Cakebee

Be My Valentine Heart Cake Pops!

2012-02-14T19:00:00.000-08:00

Be My Valentine!

I just simply had to make these heart shaped valentine's day cake pops for my peeps! :)

~I started off with a Yummy Pink velvet cake recipe~

Mix Mix Mix..

Then I baked the cake and then once cake is cooled. In a bowl crumbled up the cake and mix it with cream cheese frosting and then ball them pressed it on a plate and then use a small cookie cutter pressed out the heart shape.

Then using a fun striped paper straw then gently dip that in chocolate and then push the heart shaped cake mixture into a the paper straw. Place each pop on a parchment lined pan and place in to the fridge to firm up! You will get a nice heart shape for each cake pop!

Once firmed up you can dip them in which ever valentine's day color you love more! I dipped mine in both Hot pink and Red hot!

I love how both of them came out!!

Then I also added these super cute pink chicks in the goodie bags :)

These Valentine's heart cake pops were so fun and cute to make! For all move lovely friends I made little goodie bags with the heart cake pops and a cute chickie!

Happy Valentine's Day!! XOXOXO! :)

Fashion Stiletto Shoe Cakes :)

2012-02-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

Spring is always a lovely time to get new shoes! Or maybe a Spring Stiletto Shoe cake?

Every girl deserves a new pair of shoes.. how about ones that are edible :)

I have two lovely cakes that display sugar shoes!:

A pastel pink fondant cake and the cake flavors are vanilla bean cake with vanilla bean buttercream. The cake is quilted and then I added white flowers with pink dragees and a pearl necklace made out of gumpaste!

I have the blue turquoise blossoms that I am made with silver dragees to place on my Tiffany Blue cake :)

Completed the pretty stilletto shoes and pearl dusted it, then applied the turquoise blossoms that I love that matches the cake!

Then you place the stiletto shoe toppers on the cak with a little bit of white stiff frosting so they stay in place and your cake is finito! I also sell this Stiletto shoe cake topper on my Cakebee Etsy! This is one of my favorite cakes to make! The cake is so elegant and fashionable!

Christmas Cupcakes & Cupcake Bites!

2011-12-25T12:38:00.000-08:00

Delicious Christmas Treats that are fun to eat and easy to make :)

A yummy spread consisting of Red Velvet cake bites, Red Velvet cupcakes with fondant toppers, Christmas tree cake pops, and white chocolate cake pops!

The most loved red velvet cupcake is a favorite at holidays! The red velvet recipe I use is the McCormick's Red velvet cake recipe.

Here is my version of a Cake Pop! I call it a Cupcake bite and its a cake ball ( cake and frosting infusion) in a chocolate cup and then dipped in melted chocolate and then holiday sprinkles with a M&M topper or a candy drop. It looks like a mini cupcake but it is really a cake bite!

A classic favorite for the holidays that are easy to make, the cake pops! Here I have a Vanilla cake infused with cream cheese and fresh lime curd. Then the it is dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled with christmas nonpareils! Great Christmas favor for parties!

Lastly, my favorite sweet this year is a Christmas tree Pop! Its so fun to make! You make cake pops shaped in a cone shape on a stick dip it in green melted Merckens chocolate and then use a toothpick to fray out the chocolate to look like a tree! Then top it with nerds or small pearl candies and a star confetti! SO CUTE! I also put my pops on this really nifty cake pop tower tier made by The Cupcake Tower. This tower is awesome presentation for cupcakes and cake pops!

Wishing you a very happy happy Christmas!

Please come and visit my blog again soon! :)

Harry Potter Cupcakes

2011-07-16T18:14:00.000-07:00

A tribute to my favorite fiction novel of all time - HARRY POTTER!!! I will miss all the characters and waiting for the movies to come out! I waited too long to make these cupcakes but I finally got the opportunity to for this last movie The Deathly Hallows. I have created Harry Potter Cupcakes with fondant toppers :) I made each of the main characters below on a moist black chocolate cupcake! :)

Here I was experimenting with a Black onyx chocolate cake recipe and it came out really dark but not black yet but I will keep working on that recipe :) But it was still so moist and delicious!

Here is Harry Potter as a cupcake sculpted out of fondant and drawn in with food color markers :)

It's Harry's best friend Ron! Ronald as a cupcake is uber cute with his freckles :P

Here is the show stealer - Hermione Granger cupcake! She is the smartest one and is the prettiest one now! P

Oh I had to make Nagini - Voldemort's evil snake and I thought it would be soo cute to make a snake! But I'll make Voldemort later...lol the Good guys first! :P

Also the Golden snitch in which Dumbledore leaves Harry a special message! :)

When I get more time I'll make some of the other favorite characters too! Please let me know if you want so see any other characters! I really want to make Hagrid, Dumbledore and Dobby! :P

Cupcake mold WINNER!

2011-05-01T07:02:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for commenting on my Cupcake pop's blog post! :)

I get to announce the winner of the cupcake mold now! I just picked it out of a hat and it is "BRANDY" from Comment #5! Brandy please contact me and send me your address so I can mail you your cupcake mold gift! I will get in touch with you shortly. HOORAY! :)

Friends - do keep checking back I will be doing more cute giveaways! :)

Cute Cupcake Pops Mold Giveaway! :)

2011-04-03T14:14:00.000-07:00

Make your very own little Cupcake pops or cupcake bites! :)

You can do it really easily with this uber cute Little Cupcake Pop mold!

A definite must for those cake pop lovers and a great party favor! Yummers!

CUPCAKE POP MOLD GIVEAWAY!!!

I'm giving away one of these uber cute Cupcake pop mold to one lucky winner!! Just leave me a comment on this Cupcake Pop post!

Also will annouce another winner on my Cakebee Facebook too! :)

I will message you through your Blogspot and let you know if you have won at end of April and get your contact info to mail it to you!! Hooray! :) I will pick the lucky winner at the end on April 30th!
Happy Spring!

Here is how you make the cupcake pops!

For the Cupcake bites or Cupcake pops:

You just bake one (1) box of cake box mix of any flavor you like - such as "Duncan Hines Red velvet" as instructed on the box
Let the cake cool, once cooled you can just break the cake into pieces in a mixing bowl and then use a fork or your hands to mush the cake into crumbs... until its all little crumbles.
Then mix it with 1 jar of store bought cupcake frosting ( my fave is Cream cheese)
You can also use one cake recipe of your choice of flavor mixed with about 16 oz. of frosting recipe and it will create the same texture. I love red velvet mixed with cream cheese..lol.. this is the only time I will ever use a box mix and already pre-made frosting mixes! It makes a good cupcake pop! Go Bakerella! She is the queen who created this cupcake treat phenomena!

Then scoop a spoonful of the mixture into your hands and roll the small amount of cake mixture into about a 1" inch ball.
Then repeat for all of the cake mixture and then place in a lined baking pan and refrigerate the balls for about 20 minutes until firm.

Then take out the cake balls and then press in into the mold tightly. It will look like a mini cupcake!

Then gently peel out the cupcake mixture from the tip out of the mold. It will come out easily with this mold!
Place the cupcake right side up and then refrigerate for about 30 minutes and then you can begin by dipping the bottom part of the cupcake and then insert a lollipop stick.
Then place them stick up on the lined baking sheet until bottom chocolate is firm.
Then once firm you can pick up by the lollipop stick handle and then dipping them into a different color like pink or purple.
While the chocolate is still shiny make sure to gently sprinkle the top and place a Mini M&M or a Yogo as a topper! :)
Then get a styrofoam block from Micheals and gently push the end of the lollipop stick into the styrofoam right side up to dry!

Color combinations I love for these cake pops are:

Any pastel color like Pink, Baby blue, Mint green, Lavender with brown chocolate bottom
White on top with Hot pink bottom
Hot pink tops with brown bottom
White chocolate top with Teal bottom :)

Here are cupcake bites with dark chocolate bottom and hot pink top with mini polka dot sprinkles and a brown mini M&M! Hope you enjoy!
Check back end of April to see if you won a cupcake mold! :) Yippeee!

Pink Baby Bootie Cake

2011-03-10T19:45:00.000-08:00

I totally adore making baby shower cakes! Baby shower cakes are all sorts of cute and whimsy elements like bears, duckies, babies, toys, blocks...lots of fun cake techniques. I have had these really cute baby booties cutters that I bought last year, and have been dying to have a go at making some fondant baby booties and so I finally got to use them..Yaaaay!!

Here I have created the cake using - popular color combo of pink, brown and white for a baby girl! Also I love adding a little teddy bear figure because its soo cute and fun to make it, as it adds a nice little touch of baby-ness to the cake!

I decided to do a stripe look because it is still elegant but fun and it really showcases the baby booties on top of the cake :)

Also I wanted to focus the attention of the cake to the top so I piped a ring inch in from the edge of the cake, to end the stripe and focus on the saying on the cake. I think a lot of cake design has to do with how well you bring out the elements on the cake.

I hope have enjoyed this simply chic and elegant baby girl shower cake! I will be making more of these fun baby booties out of fondant for boys and girls so check back here for more pictures! ~ love looove ~

Double Dare Cake

2011-03-05T19:23:00.000-08:00

For all the Super Sloppy Double Dare lovers from the 80's! :)

Let me tell you I didn't grow up watching very much of this, but I have to say it was a popular show! It even got syndicated! I just remember very smart kids and their families going on the show to compete for cash and getting slimed and having to do crazy obstacles which sounds likes a spanking good time, if I were a kid! LOL! :D

Well for the lovers of this crazy Nickelodeon show, I created a Double Dare cake for my friend Sahba's Birthday! I hand sculpted everything from the stage, podiums and the famous figures you might remember ~ Marc and Harvey!

