How to Rescue a Cake... and what to do with too much frosting

A very awesome friend of mine asked me to make her a birthday cake. Okay, sure. What do you like? She says chocolate cake - maybe with cherry pie filling and strawberry frosting. Okay, sure. What color do you like? She says blue. Okay, so I think to myself a cherry and strawberry cake colored blue. Should be easy.

Baking can be easy - if you follow the rules. Cake and decorating cakes has one simple rule: patience!

I did not possess a lot of that last night. I wanted to hurry up and finish the cake. And because of that, I ended up making too much frosting and the tint of the frosting was just not right on. Also, I filled and frosted it too soon. It's not going to be eaten till later today and so I should have waited until today to fill and frost it.

I knew that, too. I had other plans last night but then a call from my friend got me thinking about that cake again. It was all baked and ready to go - just waiting for this afternoon to get filled and frosted... but then I stopped what I was doing and started filling and frosting it right away... doh! That's where my problem started. Next thing I know, I'm looking at the clock going - it's that late already. Crumb, I wanted to do something else with my time tonight - now my back hurts and my feet are swollen (I am 33 weeks pregnant). I really need to take it easy.

So, this morning I took another look at the cake and I thought - there is a way to fix this. Even though the filling was falling out at the sides, I took the excess frosting out of the fridge, let it warm to room temperature and put on another layer of frosting. Then, to resurrect my mess I took some fresh strawberries [23] in honor of her birthday - and pushed them into the frosting. Really looks good now.

So how to rescue a cake: fruit. Fruit is pretty much the best way I can think of doing it. The frosting is already strawberry flavored, might as well add some fresh fruit on top. Looks pretty and and now even though my cake is a bit wobbly - it will work. Plus I think fresh fruit is the tops - tastes so good - so fresh!

