Small Olaf Cake

A while back I made a large Olaf Cake for a charity I help Birthday Dreams. A friend of mine asked if I could make a smaller version for her daughter that was having a couple friends over.  I made one batch of a homemade cake and scaled it down to this size. 

Ingredients

• Creme-filled cookies (I used Black Modeling Chocolate)
• Miniature creme-filled cookies
• Chocolate licorice
• Orange frosting (I used Orange Modeling Chocolate)
• Black frosting
• Buttercream frosting
• 1 box of cake mix (I made mine from scratch)

Instructions

1. Bake your cake mix, according to instructions. Use your mix to make two 8-inch round cakes. Since mine was small I used a square 9x12 pan and a small round pan for the feet and neck.
2. Allow cakes to cool.
3. Freeze cakes, preferably overnight.
4. Make your Olaf template. Since this cake was small I did this by hand and using bowls to trace the body.
5. Once satisfied with your Olaf cake template, take your cake out of the freezer and place template on top. Using a sharp knife and small cuts, carefully cut around your template to shape the cake. Remember to go slowly… it’s tougher to add cake back on than it is to cut a bit more off.
6. Put cakes back in the freezer.
7. Mix your buttercream frosting (I use My Sturdy Buttercream Frosting).
8. First, spread your cakes with the buttercream frosting.
9. Refreeze frosted cakes while you prepare the rest of your ingredients.
10. Here’s what I used:

• For eyes: Half of a creme-filled cookie for each eye. Use a mini creme-filled cookie for the inside of the eye. / This time I used black and white modeling chocolate.
• For nose: Dollop of orange frosting. / This time I used orange modeling chocolate.
• For mouth: Black frosting mixed with our white buttercream frosting to make a charcoal grey. Tip: We made a separate template for his mouth. We cut the inside of the mouth out, set it on top of the cake and spread our frosting in the middle, using that template like a stencil. When we pulled our stencil, this gave us a sharper edge all around. / This time I used black modeling chocolate.
• For tooth: I didn’t want to spend money on fondant for such a small piece. This was a little tough, but I gently scraped the inside of a creme-filled cookie and called it a tooth. / This time I used white modeling chocolate.
• For buttons: Creme-filled cookie. Use just half the cookie – or the full. / This time I used black modeling chocolate.
• For eyebrows: Chocolate licorice / This time I used black modeling chocolate.
• For hair: Chocolate licorice
• For arms: Chocolate licorice

ALEXIS NOTES: I made my notes above, since this is a smaller cake I had to use smaller items then the oreo's etc. I just used modeling chocolate I had on hand and made to scale.

When you leave left over cake out from making the body you find this.

Have a great week!

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE. 

Sweets for the Sweets ... Sweet 16 Cupcakes (Hot Pink Zebra)

Next on my list for Birthday Dreams (Charity delivering Birthdays to Homeless Kids) was for a 16 year old girl.  She requested Zebra and her favorite color was Hot Pink.  I did some google searching and came across a few different ideas.  I found this idea on Flickr and ran with it.

I picked up a Wilton Sugar Sheet in Zebra Print.  I happen to buy a sugar sheet cutter earlier in the year when Michael's had them and the inserts marked down on clearance.  I tinted the frosting to hot pink.

What you Need:

Baked Cupcakes (see Recipe below)

Frosting (I used my sturdy buttercream)

Hot Pink Coloring (Americolor Electric Pink)

Wilton Zebra Print Sugar Sheets

Wilton Sugar Sheet Punch

Wilton Fondant Silcone Number Mold

Wilton Silver Pearl Dust (Edible)

Zebra Print Cupcake Liners

I took my Sheet Punch with the sugar sheet to make different shapes and sizes to punch out the toppers.  I used one sheet and was able to cover almost all the cupcakes.  To finish them off I used some White Candy Clay (click for recipe) and some silver shimmer dust to mold 16.

For the cupcakes I used a Moist and Fluffy Vanilla Cupcake recipe I found on Life Love and Sugar.

 Ingredients

1 2/3 cups (240g) all purpose flour

1 cup (200g) sugar

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup butter (170g), room temperature

3 egg whites

3 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup (120ml) sour cream

1/2 cup (120ml) milk

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda and baking powder in a large mixing bowl.

3. Add butter, egg whites, vanilla, sour cream and milk and mix on medium speed until smooth.

4. Fill cupcake liners a little more than half way.

5. Bake 18-20 minutes.

6. Allow to cool for 1-2 minutes, then remove to cooling rack to finish cooling.

Thanks for stopping by!