Here I am making the base of the stage with the quilting on the tiles!

As I scale out the backdrop to match the poster board..the cake is only as good as it's back drop! :) Also with the help of my friends Rob, Johnson and Saqib they helped me print this uber nice Double Dare background to match the cake size! It all worked out wonderfully! I definitely feel like I'm on stage with Marc with this whole layout ..HOOORAY~!!!

I made vanilla cupcakes with green slime cream cheese and topped them with fondant tops with the Double dare logo!

haha.. I am always amazed that I get these really detailed cake requests, but I always seem to surprise myself :) I felt very crafty after I completed this cake..YAY!

Look at Marc and Harvey close uppp...they look so cute!! :D
I made Harvey with a surprised face because he ends up stepping in slimeeeeee!

Now I am a fan of Double Dare! And to Marc and Harvey I hope I portrayed you well :P

Red Cherry Blossom Cupcakes

2011-02-25T11:10:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite color combination is Red, Black and white! It is absolutely a must combination for the sheek and modern bride or girly :) Since the Cherry blossom festival is coming up in Washington D.C in April I am going to be making different variations of Cherry blossom cupcakes. This is my first set of cherry blossom wedding cupcake designs :)

I create an contrasting black and white blossom cupcakes with red cherry blossoms. I used the 3 sized blossom Ateco plunger cutters to create this design. The cupcake is red velvet filled with cream cheese and then I cut out a circle of fondant icing to give it this elegant look.

On your left is the white cupcake with red and black details. Then on your right is the black cupcake with the white and red details.

Which color cupcake do you like better?

Bleach Anime cupcakes!

2011-02-16T06:29:00.000-08:00

Who loves Anime?? ME!

I'm going to Katsucon 17, an anime convention this weekend on Feb 19th, so as my inner true Otaku spoke to me... I had to make anime cupcakes!

Guess what Anime!! :D

BLEACH!!!

My favorite japanese animation (Anime), which I have religiously watched since the beginning of time is Bleach!

I think I LOVE it because the character development is so good but because I secretly hope that there a sparking romance blossoms between Ichigo and one of the girls...I love Ichigo and Rukia.. the romance I long for... if only it were true! LOL :P

but I dont think it's gonna happen... boo hoo.. But I still love ICHIGO :D OH I wouldn't mind if Ichigo got with Orihime too because they have the same color hair and are uber cute :D

But anyway I made these cupcakes with Bleach characters drawn in chibi style! :) I made my favorites - the main character is Ichigo, then I love Rukia cuz I kind of look like her with my flippy hair. Then I also really like Kon and Orihime...I think I only like the girls on the show..haha JK! Renji's hot too :) but I had to put in KON too because he is just so adorable!

The cupcakes are made out of a fondant layer in pale nude colorand then I hand cut the hair and clothes out of fondant and drew in the face with food color pens :)

To all you Otaku fans - Enjoy these Bleach cupcakes! KANPAI!!! :)

Fairyland Cake

2011-02-08T21:13:00.000-08:00

Glimpse of the beautiful Fairy Land cake! If you ever get a chance to see one I would imagine that this is what the landscape would look like! Here is one of my most detailed and glamorous cakes yet!

The cake is a large chocolate yule log with vanilla and chocolate buttercream and then dusted with cocoa powder. The fairy is sculpted and her outfit is a black leotard with green and blue leaves with black, green and blue iridescent wings.

The birds eye view of the landscape of the fairy.

I sculpted all the fairyland creatures on the cake. Its a chipmunk!

A cute little frog floating on a lily pad..ribbit!

This little frog is burrowing in the mud.

Here is a little field mouse ..looks like ratatouille :)

A tropical lily blossoming on the log. I created from gelatin these fantasy butterflies and forest mushrooms for them to be on :)

A monarch butterfly created with gelatin method and food color markers, disco dust and flower stamen :)

A baby tropical rain forest butterfly!

The prettiest fairy of all is the blue fairy! I created this fairy with a black leotard with leaf detailing and a tutu that is blue and green leaves. The blue fairy has blue eyes and accessorized with blue hair piece and she has a bright teal butterfly in her palms.

Chinese Dragon Cake!

2011-02-07T15:43:00.000-08:00

The Zodiac calendar bestows upon us another Chinese new year! The 2011 year is the Year of the Rabbit! But this year I made a Chinese Red Dragon cake constructed out of cupcakes! The cake is marble cake with cherry buttercream and covered with Red fondant! I have piped detailing with gold scales on the red dragon. This Dragon reminds me of the Red Dragon from Avatar the Last Airbender :)

Here is the Chinese Dragon's fierce stare!

The dragon is about to lurch!

Here are the Chinese New Year Cupcakes I made with fondant Square dusted in super gold and piped with Chinese new year sayings! " Happy Chinese new year" and "Gong Xi Fa Cai!" - which is "Good Wealth to you!" Wishing you a very happy Chinese New year! :)

Minty Mojito Cupcakes

2010-08-20T20:12:00.001-07:00

Start off SUMMER with some refreshing cupcakes! Here I have created a yummy lemony- lime cake infused with minced mint leaves frosted with a lime cream cheese frosting!

~My recipe for the Minty Lime cake is below~

LIME MINT BUTTER CAKE

Makes (2) 9 x 2 - Round cakes
or (1) – 12 X 2 Round cake
or 24 cupcakes

Dry Ingredients:

1 ¾ cup. All Purpose Flour
4 tbsp. Potato Starch
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt

Liquid Ingredients:

¾ cup. – Half and Half
¼ cup. – Sour cream
2 tbsp – Limoncello liquor
1 tbsp. - Lemon extract
1 tsp. – lime oil

Creaming Ingredients:

1 ½ sticks - Unsalted Butter
1 3/4 c. granulated sugar
4 - large eggs
1 tbsp – Lime zest ( Zest of one lime)
2 tbsp. – minced fresh mint leaves ( no stems)

1.    Preheat oven at 350 degrees.   Line the bottom of the plans with parchment paper.

2.    In separate bowl sift the flour and whisk all the dry ingredients together.   Measure the liquid ingredients into a separate bowl, whisk together and set aside. Measure the butter and sugar into large stand mixing bowl and set aside.

3.    In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter until creamy then add the sugar and cream until fluffy for 3 - 5 minutes.

4.    With mixer on the lowest speed cream, add the eggs one at a time, fully incorporating after each addition. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Then add Lime zest and minced mint leaves and cream until incorporated.

5.    Add the dry Ingredients mixture alternating with the liquid mixture in 3 -5 additions each, beginning and ending with the dry mixture. Don’t wait for the dry or liquid ingredients to be fully incorporated before adding the next. This step should take a total of about 60 seconds.

6.    Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl all the way down. Don’t miss the clumps in the bottom middle of the bowl.   Now mix on medium speed for 15 to 20 seconds to develop the batter’s structure.

7. Prepare the pans. Deposit the batter in 3 separate sections of the pan and smooth out with the rubber spatula or an offset spatula. The pans should be 2/3 full. Drop the pan on the counter a couple of times to settle the air bubbles in the batter. Bake for 9 inch cakes for 30 – 35 minutes or 12 inch square cake for 40-45 minutes or for 19 minutes for cupcakes and transfer to rack to cool.

8. For packaging, invert each pan onto a flat surface and remove the layers. Remove the parchment from the bottom of each cake and wrap the cake tightly in plastic wrap. If you are decorating the same day, the cakes can be left out to use and frosted same day. Assembling a layer of cake is easier if the cake is cold; refrigerate the layers overnight or for up to 5 days before frosting.

I love dissecting the cakes and looking at the lovely texture of cake! OOooOoO so yummy! :)

Now decorate with a sprinkle of brown sugar and cute little cocktail umbrellas or bendy straws and spring of mint leaf! YAY~!

Destiny calls for a LOST cake...

2010-04-21T07:43:00.000-07:00

It's the "Final" season for those devoted "LOST" fans!
HERE IS MY LOST CAKE!

I have never seen the TV show "LOST" and when doing research for this cake I would say that I got many different opinions about the show. Despite the cloudy reviews, I still needed to careful examine some of the many details for this cake. I was able to gather valuable details about each component I had to create from fellow friends and followers of the show :)

I was very excited to make this LOST cake and I definitely agree to the fact that this was one of my most intricately detailed cakes yet.

First I was to create the LOST Island from the TV show..

Here are all the other components on the LOST cake which includes:

1) a Polar bear

2) the Four toed foot statue

3) the Oceanic airplane

4) Main Dharma logo

5) Sharks

6) Smoke Monster

The four toed foot statue from Season 2!

Here is the smoke monster and that was made out of cotton candy with black powdered food coloring.

Here is the LOST Dharma logo on a luggage floating near the sharks!!

The Oceanic plan crash!!!

Here are some of the characters from LOST...can you guess which ones??

I haven't drawn the faces in yet!

