. Coffee in chocolate cakes just brings the chocolate flavor to a new level and it doesn’t taste like coffee AT ALL. The buttermilk lends to the moistness of this cake. The frosting is the perfect ending to this cake. It’s fluffy and tastes amazing. Remember though because there’s cream cheese and milk in the frosting, the frosting and the cake (after it’s frosted) has to be refrigerated.

I have posted this chocolate cake recipe before…it was the first ever post on The Little Kitchen. If you go looking at that post, please don’t make fun of those pictures! I already know how bad they are!

In that post, I talked about a whipped frosting (made with pudding) that I would share and I realized I never did so when I told myself I’m baking my own birthday cake…I thought I would share that recipe along with some of my tips for baking cakes.

I learned this from my Wilton cake decorating instructor. I cut out pieces of wax paper that measure the same size as the bottom of the cake pans. Using a silicon brush, I spread Wilton Cake Release on the sides and inside bottom of the pan. Place the wax paper inside the pan and you have a non-stick surface. This cake batter is very wet and if you don’t do this, you’re likely to have the cake stick on the inside of your pan.

Once the cakes are done, allow them to cool inside the pan on a cooling rack for 10-15 minutes before flipping them onto the cooling rack. Once you remove them from the pan, be sure to peel off the wax paper and allow the cakes to cool completely before adding the frosting.

I usually don’t have buttermilk on hand but I always have buttermilk powder in my fridge. The brand I use, it’s 4 Tbsp of buttermilk powder to 1 cup of water. A tip to keep the oil from sticking too much in your measuring cup, I measure the water first then add the oil.

I actually measure all of my wet ingredients first and have them set aside before I start sifting the flour.

I always sift the flour and cocoa powder. Something else I usually do when I make this cake is measure enough out for several more cakes…in separate bowls and then place my newly made “cake mix” into plastic zippered bags with labels for what it is and date it. Homemade cake mix makes it way convenient later for making cupcakes or a tasty cake in the future…all you have to do is add the wet ingredients and bake!

Doesn’t that cake look super moist?

I love this frosting. First mix the instant vanilla pudding mix with milk. In a separate bowl, whip the cream cheese and then add the cool whip and mix thoroughly. Then add the pudding and mix thoroughly.

Torting (cutting the cake length-wise to create multiple layers) this cake is necessary so you get more frosting per square inch of cake. I usually use a cake leveler but I haven’t been able to find it since we have our office torn upside down during a remodel. Using a knife and just being very careful, slice the cake lengthwise to create two layers. When I finished, I had a four layer cake.

Here are some frosting shots…it looks like buttercream, doesn’t it? Nothing like it…it’s very fluffy and creamy. Don’t get me wrong, I love buttercream but I love a good whipped frosting too.

Almost there.

Nice, huh?

Almost done…

This is seriously the best chocolate cake ever. My co-worker calls me a cake snob…I’m sorry I guess I am.

I have some other news to share too. I got a new job! This is really bittersweet for me. I really love some of my co-workers, I’m going to miss them. I have worked for this company for almost 8 years and it feels like a family. But I have this awesome opportunity in this new company, I’ll have a lot of flexibility and will get to learn a whole lot. I love learning new things and I’m really excited about the work. I’m really excited that I’m going to get to travel a little bit too…I just can’t wait to start next month! But today, I’m sharing this cake with my co-workers whom I’m going to miss.

The Best Chocolate Cake Ever with Pudding Frosting

Yield: 10 servings

Prep Time: 45 min

Cook Time: 25 min

Total Time: 70 min

...the best, that's all I have to say.