Thankfully, I can learn from my failures - turn them into successes... and what to do with all that leftover frosting? Cupcakes! My four year old has the day off on Friday, we are going to bake cupcakes together and top them with a mountain high amount of strawberry blue frosting!

~~~~

We ate the cake and it was pretty filling. The fact that I filled and frosted it the night before did something else to the cake. The cake absorbed all that filling and then the texture of the cake wasn't so much moist and spongy but thick and fudgy. Not necessarily a bad thing - just interesting. The frosting was really thick - not too thick for some folks though :) Sometimes I worry needlessly...

Want to make it yourself?

Chocolate Cake
(Adapted from Chocolatetown Special Cake via Great American Favorite Brand Name Cookbook)

1/2 cup Dutch cocoa
1/2 cup boiling water
2/3 cup shortening
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 egg whites, beaten
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cup buttermilk

Heat oven to 175-C degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans. In small bowl, stir together cocoa and boiled water. Set aside. In a large mixer, combine shortening, sugar and extract till fluffy. Add eggs and beat again. In another bowl sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Alternately add the flour mixture and the buttermilk to the sugar mixture and beat well. Blend in cocoa mixture and blend very well.
Pour batter into pans and bake 35 to 40 minutes or until wooden toothpick or satay pricker somes out clean. Remove from oven, cool 10 minutes, then remove from pans and cool completely before frosting.


Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

- recipe link here!  I doubled the recipe and used 1 tablespoon blue food dye to achieve a nice smurfy color. My frosting was also mixed with a couple of blueberries and strawberries and some leftover Cherry Cream Filling. But leave out those changes and you've got the perfect kids birthday cake frosting :)

Cherry Cream Filling

1/2 cup whipping cream/heavy cream/ aka slagroom
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 can cherry pie filling*

In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine all ingredients and whisk continuously until thick - about 4 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool completely (chill overnight) before filling cake or cupcakes.

*So now you've got a half a can of cherry pie filling - my husband ate the leftovers together with vanilla yogurt as a late night snack - I suggest you do the same  :)

Chocolate Cake with Strawberries

Sometimes a nice chocolate cake with fresh strawberries is all you need - This one wasn't even made for a birthday - because sometimes you can bake a cake 'cause you want too :)

More Cake Please!!!

Here are a variety of cakes I made in the last couple years - for different occasions.

This one is the Tunnel of Fudge chocolate cake - it's chocolate cake with a middle layer of chocolate fudge - it's really rich for the true chocolate lover... I like to decorate a cake with nuts and fruit - strawberries are a personal favorite of mine.

As you can see - more strawberries - the more the better - yummy - here we have a cake with a delicious cream cheese frosting - strawberries and cream cheese frosting pair very well!

Another strawberry! This cake just looks like one. The "seeds" are made using skittles and the leaf is made using starbursts (a taffy type of candy) -- I think I made this one for my daughter's 2nd birthday.

This is a different kind of a cake - because it's an American-style cream cheese cake - one of my personal favorites - Raspberry White Chocolate Cheesecake. The first time I had it was from the Cheesecake Factory - a very popular restaurant in the U.S. - after that experience I was sold on cheesecake because truthfully I never really liked it - but this cake is the bomb!

This is a very tasty, Southern-style cake. It's called Kentucky butter cake - and it is very, very buttery. It has then a light layer of icing on top and again, what better than to serve it with fresh fuit and a few walnuts!

Layered Cakes with Props!

I recently made a couple different layered cakes. One for my daughter's fourth birthday and one for a friend's baby shower/birthday.

My daughter requested a barbie princess cake - but I think she had no idea she was getting an actual barbie doll in the cake. This is a popular design - one that my own mother made for me growing up. Of course, Wilton has a special cake pan especially for this type of cake - I decided to make it a four layer cake for her fourth birthday. I made the cake banana bread type - with banana frosting and a yellow marshmallow fondant on top - which is nice to use for this type of cake - it has the appearance of fabric being draped over the cake - and because it's marshmallow fondant - it tastes really yummy.

The cake for my friend's baby shower/birthday was requested to be chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. And I was wondering how can I make that interesting. So, then I came up with having it look like a hot-air balloon basket. And that turned out very cute. Props are especially nice with specialty cakes. The inside layers that were cut out for the basket - made a smaller two layer cake - that went to my friend's husband to eat - he really liked having his own mini personal cake. I also made little clouds to go with the cake - to act as if the basket/balloon was in the air - those little cakes where yummy, too.

Vegan Cupcakes

Last year I bought a delicious little cook book called Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. Although, I don't always make mine vegan - the book has plenty of good ideas for making a cupcake look fabulous. Here are some that I've made.

Vorige jaar heb ik het leuke kookboekje "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World" gekocht. Hoewel ik mijn cakejes niet altijd veganistisch maak, heeft het boekje veel goede ideeën om fabelachtig cakejes te maken.

The best thing about cupcakes is everyone gets to eat their own little piece of Heaven and they don't have to share - if they don't want to. I can bake other sorts of specialty cakes not only egg or dairy free but also wheat or gluten free, sugar free, low-fat, low-calorie, etcetera.
Het beste aspect van cakejes is dat iedereen zijn eigen kleine stukje Hemel kan eten en niet hoeft te delen. Ik kan ook andere soorten bijzondere cakes of taarten bakken - niet alleen ei of zuivel vrij maar ook tarwe of gluten vrij, suiker vrij, weinig vet, weinig calorieën, enzovoort.


Cupcakes are very popular for children to bring to school on their birthdays or how about cupcakes in place of the cake or in addition to the cake.
Cakejes zijn heel populair bij kinderen om mee te brengen naar school voor hun verjaardag... of wat dacht je van cakejes in plaats van, of extra bij, de grote cake.

I can also bake cakes using unusual ingredients. Chocolate and vanilla cakes are the most popular but coconut, pumpkin and carrot also make fine base cake flavors.

Ik kan ook cakes bakken met ingrediënten die minder standaard zijn. Chocolade en vanille zijn het meest populair maar kokos, pompoen en wortel zijn ook lekkere basis smaken.

Dora, Boots and Cookie Monster

One of the nice things about doing birthday cakes for children is character cakes because it's a lot of fun and so colorful. The characters are recognizable and the cake can really bring the decorations and theme together. And let's face it - the most popular thing about birthday parties is the cake so it might as well be front and center :)

Here are two examples of children's birthday cakes that I did in the last year.

Dora & Boots

This was a dense but sweet German chocolate cake and two layers thick. I kept the frosting simple using traditional wedding cake icing flavored almond and cherry. The Boots character, name and number where covered in fondant icing and then decorated with the colored frosting. Dora is in cocoa wedding cake icing.

Cookie Monster

I don't remember too much about this cake because it was from earlier this year but as you can see, his eyes are done with Oreo's and he's got American-style chocolate chip cookies all around him. I also used Oreo cookie crumbs for his mouth. The nice thing about this cake is that if there are any Moms in the room watching their weight - they can simply eat a cookie - not the slice of cake. Although from my memory - I believe everyone ate some of this cake. We even served it with blue colored ice cream. Although, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream would have been more appropriate for Cookie Monster - you know how 3 year olds are - they love blue ice cream.

Cake Balls

There was plenty of cake and frosting leftover from the Dora & Boots cake so I could make some yummy cake balls to go with it - piled high in a separate bowl for the adults to chow down on. Cake balls are a lot like truffels. They are very easy to make and taste delicious. I could really get creative making cake balls. There are so many combinations - from the cake used to the frosting and dipped in white, dark or milk chocolate. I can also sprinkle them with chopped nuts, chocolate sprinkles, colored sprinkles or just about anything. They can also be flavored a number of different ways. The combinations are endless. These are a real treat and a great accompaniment to any themed cake. These are so good in fact that my husband requested only cake balls for his next birthday!

My promise

I started this cake blog a few days ago. I was gonna call it Melissa's American-style Birthday Cakes. But now I think I want a broader definition of what I do - I don't just make American-style birthday cakes - I bake cakes - all kinds of cakes. I'm self taught and I'm an artist! And I never bake the same cake twice - almost never - because there are so many different recipes out there - different icings, different glazes, etc. How can I limit myself, as an artist, to the same cake? So, I'm calling my cake blog: never the same cake twice. I like that a lot. It says that these cakes are unique, original, different, exciting and one can be made to order just for you!

Ik ben een paar dagen geleden begonnen met deze cake blog. Ik wilde het "Melissa's American-style Birthday Cakes" noemen. Maar nu denk ik dat ik een bredere definitie wil van wat ik doe - ik maak niet alleen Amerikaanse-stijl verjaardag cakes - ik bak cakes - alle soorten cakes. Ik ben zelf geschoold en ik ben een artiest! En ik zal nooit twee keer dezelfde cake maken - bijna nooit - omdat er zo veel cake recepten, suikerglazuuren, enzovoort zijn. Hoe kan ik mezelf, als een artiest, beperken tot dezelfde cake? Dus, ik noem mijn cake blog: "never the same cake twice", nooit twee keer dezelfde cake. Ik vind dit een leuke titel. Het zegt dat deze cakes uniek zijn, origineel, anders, bijzonder en speciaal voor jou gemaakt!