If you guessed Locke and Jack you are winnerss!! :D

AHHHH! Locke meets the Smoke monster!!! :D

The back side of the cake! There is a dharma logo on the island!! :P

The hand sculpted Jack and Locke figures in mini forms which are about 3-4 inches tall!

WOW! I was soo uber amazed at the look of this cake!
I adore it and now I am a LOST fan!
I hope Shannon enjoys this fantabulous cake! :D

Grease Cake!

2010-03-24T22:15:00.000-07:00

Ooooh Sandy....whhyhyhyhyyyy can't you see..that this cake is so you!! :)

Grease is the Word!!

I have a Grease theme cake with Sandy sitting on top. This cake was created purple for Kelly who is now a JMU student!

She is also playing the role of Sandy in the Grease Muscical at JMU!

Oh... Tell me more!!

I created Sandy in her innocent white Dance off dress! She is made with sugar paste and I used tuile to puff out her dress!

I do love it when she goes scandalously black too :)

I think the white dress best represents Sandy before she turns devilishly sexy for Danny..:P

The "Grease" symbol was the hardest part to make!

This icon is a must if you implying all things Grease symbol!!

I created this symbol using an edible food printer to print the logo and then trace it on top of red fondant rolled out.

Then once I cut the red car, I cut out the white part and using piping gel, adhere the grease word on the red car. Once it basically glued to the fondant with piping gel...I used white icing to pipe in the white part to give it texture.

The first time they met...

The top of the cake!!

The JMU side of the cake ..LOL :D

"Summer Nights", in my opinion this song is one of the best duet pieces in a musical!

Congrats Kelly! Thanks Amanda for your support :)

I hope you enjoyed this Butter yellow with chocolate buttercream cake!

Yummmmmmmers!

Glamourous Snowflakes

2010-02-22T20:05:00.000-08:00

Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together! Congrats to my friend Maria and Andrew and there simply elegant cascading snowflake wedding cake!

I dropped the cake off at The Gathering Place in Clarksburg, MD ... its pretty far from good ol' VA.

The cake sizing is Round 6", 9" and 12" and the cake flavor is Red Velvet cake with cream cheese filling. A definite favorite among cake flavors! The cake is designed with a red fondant ribbon trim with gold and pearl dusted snowflakes adorned with silver dragees :)

Here are the flakes of snow I have made using 3 different sized snowflakes! I have dusted them with gold or pearl dust, soooo shiny! I shall now pile them on the top of the cake for a beautiful formation of sporadic snowflakiness :)

Here I have the cake stacked and then I just applied the red fondant strips as borders around the cake. Be sure to take the length of your cake and times it by the circumference to get the length you need for your cake ribbon.

So say your cake is a Round 6"inch then,

6" x pi (3.14159...) = 18.85 inches of ribbon needed around the cake

This is how you measure the length of ribbon you need to border the side of cake for Round cakes.

Arranged the snowflakes ever so gently and flowing. Simply, snowy and serene :)

Sweets for my Tweets!

2010-02-16T20:03:00.000-08:00

My Tweets deserves lots of sweets! I bought these adorable handfelted His and Hers Tweets in Hot Pink and Electric Blue from FELTMEUP Designs and I have wanted to put them on a cake for a long time and I finally got a chance to on my Valentine's day cake I made for my valentine :)

I thought I would go with the hot pink and blue as my fondant decorations. I just bought these really cute paisley teardrop cutters from Global sugar art and use these to make a really cute design on the cake. Then I used flower and heart cutters to decorate the sides of the buttercream cake. The cake is a Round 6"inch cake and the cake is chocolate pound cake with peanut butter buttercream .....yummers! It tasted just like a Reese's cup!

Tweet Tweet!!! .. we get to eat our cake and keep our tweets!:D

Year of the Tigger!

2010-02-11T21:53:00.000-08:00

It is said to be an optimistic year based on the Lunar Calendar. We will enjoy Chinese New year but also Valentine's Day! Here is my lovely friend Tigger, the most popular Tiger I know. He makes an awesome cake topper to this festive Chinese New Year cake :)

He is adorned on top of a bright chinese red fondant cake! The cake is decorated with fondant made double happiness symbols,a golden nugget and red firecrackers!

Here was my inspiration, I saw this Lucky Money envelope and knew right away I had to do Tigger! :D

This was Tigger before I painted his stripes! He's so helpless..

Here is Tigger finally sculpted and I just attached his head! I used black flower stamen for the whiskers!

I created the gold signs with square cookie cutters and then turned them to diamonds and hand piped the chinese characters. While piping the chinese "happiness" letters I realized that I was much better at piping in Chinese than in English! LOL :)

The story of why the colors are Gold and red.. check out Wikipedia for the Chinese Mythology that started the Chinese new year tradition.

Each firecracker is a rolled piece of fondant and I mixed t tsp. of gold pearl dust and 1/2 tsp. of lemon extract and painted on the gold strips on the mini firecrackers.

Here I used Edible Gold Dust spray and sprayed the golden nugget!

I attached the Chinese plagues on the sides of the cake and then placed Tigger and his golden nugget on top and then added the final decorations by piping red strings for the firecrackers to be connected!

This is a Square 6" inch with vanilla bean cake and Green tea buttercream! Wishing you all a wonderful and prosperous year! Enjoy your lucky money!

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Sugar, Spice and Sweets That Are So Nice!

2009-12-26T15:03:00.000-08:00

Christmas is my most favorite time of the year!

It is also my favorite time to bake all these yummy festive treats that are sure to please all the relatives :)

Here are a few of my holiday favorites to bake! :)

Buche de Noel ( aka Yule Log)

The Buche de Noel I have here is a yummy chocolate sponge cake rolled with chocolate buttercream and then slathered with bittersweet chocolate ganache to make it look like a tree trunk. I used chocolate mushrooms cookies which you can buy from the Asian market if you dont have time to make meringue mushrooms :D

Pumpkin and Cream Cheese
is one of my favorite sweet treats!

And this one is GLUTEN- FREE! :D

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Cupcakes

1 cup (250 mL) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups (310 mL) brown rice flour mix
1/4 tsp (1.5 mL) salt
1 1/2 tsp (7.5 mL) baking powder
1/2 tsp (2.5 mL) xanthan gum
1/4 cup (125 mL) canola oil
½ cup of pumpkin puree
1/3 cup (125 mL) milk
1 tsp (5 mL) pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 F/180 C. Position rack in centre of oven. Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, xanthan gum in separate bowl and set aside.

Place cupcake baking liners in a 12-cupcake baking pan.

Beat sugar and eggs in large bowl of electric mixer at medium speed for one minute. Then add canola oil, pumpkin puree, milk and vanilla; beat at medium speed for one minute. Then gradually mix in the dry ingredients until incorporated, don’t overmix. Pour batter into prepared pan or cupcake pan.

Place in center of oven and bake for about 20 minutes or until centre springs back when touched and cupcakes are very lightly browned (bake about 35 minutes for nine-inch round, 40 minutes for eight-inch round). Cool on rack for five minutes. Remove cupcakes from pan onto rack and cool completely before icing. Top with tangy Cream Cheese buttercream! I also made a pretty gold and copper dusted leaf topper for each cupcake!

ITALIAN TRI-COLORED COOKIES
look like little pieces of heaven!

The Italian Tri-Colored Cookie is the yummiest, moistest almond cookie thats like a cake!

It is basically thin layers of almond cake layered with apricot preserve and topped with semisweet chocolate! My friends and family look forward to this delectable treat at Thanksgiving and Christmas!! I would even make bricks of it and carry it on the chinatown bus to bring with me to their houses! If it can survive a 4 hour trip from VA to NJ then its totally worth making :D

SALTED CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES!

I use the Joy of baking Chocolate Chip cookies recipe and then add an extra 1 tsp of kosher or coarse salt and when you eat this you get a slight kick of salty crunch which create a nice texture to the chocolate chip cookie! It makes it almost savory but still sweet, it cuts the sweetness ever so slightly. Not but a glass of cold milk is needed!

I hope you find these treats just as tantalizing as they are delicious!

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!

The Blizzard Bride!

2009-12-20T20:54:00.000-08:00

A tribute to my very first wedding cake created and to be delivered on the weekend of BLIZZARD OF 2009! I nicknamed this my Blizzard cake! I never thought that I wouldn't love snow... I miss the elated feeling of having no school and being able to play in the snow all day but I do not enjoy it as much as an adult! And making wedding cakes and delivering them in the wintry weather is absolutely scary!

The amount of snow forecasted for December 19th was 24 inches! Which was an AWFUL LOT for Northern VA! So for the Tao Wedding I had to bump up their cake schedule and I finish the cake by Friday night so that I could deliver it that night before we got dumped with massive amounts of SNOW!!

So I talked to the restaurant manager at Good Fortune and he was expecting me to deliver by 11 pm but because it was already snowing my 9pm, he was going to close the restaurant early. But by some miracle he was really nice and he said that he would wait for me to arrive and that I should just drive carefully. Remind me to give them a great review for their flexibility and services!! So the manager Frank waited for me to get there....and I arrived at 12:45 AM!!! I left my house at 10:20pm and it took me 2 hours and 15 minutes to get to Wheaton, MD to to drop off the cake before the BIG STORM!! It was already snowing and there was about 4 inches on the ground. I was lucky enough that my nice boyfriend drove me in the snow and we got home by 2:30 am :) BOY that was one of my longest nights since I was in college.

