Lion cake

I have a friend, whom I have known for a very long time.  She now happens to live on the same street as me.  She has a total of 4 children.  He baby, the only boy, had a birthday recently.  Mom asked me to do the cake, which of course I said yes.  She asked me if I could do a lion.  Ummm...sure.  I'll try anything once.  She then showed me a picture of this child's favorite stuffed toy, a lion, and asked me to get as close to it as I could.  No pressure!

I asked her the usual questions about flavor, filling, etc.  I was really thankful she did not want a three-dimensional cake.

I used my tried and true, go-to chocolate cake recipe:

2 C flour
2 C sugar
6 Tbsp cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 C warm water
2/3 C oil
2 Tbsp vinegar
2 tsp vanilla (or 1/2 tsp mint) extract

As she was expecting a fairly big crowd, I actually made two cakes, one recipe in a 16 in. round pan.  I used standard buttercream between the layers and to crumb coat the cake.  I then cheated, went to Wal-Mart and got one of their flesh tone pre-made fondant kits.  I only put the fondant on the top of the cake because I needed to make a lion's mane around the outside anyway.  

The only thing I was really disappointed about was that mane.  I tried my "hair/grass" tip.  No go.  I have hot hand syndrome (don't laugh, it's a thing) so after the first few bits, the buttercream was coming out in a big blob.  PLUS...did I mention it was a 16 inch round cake?  That's a LOT of piping with the hair tip.  Soooo...take 2 was a star tip.  I got the entire mane piped on, allowed it to chill again in the fridge.  Then, I took the tines of a fork to make it look like the stuffed animal with a mane that had seen better days.  

Anyway, here is the end result.  Mom loved it, the little boy loved it.  I was less than 100% pleased, but I'm not the one who mattered...

Happy Birthday Mario!

I can't believe, I won't believe it!  My grandson is 3 years old already!

When my daughter called to tell me the party details, I asked her what she wanted for a cake.  She asked my grandson, who screamed MARIO!!!!!!

I did some digging and found a few ideas for cakes.  My daughter had told me there would be several of the neighborhood kids at the party, so I thought cupcakes for little hands might be better.  I decided to do a combination of cupcakes and a smaller cake.

I used my go-to chocolate cake recipe for 1 layer of the cake and half the cupcakes:

2 C flour
2 C sugar
6 Tbsp cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 C warm water
2/3 C oil
2 Tbsp vinegar
2 tsp vanilla (or 1/2 tsp mint) extract

I then went to work trying to find a white cake to match the moisture of the chocolate.  I have tried and tried with little result.  However, this particular cake came close:

Ingredients

• 1¼ cups sifted all purpose flour
• 1½ cups sifted cake flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1½ tsp baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1½ cups sugar
• ⅔ cup vegetable oil
• ⅓ cup vegetable shortening at room temperature
• 3 tablespoons good quality vanilla extract (if you want pure white use clear vanilla extract)
• 3 large eggs
• 1½ cups buttermilk

Instructions

1. Sift together both flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar. Set aside.
2. Grease and flour 2 nine inch round cake pans and line the bottom with 2 circles of parchment paper.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer beat together the vegetable oil, shortening and vanilla. Beat well at high speed with whisk attachment until light and fluffy
4. Beat the eggs in one at a time.
5. Fold in the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk.
6. I always add dry ingredients in three divisions and liquid ingredients in 2 divisions. It is very important to begin and end the additions with the dry ingredients. Do not over mix the batter. As soon as it has no lumps in the batter, pour into the two prepared 9 inch cake pans.
7. Bake at 325 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the pans for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire racks to cool completely.

Now I went to work...I made a standard 8-inch, 2-layer cake and a total of 20 cupcakes.  I decorated the cupcakes like the little mushroom people in the video games.  I then made the actual cake to look like a scene from the video game.  Here's the problem!  My grandson's birthday was in late March, and we were still in the middle of very cold weather for the date.  However, my husband insisted that the cake would be destroyed during the trip unless I held it (umm...think I know how to transport cakes, but whatever).  I wanted to leave for the party without incident, so I gave in.  Big mistake!  It was a rare sunny day that day, and the sun beating in the car started to melt the cake!  My green hills were becoming green puddles.  Luckily, I cheated and used a Mario toy for the top of the cake.  I shudder to think of what poor Mario would have looked like after the trip.

When we got to my daughter's house, I put the cake in the fridge for a few minutes and then did my best to reconstruct my scene.  Everyone loved it, but I was still stewing about my poor judgment listening to my husband.  LOL.  I won't make that mistake again!  

At the end of the day, the most important part was the fact that my grandson jumped up and down yelling Mario cake, Mario cake, thank you Mimi! the whole afternoon.  Some day maybe I can learn to look past the imperfections...

Minion cake

My grandson recently turned 2 years old, and the term "all boy" could not be more true with him.  My daughter is having a bit of a hard time with this concept because her first child, a girl, is the true definition of princess...not to mention that my daughter was a princess herself when she was little.

My grandson loves trucks, trains and playing in the mud.  What he loves most of all though...are minions.  If you are not familiar with minions, look them up on Google or YouTube.  They are the little yellow guys in the Despicable Me movies.  

The week before I was to have this cake completed, I decided I was not going to procrastinate like usual.  I made a list of things I needed for each layer.  I made a task list for each day during the week.  I was so excited.  I was not going to have to be up until all hours of the night!  About that....nothing got done until the night before the cake was due.  Nothing....well except 1 batch of fondant.  I was up until 3:30 a.m. the night before and then back up at 7:00 a.m.  I had to cut details that I wanted to add.  

All in all, I think my little minion cake looks pretty good.  I wanted purple cotton candy for the purple guy's hair but could not find it.  The purple guy's arms were supposed to be the other direction and holding the candle and sign, but the fell.  I forgot to take the yellow guy's hair with me to the party.  My silver dust filled in all of the stone texture I put into the bottom layer so it just looked poorly covered; but hey, my grandson was happy...and that's just fine with me.