Easter cake pops

I decided to make some cake pops for my boys for Easter instead of buying the traditional candy. 

For the bunnies, I used pastel Easter Candy Corn for their ears, heart shaped candy sprinkles for their noses and circles for their eyes.

For the chicks, I used flower candy sprinkles for their feet.  I made their noses out of dyed white chocolate.

I also made some Easter Egg looking cake pops.  Two of my boys helped decorate a few of them as well. 

Overall, I spent a good few hours making all of these. 

Poker Chip Cake

This is the cake that I used the Beer Buttercream Frosting on.  This cake is going to be an Anniversary surprise.  The four represents their 4 years together and the letters are their initials. 

This cake looks very simple, but was time consuming. 

I did get to use my new airbrush kit for the first time though.  That was fun!  Black is a horrible color to work into fondant, so I was very excited to get my airbrush in time to do this cake.  It only took about 5 minutes as opposed to a good 30 minutes trying to kneed the color into the fondant. 

After that was done, I allowed the color to dry on the cake (be VERY careful not to get drops of water on the color!...lesson learned!). 


Next, I cut out a circle of white to place in the center.  I cut out a template using wax paper to get the "stripes" all the same size.  Then, I added the small dashes around the circle.

I couldn't decide how to do the letters, which is where this cake started taking me more time.  I liked the white with the red, but in order to make it stand out, I placed some black underneath it.  That really made them "pop".  In order to get nice looking letters, I printed some up from Photoshop and then traced them onto wax paper.  I then place them on rolled out fondant and cut around the paper....not an easy task!

For the writing on the top/bottom, I was going to use my Wilton Food Writer.  Problem was, it wasn't working well and it ran out of color!  Ahhhh!!!  So.....I opted for making them out of fondant.  I really like the way they turned out, but it took me a LONG time! 

The final touch was the cake board...I covered it in green felt to look like a gambling table.  Hopefully, this cake will be a big hit tonight!!

Beer Buttercream Frosting

I was asked to make an Anniversary cake (Poker Chip Cake) and they wanted me to make Beer Buttercream Frosting.  I honestly had never heard of it, so I went in search of a recipe (I cut this recipe in half).  This recipe calls for:

2 cups unsalted butter (room temp)

5 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 whole scraped vanilla bean
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 cups Guinness Extra Stout Beer                             

First, you need to reduce the beer by boiling it under low heat.  This recipe stated 10-15 minutes, but it took me a lot longer (maybe I didn't have the heat high enough?).  Once that is done, you will be left with about 2 tablespoons of a syrupy liquid (see below).  Set it aside to cool.

Next, cream the butter in a mixer for about a minute.  Start adding the powdered sugar, a little at a time, alternating with a little milk to keep it creamy.

Add the scraped vanilla bean (I left this part out) and vanilla extract.

Slowly add the reduced beer a little at a time.  Taste test to the desired strength.  I ended up using all of it. 

I have to say, I was a little curious wondering what the result was going to be.  I personally don't like beer, but I was shocked how good this tasted.  It's hard to describe, but it has a really nice flavor to it....goes VERY nicely with chocolate cake too!!

Tinkerbell

I have been wanting to do a doll cake so this was a perfect opportunity to do so! 


This cake was made using a Wilton's cake pan especially for doll cakes.  I made a vanilla cake with homemade strawberry frosting.  The cupcakes were also vanilla, but had homemade vanilla buttercream frosting.


I made the flowers and leaves a few days ahead of time.  I got to use my new fondant drying trays that allow you to dry the flowers in a curvy shape.


After adding the white fondant to the cake, I made a small hole and poked the doll into the top of the cake. 


For the body of the dress, I just cut out a piece of fondant and wrapped it around the doll's bodice and sealed it in the back with a touch of water.  The wings just pressed right onto the fondant.                                                                                                                            

Then, I started laying the leaves onto the cake starting on the bottom and working my way up.  I then added some frosting "grass" around the bottom and the flowers as the finishing touch. 

I also did the grass on the cupcakes along with some fondant flowers so that everything matched.  I'm really happy with how she turned out as it was exactly what I was aiming for. 

P.S.  This cake/cupcakes took about 10 hours total.