I wish I remembered to take pictures when I was on the road that night, it was very snowy! But I was able to stay in Saturday and relax and enjoy the lovely blanket of snow the next day :)

Here is Brandon shoveling the snow off my car! What a nice boyfriend!

I'm here standing in 20 something inches of snow on Saturday! Here's to the Blizzard of 2009!!!

**OH!! Later, I found out the wedding and reception was pushed back until Sunday...so I hope the bride still enjoyed her wedding day :)

Channel your Chanel!

2009-12-15T19:03:00.000-08:00

Birthdays are a great time to pamper your female loved ones with CHANEL! A "Pretty in Pink" Chanel bag for my friend Sue! :)

I started with layering the Red Velvet cake in layers to be the shape of the purse standing up! The Red Velvet cake recipe I use is the best and moist I have ever found, I absolutely love it! I tried about 6 recipes before I appreciated this one :D

I also used a reference picture of the real pink Chanel handbag below:

After careful examination of the bags... I made all the seperate compotes I needed for the cake. I carved out the cake with the shape and then laid pink fondant over it.

Then I quilted the front side and the width side of the cake then I rolled out another piece of fondant and cut it as the width and measured it to the height plus the height of the cake and quilted it. Then I lifted off that piece of fondant and laid it over the cake.

When it is layered over the already covered cake pul the 2 ends a little to stretch it so it looks like the flap of the handbag.

Then I had made the Coco Chanel logo using circle cookie cutters and then trimming out the sides so the look like the letter "C" and also made gold circles for the holes of the handbag's handles. So I made yellow fondant pieces and then brushed it with gold pearl dust.

Then I used pink ribbon and used a Clay gun to extrude a rope with yellow fondant and then I brushed in with gold pearl dust and then braided it with the pink ribbon.

Once I braided the chain for the Chanel bag, I had to use a cookie cutter to cut out circles at the top of the cake, then I attach the gold circles with the bottom brushed with water to attach it to the purse cake. Then I used royal icing to attach the chain as the strap of the purse.

Yay! The gold chain is attached and the Chanel signature logo is attached as part of the purse flap! The cake is ready to go!! Always take lots of pictures!! I love Chanel bags, they are soo fabulous! :D

Gold, Leaves & Luster

2009-12-10T13:12:00.000-08:00

Look familiar?

The Luster & Leaves design has become my most popular cake design :)

I have here the Luster & Leaves design with gold studs and gold pearl border.

I created this cake for a 50th anniversary and it is adormed with yellow sweetheart roses, orchids and ferns. The cake is vanilla bean cake with raspberry buttercream and vanilla bean cake with lemon curd.

Come back for more pictures of cakes! :)

Mom's love Chanel!

2009-11-09T07:56:00.000-08:00

Every girl dreams of Chanel and every girl deserves one :)

For my mothers birthday I made her a pink Chanel make-up bag!

This was actually my version of a chanel make up bag I made the cake before I actually saw the Chanel make up bag.

Here is a picture of the new Chanel cosmetic bag.

The birthday cake is Vanilla Bean Cake with strawberry buttercream.

To make the cake, I used a clay extruder gun to squeeze out fondant to make the rope border and a small fine quilter to quilt the pattern on the fondant. Then a zig zag quilter to make the zipper.

Here is the close up where you cake see the rope border along the quilted sides.

I had my friend Saqib help me pump the fondant out because it take massive strength to get a long consistent rope!

Here I used the Zigzag quilter by Wilton to make the zipper line.

I attached side strap attachments for the make up bag but I ran out of time to make my mom the straps to the bag but its ok since this is a cosmetic bag. I also decided to add black leather reinforced corners because it made the bag look much better.

I loved this cake, it is so cute! And next month I have more Chanel cakes to come.

Also these pictures where taken with my new camera the Panasonic LUMIX so the macros quality is so much clearer! YAH!! :D

Check back for more fun birthday cake pictures :)

The Game of Go!

2009-10-30T19:49:00.000-07:00

The chinese game of "Go" is called Wei-Qi. The game is played by two players who alternately place black and white stones (playing pieces, now usually made of glass or plastic) on the vacant intersections of a grid of 19×19 lines. The object of the game is to control a larger portion of the board than the opponent. A stone or a group of stones is captured and removed if it has no empty adjacent intersections, the result of being completely surrounded by stones of the opposing color. ( provided by Wikipedia!)

My friend Clara thought her dad would like this as his birthday cake, so here I have constructed the "Go" or "Wei-qi" board using ivory and tan fondant. Clara's cake is green tea cake with red bean buttercream! Sticking with the asian cake flavors :D

I used custom black and white M&M's as the game pieces.

Here are the black and white M&M's for decorating and the blank game board I just created by using a ruler to cut thin strips of black fondant for the lines on the game board.

Technically I am playing myself here! AH HA! I am playing while attaching the game pieces! I think I am my own worse enemy...cuz it looks like a tie the way I placed the M&Ms...LOL :D

Anyone up for a game of GO? Or just some cake????

Treasures of Time

2009-10-06T20:25:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a special memorabilia that you have kept for a long time?

For this wedding cake, I had a lovely couple with a very special bridal wedding topper that they wanted to adorn the cake. It was truly very treasured.

This buttercream wedding cake is Marble Swirl cake with Bing Cherry buttercream. The tier sizing is offset square 5", 8" and 12" inch cakes and the cake is decorated with champagne colored buttercream swirls and a custom designed stencil for the middle tier. I actually created the stencil to look like the design of the brides dress. The cake is then decorated with handmade fondant bows.

First I began this cake by creating the bows of the cake with the champagne color to match the buttercream :)

So for the fondant bows you use a JEM bow cutter and then use rolled cotton cylinders to dry the bows. You can make your bows up to a couple weeks ahead as long as you don't have to use colors that will fade.

Moving on to the buttercream tiers! Yay! Fun Stencils :D Here is the hand-drawn stencil that I made of the brides design from her dress.

Gently line up the stencil against the side of you cake tier.. be sure to line up the design in the center. Then pipe some frosting along the stencil design. Using an offset spatula evenly in one motion smear the buttercream across without lifting until you are at the end of the design.

Then just gently peel away the stencil and VIOLA!! Your design is perfect!

After completing all the stenciling, I went ahead and piped swirly swirls all over the top and bottom tiers. Once all that is done they go back into the fridge to firm up! Once the designs are all firm its time to stack!! OR you can stack all the tiers first and then apply designs, it involves more skill to do it that way because you have less room for error once the cakes are stacked.

Now I have to make the tails of the bows they look like real BOWS! The tails are usually soft so you have to wait until you are ready to decorate the cake to apply the bow tails with the bow.

Once you have created the bow tails then you apply pearl dust and then attach it to your bow and pipe a little bit of buttercream and lay the bow down.

I have finally completed all the decorations on the cake and it is ready to transport.

*TIP - for large wedding toppers that are fragile, do not place on the cake until you get to the wedding reception site because they can be harmed on route during the delivery. Just plan all the things you made need for the topper's support.

Here is Cheri and Chris's wedding cake with a topper that is to be treasured :)

Future CRNA!

2009-09-06T18:20:00.000-07:00

What is a CRNA?

I asked myself the very same question when my friend Mike asked me to make a cake for his wife, Tracy! I would like to think it stands for "Cake Recipe Naming Artist".........................but it actually stands for "Certified Register Nurse Anesthetists".

Way off!.. shows you how much cake is on my mind :D

Taa Daahh! The birthday cake that I made for Tracy! It is covered with shades of lime green and magenta polka dots. Then I hand sculpted a fondant figure of Tracy in a traditional nurse outfit!

A picture of the polka dots decorations on the side of the cake. I started the cake construction the night before by decorating the cake with polka dots.

I have made all sorts of polka dots to be placed on the cake. This process is actually very strategical as you don't want too many of the same shape or color polka dot on one side.

The night before was when I was completing the figure of Tracy. Here is her head while I am drawing the eyes and the mouth onto the face, before I connect the head to her body.

I made all her body parts a couple of days in advance so that it will be firm for when I assemble. Then I put her body together and made clothing for her figure using white fondant. I carefully positioned her body to sit on the cake and then I place on the head to complete the figure.

Here is the completed figure ready to go on the cake. There are support toothpicks under her figure to keep her on the cake.

Here is the day of pick up where I take pictures of the cake with nartural daylight!

Yay! Tracy's birthday cake is Chocolate butter cake with Raspberry Buttercream and it's traveling all the way to Maryland :D

I have her cake wrapped up in a cake box with the lid taped half open because the figure is too high for me to close the box. I also created a viewing window to the cake by taping saran wrap over the open area of the box so you can still see the cake. Now you've just created your own window cake box! Nifty, huh?! I love cake boxes with windows and being able to see the cake. Yay!

Wonderful birthday wishes to my friend Tracy and her future as a CRNA! Hooray ^_~

Fans of Dragonballz!

2009-08-20T08:18:00.000-07:00

One of the most popular Japanese Animation for guys was Dragonballz!

I used to watch this anime with my brother when I was young! The fighting scenes were always very intense! I have created the character Goku for a birthday cake! :)

Here are a couple of reference pictures of the plastic Goku toys from BANDAI as a reference.

This is a mini Chibi style toy of Goku - it's a child like version of him which I think looks the best for the cake. The adult version of Goku is scary and is very difficult to make partly due to all his muscle details on his legs and arms...haha!

