American Flag Cake

We hope you had a happy Fourth of July! We had a wonderful holiday with family and friends and were lucky enough to celebrate multiple times over the long weekend. We are currently hosting a foreign exchange student from Spain for the month and we are trying to fit in as much "American" culture as possible. She came just at the right time!We've eaten hot dogs, burgers, fries, potato salad, marshmallows, watermelon and more. We've also attended a birthday party, 2 t-ball games, played beach volleyball, watched fireworks, went to a carnival, sprayed each other with the hose, went to Target, picked raspberries, went to a farm, went fishing, and made a big batch of chocolate chip cookies...all in 6 days. That is a lot of "America." Last week we made this flag cake to take to the exchange student "Welcome Party." I thought this was the perfect occasion for this American-style cake. It is definitely a cake you want to make when serving a crowd since it is about the size of a football field! This is also a project to do with the kids. The 3 kids, ages 3, 5, and 14, loved helping me decorate this monster cake. I thought it turned out pretty good for having so much "help!"Flag Cake
adapted from Barefoot Contessa Family Style by Ina Garten


18 Tablespoons butter at room temperature
2 1/2 cups sugar (I reduced this from the 3 she listed)
6 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 t vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 t salt
1 t baking soda

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a full sheet pan with cooking spray. Cream the butter and sugar in your mixer with a paddle attachment on high speed. On medium speed, add the eggs one at a time and then the sour cream. Sift the dry ingedients together and add them on low speed. Mix until just incorporated. Spread into prepared pan and bake 20-30 minutes or until toothpick comes out of center clean.

Frosting
4 sticks butter, room temperature
1 1/2 lbs. cream cheese
1 lb confectioners' sugar, plus more
1 1/2 t vanilla

Mix all ingredients with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Add additional powdered sugar if frosting seems too thin.

Spread a thin layer of frosting over the entire cake. Then use a toothpick to draw a flag design on the cake. Place blueberries in the top corner and then place two rows of raspberries near the top. Pipe two rows of icing, using a large star tip. Repeat for remaining cake. Pipe stars on top of blueberries to finish off the cake.

Watermelon Cake

Super cute and fun watermelon cake!!

I made this watermelon cake for a playgroup that I am hosting today. It turned out so cute...a little different than the cover of Womansday magazine, but cute nontheless. It was fun to make and Gabe even took a shot at decorating his own piece. It would be perfect for a summer get together.

It is pretty simple. You bake two 9-inch round cakes and cute them in half. Then layer three halves to make the big watermelon. Then slice the remaining half into three small pieces. Frost one laying flat, refrigerate until set, then stand on end and frost the last side.

Use the extra pieces to decorate with little ones around the house like I did or eat them up before the party begins!!! Enjoying fun projects with my children can be so fun and rewarding! See his little smile!!!

Birthday Cakes(s)

Gabe had been talking about his birthday party 6 months ahead of time. He knew he wanted all of his friends to come over. He knew he wanted it to be at our house. He knew he wanted to have "lots of things to eat" and he knew exactly what he wanted his cake to look like.

Somehow he came up with the idea of having "5 circle cakes with cherries all around the top." I don't know where he came up with this idea, even though I asked him a hundred times. I tested him every few weeks to see if he had changed his mind. I suggested dinosaurs, polka dots, multiple layers, etc...but he was firm. He wanted what he wanted and I aim to please on his birthday. So, I set out to make 5 circle cakes.
He didn't want big cakes and he didn't want cupcakes, so when he saw me pull out the 6-inch cake pan he said "that is the right one, Mommy." Aha! The only bad part was that I only own 1 6-inch cake pan and he wanted 5 of them! Ugh. I didn't want to spend money on another cake pan so I baked each of the five cakes separately. I figured I had to make an adult cake to serve as well, so at least I was baking two cakes at a time. It still took 3 hours to bake, cool, wash, repeat, repeat, repeat, and repeat.

The biggest challenge was finding a way to display and serve all 5 cakes. I thought about going to the home store and purchasing a long piece of wood, but decided on using things I already had. I found a big box leftover from some purchase and cut it into a 9''x36'' rectangle. Then I found two yardsticks which I taped to the bottom. Then I covered the entire thing with foil. It ended up being perfect. It was the right size and it was sturdy enough to move all the cakes at one time. Frosting them was pretty easy with the help of some wax paper underneath the edges of each cake.

