Hot Wheels Cake

This cake was HUGE. It took me forever to make. Cake in a box, 3 boxes, I believe.... strawberry buttercream filling, buttercream filling, and fondant decorations on top. Those are supposed to be tires on the side, and yes, I know that they look like records. :D

I made the track out of fondant, and then painted it with concentrated black food coloring mixed with a little water. The flags I printed out on paper and then cut and glued onto toothpicks. The Hot Wheels logo with my son's name was the most difficult part. I printed a Hot Wheels logo, cut it out, and used it as a pattern to cut fondant in that shape. I found a font online using Google, that was very similar to the Hot Wheels lettering. Printed and cut out the letters, then cut fondant with the patterns. Then I painted the whole thing with food coloring mixed with a little water.

I ran some Hot Wheels cars through the dishwasher so they'd be clean, put them on top, added some fire orange sprinkles to the corners, and voila, a Hot Wheels cake!

Car Birthday Cake

This cake was pretty easy. Cake in a box, strawberry buttercream filling and buttercream icing on the outside. Fondant car decoration and circles, and white sprinkles. The birthday boy is a HUGE car fan, especially Hot Wheels. This cake was for his birthday-day, but I made a much bigger birthday party cake. Coming up!

Coming up next - costumes of Halloween past!

Here's a preview of what's coming up. Some things I will be able to some general directions for, like these GORGEOUS woodland fairy costumes that I made for my girls this last Halloween. These pics are from my iphone, so they're not the greatest. Sadly, that was all the time I had for pics.

My littlest one.....

And my biggest one.....

I will post instructions for these within the next few days!

Modeling Chocolate Recipe

10oz of chocolate - can be milk, dark, white, or colored candy coating.
1/3 cup light corn syrup

1. MICROWAVE INSTRUCTIONS: In a microwave safe bowl, heat the chocolate for two minutes on 50 percent power. You do not want the mixture to get hotter than 100 degrees F. Stir until smooth. If the chocolate is not melted you may heat it for a bit longer. Heat in short increments so that you do not burn the chocolate.

or

DOUBLE BOILER INSTRUCTIONS: Place the chocolate pieces in the top of a double boiler. Melt the chocolate. Be careful not to allow condensation from the water to get into the chocolate or it will seize up.

2. After removing the chocolate from the heat stir it until it is smooth. When it is fully melted and smooth add the corn syrup. Stir and fold the mixture until it forms a thick ball. (You may need to adjust the amount of corn syrup depending on the type of chocolate that you use.)

3. Pour the mixture onto a plastic-wrapped-lined cookie sheet and spread it out with a spatula so that it is about 1/2 inch thick. Let the mixture sit and stiffen for about two hours. You can also refrigerate the modeling chocolate until it is set.

4. After the modeling chocolate has rested for a few hours break it into portions that you can easily handle. You will kneed the chocolate with your hands. The warmth of your hands will warm up the chocolate and make it easier to kneed. Continue to kneed the chocolate mixture until it is smooth.

5. Store the modeling chocolate in an air-tight container in the refrigerator until you are ready to use it.

Congrats, you've just made modeling chocolate!

Buttercream Fondant

1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup shortening
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
2 pounds confectioners' sugar

1.In a large bowl, stir together the shortening and corn syrup. Mix in the salt and vanilla flavoring, then gradually mix in the confectioners' sugar until it is a stiff dough. If you are using a stand mixer, use the dough hook attachment. Otherwise, knead by hand. If the dough is sticky, knead in more confectioners' sugar until it is smooth. Store in an airtight container at room temperature or in the refrigerator.

2.To use, roll out on a clean surface that has been dusted with confectioners' sugar until it is 1/8 inch thick or thinner if you can. Drape over frosted and chilled cakes and smooth the sides down, or cut into strips to make bows and other decorations.

I haven't been able to get this stable enough to be workable, but if I mix it with Wilton's fondant at a 1:1 ratio, it works pretty good, and tastes decent too!

White Chocolate Cake Recipe

1/2 cup water
4 ounces white chocolate chips
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, separated
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk

In a saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Remove from the heat; stir in white chocolate chips until melted. Cool for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, in a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add egg yolks; mix well. Beat in white chocolate chips and vanilla. Combine flour and baking soda; add to creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk. Mix well. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form; fold into the batter. Pour into three greased and floured 8-in. square baking pans. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until cake tests done. Cool in pans 10 minutes; remove to wire rack to cool completely.

Buttercream Icing Recipe

This recipe is for frosting cakes with. I also use is as a base for cake filling, and then add the desired chopped fresh fruit, usually strawberries.