Ingredients:

Chocolate Cake

1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup baking cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup black strong coffee (1 Tbsp coffee with 8 oz boiling water)
1 cup buttermilk OR combine 1 Tbsp vinegar with 1 cup milk OR 1 cup equivalent of buttermilk powder & water
1 tsp vanilla extract

Pudding Frosting
1 cup milk
1 3.4 oz box of instant vanilla pudding
8 oz. cream cheese (room temperature, leave out for at least an hour or two)
12 oz tub of Cool Whip (put out on the counter 10-15 minutes before making the frosting)

Directions:

Chocolate Cake
Grease a 13 x 9 inch cake pan (or two 9 inch round pans for round cake or makes about 36 cupcakes) and line the bottom of the pans with wax paper cut to size.

In a mixing bowl, sift all dry ingredients together. Then take a rubber spatula and thoroughly mix the dry ingredients together.

Mix in all of the wet ingredients and do a quick mix with your rubber spatula and then mix with an electric mixer until well blended but don't overmix.

Pour evenly between pans and bake at 350 degrees for 28-30 minutes or until after inserting a toothpick into the center of a cake, it reveals just crumbs.

Pudding Frosting
Mix vanilla pudding mix with milk in one bowl, using an electric mixer, until pudding sets. In another bowl whip up cream cheese using an electric mixer. Add cool whip to the cream cheese and mix together well.

Add vanilla pudding to the cream cheese-cool whip mixer and mix together well.

Store in the refrigerator until the cake cools. After frosting the cake, the cake will need to be stored in the refrigerator.

For best results, after frosting the cake, refrigerate the cake for at least 30 minutes before serving.

Tips:
The first thing I do when making this recipe, is to brew the coffee. That way it's mostly cooled by the time I mix it in and it doesn't start cooking the eggs.

A great time saver tip (that I learned from a CakeCentral.com forum and use ALL of the time) is to mix all of your dry ingredients ahead of time and put in a plastic zip bag or a plastic container, this way when you're ready to bake, you just pour into your mixing bowl and add wet ingredients. It's kind of like making your own cake mix. Be sure it's sealed tight and you date the container so you know when you mixed it.

Cake recipe from Barefoot Contessa at Home. Frosting recipe from my friends, Joe & Tricia.

One more thing, I wanted to say happy birthday to my friend, Julie. We have the same name and birthday!

And huge thanks to our friends, Joe & Tricia, who introduced me to this recipe. I actually never really liked chocolate cake until I had Tricia’s cake!

For more awesome chocolate cake recipes:

Blackberry Red Wine Chocolate Cake
Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Frosting

Disclosure: This post does contain affiliate links.

The Best Chocolate Cake Ever with Pudding Frosting © 2009-2011 the little kitchen. All rights reserved.

I was waiting for a chance to make the cake again so I could retake photos. Then, this past weekend, I had this idea that I wanted to convert the recipe into mini Meyer lemon bundt cakes. We drove all over town this past Sunday to different stores until I finally found a mini bundt cake pan. (The whole time I was thinking, if I had thought of this before, I could have ordered a pan with my Amazon Prime account.) It’s okay, I’m lucky that my husband loves to go hunting for stuff. He doesn’t like shopping but he likes looking for stuff, if that makes any sense! He calls it the hunt.

This recipe is much better as mini cakes. I have to admit that I ate 6 cakes right after they came out of the oven. The Meyer lemons make these cakes so perfect. The sweet lemony flavor along with the buttery flavor, with a dust of powdered sugar these cakes are a little piece of heaven. They even remind me of Madeleine cookies too…hmm, I have a Madeleine pan that I need to break in.

If you have never cooked or baked with a Meyer lemon before, you’re missing out. It smells wonderful in the kitchen when you zest one. I get really excited when I see and smell the cake batter too. The wonderful scent is unmistakable and unlike a regular lemon.

The left photo is from the first time I made these cakes, be sure to chop up the Meyer lemon zest if yours comes out this big. The second time around, I chopped it up a little bit more and it was perfect and I didn’t have any lemon zest stuck in my teeth.

These are perfect as a light dessert or a quick snack. Just be careful…I know you will not be able to eat just one! I made these again tonight because I couldn’t stop thinking about them.