If you're looking for a GREAT charity please check out Birthday Dreams,

You can send them donations through Amazon if you would like.

They always need plates, wrapping paper etc!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE. 

Sweets for the Sweets ... Rex the Dinosaur Cake

A signed up for a Dino Cake for Birthday Dreams (A charity that brings birthday's to homeless kids).  The cake was for a VERY sweet little 5 year old.  When I went to the shelter to deliver the cake, I walk up and I hear it's the cake lady.  This is one of my favorite shelters and usually do one cake a week for one of their residents. The little boy was so stinking cute and so happy with his cake.

He had requested a confetti cake and the theme was dinosaurs.  I started with making the cake.  I found a Fluffy Confetti Cake on the Food Network.

Ingredients

• 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for the pans
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled, plus more for the pans
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 5 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup milk
• 3 tablespoons rainbow sprinkles

Directions

1. For the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottoms and sides of two 9-inch round cake pans; dust with flour, and tap out the excess.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
3. Beat the butter, sugar and oil in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until light in color and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and then the vanilla until combined.
4. Alternate folding the flour mixture and the milk into the batter with a spatula, adding the flour in three additions and the milk in two, starting and ending with the flour, until just smooth. Add the sprinkles, and fold 3 or 4 times until just blended to prevent the colors from bleeding too much. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans.
5. Bake the cakes on the same oven rack until golden on top and the centers spring back to the touch, 35 to 40 minutes. Rotate the pans about halfway through if they seem to be browning unevenly. Let cool in the pans about 10 minutes, then turn out onto cooling racks and let cool completely.

After the cakes were cooled I started to carve out my dino!  It was super easy, 2 round cakes made this dinosaur.  I found a T-Rex Dino cake with template on Betty Crocker.  I fixed it up with a few of my own tricks.

All Boxed up and ready to be delivered

Ingredients:

1 box Betty Crocker™ SuperMoist™ devil's food cake mix (Homemade Cake)

Cake Board

2 containers Betty Crocker™ Rich & Creamy vanilla frosting (or Homemade Frosting)

Betty Crocker™ gel food color (AmeriColor Green Color)

19 milk chocolate candy drops or pieces, unwrapped (Green Candy Clay)

Assorted round chocolate candies (candy-coated chocolate candies, miniature candy-coated chocolate baking bits, coating wafers, chocolate chips)

Betty Crocker™ white decorating icing (from 4.25-oz tube) (White Candy Clay)

• Heat oven to 350°F (325°F for dark or nonstick pans). Spray bottoms and sides of two 8- or 9-inch round cake pans with baking spray with flour. Make and bake cake mix as directed on box, using 1 cup water, the oil and eggs. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pans to cooking racks. Cool completely, about 1 hour. Refrigerate or freeze 30 to 60 minutes for easier handling.
• For body, cut 1-inch slice from edge of one cake. From cut edge, cut out small inverted U-shape piece. Place body on tray. From remaining cake, cut head and tail. Arrange head and tail pieces next to body.
• Spoon frosting into large bowl. Stir in enough food color until desired green color. Spread thin layer of frosting over cake pieces to seal in crumbs. Refrigerate or freeze cake 30 to 60 minutes to set frosting.
• Frost cake pieces with remaining frosting. Use milk chocolate candies for spikes along back of dinosaur. Decorate body with assorted candies. Use 2 candy-coated chocolate candies for eyes and white decorator icing to make centers of eyes and teeth. Store loosely covered.

ALEXIS NOTES: I used a homemade cake instead of the cake mix. I used some green Candy Clay (Very simple to make it's Candy Melts & Corn Syrup click link for recipe) I had on hand with a bunny cooker cutter, I used the ears to make the spikes for the dino.  I inserted a tooth pick into the spike and then into the cake. I used brown candy melts for the dots along with brown Reese's Pieces for the smaller circles and the toes.  I used white Candy Clay for the teeth.

Thanks for stopping by!

If you're looking for a GREAT charity please check out Birthday Dreams,

You can send them donations through Amazon if you would like!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE. 

Birthday Boy ... Car Cake

My best friend's son asked for a cake for his birthday a while back.  I asked his mom what theme he was wanting she said Cars.  I wanted to do something fun an different not the movie car but an car.  I was running crazy that week so I found this EASY cake to make!