The cake is vanilla bean cake and strawberry buttercream.

The creation of the Goku the main character was a long process which includes many stages and good internal structure. I use wooden toothpicks for the internal structure of the figures I make. You can use wires or lollipop sticks as well. But remember although it is made of edible sugarpaste/gumpaste, we DO NOT EAT the decorative pieces! It's too dangerous..so it's only for show! :)

The reason we cannot eat it is because of all the dangerous materials that are used to hold the pieces together. No one wants choke on a toothpick, plus gum-paste tastes very BLAH! **

I begin by making all the body parts individually of each other, so later I can attach them together with toothpicks.

Here I have constructed Goku's upper body and his legs with are the pants of his fighting uniform.

I rolled out orange colored sugar paste and cut out a neck hole in the shirt for Goku's uniform. I made a hole for his neck area and will gather all shirt together at the bottom to attach to the lower body! You can make the gumpaste stick by brushing a little water on the area you are attaching.

Then I used a tool to put creases under where Goku's arm pits would be. Using a toothpick the in insert the upper body into his legs and let is harden in a plastic flower making tray. Once this hardens I will make the little black belt and just tie it around his waist.

For the birthday polka dot, I cut out a large green polka dot and used edible food color pens and wrote Happy Birthday Nicholas. I used speciality number cookie cutters to cut out the "2" and the "5" for the "25' on the polka dot!

Goku's head is the most complicated and largest part of the entire body. You must make his head out of sugar-paste and let it harden for 2 days.

Once the head of the figure has harden, you can apply the hair by sculpting it to the head.

I did Goku's hair in 2 stages. Once with just the base hair and then I attached the spikes seperately.

Here is a pictures of Goku's body parts completed and ready for assembly onto the cake.

Here I have part of Goku's main boy assembled onto the cake to keep him put and then next to attach his arms to his body. To create the land stump effect I used a tan colored fondant and then made green decorating icing and piped greenery/ scrub like grass on top and the sides of the land stump. I create the rocky wall I used a fondant tool and carved lines along the sides of the cake.

Here is a close up of the Goku cake completed without the Dragonballs. I have just completed the green bush/scrub piping on the edge border of the cake.

Now I will use a pastel yellow fondant and roll out a couple of "Dragonballs" to put onto the cake.

The dragonballs are rolled into balls with yellow fondant and let harden for about 2 hours. Then using an orange food color pen, draw the number of stars on the balls. There are a total of 7 dragonballs! Now Goku and his dragonballz are ready to go! :D In the words of Goku - "HAMEHAMEHAAA!"

Grummies Cake :)

2009-08-16T16:50:00.000-07:00

A celebration is in order for the interns at Northrop Grumman! I created this fun cake for our very special interns working at Northrop Grumman - Karissma and Jennifer!

This cake is Red Velvet with cream cheese filling :)

I used a number "7" cookie cutter for the check marks :)

Here I have green fondant circles cut out and I attach the white check marks on the polka dots!

We use an accounting system called SAP and anyone who uses it should recognize all the icons :) The cake is covered in the SAP blue and covered with the icons from SAP. Can you tell which ones they are??? Of course...no negative signs! ^_^
I know the Grummies will recognize!

Luster, Leaves and Lillies!

2009-07-26T16:41:00.001-07:00

Do you like pearly or shiny things!?

If you do, then you will love the wedding cake that I did this past weekend for the Modena Wedding! Their wedding cake was a lovely 4 tiered white fondant cake adorned with stem piping and beautiful sugarpaste leaves with pearl dust and silver studs.

Here is the wedding cake before I created the floral arrangement. This cake does well standing out on its own because its soo detailed that it looks just as good without the floral arrangement! I love it very much!

The cake sizing is a 4-inch, 6-inch, 8-inch and 9 inch square tier, and is about 76 servings.
The tier flavors are:

Honey vanilla cake with caramel buttercream
Mocha cake with mocha buttercream
Lemon cake with lemon curd

This is a close up of the pearly luster dust on the leaves and the design.

Here is a picture of when the silver studs has been applied...so elegant! Now we get down to the nitty-gritty where I construct and create the cake below~

~~FIRST EVER~~ You get a sneak peek of my refrigerator! Showing you the storage of the cakes. As you can see the round cakes are iced in buttercream already and I have one more square tier to tort and fill at the bottom! I am slacking.... LOL :) No, actually I was taking a picture break!

*TIP* - once you have baked your cake tiers and they have cooled to room temperature. Wrap the cake tiers with plastic wrap then store them into the fridge overnight. The cake are easier to tort and fill when the cakes are cold. Return to fridge after you have applied the buttercream crumb coat until you apply fondant.

Here is a close up of the leaf mold I used to create Sheila's cake design. You can get all sorts of really nice sugarpaste molds from Global Sugar Art!

So we start with the sugarpaste leaf application! Apply, apply and apply! I just love the pearl luster dust! Its soo pretty!

I have a new partner in cakes! My Patricia! Whenever she has free time she will come over and help me create my cakes.She's continuing to apply the leaves too! It's great to have her help! I shall train her as my apprentice ^_^ But I am far from being a Sensei...hehe :)

Patricia with our finished cake! Its our baby! Makes me soo proud :)

Tis to my signature photo where I stand with my final creation! I always get teary eyed when I must leave my lovely cake to the lovely couple. But I feel so happy that it will be enjoyed my many,hopefully :P Cheers to another cake brought to you by the Cakebee! ^_~

Cakebee meets BigFatCake!

2009-07-09T10:46:00.000-07:00

OooOooo..this week I was featured in BigFatCake.com for my Wedding cakes I created in May. I feeeeeel so special :D

Christine and Natasha were so kind to feature me on their blog! I will offer 10% off to their readers! So if you are looking to book a custom designed wedding cake, you will get 10% off your entire wedding cake order, as long as you book your cake within this year. The wedding cake can be for next year as long as you secure your order with the initial deposit before 12/31/2009. Contact me for details!
Sweeets for my sweeties!

Modern Polka Dot Cake

2009-05-31T16:07:00.000-07:00

I crafted a modern polka dot cake this weekend for my friend Emily and Frank for the Lee Wedding on May 29, 2009. Emily's wedding cake is very snazzy cute! Her cake is made of white vanilla fondant with 6 different shades of red and pink colored polka dots of 8 different sizes with these cuddly tweet love bird toppers!

I absolutely love the "Tweet" love bird toppers which are hand felted from Mel at FeltMeUpDesigns in the UK and she's is all about creating these adorable tweet birds and all other sorts of cute! You can order your custom toppers from her shop on http://etsy.com/ :) This is a great site to look for handmade toppers that can make your wedding cake unique!

I have all the polka dots ready and I'm about to pipe the final pearl border. Then my lovely cake is ready for transport!

Emily's Wedding cake sizing is 4", 6", 8" and 10"-inch stacked cakes. Her cake flavor was vanilla bean cake with strawberry buttercream.

It was going to be difficult for me to do that many colors of fondant polka dots at once. It would have taken me a lot of labor hours to do it all myself with out the fondant drying up on me.
I was very happy that I recieved help from my best friend, Patricia and my god sister, Jennifer with the polka dot decorating, we made a great team ^_~

Jennifer cut out the polka dots while Patricia and I applied all different sized polka dots from the top tier down to the bottom tier.

Here are the mini polka dots Jennifer made using a straw! Lovely like confetti but edible!

Here is a close up of all the polka dots on the Emily's Wedding cake.

I was invited to Emily's wedding so here I am at Emily's Wedding Reception location at China Garden in Rosslyn, VA and this is her cake table!! ^_^ I got lots of compliments on my cake and how it looks like my dress! Totally unintentional! LOL :) This was by far my favorite cake to make I just love the whimsy and fun look of it!

Continue to check back for more picture updates :)

Memorial Day Wedding Cake

2009-05-25T16:41:00.000-07:00

On Memorial Day May 25th, 2009, I created 2 cakes for the Wong Wedding, for my friend's Daniel and Jen. The wedding cake is a fuchsia pink fondant cake with quilting pattern and swiss dots on the intersections of the pattern. I did the floral arrangement on the cake with white orchids and the cake toppers are ceramic white love birds from Micheal's :)

The sizing is 6-inch, 8-inch, 10-inch and 12-inch stacked cakes and the cake flavors are Chocolate cake with chocolate amaretto ganache and lemon with lemon curd.

I also created a Grooms Cake tailored to the Grooms favorite game, the Rubik's Cube! This cake was carrot cake with cream cheese filling..yummers :)

Here is their lovely cake table setup in the Library at Oxon Hill Manor! And me with my cake creations! A special THANKS to all my friends Patricia, Jennifer, John, and Brandon - to help me with the creation of my cakes and to cope with my stress that comes with the hardships of a cake designer :)

Later the cakes were moved outside for the cake cutting ceremony! Yay!

Now here are some action shots of me and my helpers with me to complete this cake!

Here I am doing the quilting pattern on Jen's fondant pink cake.

My lovely helpers Jennifer and Patricia cutting out fondant squares for the Groom's cake.

In this picture Jennifer and I are discussing the measurements between each square on the cake.

Jennifer is applying the squares onto the cake.

John is inserting all the dowels onto the wedding cake.