Mini Meyer Lemon Bundt Cakes

Yield: 18-20 mini cakes

Prep Time: 20 min

Cook Time: 20 min

Total Time: 40 min

Meyer lemons have a wonderful taste and these light, buttery cakes are perfect with tea or as a light snack.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature (I used Kerrygold)
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 Tbsp grated Meyer lemon zest, plus 1/4 cup Meyer lemon juice (from 3 Dandy Fresh Meyer lemons)
1/3 cup fat-free plain yogurt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
powdered sugar, for dusting

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 12-cup mini bundt cake pan with baking spray.

In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking soda and salt.

Using a stand mixer with paddle attachment or large bowl and electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy and light, about 3-4 minutes. Add eggs and mix well. Add Meyer lemon zest and juice and mix well.

Add 1/3 of the flour mixture along with half of the yogurt and mix, to combine. Repeat & combine (be careful not to overmix). Add the remaining flour mixture and mix, just to combine. As you're mixing, use a rubber spatula to scrape the bottom of the bowl. Add vanilla and mix.

Using a medium or large cookie scoop, add 1 1/2 to 2 Tbsp to each bundt cake cavity. Tap pan gently on the counter to remove any air bubbles that may have accumulated.

Bake 15-18 minutes until a toothpick inserted in several cakes comes out clean and cake edges are golden brown.

Lay a sheet of parchment paper on a cooling rack and place on top of the mini bundt pan. Flip the pan over and remove the pan, leaving the cakes to cool on the parchment paper (on top of the cooling rack). Allow cakes to cool at least 15 minutes before dusting powdered sugar on top. Store in a sealed container for up to 3 days.

Inspired by Everyday Food's Tangerine Cake

Disclosure: Thanks to Duda Farm Fresh Foods for providing the Meyer lemons for this recipe!

Mini Meyer Lemon Bundt Cakes © 2009-2011 the little kitchen. All rights reserved.

I actually made these a few weeks ago when I made the Halloween Tombstone Cupcakes and couldn’t wait to share these with you! I used McCormick’s orange and yellow food color and it worked just fine.

Taken with my iPhone

That’s me eating one of these yummy cupcakes! If you have a favorite white cupcake recipe, feel free to use that. I went the easy route and used a cake mix which I do not have a problem doing whatsoever!

Looks kind of like a candy corn, doesn’t it? Next time, I would use the instructions on the box that uses egg whites instead of whole eggs. I think I’ll get a more pure white cake batter that way.

Using a 2 tsp (small) OXO cookie scoop, I first add the yellow cake batter to all of the cupcake liners first.

I rinse the cookie scoop and then add the orange cake batter to all of the cupcake liners.

Rinse the cookie scoop again and then add the white cake mix on top, into all of the cupcake liners. It’s that simple!

Candy Corn Cupcakes

Yield: 24 cupcakes

Prep Time: 30 min

Cook Time: 20 min

Total Time: 50 min

This recipe is slightly adapted from Pillsbury's Easy Halloween magazine. The recipe was for mini cupcakes, making them regular sized gives you a bigger treat. So easy and wonderful for a Halloween get together.

Ingredients:

1 box white cake mix with pudding (including ingredients for the cake mix)
McCormick orange food color
McCormick yellow food color
24 white cupcake liners
2 containers (1 lb each) creamy white ready-to-spread frosting
orange and yellow coarse sugar
24 pieces of candy corn

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare cupcake pan with cupcake liners. Prepare white cake mix as instructed on the box.

Take 3 small mixing bowls and divide the cake batter between the three bowls, about 1 1/2 cups in each bowl. In one bowl, drop 3-4 drops of yellow food color and fold in. Add more drops and mix if needed. In a second bowl, drop 3-4 drops of orange food color and fold in. Add more drops and mix if needed.

Add 2 tsp of cupcake batter of each other color at a time to cupcake liners, layering in this order, yellow, orange then white.

