Posts Tagged ‘cake’

So I've been blogging for 10 years now (well, as of last month, but things have been hectic here!) It hasn't always been "Little Raindrops" — I've changed domain names quite a few times. My first online entry (that I still have … I think there were a few before this — back when the site was called "Mel's Spot") was in May of 2001, right before I headed off to college. So hooray for anniversaries … err, blogiversaries! This deserves a cake! And what other than a Little Raindrops cake?!

Here's a super quick explanation of how my sister-in-law, Jen and I made this. We were inspired by i am baker's amazing cakes-with-things-inside-them. Beautiful! Back in time for Valentine's Day, she was sweet enough (hehe) to post a tutorial on how to make a heart cake. Love it! If you just turn it upside down and omit that little dome (making it all even easier) then you have, guess what … a raindrop! It was perfect for the occasion. So in the photo above, I had baked four 8-inch rounds and leveled them. I used the cut-off peaks and mixed them with 1 cup of buttercream frosting that I tinted blue (okay, a little too blue.) This gave us a bunch of blue cake mush (that I also used for little raindrop cake pops.) I frosted two layers together – twice and chilled. Then Jen cut a curved cone shape into one stack and a round hole in the other stack and stuffed the holes full of the blue cake mush. I frosted around the ring of one stack and placed the other on top, then frosted the whole cake (not very well — that's definitely not my strong point!)

Next we decided to do my Little Raindrops umbrella logo (that I use on my photography site — and that was designed by the fantastic Kelly Ridgell!) as an icing transfer. I'd never done one of these, but the closest we've gotten was the chocolate butterfly wing cupcakes — same sort of idea. I made up a batch of royal icing (Bridget's recipe at Bake at 350.) We used some black and blue food coloring to make dark grey, blue, and light blue icing. We printed out my umbrella logo in reverse and taped some wax paper down over it. With various size round tips, we traced over parts of the image, waited for them to dry, filled in other parts, waited … We started with the little white dots and black umbrella stem and branches. Once those dried, we filled in the blues on the umbrella and did the splash, droplet, and surrounding dots. When all that dried, we filled in the whole circle with white. We were impatient and before we went to bed flopped one transfer onto the cake and tried to peel of the wax paper. It was ruined. It's a good thing we each made one. We let the other transfer dry overnight and it turned out beautifully!

The outside of the cake …

… and the inside! Surprise! We aren't the most amazing bakers on the blogosphere, but it was really fun to try out these new techniques and I think it looks amazing! And yes, it's delicious!

Update: I just noticed that the edges of each my cake layers are really dark. I have all these lines running through the dark cake? Amanda's cake is so pretty and white without dark lines. Does this depend on my cake mix? It wasn't burnt!

I love baking and decorating cakes, but don't do it too often unless there's a reason. I know, the reason should be "just because" or "for my family", but it usually ends up being for potlucks and company. If I make a cake just for us, Matt will eat one slice, then check in a week later and wonder where all the cake went. Two wild toddlers and I don't need to eat a cake by ourselves!

I usually use a boxed mix and spend more effort on the decorating side of cake making. I've baked a handful of from-scratch cakes, but was never too happy with how they turned out. I've had some very dense, heavy cakes and didn't know what my problem was. I think I've figured it out! Cake flour! (Maybe there were multiple culprits, but right now I'm thinking this was a big one!) I've always just used all-purpose flour for cakes, but this was the first time I tried cake flour and I love how this cake turned out!

Well, let's get down to business. We had guests over for dinner and of course I wanted to make dessert. I love German chocolate cake, but had never made it before so they got to be my guinea pigs! Here's how it's done:

You will need:

• 4 ounces German sweet chocolate (I used semi sweet chocolate)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs, separated
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2-1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup buttermilk (or, as in my case as our commissary doesn't seem to carry buttermilk, 1 Tbsp vinegar or lemon juice topped with milk to make 1 cup)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

I mixed up my dry ingredients: flour, salt & baking soda.

Grease 3 9" round pans. I only did two because I only have two pans and wanted some leftover batter for cupcakes.

Trace the bottom of a pan on to wax paper (folded over once for two layers, twice for three layers) and cut out circles. Lay a circle in each greased pan and re-grease the bottoms.