Here is my nice boyfriend inserting the support dowel through the entire cake! The key is to insert a dowel through the bottom 3 tiers and have the dowel stick out about 2 inchs over that and then center and gently press the top tier into the lower tiers so the dowel is hidden from view but this will make transporting your cake almost error proof if you have the entire support dowel going through all the cakes.

Here I added in the final top cake layer and now the cake is ready in the box to go into the fridge until I transport it tomorrow! I have to pipe the final decorations tomorrow before I take it to the wedding!

I am piping away all the swiss dots on the quilt and the pearl border. I have finally completed the cake design and it is ready for tranport! I can't wait till we eat it! Hope you have enjoyed all the details of this wedding cake creation! :)

A special THANKS to all my friends Patricia, Jennifer, John , and Brandon - whom helped me with the creation of my cakes...coping with my all the stress that comes with the hardships of a cake designer :)

He is Risen!

2009-04-20T21:56:00.000-07:00

Another reason to celebrate Easter with a yummy cake! Boy, I was quite busy this past weekend :) Here I have made an ivory colored fondant cake for my friend Candyce. The cake is in the shape of a Greek Orthodox Cross. The cake is an almond white cake filled bittersweet chocolate ganache filling.

Below is my Almond Cake recipe below for my loyal blog followers :)

Almond White Cake

Makes (2) – 9” x 2 - Round Cakes Or (1) 12 x 2 Round Cake

Dry Ingredients:

2 ½ cups Cake Flour

3 tbsp. Potato Starch

1 tbsp. baking powder

4 tbsp. Instant vanilla mix

1 tsp. salt

Liquid Ingredients:

¾ cup. egg whites (about 6 – 7 egg whites)

¾ cup. – whole milk

1/3 cup. – half and half

1 ½ tsp. – Almond Extract

1 tbsp. - Amaretto Liqueur

Creaming Ingredients:

1 ¾ sticks - Unsalted Butter

2 ¼ c. granulated sugar or extra fine sugar

Preheat oven at 350 degrees.

Line the bottom of the plans with parchment paper.
In separate bowl sift the flour and whisk all the dry ingredients together for about 15 seconds.
Measure the liquid ingredients into a separate bowl and whisk to combine; whisking the egg whites will require more effort than usual to incorporate.
Measure the butter and sugar into separate bowls and set aside.

In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and the sugar until creamy and fluffy for 3 - 5 minutes.

Add the dry ingredients mixture alternating with the liquid mixture in 3 -5 additions each, beginning and ending with the dry mixture. Don’t wait for the dry or liquid ingredients to be fully incorporated before adding the next. This step should take a total of about 60 seconds.

Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl all the way down. Don’t miss the clumps in the bottom middle of the bowl. Now mix on medium speed for 20 – 30 seconds to develop the batter’s structure.

Prepare the pans. Deposit the batter in 3 separate sections of the pan and smooth out with the rubber spatula or an offset spatula. The pans should be half full. Drop the pan on the counter a couple of times to settle the air bubbles in the batter.

Bake for 35 minutes and transfer for to rack to cool. The 9-inch round cakes should cool from about 25 – 30 minutes before removing from the pans. Invert each pan onto a flat surface and remove the layers. Remove the parchment from the bottom of each cake and wrap the cake tightly in plastic wrap.

*TIP* - Assembling a layer of cake is easier if the cake is cold; refrigerate the layers overnight or up to 5 days before frosting.

Here I have carved out the cake out of an 11 X 15 sheet pan.

I calculated the measurements for the cake, on a sheet of paper measured at 11 X 15 inches.

I cut out the cross width of 3 inches diameter in the center of the 11 X 15 sheet of paper. Then I cut out the cross I made out of paper. After I had measured and cut the actual cross shape. I knew I would have 4 pieces of cake and I would be able to cut out a total of six (6) - 3 inch diameter circles for a total of 12 semi-circles with the left over corners of the cake. I apply 3 semi-circles on each side for each cross point.

This was a very carefully calculated cake :) I always knew my mathematics skills would come in handy one day :)

Once I completed covering the entire cake with a coat of buttercream I proceeded to covered the cake with the Ivory colored fondant and trimmed off the excess to the shape of the cake. This was the most complicated shaped fondant cakeI have made so far. Circle cakes are easiest and I have that down to a tee! But I always enjoy the opportunity to broaden my techniques.

The cake was stenciled with this nice swirl design and piped with delicate leaves. I had originally planned to paint acanthus leaves but the royal icing wasn't cooperating with me so this was the best I could do without messing up Candyce's Easter cake!

So I have piped the cake border with a beaded pearl border...but I kept looking at the cake and I felt like something was missing....the cake didnt stand out as much as I was hoping. At this point, I made an executive decision to pipe a top edge pearl border and I loved the results! It makes the cake stand out soo much better! I hope Candyce is pleased with this cake. I always get nervous because I never know if my friends are pleased with my cakes until they eat it, but I hope they are happy with their cakes! :D

Another crafty cake under the belt. Continue to check back to my blog for more cakes to come ^_~

Coral Wedding Cake

2009-04-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

As the wedding season begins, Spring is a lovely time to have vibrant colors for your wedding! Here is a cake that I created using coral colors. This cake was more modern in design with tiers that were different shapes. The top tier is a 6-inch square, then the middle tier is a 10-inch round and then bottom tier is a 12-inch square cake! Its not your traditional design... I loved this design a lot!

Here are some shots of my pearl border piping and a picture of the cake after I have completed stacking it.

This past weekend I delivered a wedding cake to Fredericksburg, VA. I have to admit that the drive was horrible. It took my brother and I, an hour and 45 minutes to get there when it was only suppose to take 54 minutes. I was very nervous because of the traffic and I was suppose to be a the reception by 1:30 but I didnt get there till 2 pm! Talk about being stressed.... I had about 45 minutes to get the flowers ready on the cake. Thats not so bad since the reception was suppose to start at 3 pm.

With the floral arrangement to create and I was provided a bundle of flowers and a topper. When I got there, I put my brother to work, making him cut me single stems of each flower so that I can pick them up and bundle it together and wrap it with floral tape. It was a good thing that I was prepared for all this floral work... puahaha :)I always recommend that bakers bring floral tape, scissors, floral wire and all other equipment like piping bags, extra frosting, extra tips, and spatulas.

Joe and Wendy's cake were accented with coral colored roses and carnations with purple and yellow greenery. The cake was decorated with swiss dots on all the layers and the border was beaded. The cake flavors were Red Velvet cake with cream cheese buttercream and Butter Yellow with strawberry buttercream. I think the cake looks lovely...hooray! I hope you enjoyed another episode of my wedding cake adventures :)

Topsy Turvy Chik Cake!

2009-04-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to P. Chik!
In celebration I made this mini 3 tiered topsy turvy cake for my best friend and her last name is Chik...like the little chickies! I love the turquiose color! For fondant recipe, check out my other post.

Here I am making the fondant from scratch! To add color in the fondant recipe, it just add small toothpick amounts of food color into your gelatin mixture after you have blended together your gelatin and corn syrup. Then proceed by adding this mixture to the powder sugar to get this above results. Then scrap out the Fondant onto a powerdered sugared surface and knead until smooth. Add powder sugar a continue to knead if the fondant is too moist.

Here I am laying down the fondant on the cakes and doing a preliminary cut on the edges to smooth down the fondant.

Here are 2 of the 3 cake layers ready for stacking! When you stack make sure to adhere each layer with a little bit of royal icing or decorators frosting to stick.

Here are all the layers stacked and I also made a gumpaste pearl border...

I used a really pretty mini rose silicone mold to make tiny gumpaste flowers and then applied it to the cake in random order... I think a went a little crazy with the mini roses...lol : You can get these types of molds from Global Sugar Art.

Cakebee Cupcakes for Sale!

2009-04-07T13:50:00.000-07:00

Latest buzzzz this past weekend, I did a trial sale of cupcakes at my friend Toan's Viet Noodle soup restaurant. I've been really busy so I haven't been able to update the blog as often but please do continue to check back for the latest baking update! I can't help it, I'm a one woman show...for now :)

I enlisted the help of my friend Sandy to cut out the special Toan Soup red bowl logos made out of fondant. She also help me decorate the containers while I baked and frosted all the cupcakes ^_^
Here are 50 cupcakes with 10 different flavors all packed up ready for delivery to Toan's place :)

Thanks to all those lovely customers who supported my cupcakes sales at Toan's Restaurant! I really appreciate it. I know that Viet noodle soup and cupcakes may not seem like the best combination. But I really appreciate an outlet to be able to sell my cupcakes :)

I am really happy that I was able to feature my special Bumblebee Cupcake! Yay! Its a moist vanilla bean cupcake dipped in rich chocolate ganache with a caramel swirl topped with a sugar bee! :D

I'll do another cupcake sale for the last weekend of April from Thursday- Saturday. Please support my cupcake sales in Silver Spring, MD at Toan's restaurant, help support the dreams of a struggling bakist (baker +artist)!

As for now... eat sweets and bee merry :)

National Capital Area Cake Show!

2009-03-25T22:31:00.000-07:00

The past weekend on March 21st - 22nd there was a Northern VA area Cake show hosted by National Capital Area Cake Show (NCACS)!

I was not able to enter the cake competitions this year because of my cake schedule but there is always next year! I did go and check out very popular vendors and competition. I went with my friend Sandy :) I must admit the competition was fierce..which makes it all more the exciting. Check out the local competition below....