Bake for 15-18 minutes or according to the directions on the box. After removing the cupcakes from the oven, allow cupcakes to cool in the cupcake pan for 5 minutes before removing and placing on a cooling rack. Allow cupcakes to further cool for at least 15 minutes before frosting.

Using a large tip and decorator bag, pipe frosting onto cupcakes. Mix together 2 Tbsp each of orange and yellow coarse sugar together and sprinkle on top of each cupcake along with 1 candy corn each.

Cook's Notes: Next time, I will use the instructions on the box that says to use egg whites, this will ensure the white part is more of a pure white.

Be careful, when folding in the color, do not overmix the cake batter.

To make it easier, scoop each color at a time into all of the cupcake liners.

from Pillsbury's Easy Halloween magazine book

Candy Corn Cupcakes © 2009-2011 the little kitchen. All rights reserved.

The mission: to create a kid-friendly Halloween treat. Ooh fun!

The point is to have fun and create some fun treats with your kids, so feel free to use your favorite homemade cupcake recipe or use a boxed mix. Same with the icing, make it yourself or buy it. It’s completely up to you!

For this project, I used McCormick Black Food Coloring. It works very well! It doesn’t take the entire bottle to dye the icing. Using 3-4 drops at a time until you get to the shade of black you’re looking for.

Mix up it really well and you get this black icing. Cool, huh?

I love that the McCormick^® black food coloring, along with their other colors such as red which is perfect for red velvet cupcakes, works really well in cake batter as well as icing. Huge benefit, McCormick food colors don’t change the taste of the foods they are dyeing too.

I used a decorator bag, coupler and a #2 tip to write RIP with the black icing. You can use a plastic zippered bag, cutting the corner after filling the bag with about 2-3 Tbsp of icing. Make sure it’s a small cut and pipe out RIP on each cookie.

Tip: If you don’t have cake decorating supplies, you can use a plastic zippered bag and fill it with 3-4 Tbsp of icing. Make a small opening on the bottom corner of the bag by cutting it with scissors.

Make it an assembly line, pipe 3-4 cookies at a time.

**Party Idea: You could use these cupcakes as favors or place markers at a party table. Pipe each child’s name on the cookie or directly on the cupcake.

When you’re done piping the cookies, press them halfway into the decorated cupcakes and decorate with candy bones or sour gummy worms. I made the bones myself with a mold and melted white chocolate. I have seen hard candy bones (even with “blood” on them) in the stores lately.

I was photographing the cupcakes with the bones and then remembered that I had just bought these brightly colored sour gummy worms. Perfect!

**Party Idea: Make decorating cupcakes an activity at your child’s Halloween party. Set up a table with small bowls filled with sour gummy worms, white chocolate bones, chocolate sprinkles and any decorations you want. Depending on the children’s ages, you may want to ice the cupcakes ahead of time. Your kids will have fun decorating their own graveyard cupcakes!

Halloween Tombstone Cupcakes

Yield: 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 package (18.25 oz.) chocolate cake mix , or favorite homemade chocolate cupcake recipe
(To make a box mix even more moist and delicious, I added: ½ tsp McCormick vanilla extract, ½ Tbsp espresso powder mixed with ½ cup warm water, 3.4 oz chocolate pudding mix (not instant), one extra egg that the box calls for and the same amount of oil and water the box mix calls for).
24 black or brown cupcake liners
2 containers (16 oz) icing
24 oval-shaped cookies
McCormick Black Food Color
zippered plastic bag or decorator bag with coupler and #2 tip
assorted decorations: chocolate sprinkles, chocolate cookie crumbled, sour gummy worms

Directions:

Bake cupcakes in liners in a cupcake tin according to directions and allow to cool on cooling rack at least 30-60 minutes. If you're not going to ice them within 12-24 hours, be sure to cover them.

Prepare 1 container of icing at a time by dropping in 3-4 drops of black food coloring at a time and mixing well. Add until desired color is reached. (Note: colors will set one shade darker, so keep that in mind.)