Use about 1 Tbsp of flour and shake around to thoroughly coat the bottom and sides of a greased pan. Dump the excess into the next pan and do the same. Knock the pans upside down on the side of the sink to remove any extra.

Now you have some beautiful greased and floured pans!

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the egg yolks one at a time to the butter/sugar, beating after each addition.

Melt the chocolate in water in a small saucepan or in a double boiler (or in my case, the microwave. 30 seconds at a time and stir, until smooth.) I was a little weirded out by the water, but this worked out fine!

With clean beaters, beat the four egg whites until stiff peaks form. You'll probably want to use a larger bowl than I did because my whites were nearly puffing out of the bowl!

Blend melted chocolate and vanilla into the butter/sugar mixture.

Now, I kind of messed up here. I'm showing you the pictures of what I did, but I missed a step and did things out of order! I added the chocolate to the butter/sugar/eggs and then added my egg whites. Fine, fine … and loaded up my pans and actually stuck them in the oven for 2 seconds before I realized that just didn't seem right!! I completely skipped the next step: dry ingredients! I don't know where my brain has been. I was making feta bruschetta and lasagna at the same time and just wasn't paying attention, I guess. Anyhow, I scraped out my pans (with a little added flour and grease in the batter now!) and did the flour step and had to re-grease my pans, but I really wouldn't do it in that order next time.

So go ahead and add half the flour/salt/baking soda mixture, beat a little, and pour in half the buttermilk and beat. Repeat.

Fold a fourth of the beaten egg whites into the batter. Fold in the remaining whites. Your batter should look a little different because it would actually have flour in it, too!

Pour into your prepared pans and gently rap/drop on your work surface a few times.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pans for ten minutes, then move to cooling racks.

I put mine in the freezer to make cutting off my cake tops with a long, serrated knife a little easier before I frosted.

Speaking of frosting. Here's how to make that delicious, coconut & pecan yumminess!

You'll need:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3 egg yolks, beaten
• 1-1/3 cups flaked coconut
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 1 tsp shortening

In a small saucepan, heat the sugar, milk, butter and egg yolks over medium-low heat until mixture is thickened and golden brown, stirring constantly (this took me a little while!) Remove from heat.

Stir in coconut, pecans and vanilla extract. (I did this in a separate, larger bowl because my saucepan was a little too small.)

Cool until thick enough to spread.

If you're making a three layer cake, spread a third on top of each layer. I made a two layer cake and just used half in between and on top. Don't worry about frosting the sides if you don't want to, it's still pretty this way!

Melt the chocolate with the shortening (I used the microwave again, stirring every 30 seconds until smooth). Drizzle around the edge (I funneled the chocolate into a squeeze bottle because it seemed easier.) I might have gone a little too heavy on the chocolate, if there is such a thing! You could definitely get away with less.

Mmmm! Get a tall glass of milk ready!

I also used my remaining 1/3 batter for a few cupcakes for the kids. Cute!

I added some sloppy little chocolate hearts with my squirt bottle.

Delicious! I'll definitely be making this one again! It's a little bit more work than a boxed mix, but so worth it!

See just the recipe.

We're headed out to a playgroup this morning and having a potluck lunch after. I know I should volunteer to bring healthy snacks for the kids, but I love making desserts (and spoiling the little ones!) I've been wanting an excuse to make up some cake pops and figured now is the perfect time.

It didn't all work out as planned. I was ambitious and wanted to make awesome little snowmen and pull out all the fun embellishments: licorice, my edible markers, cute little sprinkles, those chocolate candy writers, etc. It was 10 pm before I even pulled the cake out of the oven and figured I didn't want to be up crazy late. I had melted the white chocolate, but for some reason it wasn't working out. It never reached a smooth stage, just got crumbly and burnt (I stirred every 30 seconds, microwaving at half power.) Could my melts have gone bad? I pulled out a fresh bag of milk chocolate melts and those worked just fine. I couldn't really draw cute faces or anything on the brown chocolate, so just decided to dip them in sprinkles. It was easier this way, and perfect for a group of toddlers, but in the future I really want to make some beautiful pops (Bakerella is my hero!)

