May Weddings, Part 1

Here are some pictures of the wedding cakes I've been making this month. One was for my dear friend Karen, and the other was for her sister-in-law, Lauren. The bottom cake was made with Swiss Meringue Buttercream (Recipe coming soon). May has been busy! Get ready for a posting of two more cakes in the next week! :)

German Chocolate Cake

It was my wonderful fiancé's birthday last week, and he requested a german chocolate cake. I've never made one of these before! I did some research though, and did you know that german chocolate cake didn't come from Germany at all? It came from a guy in the United States named Sam German who worked for Baker's Chocolate Company. He invented a mildly sweet dark chocolate, and they named it after him. Hence, German Chocolate! Now for today's recipe...

Coconut Pecan Frosting

1 cup evaporated milk

1 cup granulated sugar

3 beaten egg yolks

1/2 cup butter

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/3 cups shredded coconut

1 cup roasted pecans

Add everything except for the coconut and pecans in a 2 quart saucepan. It is very important that you add the egg yolks when everything is cold, because they will scramble if you add them later on. Cook this mixture over medium heat for about 12 minutes, then add the coconut and roasted pecans. (Note: to roast pecans, I just spread them out on a baking sheet and broil them for a couple of minutes. It's really easy.) The frosting will be too thin to spread at this point, but it will thicken as it cools. I recommend using this as a filling and topping, but if you want to use it to cover the entire cake then I would double the recipe for sure. Happy eating!

Sarah Turns 21!

Let me tell you about Sarah. She LOVES sweets. (I think that is why she is so sweet... Sarah is the closest thing to perfect you will ever find.) She went to pastry school in Mexico and later worked in our college bakery making all sorts of delicious things. She knows her sugar.

This weekend marked her 21st birthday, which meant I had to find the perfect cake to serve. Since we are roommates and best friends, she's seen and tasted every type of cake I've ever made! I wanted her to have something new.

Luckily, I love to look at food blogs. It is my most productive way to waste time. This cake was found on Cookie Baker Lynn and fit perfectly for the occasion!

Lynn's Peanut Butter Cake was perfect. It is four-layer white cake with peanut butter frosting between each layer and chocolate frosting on the outside. I added peanut butter to the chocolate frosting too, (just because my mom does that whenever she makes peanut butter cups) but you can really use anything with chocolate and butter in it. Sprinkle Reece's Peanut Butter Cups on top and voila! Your cake is done. Hope you like it as much as Sarah and I did!

Peanut Butter Frosting

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/8-1/4 tsp salt (to taste)

3 cups powdered sugar

3-4 Tbs milk

Cream the peanut butter and butter together until light in color and smooth. Add vanilla and salt and mix until well incorporated. With mixer on low, add powdered sugar in a little bit at a time until too stiff to mix (or until all of it bunches up on your mixer like it did for me!) Add milk and continue with the sugar until it has all been used. Add milk and mix until frosting is smooth and spreadable.

Italian Cream Cake

This is my dad's favorite cake. He used to get bags of pecans from his grandpa's house every summer and his mom would have to come up with lots of recipes to use them in. She made pecan pie every Christmas for all of her neighbors, but I personally like what she's done with the pecans in this recipe even more than her wonderful pies. I've made my grandmother's version many times before and loved the texture and taste of it, but it takes a lot of time so be prepared. Unless it is my dad's birthday, I usually just stick with the semi-homemade version. I've put up both recipes for you to choose from.

Italian Cream Cake (Grandmother's version)

1 cup buttermilk

1 tsp baking soda

5 eggs (divided)

2 cups sugar

1 stick butter

1/2 cup Crisco

2 cups sifted flour

1 Tbs vanilla

1 cup chopped pecans

1 small bag of coconut

Combine soda and buttermilk and let stand a few minutes. Beat egg whites until stiff, set aside. Cream sugar, butter and shortening; add egg yolks one at a time and beat well after each addition. Add buttermilk mixture alternately with flour to sugar mixture. Stir in vanilla, fold in egg whites. Gently stir in pecans and coconut. Bake in three 9-inch greased and floured cake rounds for 25 minutes.

