Light & fluffy butterflies

What better way to celebrate summer than with butterfly cakes?  Yum!  I made 2 butterfly cakes (one jello cake w/ whipped cream and one chocolate cake w/ cream cheese frosting filling) for a friend’s daughter’s birthday party.  All the little girls got cute fairy wings at the party, so the butterfly cakes were a great complement.

Can you tell how I cut the cakes?  For one butterfly, I used two 8×1.5 round pans.  I stacked the cakes, cut it in half, and then cut each half into 1/3.  So, start the cut a third from the long side of the half circle to a third from the round side of the half circle.  I used a long donut for the body and placed the rounded sides of the half circles alongside of the body to create the wings.  I used whipped cream to frost the cakes and tinted the whipped cream to color the wings.  You can pretty much use sprinkles and other types of candy to further decorate the wings.

Butterfly Cake 1

Butterfly Cake 2

Leaf the ladybugs alone

For my cousin’s daughter’s 1st birthday party, I decided to make 2 ladybugs lounging on a big leaf.  For the ladybug bodies, I used a ball pan and shaped the head from the “bump” of the cake, rising from baking, in the ball pan.  For the giant leaf, I used two 9×13 pans…I had very little cake scraps left!  I made lemon cakes with raspberry curd filling and whipped cream frosting for the ladybugs and leaf.  I piped melted chocolate to create the antennas (which you don’t see here as I added them when we got to the party and this is a pix before).

Ladybug Cake

Whale of a birthday party

My daughter loves whales!  So it wasn’t hard coming up with the theme for her 2nd birthday party.  I made jello cakes and shaped them into 2 whales using egg and loaf shaped pans.  Ignoring my gut instinct, I decided not to skewer the whales down to the cake board…big mistake!  The whales slid during transport and crashed into one another and into the sides of the cake cover.  I will trust my instincts next time.  On a happier note, I was able to take a picture of the cakes prior to transport.  However, I did not have them fully decorated with pearl sprays as the water blowhole.

As part of the whale theme, I made “save the whale shirts” to give out to kids, gave out “The Snail and The Whale” storybooks, and had the kids “save the plushy whales” beached in the jumphouse.

Below are pix of 1) freshly made whales, 2) whales in captivity during transport, 3) whale with pearl spray, 4) packaged shirt favors, and 5) save the whale shirt.

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IMG_7214 collision whale

Whale Favors Whale Shirt

Birthday eruptions

My friend’s son was turning 5 and wanted to have a science class party focused on geology and fossils.  What better way to celebrate than with a volcano and dinosaurs?

The cake was chocolate with chocolate frosting and the trees were made with green tinted rice krispies treats on pretzel sticks.  I melted jolly ranchers in the oven set to 225°F on foil covered cookie sheets.  If you want to get the bubbly like appearance, crush the jolly ranchers into smaller pieces and place them side by side in the shape of what you want.  Then, watch as they melt and take out before they are completely melted.  If they are completely melted, they will become very “liquidy” and will pretty much pool into a thin, flat shape.  I used strawberry and orange jolly ranchers to give the volcanic eruptions some color contrasts.  You can also make your own hard candy, but I didn’t want to bother with the thermometer, food coloring, etc.

Here is a picture of the semi-finished product before heading out to the party.  I was going to take a picture of the finished product (complete with crushed fudge oreos for volcanic rocks, cotton candy for volcanic plume of smoke, and dinosaur nest with eggs), but didn’t get a chance to as the kids happily swarmed the cake.

I was actually considering putting in a small well at the center of the volcano for a small cup of water, so I could put dry ice in it for a real smoking treat.   However, the cake was not large enough for this…I guess I’ll have to save that for next time!

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Lullaby blues…

It appears many of my colleagues are having babies!  I made this baby shower cake for a co-worker who is going to have a boy.  I made her a zucchini cake with cream cheese frosting and surprisingly enough it was a hit!  :)  

This time, for the crib posts, I tried a different method of piping out the chocolate.  Can you tell?  It doesn’t look like wicker this time around and I like the look of this much better.  To get the effect, I squeezed to make dot, move out a little, and then squeeze again.  I think I’m starting to get the hang of this.

 

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