Ice each cupcake with black icing.

Pipe RIP or names on each oval-shaped cookie with icing a decorator bag (with coupler) with #2 tip or in a zippered plastic bag (cut the corner of the bag very small).

Push cookies into cupcakes halfway and decorate with your favorite candies.

Tips:

• If your cupcake liners tend to separate from the cupcake like mine sometimes do if completely sealed, cover with thin kitchen towels and store on the counter in a cool & dry place.
• It's best to not add anything to the cupcake that's not edible when decorating with children.
• Allergic to chocolate or don't like it? Use a white cake mix. Before putting batter into the cupcake liners, dye the batter gray with McCormick black food coloring. Using a few drops at a time until you're happy with the color.

Inspired by McCormick's Ghosts in the Graveyard Cupcakes

McCormick is also sponsoring a wonderful giveaway at Kitchen PLAY. Simply recreate any one recipe from this month’s SideCar Series, post about the experience on your blog and provide a link to your post on Kitchen PLAY to enter. All qualifying bloggers in each course will be entered to win $50 (10 prizes total).  The deadline is October 31, 2011. Please review the complete contest rules before entering. Good luck!

Disclosure: I was compensated for my participation in the Kitchen-Play Halloween SideCar series. These opinions are my own and I only work with brands that I like.

Halloween Tombstone Cupcakes #KitchenPlay © 2009-2011 the little kitchen. All rights reserved.

What is a pop?

If you can stick it on a stick—it’s a pop! Your favorite sweet treats are more fun to eat when you can just grab them and enjoy. The fun factor really goes off the charts when you decorate them with colorful candy and sprinkles! Here’s just a sample of the treats you can transform into pops.

Wilton’s book has so many ideas on how you can make different treats into pops. I opted for the classic cake pop. Although I do want to try a brownie pop next!

I actually found a box mix that is only 9 oz, which is half the size of a regular cake mix box and made two different flavors. Chocolate and yellow. I decided NOT to try to crumble the cake by hand. A few seconds in the food processor and I had the perfect cake crumbs!

Ingredients for Cake Pops:

• 1/2 of a cake baked from an 18 oz. cake mix, crumbled up
• 1/2 cup of frosting
• candy melts, assorted colors
• candy sticks
• assorted candy decorations

After you crumble the cake up, mix in 1/2 cup of your favorite frosting or buttercream icing until it turns into a dough-like consistency. Roll into 1 Tbsp or 2 Tbsp balls. Then, chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Once they have chilled for 2 hours, dip your candy stick one at a time into the candy melts (melted) insert into the bottom of your cake ball. Now it’s a cake pop! I wiped away any excess and I chilled them overnight before dipping them into candy melts.

A couple of things I learned and some tips:

• Don’t use a buttercream that has butter in it. I’m a huge fan of buttercream that has butter in it but it’s not very useful for cake pops. The candy melts are really warm and draws out the butter in the buttercream. They still taste fine but aren’t very attractive if you’re using this as a present or a party favor at a baby shower. Use store bought icing or a buttercream that only has shortening in it.
• I was not able to get the candy melts into a good consistency for dipping without adding vegetable oil to the melted candy melts. Don’t be afraid, I think I even had to add at least 1/2 cup of oil even.
• To get evenly sized cake pops, I used a Tablespoon measuring spoon to measure out cake “dough” before rolling into a ball.
• When covering cake pops in sprinkles, I found dipping them proved to be too messy. Holding them over my bowl of sprinkles and using a spoon to drip the sprinkles over them worked best.

Now onto the cake pops I made…

Kitty or pig, kitty or pig? I was trying to make an orange kitty that looks like my kitty Clone. Did I succeed? I used these candy eyeballs and for Clone’s muzzle I used these decorations.