Italian Cream Cake (Semi-homemade version)

1 vanilla cake mix

1 tbs vanilla extract

1 bag shredded coconut

1/2 cup pecans, plus more for decorating

Prepare the vanilla cake mix as the box directs. Chop pecans and add to cake mix with vanilla. Add in 1/2 of the bag of coconut (I usually chop my coconut beforehand a little so that the cake holds together better). Pour into 2 prepared cake rounds and bake in a 350 degree oven for 25-30 minutes or until the center bounces back when lightly touched.

The reserved 1/2 bag of coconut is for the outside of the cake. To toast, set the oven on broil and lay the coconut out on a cookie sheet. Hold under the broiler for 30 seconds at a time, mixing between. Once the frosting is on and the coconut has cooled, just press onto the sides of the cake using your hand. This is a messy process but makes the cake so much prettier.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8-oz package regular cream cheese

2 sticks butter

1 tsp vanilla

4-5 cups powdered sugar

Cream butter and cream cheese together. Add vanilla, then add powdered sugar in stages. This makes plenty to cover and decorate one cake.

Rainbow Cake

My friend's mom showed me a picture of this cake and I have wanted to make it ever since. It's surprisingly easy to do and just takes an extra few minutes to add dye to the cake mix. You can just put vanilla frosting on if you would like, but I made whipped cream frosting because it looked like clouds to me. :)

Rainbow Cake

1 vanilla cake mix

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple food dye

Prepare mix as directed on box. (See, I told you this was easy!) Divide the batter into 6 smaller bowls and add food coloring to each. They don't have to be deep in color, just enough to notice the color difference. Pastel is just fine. Grease, line with parchment paper, grease again, and flour 2 round cake pans. Begin with the red batter and pour 1/2 of the batter into each cake round. Pour 1/2 of the orange batter directly on top of the red in each pan, and continue this process throughout all of the colors. Put in a 350 degree oven and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Whipped Cream Frosting

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups powdered sugar

1 Tbs vanilla pudding mix

Whip the cream until soft peaks form, adding the sugar in stages. Add the vanilla and pudding mix and whip until desired consistency is reached. The pudding in this recipe helps hold the normally delicate whipping cream together and makes the frosting more spreadable.

Semi-homemade Chocolate Cake

This is one of the easiest cakes I've made. Just doctor up a regular chocolate cake mix and tub of frosting, and suddenly you've got something you can be proud of! To make the cake, I used a regular chocolate cake mix and added about 1/2 of a bag of melted chocolate chips to the mix. I baked it using 9" round cake pans. If you want your cakes to come out cleanly and without cracks, I recommend using the following technique. Cut a circle of parchment paper to fit the inside of your pan. Grease the bottom and sides of pan, place parchment circle inside, grease again, and add about 2 Tbs flour to coat. (If making a chocolate cake I recommend coating with cocoa powder instead. The flour will leave white marks on a chocolate cake.) After the cake was done baking and had cooled, I topped it with chocolate buttercream and dusted it with cocoa powder.

Semi-Homemade Chocolate Buttercream

1 tub storebought chocolate frosting

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 bag melted chocolate chips (or 1 chocolate candy bar)

2-3 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Mix this all up using the paddle attachment until the frosting is smooth and creamy and holds its shape. It makes quite a bit, which is perfect for frosting and decorating the chocolate cake.

When assembling the cake, I recommend putting the first cake layer dome-side down (or cutting the dome off completely). This way, your cake will be level and will be easier to frost. The top layer should be done the same way-- I find that the dome side of round cake will flake off easier, resulting in a mess of frosting with specks scattered throughout. Dome side down will solve this problem. After frosting, I cut out a "K" using cardstock. I placed it gently on the cake and dusted the whole thing with cocoa powder. After removing the "K", I outlined it using a #4 tip and finished it off with a decorative border (tip #106 or 107 work equally well) and placed Junior Caramels around the outside.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Alright... these are my favorite cupcakes hands down. The pumpkin makes them super moist and the cream cheese frosting is the perfect topper for these little cakes. Definitely a winner.

Pumpkin Cupcakes

1 white cake mix

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup water

15 oz. pumpkin

3 eggs

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground cloves

Mix together and bake in a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes (or until the center bounces back when lightly touched). These were a hit with cream cheese frosting and nutmeg sprinkles on top.

Cream Cheese Frosting

2 sticks butter

8 oz cream cheese

4-5 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Cream together and pipe on cupcakes. I used a # 1M tip from Wilton in this picture. Note: When piping, make sure to hold the tip directly above the cupcake. I started out at an angle and the frosting didn't look as pretty.