Mmmm.

If you want to make your own, they're really easy! I baked a cake and let it cool. Then I tore it all up and put it in a bowl with half a can of store bought frosting. Mix, mix, mix! I used a Pampered Chef "small scoop" to measure out balls that are all the same size, about an inch in diameter. Roll in to pretty little balls. I dipped lollipop sticks in a little bit of melted chocolate, then inserted it most of the way into a ball. I put them in the freezer for a little bit to firm up. Then I dipped them in the melted chocolate and rolled in different sprinkles and nuts. Like I said, easy! Check out Bakerella's site for inspiration for more exciting, adorable cake pops!

We had Heron's first birthday party today! It was a little hot, but I guess it's a good thing that all the families that RSVP'd didn't make it. We had a good turnout of kids and babies and a good time just playing and chatting.

This is the cake I threw together in the morning before the party. I had a more elaborate vision, but it turned out cute! I made chocolate fondant, but the humidity (I guess?) made it SO goopy/drippy and it was impossible to work with. I would've added more sugar, but the grocery store was closed so I just scrapped it and frosted the cake. Heron's party was bug-themed, so he got a little buggy cake!

He had a cute bug outfit from Mom & Dad and there were bug stickers for the bigger kids and big bugs all over the floor for the little ones. We had blue, yellow, and green balloons on the floor and the ceiling to play with and some cute Japanese paper lanterns. Heron had fun crawling around with all his baby buddies! Rhino was in need of a nap halfway through the party, though.

We had some other cute treats. I made some rainbow Jell-o cups (kind of like these but without the condensed milk) with hidden gummy worms. I actually wouldn't recommend doing that. The Jell-o reacted strangely with my gummy worms and "stuff" flaked off the worms and they got really hard, too. It wasn't what I was hoping for. We also had "ants on a log" (peanut butter piped into celery sticks, topped with chocolate chips) and a variety of toddler-friendly treats. Yum!

Heron had a blast opening his gifts! He didn't quite understand what was going on, but seemed to enjoy the attention. The older kids helped him rip open his paper and play with his toys! The older kids had fun playing with Dad's cool RC helicopter. We didn't have any planned activities, just a general play time. First birthdays are the only ones that I want to invite this many people to. When he turns two next year, he'll get two guests at his party, then one more added each year!

Happy birthday to my big baby boy!!

Happy first birthday, Heron!!

I'm so glad that Mom & Dad were able to be here for Heron's first birthday! We had a great time!

I sewed up a special birthday crown for him (like I did for Rhino, but I'll be redoing Rhino's for future birthdays.) [Idea from Amanda Soule's book, The Creative Family.] I also sewed up a birthday banner for his party on Monday (idea from the same book.)

He received some wonderful gifts! He was given some cute outfits from Great-Granddaddy and GG and Pop. Matt's parents got him some adorable clothes too, as well as a Punch and Drop and some stacking wooden rings. I finally got to give him the knitted rainbow snake that I finished a while ago! Matt and Rhino and I also gave him a Walk N Roll for when he starts walking (soon!)

And, of course, there was cake!! I baked him his own little chocolate cake with my yummy chocolate frosting. Lucky boy! We tried to hold off on giving him any sugar until his first birthday, like we did for Rhino, but it hasn't really worked out. Rhino likes to share his treats! So this is the second time Heron's had chocolate cake.

He did pick the whole thing up and try to eat it like a cupcake! When it first came out, he didn't want to try the cake, actually. I took a finger full of frosting and chased his mouth around for a while until I could finally sneak it in. Then he knew what to do!  I cringe a little at this baby-chocolate-cake tradition because it's just so much sugar and we try to limit sweets. It is just too adorable though (I love this messy, chocolate baby!) and it is a one-time thing. It won't be every birthday that he gets to dive into his own cake!

The mess was so worth it. He had a blast! And cleanup was pretty easy. Once I got him in the bath, crumbs fell off him and he turned the water brown. At one time, a small piece of cake floated by him and he grabbed it and attempted to have seconds! Such a pig!