These are cute kitties are they? For both of the kitties I did, I used chocolate chips for the ears. I “glued” the ears down with candy melt and back into the fridge they went before dipping. I tried both chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. The white chocolate chips tend to melt a little and make the “ears” sink and round off a little. So if you need rounded ears for something, I would recommend the white chocolate chips. I used the black candy melts, I had one bag left from my Wilton halloween project.

I made these with Wilton nonpareils I already had on hand and these are actually the 1 Tbsp size cake pops.

Verdict? Cake pops are fun to make once you get the idea and the routine down. I can’t wait to try more detailed cake pops. I brought them into work and my co-workers loved them! I’m going to definitely make these for my niece’s first birthday! Also, my favorite are the chocolate ones of course!

My favorite Wilton product out of all of the ones I received for this contest?

The Chocolate Pro™ Electric Chocolate Melter is awesome. If you follow the directions correctly, this is your friend when making cake pops. I only wish I had more of these for the different color candy melts. The chocolate melter is perfect for making cake pops as well as having out for parties…for dipping fruits and marshmallows. Party idea, yeah!

Disclosure: Wilton provided me with some of the products for the purpose of this contest and I received no monetary compensation. All opinions are my own. Some of these links may be affiliate links.

Wilton’s Pops Blogger Contest © 2009-2011 the little kitchen. All rights reserved.

When I was invited to participate by Casey of TasteStopping to participate in this new series for her brand new website called Kitchen Play, I was excited! I love making and decorating cakes and I enjoy using many of Wilton’s products. I took all four Wilton cake decorating classes a few years and had so much fun.

About Kitchen Play: it’s site devoted to connecting food bloggers and PR professionals through sponsored events such as the Progressive Party, the SideCar Series, the Pampered Pantry and more. Congratulations and kudos to Casey for starting such a fun project, I know she has been working tirelessly on it and I’m honored to be a part of it!

I really wanted to go for a Halloween theme that’s accessible even if you have never done any cake decorating. That meant little to no fondant and a buttercream icing that’s easy to make and very tasty. So with that goal in mind and after seeing the molds for these candy tombstones, I had a little idea of what I wanted to do.

My plan was to make a graveyard cake complete with tombstones and bones! I also wanted to make some Halloween themed cookies to go with the cake that would make great party favors.

The first thing I do when planning a cake is to decide on a theme or a central element of a cake and then build around it. I will often make drawings and often plan aloud with my husband. He is way more creative than me and I love bouncing ideas off of him. Sometimes he’ll grab the pen and paper from me and start drawing too. My drawings don’t look all that great but they help me get my plans on paper and are often a guide for me when I start the cake.

I will start out by showing you how I made the candy tombstones.

List of supplies for candies:
Candy molds – skeleton bones and tombstones
Candy Coloring Set – I used black from this set and orange from this set
Premium Candy Melts – I used white and dark cocoa
Candy Melting Plate
Glass bowl or any microwave safe bowl
Tapered spatula – that’s just what I grabbed out of the drawer, a regular angled spatula would have worked just fine
Decorator bags

I started out making the tombstones. I used the black candy color from this set to make a gray color for the gargoyle type tombstone.

Mixing black into the white candy melts to make gray.

Filling the bag to fill the tombstomes candy mold.

I use the same method to fill bags with royal icing for decorating cookies. When using the decorator bags with candy melts and molds, I did not use a tip or coupler. Fill the bag with the colored candy melts (already melted) or if you’re using white or chocolate (without needing to add color), fill the bag with candy melts and microwave according to the directions on the bag. No need for tips or couplers unless the candy mold is very small and detailed. Do not put tip on the bag before microwaving!

Paint in details

Fill the bag with candy melt wafers

Melted chocolate candy

Pipe chocolate into mold using decorator bag

Fill each cavity and then tap the mold on a table or counter, I tapped a lot. This evens out the distribution and also helps to get rid of any air bubbles.

I also made the white chocolate skeleton bones but didn’t photograph the process. I would say to cut the decorator bag really small or even use a small tip & coupler along with your decorator bag.