1 cup butter (no substitutes), softened
1 cup shortening
3 pounds confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk

If the thought of eating that much LARD makes you want to yak like it does me, you can sub butter for part or all of the shortening. Keep in mind that butter is much more vulnerable to temperatures than shortening. So if this cake is going to be sitting out for very long, it's best to stick with the original recipe.

Poker Chips Cake

This cake is not my best, I will admit. Time was a HUGE factor...and the four kids. But it was yummy! This cake was for my husband's 31st birthday last month. He is a HUGE poker fan, and I credit him for way more poker knowledge and trivia than I ever thought I'd possess.





This cake was made from scratch. It was very tasty, and I don't even like cake very much. How's that for irony? It was a white chocolate cake, each "chip" had two layers, and had a filling of fresh strawberry buttercream. Find the recipe here for the buttercream icing!

This time I used a mixture of homemade buttercream fondant and Wilton's pre-made fondant. Wilton's fondant is great to work with, but there is a huge downside in that it tastes DISGUSTING if you're over the age of 10. (My kids love it though - 8 and under). I have a few homemade fondant recipes that taste MUCH better, but the downside is that they are a lot more difficult to work with. So, I mixed homemade with premade for a not-too-bad combination!

The rest of the cake is pretty self explanitory, as it's a pretty plain cake. My centering and piping skills leave something to be desired, that's for sure. It was a rush job, and you can tell.

One note - one HUGE reason that I was rushed for time was that I had run out of parchment paper. Parchment paper is ESSENTIAL for baking cakes. It ensures that you're not going to have your cake get stuck inside the pan, and have to re-do it several times. What I do is trace the bottom of whatever cake pan I'm using, cut out the shape, and place the parchment paper at the bottom of the pan. It makes my life 100 times easier. I didn't have any, and it cost me time and affected the finished presentation of the cake...since I did it ON his birthday, and we had to eat it before midnight.

So let that be a warning to all - MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT TO DO THE JOB!

Dolphin Cake

I made this cake 2 1/2 months ago for a friend's daughter's 6th birthday. The birthday girl's favorite colors are pink & purple, (what else!) and she loves dolphins. And her favorite kind of cake is chocolate. Mom left the rest of it up to me, and this is what I came up with.

For this cake I used 2 chocolate cake mixes, because, did I mention that I have FOUR kids? The baby was only 2 1/2 months old when I made this cake, too. I never feel too guilty about using a cake mix, but I NEVER will use store-bought frosting for a cake. Gross. I have some great frosting recipes that I will post later. And....back to this cake now.

Used 2 chocolate cake mixes, because this is a 3 or 4 layer cake...can't exactly remember...4 kids...yeah. For the filling, I used fresh strawberry buttercream filling inbetween layers of chocolate ganache, for each layer of cake.

I frosted the cake in pink buttercream frosting, and then decorated with accents of fondant. This time I used Wilton's white fondant, but I have made my own in the past. (Stay tuned for recipes!) I used Wilton's super concentrated food coloring to color both fondant and buttercream. I used circle fondant cutters for the circle shapes.

For the dolphin, I made and used pink modeling chocolate and then formed it into a fairly respectable dolphin shape. Sculpting is NOT my forte, but I managed. Luckily it's an easy shape and I had my daughter's stuffed dolphin to refer to. I wanted the dolphin to have a "wet" look, so I then painted it with corn syrup that I had tinted purple, and then went over it with some white, edible sparkle powder. It gave the dolphin a great wet and shimmery look.

For the "bubbles", I rolled tiny balls of colored fondant and attached them to craft/floral wire that I bent into shape and grouped together. I put some bubbles directly on the cake as well.

For the base of the cake, I rolled varying sizes and colors of fondant balls and placed them around the entire cake.

And finally, everything got a dusting of the edible shimmer powder.

Voila!

First Post!

Let me introduce myself and my blog. Me - Reina (Ray-na, for the 90% of you that will not pronounce/read it right!), 29 year old wife of one, and mother of four. During the past 10 1/2 year of marriage, I've discovered that I absolutely love to be creative. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing something that I love, or having a picture in my head, and being able to re-create it myself. My posts will cover the following DIY projects that I have done, with lots more to come!

Baking
Baby Slings
Cake decorating
Cooking/Recpies
Furniture
Halloween Costumes
Hairbows/Clips/Flowers
Home Decor
Jewelry
Photography
Sewing projects
Tutus

As I post past projects, if content allows, I will include instructions if possible. Some posts will simply be for documentation. For future projects, I will do my best to give step by step instructions and pictures, if applicable.

That's it! I hope you enjoy my blog!