Gabe was thrilled with the cakes and the kids attending all seemed delighted with so many cakes! I was just plain relieved that they turned out!!

Once again I turned to Deb at Smitten Kitchen for help. She knows how to make a cake!! If she only knew what a presence she had at this birthday party!!

I used this recipe for the chocolate cake...I liked it even better the second day when it wasn't quite soooo moist!

I used this recipe for the frosting...sooo yummy!! The only drawback was that I had to wait until the morning of the party to frost and decorate...but it was delicious!

The adult cake was a simple 1-2-3-4 cake. Worked like a charm! I made it three tiers and used a raspberry filling for a big "wow" factor when serving.

Grace's First Birthday - Fondant

We celebrated my daughter's first birthday this week.  We did a festive luau theme including leis, tropical flowers, and more.

I did a small smash cake for my daughter to enjoy.  She was a little timid and didn't get into it until later in the day after the party was winding down.

I used a marshmallow fondant recipe to make the decorations for the smash cake and the larger cake for guests.  It was really tasty and easy to mold and work with.  I definitely recommend this recipe!

Marshmallow Fondant

16 oz bag small plain marshmallows 
2 Tbsp water
vegetable shortening
1 tsp flavoring
2 lb confectioner's sugar
pinch of salt

Grease a microwave safe bowl, a spoon, the dough hook, and the bowl of your stand mixer with vegetable shortening or spray with non stick cooking spray. Dump the marshmallows into the bowl and microwave for 60 seconds. Stir marshmallows with the greased spoon. If all the marshmallows have not melted, microwave for 30 seconds more. Stir in flavoring.  Place confectioner's sugar and salt in the stand mixer bowl, reserving 1 cup, and make a well in the center. Pour in the marshmallow mix and turn the mixer on to the lowest setting. When it sounds strained, increase the mixer speed up one setting. Turn off the mixer once all sugar has been incorporated. If the fondant is sticky, add the reserved confectioner's sugar 1/4 cup at a time.  Transfer the fondant onto plastic wrap. Rub a bit of shortening on the outside of the ball. Wrap in plastic wrap, place in a ziploc bag, and let rest for at least 2-3 hours. Keep unused portions covered when not using. If the fondant becomes stiff, place in microwave for 20 seconds at a time until pliable.   Roll out on a greased surface or parchment paper to the desired thickness.
To color: Add paste food coloring to a portion of the fondant and knead it until the entire ball turns the desired color.    
Once you have made desired shapes and decorations you can adhere them to the cake by adding a bit of regular frosting to the shape and sticking it to the cake.

Sugar Cookies

It's that time of year...the time when I search for the best sugar cookie recipe I can find. This year I found a keeper. I really love this recipe because you don't have to wait for the butter to come to room temperature. That is key because I never plan ahead enough for that to happen. I always work on the fly...if the kids are happy and my hands are free then I bake. Today my hands were free so I grabbed some butter from the freezer and got to work.

This simple recipe bakes a batch of tender sugar cookies that don't last long around here. We baked a couple dozen and hardly had any left by the time I got around to snapping a few picture. We invited the neighbors over to decorate cookies. The kids ate a bunch while decorating, we gave a few away, we ate some more, we gave some to my guitar teacher, and then we ate a few more. It's a good thing this recipe makes a big batch of dough, because we can cut off a big chunk of dough and have terrific cookies anytime we want them.

Sugar Cookies

1 1/2 cup butter melted

2 cups white granulated sugar

4 eggs (jumbo)

1 teaspoons baking soda

1 tbs almond extract

5 cups of flour

Melt the butter in a small saucepan or in the microwave. Whisk in the sugar. Beat in the eggs and almond extract once the butter/sugar mixture has cooled enough so that it won't scramble the eggs. Mix the flour and baking soda. Add a bit at a time (I used the paddle attachment on my KitchenAid and just let it whirl around 5 or 6 times before adding another big scoop of flour.) Chill for about 2 hours in the fridge.Roll out about 1/4 inch thick on a floured board, cut, and place on baking sheets lined with parchment. Bake at 35o for 8-10 minutes. Cookies will be a very light golden at the edges. Let them completely cool and then decorate with icing and sprinkles.

Icing

2 cups confectioners sugar, sifted

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup cream cheese, softened

Food coloring

Whip together with the mixer. Separate and color as desired.