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!

So far so good!

What you may ask? Life - so far so good. I've been given an abundance of talents and now I share some of them with you. I recently baked, designed and decorated a cake for a friend. Dora with Boots. It was fun to do. She didn't ask me to do it - I asked her if I could do it. I enjoy that sort of thing. She let me do it and re-imbursed me for the supplies. She loved the cake. I thought it turned out pretty good too for my first time doing a Dora-themed cake. She said, I should consider doing it for a business. I said I'm too busy as a Mom of two to have a business. But as I thought about it a bit longer - I thought - hey, why not? I don't have to be baking cakes every other day - but maybe one or two times a month. I could do it in the evenings after the kids are in bed. A little extra income never hurt anyone! It could help us save up for our next trip the USA. Sure - why not? Life is so far so good :)