Hello Kitty Cake

At work, we celebrate birthdays once a month - and for October I got to make the cake! There are some people that absolutely loveeee Hello Kitty, so I thought that would be really fun to make for the October babies.

For the cake part (which I made a day earlier), I used the chocolate cake from Smitten Kitchen and also used a white cake from her website as well.

The White Cake:
3 3/4 cups cake flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon plus 2 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 sticks (10 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups plus 1/3 cup buttermilk
5 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Mix dry.
2. Add butter and 1 1/4 cups buttermilk, and beat until fluffy.
3. Mix in a separate bowl the rest of the ingredients.
4. Fold the wet into the dry in three parts.
5. Bake at 325 for about 26-28 minutes!

Now for the interesting part! Making the Hello Kitty!

I had two layers of each flavor from a 9" x 13" baking pan.

I had made a chocolate frosting and a vanilla frosting - a sweet recipe, because I knew the cake wasn't too sweet.

So I stacked the layers next to each other with a nice layer of frosting:



Drew a tentative template that I would cut out on top of the cake by dragging the pointy end of my paintbrush along the frosting.

Started cutting carefully to get the shape I wanted:



After getting the shape needed for a pretty Kitty, I made some fondant and covered the cat. I cut out the smaller, more distinctive pieces of Kitty and put them on:



Then the last step was to paint everything! I painted on gel dye for the black parts and painted on dust color (painted it on by mixing with vodka - it evaporates) for the yellow, pink, and red. Here's the final result!

Splenda Cake

This cake joins the ranks of one of my least favorite cakes ever. If you decide to try and make this one, please don't just use splenda... use half sugar and half splenda. I'm really not sure how this recipe could have made it out there.

The chocolate mousse frosting on the other hand was awesome! I think I could eat that alone or on top of pudding. Just really good chocolate mousse... and it was really simple. Simple is good.

Here goes:

Frosting:
3 c. heavy cream
1 1/2 c. sifted confectioners' sugar
3/4 c. cocoa powder
Dash of salt

1. Whip up all ingredients until stiff peaks form. Delicious!!!

Splenda Cake:
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup SPLENDA® No Calorie Sweetener, Granulated
½ cup SPLENDA® Brown Sugar Blend
¾ cup cocoa powder
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1¼ cups low-fat buttermilk
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup hot strong black coffee

1. Blend dry together.
2. Blend wet together.
3. Mix both together.
4. 350 F for about 15 minutes in two nine inch rounds.

* The finished baked product was actually really weird looking. I just didn't look like a real sugar cake. And it definitely didn't taste the same.

This cake doesn't deserve a real picture:

Another Best Chocolate Cake!

I feel like I haven't been on here forever! It's been a really busy busy week - ACL, work, birthday, cake! I got this recipe from Smitten Kitchen - she's my role model.

3 cups cake flour
3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
3 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups freshly brewed coffee, cooled to room temperature (I haven't made coffee in forever! It was scary to do, but apparently not really hard to mess up.)



1. Preheated the oven to 350 degrees F. Lined the baking tins with wax paper (two 9 inch rounds and one 8 inch square).

2. In a large mixer bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. With the electric mixer on low speed, blend for about 30 seconds. Add the butter and buttermilk and blend on low until moistened. Raise the speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes.

3. Whisk the eggs and coffee together (I did this when the coffee was still a little warm and there was no curdling), and add to the batter in 3 additions, scraping down the sides of the bowl and beating only until blended after each addition. Put the batter in the tins.



4. Baked for 38 to 40 minutes - and ate cake!



I made the chocolate frosting that I used for Jessica's birthday cake! It went pretty well because the cake wasn't overly sweet. You could barely taste the coffee! I'm not a huge coffee fan, so this was a pretty big deal.



This cake is just awesome. So soft and great flavor! I'll be making it again for sure.

Pumpkin Spice Everything... Even Cake!

Probably the greatest creation on earth in the world of cakes. I loved this one!


