How To Make A Rainbow Checkered Cake

As promised here is my tutorial on how I made Baby Fox's Birthday Rainbow Cake. As you know I followed this tutorial, but really it's not as hard as it may seem, really. I'm going to show you how easy it is.

First, I bought the supplies:

You will need these* pans

These* circular cutters

And I bought two sets of colors, this one*and this one*for the specific colors I was looking for (more on this later)

Directions:

I made a cake...from scratch. Last year I made a box cake and it was just too soft and moist (I know such a problem right?) but it was too soft and it just cracked immediately when I tried to cut it. I learned from my mistakes and made one from scratch. I made the white cake from my America's Test Kitchen* cookbook.

I then divided the cake into 6 parts (using my kids plastic bowls*). Of course the cake pan set only came in a set of 5, so I colored 5 of them right away and then waited to color the last one until I was ready to bake it.

For coloring the cake mix, learn from my mistake...I tried to use Wilton coloring* one year for a rainbow cake and the colors were not nearly as vibrant. I was so happy that I bought the AmeriColor*, the colors were vibrant and so much easier to mix than the Wilton color.

This is what 5 of them looked like going into the oven, I made the red one after these came out of the oven and cooled.

After they were all cooled I cut the top and bottoms off (to get rid of the little bits of brown), and then stacked them and trimmed off all of the sides, so that there were no brown parts, I just want all of the vibrant colors to come through when cut.

Once that was all done, I laid them out and used the cookie cutters to cut the circles, obviously I did this with all of the colors.

I made some frosting, I used the Wilton recipe for frosting (My Cupcake Addiction also has a recipe, but her's uses milk and I don't have room in the fridge to store a cake).

I used a little bit of frosting in between each circle and mixed and matched all of the circles. How cool does that look?

I then stacked them with a bit of frosting in between each layer, and then crumb coated it and put it in the freezer for about an hour (mostly because I got busy and was doing something else).

I was then able to put the last layer of frosting on and add a batman symbol that I made. For that I printed out a batman symbol, then bought some store bought black frosting in a tube and melted some Black Wilton Chocolate* and filled it in.

I did try My Cupcake Addictions method to get the smooth sides but it didn't work. I think maybe if you were using her icing it might have worked, mine was a little too soft. The best part was when we cut into the cake and Baby Fox was so excited and surprised to see what was inside.

For minimal effort, you get a big bang for your buck, go ahead and try it for your next cake.

Linking up with That DIY Party, Tweek it Tuesday, Mad Skills Party,  Fabulous Party, Weekend Retreat , Tuesday Talk,  Wake Up Wednesday Linky Party, Let's Be Friends Blog Hop, Wildly Original,

Celebrating My Mama

Tuesday was my Mom's birthday. I already told you we celebrated with dinner and a movie on Saturday night.

In reality my mom is a hair taller then I am, I love tall shoes!

I had been working on a craft with the kids, handprint flowers. They turned out fantastic! Tutorial coming tomorrow.

Baby Fox couldn't wait to give them to her, so he gave them to her a day early. He's waiting for her and Ampa (my Dad) to come pick him up for the library and lunch.

 Monday night Baby Fox and I made Nana a cake

Yes I actually let my 3 year old use a hand mixer, he thought it was the most awesome thing ever

What's a cake without decorations? White and pink sprinkles. Mini Fox wanted in on the action too, but she needs to work on her hand/eye coordination.

 The finished product (the M&M's spell out NANA)

Nana loved her surprise cake and the fact that Baby Fox made and decorated it for her.

And of course Baby Fox had to help blow out the candles

Happy Birthday Nana, here's to many more birthday celebrations and cake making/decorating. We thank God everyday that we have such a wonderful Mom/Nana, who loves us unconditionally and will do anything for us. We hope we helped to make your day a little more special.

Lamb Cake & Random Wednesday

With Easter coming up I thought I would show you a lamb cake that I made. It's super easy and really fun for the kids.

No, it's not actual bits of lamb, so don't worry, keep reading.

You can get the mold here. I got mine at Micheal's, they should have them in stock because it's Easter time.

The directions said to use a heavier cake like pound cake, but I wanted to use a red velet cake, cause I'm a tad weird like that. Cutting open a lamb cake to find red cake in it, nothing beats that family reaction!

I didn't have this tutorial when I was making mine, but it's pretty much everything that I did. It's also in the instruction book that comes with the cake pan.

Basically you just fill one side of the cake pan to the top, basically one cake mix fills the entire thing. Then put the top half on, and tie it closed.

When the cake rises, it rises into the other half, so you end up with something that looks like this:

I made some butter cream frosting, the Wilton's recipe, you're going to need two batches of this:

Yields 3 cups


1 cup vegetable shortening
1 tsp Wilton Flavor (vanillia), this is a clear vanilla, so you get a true white color
2 Tablespoons water
1 lb. pure can confectioners' sugar (about 4 cups)
1 tablespoon Wilton Meringue Powder (this helps with decorating and makes it a little stiffer then it would be without it

Cream shortening, flavoring and water. Add dry ingredients and mix on medium speed until all ingredients have been thoroughly mixed together. Blend and additional minute or so, until creamy.

This is the basic recipe for a STIFF consistency icing.  For the base layer of icing you need to make the above recipe THIN consistency.

Thin Consistency: You'll need to add 2 teaspoons of water per cup of frosting (so you'll need to add 6 teaspoons of water to the above recipe.) I added some food gel coloring to make it slightly pink, I thought a white face was totally weird.

For the "fur" and face you'll need to make another batch of frosting with a MEDIUM consistency.

Medium Consistency: You'll need to add 1 teaspoon of water per cup of frosting (so you'll need to add 3 teaspoons of water to the above recipe).

I used this decorating tip, it's a triple tip, so I could get more coverage and wasn't deocrating for 5 hours...you can however do it one at a time, but your hand will get tired, I tried that the first time. Then remembered I had that triple decorating star tip.

Put aside some of the frosting to make the face, I used black gel coloring, but you can buy the already made black frosting from the baking isle in the grocery store, since black is a hard color to get. (that's why mine is gray)

Back view, the reason we have the bamboo skewers in there, was that we had to drive 40 miles to our destination and since we didn't use a dense cake it was a little wobbly. We took the front sticks out as soon as we got to our destination.

I colored some coconut green, and bam you have a lamb sitting on grass.

My family's reaction when we cut open the lamb and saw the red velvet cake inside.

Now onto some random things:

Last night I had a dream that I was in another 1/2 marathon. My knee problem was gone, my ankle problem was gone and I was feeling good. Is this my minds way of telling me to get that MRI and figure out what's wrong with my knee...I think so. I know Baby Fox will be happy to have the wind in his face again. Every time we got out in the jogging stroller he yells out "run Mama, run!"

My hair is at that really awkward point, where it's just annoying and laying on my back weird. It's taking everything in me not to just chop it off again. But I keep reminding myself, I'm growing it out so I can do this awesome sock bun that I've been hearing so much about. I want it...

I have exactly 27 days to finish my photo album book that I bought from Photobook America last July...I thought..April, I can do it by April, and here we are 5 days from April and I still have a long way to go. I can do this...bottom line, I need to stop taking naps on the weekend while Baby Fox takes his nap...but bed always sounds so much better than staring at a computer.

Linking up with Shanna today