So here’s the cake broken down:

Here’s some more details of the cake:
I doubled Wilton’s chocolate buttercream icing (I used cocoa powder and the suggestion of coffee instead of milk) – it’s a really yummy icing recipe!
For the fence, I used the flat side of the basketweave (#47) tip and it didn’t matter if I got it straight since the goal was for it to be rickety looking
It’s a 2-layer red velvet cake and I used the same chocolate buttercream icing as the filling

When planning a cake, I also plan when I’m going to do what, this helps make the process go smoother. Working a full-time job makes it really hard for me to make the cake and decorate it all in one day. Plan ahead and stay organized is my advice.

A little close-up of the bones.

It took a lot of black icing color to get this black. Let the black color in the royal icing sit overnight. Be careful, these cookies will turn your mouth a little black!

After flooding the white and letting them dry for just a couple of minutes, I added sanding sugar and they gave them a nice sparkle.

The coffin and ghost cookie cutters came from this 18-piece Halloween set.

See this post I did about Valentine’s cookies for the recipes I used. I did use Wilton’s royal icing recipe. I always double it. When doing decorated cookies, it’s best to plan ahead. Figure out how many colors you want to do on your cookies, I often list them so it helps me stay organized. From there, I figure how how many batches of royal icing I’ll need to make. Making the coffins and ghosts were easy as I only used two colors which meant two consistencies, 1 for flooding and 1 for piping the outline and eyes and mouth on the ghosts.

Look at these cute Wilton Halloween party favor bags I found at Wal-mart. I really thought they fit in and the coffin or ghost cookies go great in them!

I hope you enjoyed this post and found it useful. Visit the other Halloween SideCar Series posts now!

A Haunting Halloween Cake, Wilton-style © 2009-2011 the little kitchen. All rights reserved.

The cake flavor is everyone’s favorite:  chocolate! The cake is decorated with buttercream and the decorations are fondant with tylose powder (the stuff that’s in gumpaste). I like using a little tylose powder because it will allow the fondant to dry faster and I won’t have the problem of stretching when I go to move it around (if I let it dry a little).

As I was working on the cake, I was really worried that it was ugly. I love twitter because I posted this and when I posted a picture of the lion cake along the way, my tweeps convinced me it wasn’t ugly.

All of these pictures were taken with my iPhone 4!

Here's the cake after I finished it.

This is the smash cake. I asked on twitter and facebook and found out that it's often very simple and one layer.

This is the precious birthday girl with her daddy.

Wonderful cookies that another friend, Tricia, made. She made them from a recipe I shared on this blog!

How did she know the birthday girl was going to wear a dress with a cupcake on it? I just wanted to say, it was great to hear that a friend used a recipe she found on my blog. I love to hear when people try recipes that I share!

Starting up

She is doing a great job!

Here’s a video of the action (some notes on the video, also taken with my iPhone 4 and I should have left it at landscape, know better for next time):

The Aftermath

Glad everyone liked the way the cake looked and more importantly how it tasted. We had so much fun at the party and the Mexican food we had was soo tasty!

A Lion Birthday Cake © 2009-2011 the little kitchen. All rights reserved.

I used a 10×10 pan because I didn’t have a 13×9 pan. I cut four inches on one side to make it 10×6. I think next time I would try the 13×9 and cut it in half like Julie from The Frosted Cake ‘n Cookie did.

I was a little inventive and used this sprinkle container, parchment paper and a measuring spoon to hold up the corner of the book. It did hold up and stay in place during the hour long drive but didn’t make it the entire party. The weather was incredibly humid so it did start drooping after a while.

And here’s the finished product! This was my first time doing ribbon roses! I learned them using this video.

Graduation Cake © 2009-2011 the little kitchen. All rights reserved.

Here's the finished cake before it left my house. I took the flowers, birds' nest and egg off before transporting.

Here is the invitation. Initially, I got a few different cake pictures from Andrea and I wasn’t sure which direction to go. Once I received the invitation below, I pretty much knew what I wanted to do. Do you think the cake looks like the invitation?