1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/4 cups (270 grams) light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup (240 ml) fresh or canned pure pumpkin (about 1/2 of a 15 ounce can)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cups (200 grams) sifted cake flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 cup (120 ml) buttermilk, room temperature

(http://www.joyofbaking.com/PumpkinSpiceCake.html#ixzz11Qx87MoC)

1. I said: Butter and sugar - please fluff up together in my electric mixer.
2. Please accept the eggs... but only one at a time. And make them feel welcome, fully incorporated in your dwelling.
3. Meet the belle of the ball: Little Miss Pumpkin Puree and her friend sweet Miss Vanilla.
4. You all should spin around in the mixer and be happy as one.
5. In a separate (but equally important) half-sphere bowl, the spices of life frolicked in the flour.
6. The Spices of Life and Little Miss Buttermilk wanted to join the party in the mixer bowl...
7. So they fought their way in and became one with the mix.
8. Then they baked... in two eight in rounds until a perfect bake they made... at 350 of course.

I covered the sweet delightful layers in buttercream and fondant. mmMMmm.

I have a 5 gallon bag of frozen strawberries = Strawberry Cake.

I had made some strawberry cupcakes before using Sprinkle's recipe, but now I have this huge bag of frozen strawberries, and I really don't want to make the recipe a million times. So, I googled and found this recipe at www.jasonandshawnda.com:

3/4 cup strawberry puree, room temperature
1/4 cup milk, at room temperature
6 large egg whites, room temperature (I didn't use room temperature ones)
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cup cake flour, sifted (I didn't sift this)
1 3/4 cup sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
12 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened

1. Combine puree, milk, egg, vanilla and mix well.
2. In a mixer combine sifted flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix.
3. Mix at a slow speed and add butter. Mix until it resembles moist crumbs.
4. Add liquids and beat at medium speed until evenly combined.
5. Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes.

I made one cake and some cupcakes out of this recipe.

For the cupcakes I used chocolate icing with strawberries to garnish (Do not use frozen strawberries, they will thaw out and fall off the cupcakes and then dry up and look like shriveled pieces of stuff on your cupcakes. Lesson learned. sigh.)



For the cake I used a dark chocolate icing - which I don't really prefer, but I thought I would try something different.

Julie's Birthday!

Julie wanted my yellow cake (the successful one) with simple butter-cream frosting, covered in fondant. She told me that I could make any design I wanted to on the front - so dealing with time limitations I knew that I really wanted to do something pretty, but it had to be simple.

Here's a picture of it in black and white for your viewing pleasure! (It's really hard to see the design when it's just a regular photo.)

Nutella Brownies. I licked the spatula.

Nutella is this amazing hazelnut spread that deserves to be put in every chocolate-y dessert out there. That is why I decided to try out this recipe from www.chow.com:

Nutella Layer:
* 4 oz Philly cream cheese
* 2 tbs softened butter
* 1/4 cup granulated sugar
* 1 large egg
* 1 tbs flour
* 1/4 cup plus 2 tbs nutella

Brownie Layer:
* 3/4 cup all purpose flour
* 1/3 cup Herseys Special Dark Cocoa
* 1/2 tsp baking powder
* 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
* 1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
* 1 cup granulated sugar
* 1 tsp vanilla
* 2 large eggs

Make the nutella layer first:
1. Cream together butter, sugar, flour, then add 1 large egg until mixed very well.



2. Add the nutella until mixed completely then set aside.



Brownie layer second:
1. Cream butter and sugar, then add vanilla and eggs til mixed completely. Set aside.
2. Mix flour, cocoa, powder, salt in a mixing bowl.
3. Add the creamed mixture to the dry mixture.



Making ta brownies!
8"x8" pan
- Put 3/4 of brownie batter in the pan (really really really thick batter).
- Put 3/4 of nutella mixture on top of that.
- Put dollops of brownie batter on top of that.
- Put remainder of nutella mixture on top of that.
- Level the top and mix around the brownie mixture some with a toothpick/knife/spatula.



Bake ME!
- Put in a preheated 350F oven for about 30 minutes... until cooked to your desire. Less time for a more goey brownie, more time for a more cakey brownie.



Eat ME!
mmmmmmmmmmm. Good dessert.