NCACS has different categories that they place all the cake challenges into. There is also a Live Cake Challenge just like the Food Network where many different bakers come from all over the East Coast and compete. Some of the challengers for the Live Cake Competition are Warren Brown (Cake Love), Colette Peters (Colette Cakes), Anne Heap (PinkCakeBox), Dianna Lopez, Norman Davis and Zane Beg from the Food Network and many more!

There were just sooo many types of cakes and all in different categories that I won't be able to talk about each one, but I will comment one some of my faves :D I hope you enjoy the pictures!

The front of this cake was gourgeous and done with painted royal icing and disco and pearl dust and then back is right below and made to look like the ruffle of a wedding dress.

Made with this new techinque called gelatin veining sheets. This is by Cake Connections and they showed us how to make it right there! Of course I bought all the stuff to make these! There so delicate and pretty.

The People's Choice Award for the Chocolate showpiece below.

Here are a bunch of fun and whimsical theme cakes :)

Finally, here are the PROFESSIONAL category cakes. Uber highly skilled bakers and cake designers! These cakes were displayed even on a different room because of the difficulty level.

Hope you all enjoyed the pictures of all the interesting cakes from the VA Cake Show and next year I look forward to competing with my own cake design :) Yay!

Sally at the French Culinary Institute!

2009-02-22T18:59:00.000-08:00

Here I am at the French Culinary Institute! I love the look of the school is just so clean and cozy inside.

Here is my classroom..the beginning of it all...

I'm nervous but the excitement and determination has taken over!! :D I am taking the Fondant and Royal Icing course taught by Cynthia Peithman at the FCI. Below I have my final project that I completed on my last day of my class. I absolutely love Pink and green combination. My cake reminds me of the Simply Shabby Chic bedding linens and thats probably where I got my inspiration!

The cake is a genoise (french sponge) cake layers washed with Grand Marnier and vanilla buttercream. The exterior is a pink colored fondant with quilting pattern. The border of the pink fondant is green bands dusted with pearl dust and adorn with green ribbon and the cake is topped with a large bow dusted with pearl dust. Can you believe that I drove this cake from NYC to my home in Virginia in one assembled piece, which is 5 hours!!

So now we begin the Adventures of Sally at FCI from the beginning..

The first couple of classes began with mastering the recipes for Rolled Fondant - a white moldable sugary paste that is used to cover and decorate wedding cakes. The rolled fondant produces a smooth, matte, porcelain like finish on a cake, that is why it is choice pick for wedding cakes.

There is also a Poured Fondant is cooked is thinned into a sugary syrup and used for confections such petit fours ( mini french cakes) or the gooey center of a chocolate covered cherry.

Day 1
Mastering your fondant recipe, consistency and rolling and decorating a styrofoam cake dummy. Then practice all piping techniques with Royal Icing.

Colette's Fondant Recipe:

Ingredients:

- 2 pounds confectioner's sugar
- 1/4 cup cold water
- 1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
- 1/2 cup glucose (found in cake decorating stores) or white corn syrup
- 1 1/2 tablespoons glycerine (used as a softener) used in the winter when dry, not needed in humid times
- 1 teaspoon desired clear flavoring (vanilla will give the fondant an off-white color) suchas lemon or almond extract
- powdered sugar or cornstarch for dusting

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, sift the sugar and make a well in the center.

Then In a small saucepan, add the water and sprinkle the gelatin on top to soften ( called blooming) for about 5 minutes. Begin to heat the gelatin water mixture and stir until the gelatin is dissolved and clear. Do not boil. Turn off the heat and add the glucose ( corn syrup) and glycerine, stirring until well blended. Add the flavoring and blend.

Pour the gelatine mixture into the well of sugar, and mix until all of the sugar is just blended. Then scrap the mixture out of the bowl into a well dusted surface. Use hands to knead fondant mixture until it becomes a smooth and even consistency. Work small amounts of confectioner's sugar if the mixture is sticky until smooth and dough like.

Form the mixture into a ball and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Place in an airtight container. Making sure no air gets in. The fondant can be used immediately in cooler temperature weather like winter time. This icing works best if allowed to rest at room temperature for about eight hours before using, particularly if the weather is humid.

Be sure to knead the fondant until it is really pliable before covering cakes with it. It helps to prevent tearing on the edges of the cake.

A great thing about class that they feed us dinner every night at 8:30 pm! Its food that the student chefs cook also in the kitchen..its great!

We also get nice breads, pastries and desserts to try sometimes! Yummmies! I ate all the almond and the raspberry ones!

Day 2

Making Fondant again and decorating dummies to get practice.

Then practice more Piping , while Chef Cynthia Peithman prepares to demo like 15 different fondant techniques:

Quilting

Stenciling

Sponging

Texturing/ Embossing

Making Pearls

Molds - using silicone lace and molds to create designs

Piping with Royal Icing - Snail Trail, Star, Leaf, Rosettes and Swiss Dots, swags

Making Ribbons, bands and bows

Clay Gun - different types of borders made with clay gun

Airbrushing

Day 3

We made our own french genoise cakes and buttercreams from scratch :)

We also filled our geniose cakes with buttercream filling and cake wash. My cake wash was Grand marnier and vanilla buttercream.

Day 4

Chef Cynthia shows us how to crumb coat the cake and what we need to do to prepare the cake and boards in order for cake building.

It was the day we crumb coat our filled cakes and make and decorations needed in advances. I had a lot of things to do to ensure a timely execution on Day 5 (last) day of class.

-To crumb coat the cake with buttercream.

-To cover the cake base board with fondant.

-To make any type of wedding topper, bows and ribbons in advance to dry and harden for cake assembly on last day of class.

Here are my bow loops that I made for my large bow topper for my cake.

DAY 5

For my final project I made a pink fondant wedding cake with avocado green bands and small bows and a big ribbon bow wedding topper. The technique I used a quilted pattern on my fondant cake with green bands and a ribbon cake topper.

I also made the little bows to use on the side of my cake to cover up where the bands of green fondant connect :)

Then after the quilting and the green band, I made a creative decision to add 3 little swiss dots on each quilt diamond for an extra something,...

Here is my final product!!!! WOOOWEE! It took me 4 hours to put all the details on this one! The top 2 tiers are made with styrofoam dummies and the bottom tier is a buttercream geniose cake. The cake sizing is 3 inch, 6 inch and 9 inch!

So we gathered all the cakes and had a cake showcase and here are some of the other cakes that my fellow bakers made...

The student next to me decided to go crazy and and do a Jungle cake. She sculputed the trees and branches and then painted the different shades of green on green fondant. Then the she used cookie cutters to make the animals and she airbrushed the color onto the animals. She was the more amibitious one...lol.

Here is a really nice pastel blue and white fondant cake with opposing color bands, swiss dots all over the cake and beaded border.

The cake behind mine that is white uses the technique of stenciling royal icing onto your cake surface which was nice and pretty too.

A picture of me and Chef Cynthia with my cake! I'm so pleased and excited to come back and try out everything I learned. YAH!

SUPERBOWL SUNDAY!!

2009-01-30T21:00:00.000-08:00

WOW your friends with these nifty Superbowl cupcakes!!!!

My friend John and Diana absolutely love vanilla bean. So these cupcakes are solely vanilla bean and vanilla buttercream, although I do recommend chocolate cupcakes so that the brown color give you a "dirt effect" on your cupcake just like the ground.

Vanilla Bean White Cake

Makes (2)- 9 x 2 - Round Layer Cakes

Dry Ingredients:
2 ½ cups Cake Flour
3 tbsp. Potato Starch
1 tbsp. baking powder
3 tbsp. Instant vanilla mix
1 tsp. salt

Liquid Ingredients:
¾ cup. egg whites (about 6 – 7 egg whites)
¾ cup. – whole milk
1/3 cup. – half and half
1 ½ tsp. – Clear Vanilla Extract

Creaming Ingredients:
1 ¾ sticks - Unsalted Butter
2 ¼ c. granulated sugar or extra fine sugar
1 - Vanilla bean pod ( or *2 tbsp of Vanilla Bean paste)

Preheat oven at 350 degrees.

Line the bottom of the plans with parchment paper.
In separate bowl sift the flour and whisk all the dry ingredients together for about 15 seconds.
Measure the liquid ingredients into a separate bowl and whisk to combine; whisking the egg whites will require more effort than usual to incorporate.
Measure the butter and sugar into separate bowls and set aside.

In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and the sugar until creamy and fluffy for 3 - 5 minutes.
Meanwhile slice the vanilla bean lengthwise with a paring knife and scrape out the seeds. Add the seeds to the creaming butter and sugar mix. Reserve Pod for another use. ( Or add the tablespoons of vanilla bean paste at this time.)
Add the dry Ingredients mixture alternating with the liquid mixture in 3 -5 additions each, beginning and ending with the dry mixture. Don’t wait for the dry or liquid ingredients to be fully incorporated before adding the next. This step should take a total of about 60 seconds
Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl all the way down. Don’t miss the clumps in the bottom middle of the bowl. Now mix on medium speed for 20 – 30 seconds to develop the batter’s structure.
Prepare the pans. Deposit the batter in 3 separate sections of the pan and smooth out with the rubber spatula or an offset spatula. The pans should ½ half full. Drop the pan on the counter a couple of times to settle the air bubbles in the batter. Bake for 35 minutes and transfer for to rack to cool.
The 9-inch round cakes should cool from about 25 – 30 minutes before removing from the pans. Invert each pan onto a flat surface and remove the layers. Remove the parchment from the bottom of each cake and wrap the cake tightly in plastic wrap.