I found a site called Themed Party Place ... OH yes I did!!  They had this easy Car Cake tutorial on their site.

What You Need:

1 Round Cake (I made my Moist White Cake)

Chocolate Donuts

Circle Cutter

Sharp Knife

Frosting

Fondant (Optional)

AmeriColor Gel Food Coloring

What to do:

Bake a round cake per instructions on the box, you'll be able to make two car cakes (I only use homemade, I don't like the taste of box).

Place the cooled cakes in the freezer for a half an hour to an hour. Freezing a cake keeps the crumbs to a minimum when you cut it.

Cut the cakes as shown by the dotted lines in the diagram.

Align the two cut sections on the sides of the larger piece to form the front and back bumpers.

Frost the cakes.

Use chocolate donuts or stacks of cookies as the wheels.

Windows can be added to the car using frosting. (Alexis Note: I used a blue fondant to cover the cake.  I also cut out for the bumpers to fit in and used that left over cake to build up my tires to be the same height of the cake (I had no donuts so I used the cake and my circle cutters weren't small enough so I used a medicine cup ... lol).  I added a little black fondant to outline doors and windows.  And to be fun I had a little brown to some fondant and made little faces to smile out of the windows.  A little black fondant for hair and used my fondant writer pen to draw on faces.

Enjoy!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

Cakes for Charity ... Princess Castle Cake

Next on my list for Birthday Dreams was a Princess themed party.  I found a Princess Castle Cake on Single Mormon Mommy. This was a pretty simple cake to make, I did put a little more frosting then I normally would when I put fondant on.  The little girl requested extra frosting. 

For this cake, you’ll need

- A cake mix (ALEXIS NOTE: I made my own - see recipe below)
- A can of frosting (ALEXIS NOTE: I made my own - see recipe below)
- 4 Ice-cream cups
- 4 Ice cream cones
- Pink icing that comes in a tube (ALEXIS NOTE: I Made Pink Fondant)
- Cotton Candy for the clouds (ALEXIS NOTE: I skipped this part)
- Pillow mints for the castle “stones” (ALEXIS NOTE: I skipped this part)
- Toothpicks
- Paper or pink fondant (ALEXIS NOTE: I made Brown Fondant window and door. For Flags I used Birthday ones I picked up at Hobby Lobby)

To make it easy to get the cakes out whole, you might want to line the bottoms of the pan with cut-to-size parchment paper. We actually used regular paper and just greased it. (ALEXIS NOTE: I use Cake Release it works every time!)

After giving both cakes a good crumb coating (How? Microwave about 1/3 cup frosting for 5 seconds & spread a thin layer over everything to keep crumbs at bay) put the square cake on the serving tray and the loaf cake on top, right across the center. If your loaf was a little too long for the square you can safely take a slice right out of the middle, push the ends together, and hold them in place with toothpicks. (ALEXIS NOTE: I used too much frosting due to the request for extra frosting.)

Then cut out out windows door and flags. Be sure the flags are cut on the fold so they’ll wrap around a toothpick. You can “glue” them onto the top of a toothpick using a little icing. To mount the flags, you’ll need to slice the ends off 5 sugar cones, making a hole just wide enough to hold a toothpick. (ALEXIS NOTE: I made some brown fondant and cut the windows and door.  I also made a few pink fondant balls to add a little something special to the cake.)

Now you just need to mount your flags and add your windows and doors. Add pillow-mint key stones and whatever other decorations you like. (ALEXIS NOTE: I skipped the mints.)

ALEXIS NOTES: I used my Sturdy Buttercream Frosting and Rolled Buttercream Fondant.  To get the right Pink I used Americolor Electric Pink Gel food color.

For the Cake I used The Best Chocolate Cake Recipe found on Add a Pinch (See the recipe and pictures below)

Ingredients

• Chocolate Cake
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1½ teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon espresso powder
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350º F. Prepare two 9-inch cake pans by spraying with baking spray or buttering and lightly flouring.
2. Add flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt and espresso powder to a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Whisk through to combine or, using your paddle attachment, stir through flour mixture until combined well.
3. Add milk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla to flour mixture and mix together on medium speed until well combined. Reduce speed and carefully add boiling water to the cake batter. Beat on high speed for about 1 minute to add air to the batter.
4. Distribute cake batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes, remove from the pan and cool completely.

You don't have to bake to help Birthday Dreams, please check them out.

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.