Bella's Barbie

I always wish that I could redo each cake I make and make all sorts of improvements. With this order for a barbie cake from my goddaughter "Bella" I had a chance to practice Barbie cake making (my second) and fondant (my third attempt). It turned out OK. OK, I was pleased. Besides a big repaired rip by Barbie's rear and the slightly (no, completely) unsymmetrical decorations on her dress, I was reasonably satisfied with the attempt at fondant, which I really do not like making, partially because it is tricky and mostly because it just does not taste very good, so I am always hesitant to put it on a cake. But the effect is nice, especially on the barbie dress, where the hard-to-correct pleats and wrinkles actually add to the appearance of the dress and there is little smoothing required. So bring on the Barbie cakes. I am ready!

 

 

The Recipe

 

My standard go to chocolate cake recipe.

For chocolate frosting/filling I used a chocolate-rum pastry filling that I learned in my one and only dessert baking class. I can't seem to find a similar one online and I use an old stained xerox copy when I make the recipe. If anyone ever reads this and wants the recipe, I will add it on. But since the dawn of Facebook, I find my blogging time severely reduced :). And my readership even further reduced. From about 2 people to 0. So basically this is my own online archive of cake making. So note to self- use the stained pastry filling recipe in flour covered binder marked desserts.

The mother of the birthday girl was kind enough to give me some preserved cherries, so I mixed those in with the pastry filling, which was a nice addition as chocolate on chocolate is just a bit too rich. If I get a chance I will use the remaining 2.5 jars of cherries to make this recipe that I absolutely love yet rarely have enough cherries/chocolate/booze on hand to make without pre-planning. 

The I topped the Barbie with a standard marshmallow fondant recipe, some left over rum-flavored whipped cream (yeah, it was a children's party, but a few tsp's never killed anyone) and edible (but controversial) silver beads, that are luckily still available here in Latvia. 

 

The Result
I was happy, Bella was happy, all involved parties were happy enough and I was happy to get some feedback about ooohs and ahhs from other parents, that always gives me a bit of a boost. No children were traumatized by the legless doll torso that I was able to use for this cake, shipped to me by mom in the States, which is also good. Not much more to comment on this one, just happy I could document it while still in my memory. Happy Birthday, my dear Bella! Start planning for next year!

Beyblade cake

The Idea:

While I made this cake about a year ago or so, I finally got a cord for my phone, that served as a weak substitute for my camera for a while while the camera wasbeing replaced. A friend of a friend asked if I would be willing to make a Beyblade themed cake for her son. I of course being always ready for an edible challenge, said yes. This was by far the most difficult cake I had ever attempted to make.

Recipe:

My standard chocolate cake

Chocolate Italian meringue buttercream

Home made Fondant

Royal icing for lettering, decoration

Silver decorating balls

The Result
I almost cried (actually I might have) thatsomeone was actually going to pay me for this monstrosity. I was deeply unsatisfied with my result because looking back it was not so bad, but it could well have been out of a when cakes go bad website. Oh well. Practice, practice, practice. I am almost sure it tasted really good though.

Valuable lessons learned:
- Practice alot with fondant before making a asymetrical, angled cake;
-Putting light fondant over chocolate buttercream leaves you with dirty looking fondant! The pictures are forgiving, but the yellow looked a bit mud-smeared.
-When in doubt cover the cake in decorations made of fondant!!  If I were to make this again, I would go nuts with the blue and green fondant "beyblades" all over. from the feedback I got, these were a hit with the party guests.

Strawberry Daquiri Barbie Doll Cake

The Idea:

For a long time I have wanted to bake a Barbie doll cake. It seemed like quite the challenge to build something tall enough to encase Barbie's unnaturally long legs. And of course a frosting dress just sounded fun. This together with strawberries which are currently in season, the desire to stick a cheesecake in the middle of a torte and a strawberry daiquiri cake recipe I have been saving led me to end up with this final "masterpiece."