*TIP* - If you are decorating the next day, the cakes can be left out at room temperature wrapped in plastic wrap to use on the next day. Assembling a layer of cake is easier if the cake is cold; refrigerate the layers overnight or for up to 5 days before frosting.

I made these cupcakes with vanilla and green colored vanilla buttercream so that the buttercream looks like grass! Then I topped each cupcake with a fondant football with lacing that is piped with royal icing.
Lookie!

So first color some white vanilla buttercream to green for grassy.

All the cupcakes with green buttercream grass...
Then using an small oval cookie cutter ( mine is from Ateco), I cut out 2-D shapes for footballs and also hand-rolled 3-D footballs... except my 3-D footballs don't need 3-D glasses..heee hee :)

So then once you have the footballs then use white icing and pipe little laces on the footballs.

The 3-D footballs which are like the real footballs are cool and the 2-D footballs stand out better though because they are flat.

Now if your rooting for a special team you can buy some colored M&M's depending on Cardinals( Red & White) or Steelers ( Black & Yellow) and put them on the cupcakes as well.

Now see the difference for the toppers on the cupcakes! This is a more neutral cupcake topper, so you can say you are either a Cardinals or Steelers fan :)

A Cupcake Christmas!

2008-12-24T07:00:00.000-08:00

Christmas is a time for cupcakes!
And other delicious sweets of all sorts! Try these really yummy easy variations of Christmas time cupcakes.

For decorations I used:
-Holiday sprinkles
-Christmas trees & snowflakes ( Target)
-snowflake fondant cutter
-white fondant
-yellow sugar crystals
-coconut flakes

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting and I used red and green tree sprinkles and fondant snowflake.

Bright arctic blue cupcakes are Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and decorated with white snowflake sprinkles and a large fondant snowflake.

On the left is a Lemon cake with Cream cheese buttercream sprinkled with yellow sugar crystals. On the right is a Coconut cake with cream cheese buttercream coated with coconut flakes. Just brilliant!

Just one little bite of the Lemon cream cheese cupcake...so moist and delicious!
Makes the christmas season soo scrumptious...hehe :)

Cookies for Santa!

2008-12-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

Santa loves his cookies!! Soo don't forget to leave some by the Christmas Tree for him.

For my birthday my good friend John & Diana got me this wonderful Williams and Sonoma Cookie Press to bake these snazzy cookies!

Vanilla Butter Cookies
(Williams and Sonoma)

16 tbsp. or 2 sticks - unsalted butter, room temp
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. salt
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
*Colored sugars or icings for decorating

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F ( 190 degrees C.)

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater attachment, beat together the butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Stop the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Add the egg, vanilla and salt and continue beating until well mixed, about 1 minute. Reduce the speed to low, add the flour and beat until just blended, about 1 minute, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Fill the cookies press with the room temperature dough according to the manufacturer's instructions and fit with the desired cookie disks. Press the dough out onto the ungreased baking sheets (not nonstick), space the cookies 1 inch apart.

Bake until the cookies are light golden, about 14 minutes. Tranfer the baking sheets to wire racks and let cool for about 5 minutes then transfer to the cookies to the racks and let cook completely. Decorate the cookies with colored sugars or royal icing as desired.

Store in airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.
Makes about 3 dozen cookies. Enjoy!!

You can also wrap these in butter cookies in clear cellophane bags (avaliable in Michaels or Walmart) with silver twist ties for a nice holiday gift! Voilaaaa!
Santa is sure to love these cookies :)

Sayonara Sailor

2008-11-30T20:00:00.000-08:00

Sayonara Brett!

Here I bid farewell to Brandon's brother Brett with a sailboat cake! There is a fondant figure of Brett is sitting on a boat wearing his white navy uniform. During Thanksgiving weekend, I spent a good 2 days devoted to making this cool boat cake for Brett's goodbye party on Saturday. Hooray!!!

I started off baking a vanilla bean sheet cake and I am using Irish cream buttercream filling and frosted with vanilla buttercream :) After I have filled each layer I have stacked the cakes and trimmed away the sides of the cake to make a boat shape.

Here is the cake covered with the crumb coat of buttercream.

Here I am rolling white fondant and coloring it with different shades of brown. I wanted to make sure that you could see different waves of brown.

After I have rolled out the brown wood fondant, I cut long lengthwise strips of it and applied it to the cake in sections. I worked in sections so then I scored the cake so later it will look like planks of wood.

Awesome! The boat is completely covered in fondant wood! Taaa dah!!! Now it is time to completed the fondant figure I made of Brandon's brother, Brett. I know.. its looks like a real person!

So after many hours of construction on his arms and legs I carefully piece him together and place him on the boat cake.

Here I go... piping waves of blue buttercream onto the side of the cakes so that we know the cake is afloat :)

Hooray! Here is my nifty little sail boat cake!!

And here it is... gone!! Yummy!

Carrot Cake Cookies

2008-11-20T07:43:00.000-08:00

I love the Fall...especially the desserts that involve cinnamony - goodness! I adore all yummy holiday cookie recipes! Here is one of my faves! It partially sweetened with honey and that gives the cookie it's soft gooeyness :)

I have included 2 recipe variations of cream cheese filling. The frosting made with honey is much healthier and not so sweet, which pairs well with this cookie because it is denser. The second variation is much sweeter and can be used on a bunch of other dessert such as cakes, cupcakes and bars.

Carrot Cake Cookies

1 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
110g unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 large egg
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 cup coarsely grated carrots (2 medium)
1 scant cup chopped pecans (optional)
1/3 cup raisins (optional)

Cream Cheese Filling Variation 1-
1 cup cream cheese
1 tbsp honey

Cream Cheese Filling Variation 2
½ cup cream cheese, softened
½ stick of butter, room temp
½ tsp of vanilla extract
2 ½ - 3 cups of confectioner sugar

Put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 180°C. Butter 2 baking sheets.

Whisk together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Beat together butter, sugar, honey, egg, and vanilla in another bowl until pale and fluffy. Mix in carrots, nuts, and raisins; then add flour mixture to this and beat until just combined.

Drop 1 1/2 tablespoons batter per cookie 2 inches apart on baking sheets and bake, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until cookies are lightly browned and springy to the touch, 12 to 16 minutes total.

Cool cookies on sheets for 1 minute, then transfer cookies to racks to cool completely.
While cookies are baking, blend cream cheese and honey in a food processor until smooth.Sandwich flat sides of cookies together with a generous tablespoon of cream cheese filling in between. Recipe makes about 24-30 individual cookies.

For variation - you can top each cookie with Cream cheese frosting and sprinkle shredded coconut over them! Yummmmerrrs!

Here is Kaitlin, the daughter of my friends Dave & Tricia, biting into one of these yummy cookies! :D

One Little Piggy

2008-11-15T20:00:00.000-08:00

Lonely little piggy sitting on top of an Espresso Coffee Cake!

My friend Clara requested a birthday cake for her sister Ellen. She wanted a light coffee flavored cake with raspberry buttercream, the light coffee cake flavor preferred by many Asians versus a chocolately coffee cake. To top off the cake, Clara suggested maybe a Pig because in the Chinese Zodiac, her sister is the Year of the Pig!

So here is the Espresso Cake Recipe that I developed for a light coffee flavored cake. This cake tastes like coffee, not like a chocolate cake that has hints of coffee flavor that is used to bring out the chocolate flavor. That would be my Mocha Chocolate cake recipe, which I will post soon :)

Espresso Coffee Cake
(with Espresso glaze)

Makes 2 – 8” or 9” inch pans or 12 cup Bundt Pan

Dry Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. potato starch
1 tbsp. Cocoa Powder
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt

Liquid Ingredients:

¾. cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
¼ cup heavy cream
3 tbsp. Brandy
2 tbsp. instant espresso powder (dissolved in 1 Tablespoon hot water and then pour into the liquid mix)

Creaming Ingredients:

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
2 cups granulated sugar
3 tbsp. turbinado sugar
4 large eggs

For the Glaze-
1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
2-3 Tablespoons strong brewed coffee
3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar, sifted

Make the Espresso Cake-

Put a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.

Generously butter and flour the two 8- inch pans. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, starch, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl.

Combine butter and sugar in a bowl and beat at medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Change to lowest speed and add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add the dry ingredients flour mixture alternately with the liquid mixture in 3 to 5 additions, beginning and ending with flour mixture and mixing until just incorporated. Move swiftly through this set to avoid overmixing the batter. This step should take about 60 seconds.

Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Mix on medium speed for 15 to 20 seconds to develop the batter’s structure.

Then scoop and drop the batter into 3 sections of each 8 inch pan and use an offset spatula to spread the batter evenly into the pan. Pick up the pan and drop it on the counter a couple of times to get the air bubbles out of the batter.

Bake until cake slightly comes away from the sides of the pan, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30 -35 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack for 30 minutes, then invert onto a rack to cool completely.

I torted my cake horizontally in half and put raspberry buttercream between the layers to make this cake.

One Little piggy on my cakeeeeeeeee~