Today the boys and I went to a double 2nd birthday party for our playgroup pals, Kaitlyn and Thomas. It was Elmo-themed with lots of balloons and pop-up tents to play with! Heron was happy to sit on the floor and watch all the toddlers and Rhino went nuts running around with balloons, laughing with other kids, stealing food off the buffet table, and playing in the tents.

The cakes were adorable and done by a lady here on base. I love the idea of mini-marshmallows and orange M&Ms for Elmo’s eyes and nose! It was quite a chore keeping Rhino away from the cakes before the birthday kids got to blow out their candles!

Heron was so sleepy for the second half of the party and definitely needed a nap. I put together two of the armchairs to make a chair-crib for him and another baby. Isaac fell asleep eventually, but Heron wouldn’t have any of it.

It was such a fun party and I’m so glad that the boys have little friends that they get to see regularly. The playgroups on base are just the best and we’ve met a ton of wonderful families! The pop-up tents were a fantastic idea for a toddler party that I think I might have to steal that for the future. Rhino had a great time and Heron was worn down after the party. When we came home they both crashed for almost three hours and gave me a much-needed break!

Happy 2nd birthday, Thomas and Kaitlyn!!

Happy birthday to me!!

I had a great, relaxing birthday. Matt always treats me right, but it was a nice, special day for me. Matt doesn’t usually like to go out for Mexican food, but I often crave it. We haven’t found much good Mexican food here in Japan, but there is Mike’s Tex Mex, which I like enough. So we went there for lunch. Yum!

All I really wanted for my birthday was a Japanese cake. They are SO delicious! I asked for it to say “Happy Birthday Melissa” in Japanese on it. Matt misunderstood and got “Happy Birthday” in English and just my name in Japanese. Not even really my name. When he went into the shop and ordered it, I guess he got flustered and mispronounced my name. In Japanese it’s pronounced may-ree-s-sah, but he said may-ree-ee-sah. Instead of doubling the s, he elongated the e. So my cake said Happy Birthday Meleesa! It tasted super delicious anyway, though!

He turned 2, so for his party he had two little friends (plus parents and siblings.) It was the perfect size party and a great time with our friends!

There were lots of balloons on the ceiling and the floor. Blue, green and yellow.

There were cheese and crackers, veggies and fruits, heart-shaped cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, ants on a log, and an assortment of juices. All of Rhino’s favorite snacks. For lunch the kids made mini pizzas. Rhino really loves his cheese!

Rhino loves to color and paint, so after lunch we took out large sheets of paper. There were carefully thought-out blobs of color on one, a beautiful rainbow and mother and daughter on another, gentle strokes of light blue and yellow on a third, then Rhino’s: large marker circles and goopy smears of handfuls of finger paint.

We were going to do presents after the cake, but Rhino snuck away and tore into them without us. I heard from the other room an overjoyed “Elmo! Elmo!” as he discovered his new Elmo microwave! I couldn’t say no then, and let him open up the deluxe Mister Potato Head (40 parts I never knew about!) and tote bag of Play-Doh and accessories. The kids were all mesmerized by the microwave until we drew them away with the cake.

I wanted to make a Blue’s Clues cake because it’s his favorite show. Tanja loaned me a dog-shaped pan and I dyed the batter and the frosting blue and did my best to resemble Blue. Rhino was so overexcited as he danced in his chair and sang along to the birthday song (“happy, happy, happy, happy …”), immediately blew out both candles, and lifted one out of the cake and bit off the bottom of the candle. After we recovered the wax from his mouth, we directed him towards his slice of cake and he wolfed it down in record time!

He’d never seen a party blower before, but it didn’t take him long to figure it out. Soon enough he was blowing it so the extended end would knock his cup over, poke friends in the head, and dip into his fingerpaint (and then roll up again, and extend on the blank paper making little party blower paint marks.) We partied for about two hours and then our friends left and he crashed on the floor, with blue on his face, next to his Elmo microwave. What a party!

We drove down to Hachinohe on Wednesday to check out the fish market. We showed up and stood in front of the door, but it didn’t open. We couldn’t read any of the writing on the door. A handful of Japanese people walked right up to the automatic door like we had, looked around for a moment, and left. We finally found an employee to ask in our extremely limited Japanese. Matt managed to figure out that Wednesdays are the only days they’re closed. Woops!