The birds’ nest was created from a tutorial from I am baker. Thanks again, Amanda! It’s completely edible and made from baked sugar cookie dough and “glued” together from royal icing. I used the sugar cookie recipe from this post, dyed Americolor chocolate brown and Wilton’s royal icing recipe dyed brown using Americolor chocolate brown.

Here's a close-up of the birds' nest. Sorry it's kind of blurry though.

The egg was already painted foam, we bought from Michael’s. The birds and flowers are made of gumpaste. I piped details on the birds with royal icing.

The drive to Tampa was a little stressful because this is the first time we have driven a cake across the state! It made it there in one piece and I didn’t have to use my emergency kit. I learned from my Wilton instructor to always bring tools with you on a cake delivery, just in case you need to make a repair.

Here is the cake after it arrived.

I’m happy to report the parents-to-be loved the cake and that’s what matters!

Baby Shower Cake Part II © 2009-2011 the little kitchen. All rights reserved.

Our dog, Charley, has a medical condition that requires a few medications (one of which he gets anywhere from 15-18 tablets a day) and constant vigilance. I know he will be okay but he has lost a little bit of weight and we’re changing things up and adding more medication as well. Our older cat, Roswell, survived mammary cancer 4 years ago (2 operations) but the cancer is back and has showed up in at least one of her lungs (we were told this last month). This past Tuesday, our veterinarian told us that the cancer is spreading and that she has about 6-12 weeks left. It took a little while for that to sink in and as any other pet lover knows, it’s devastating to hear that kind of news. We’re trying to keep her comfortable as well as give her a lot of love and attention. Thank you to everyone who has lent their support to us. And we’re so lucky to have a wonderful veterinarian who also has a great, caring staff.

Onto the baby shower cake. The couple, DJ & Andrea, are our friends and asked us to make a cake for their baby shower. They are expecting a little baby girl and are decorating the room in pink and green. They are painting a huge tree mural with leaves. So they asked for a cake that reflected that theme. For an approximately 40 person baby shower, I decided to do a 10-inch square bottom tier and an 8-inch round top tier. I don’t want to give away too much about the cake because they might be reading this but I’m providing some pictures of my progress along the way.

I have been working the cake and it’s for tomorrow! It’s not done yet! With a full-time job, I had to create a game plan. Here it is and what actually happened:

Thursday – ice cakes with buttercream and cover in fondant
Friday – stack cakes and decorate

Here’s what actually happened:

Edible birds' nests I made from a tutorial. See link below.

The edible birds’ nest was created from this tutorial. Thanks, Amanda!

One of these birds’ nests will be part of the cake topper. I did three because you never know what you’re going to like and as you can see, one already fell apart. Always make extras and prepare for what you never know might happen.

I created a well thought out plan because I usually wait to the last minute and stress out a lot. I think I will still stress out tonight because there is still a lot to do. I have done marathon cakes where I would do almost everything including baking the cake in the same day! It’s a lot of work and can cause a lot of stress. One thing that really helped me out, was mixing the dry ingredients of the cake recipe in advance. I mix them all up and put them into a zippered plastic bag. I had to make three batches of one cake, so it went a lot quicker, only having to add wet ingredients.

What would I change next time? I would dye whatever fondant I need in advance. This in itself is a lot of work.

Flowers and leaves I made from gumpaste. I learned about resting them to dry on foil from Nic Lodge.

Needless to say, when I’m working on a cake in the little kitchen, there isn’t much cooking going on. There is a lot of grilled cheese, cheese quesadillas and other quick meals made for dinner. Did I mention I love cheese? I guess there was a theme there.

I hope the mother-to-be and the father-to-be love the cake. We’ll see. I’ll let you know and I’ll post pictures of the finished cake early next week.

Baby Shower Cake Part I © 2009-2011 the little kitchen. All rights reserved.