The Recipe:
Layer 1 & 4 (from the top): Strawberry Daiquiri cake
Layer 2 & 5: That perfect yellow cake
Layer 3: Lime cheesecake (family recipe- I will get around to posting about this recipe one day)
Initial frosting recipe: Sturdy Whipped Cream Frosting* (failed & ran low on time, turned to tried and true IMBC recipe)
2nd frosting recipe for between layers and base of the dress: Italian Meringue Butter cream
Frosting for decorating (pink) and for damming the frosting and strawberry layers: Magnolia's Vanilla Butter cream Frosting
Silver decorating beads, strawberries, strawberry white chocolate "chips," one Barbie :)
Alterations:
As I was going for a strawberry daiquiri effect, I replaced rum for vanilla extract for all recipes and added grated lime peel almost everywhere. The pink layer has food color added since the jello required in the recipe did not color the batter much and pink was requested by the birthday girl.

The result/lessons learned:
Except for a few snafus such as under cooking the first layer and disastrous results with trying the first recipe for frosting, I was very satisfied with the result. I ran out of time, so Barbie's top was a bit messy, but overall I was pleased. The taste was good. I don't know if I would make the pink layers again, but the yellow cake was good as usual (see cake competition blog post) and the frosting yummy. Although I vowed never to use the Magnolia's frosting recipe anymore because it has a cheap, overly sweet taste, it was fine for decorating purposes and for damming the cake, because it really hardens well in the refrigerator. Some research indicated that this cake should be frozen so it does not topple. I did not do that because all my freezer space is jam packed, but the result was just fine. And none of us died from eating potentially dangerous silver decorating beads.
I did have to shave the layers to make them skirt-like before frosting

Front view, pre-Barbie insertion:Rear view:
The chips were a bit messy looking, but my daughter picked them out, so I felt the need to put them somewhere!

*- I stepped away from the mixer for one minute only to return to find it over whipped apparently. So I kept on whipping and saved a lot of ingredients from being thrown away by ending up with a big blob of sweet butter and a milky type byproduct which I can only guess tasted like evaporated milk. Either way they will eventually go in some pancakes or cookies, etc. But quite honestly I don't think the initial recipe would have worked anyway on this cake since I needed something that could stand up to the weight of all the layers.

Marzipan covered Easter Egg Cake

The Idea:


Ever since I tasted a wedding cake covered in marzipan seven years ago, I have wanted to try it myself. So I figured what better time than Easter. I couldn't just do a simple princess cake in natural marzipan, I had to go all the way a make a big colored egg. I had planned on an egg shaped torte, but I miscalculated the batter and ended up with a single layer of cake topped with everything that I wanted to layer.





The recipes:


The cake was Poppy Seed Cake from MyRecipes.com


The frosting & decorations were Italian Buttercream topped with black currants and colored bulk purchase marzipan. Unfortunately I do not have a reference for the frosting recipe. Google and you will find something very similar.





Alterations:


The cake recipe seemed a bit heavy, so I whipped the egg whites and folded in at the end.





Lessons learned:

• I really liked the result- the tart black currants unfrozen from last year's pick were a good contrast to the sweet marzipan and cake.




• I will not be afraid of covering a cake in marzipan- it was quite easy to do following some online tutorials. (ehow.com)




• That said, if I ever want pink marzipan, which was the color I was going for here) I will remember to add very little red food coloring. I freaked out a bit when I realized my undecorated cake looked like a giant stomach:




• I definitely need more practice with my decorating gun. while happy with the end result, I was not all too certain of how the egg would look at the end. Maybe I will make a big batch of mashed potatoes and practice!




• next time I use this cake recipe I will skip the sugar. The cake mix the recipe calls for was sweet enough. (Yes, I used cake mix even though it is against my principles of baking. Oh well.)

What next? A friend of mine had a birthday in May and I am debating on incorporating cheesecake into a torte. We will see if this works out and if he is game to let me deviate from his preferred birthday "order" the basic cheesecake! But after 3 cakes over 4 days I will take a break for a while. Although I do have a few ethnic dinners coming up. If anyone has any recommendations for a Russian torte recipe, let me know!