We went back this morning and made it in! Jen picked out some sake. We don’t really know anything about sake, so we couldn’t help much. The decision was made based on price and how pretty the bottle is. There are some very pretty sake labels! When we last went to the fish market, Matt and I tried squid ink cake. This time Jen and Rhino tried it, too. Yum! We also had some delicious, tiny dehydrated shrimp and saw lots of cute treats. Rhino was startled by a merchant showing off his live crabs. He danced to the music playing through the building and entertained the shoppers. We have to remember to go back to do actual shopping. A lot of the fish looked so good!

Jen and I wanted to go out one night to karaoke. I’d never been, but it is a big deal here in Japan. I know of a place right outside the main gate that we decided to try. I thought it would be a bar with tables and a stage that you get up at and sing. I was definitely not going to do that, but I’d cheer Jen on! When we arrived, we found that they are private karaoke rooms. We purchased a room for an hour and some bottles of water, were given some microphones, tambourines, maracas, and a control. We poked at the buttons on the control for about ten minutes before asking for help. The attendant showed us the “English” button (which we couldn’t read!) so we could browse through all the songs and artists. Jen had some solos, we sang a bunch together, we did some Christmas songs, I actually sang a solo, and then the workers ran in and interrupted our song, grabbed all the supplies, and kicked us out at exactly 60 minutes! It was all very goofy and the room was super hot, but we had a blast! Each room has a small kiddie section with toys and books, so next time I’ll have to take Matt and the boys!

I know there are sake bars around that serve sake in a traditional way, I just have no idea where they are. Jen wanted to try some, but didn’t want to crack open her new bottle. So we went to the bar next to the karaoke place and ordered sake. They asked what flavoring and Jen chose green apple. They mixed the sake with soda and green apple syrup, which I have never seen before. I’ve only ever tried it in tiny cups and warm. I had no idea that it was served this way, too!

Even though we decided not to celebrate Halloween, I am not against a good, candy-filled party! Our church, Faith Baptist Church, puts on a harvest festival, as many churches do. Matt had to sleep, but I brought the boys so Rhino could get some fun in. It was a good mommy break for me too as I got to hand off Heron to some ladies who have missed holding a little one. And right now Heron loves strangers and didn’t seem to miss me at all!

A lot of the games at the festival were a little old for Rhino, but we adapted them so he could enjoy them. There was a “Fishers of Men” game where you had to hold a fishing rod with a hook on the end of the line and pick up tiny plastic men out of a kiddie pool. Rhino got lots of help. There was also a Jonah game where you’d put a golf ball into a whale’s mouth. Rhino got down on his tummy and placed the ball in the mouth, but I eventually got him to roll the ball. He did successfully knock down the “walls of Jericho” (stacked cardboard bricks) by throwing a tennis ball. He couldn’t use the Nerf slingshot to shoot a ball through the hole in Goliath’s head, but he did slam-dunk it in if I held him up! I didn’t even want to bother with the “Blind Bartimaeus” game where you are blindfolded and feel around in a bowl of rice for tiny safety pins. I could just imagine the mess! There was a face-painting station and Rhino looked at the sheets of clipart and pointed to the colorful train engine. He sat still the whole time while it was painted on his face and it was so cute! The last game we played was by far his favorite — the cake walk! What’s not to love? There’s music and cake, two of Rhino’s favorite things ever! We walked around a few times as I held his hand and he kept trying to walk away. Soon enough all the little kids walking around in a circle wanted to hold his hand too, so I got to sit back. He got a little bored of trotting in a circle and would break free to dance in the middle of all the numbers. Whatever he likes! We did win a cake and he picked out a white frosted cupcake and ate that while dancing for the cake-walking kids. It was a great time and went on for seven hours, but we didn’t stay nearly that long.

Afterward, we headed to the Weasel’s Den to crash a birthday party my friend Sarah had driven down for. We met some new people and Rhino had a great time eating grapes and playing! I had found Sarah’s blog a year ago and really enjoyed reading it then found out that she comes down to Misawa (from the Aomori area) once a month, so we arranged to get together. We haven’t hung out much yet, but I enjoy chatting with her when we have and look forward to her future visits. Her blog is a great read, too!