This is my baby’s first birthday cake. Made by moi! I am absolutely in love with this cake. I have to say it. I’ve been making cakes (only about one a year) for four years and this is my favorite to date. It is actually one of the easiest ones I’ve made too. Sometimes simpler is better.

Here’s how I made it:

I started easy, with a box cake mix. I would have preferred to make the cake from scratch, but needed to cut some time from this project — boxed cake mixes can be a life saver for a cake like this. I did, however, want even cake layers so I tried the Wilton bake even strips. These things are amazing and deserve a blog post of their own. Just know they are worth the effort. I made two 6 inch cakes, wrapped these silver babies around the pans and they baked  evenly. They were perfectly flat, even cakes when I took them out of the pan. Step one accomplished.

The next step was to ice the cake. I put on a homemade butter cream frosting (no shortcuts here) and let that set. I used Martha Stewart’s Italian meringue butter cream recipe, which is simply amazing! Meanwhile, I made 100 butterflies. I think the final number I used was about 77, but it felt like 100.

But first, I had to get the right color. I made a blue tutu for my daughter to wear at the butterfly party and I wanted the butterflies to match the shiny teal ribbon that was the centerpiece of the tutu (blog post later on that) so I bought a teal gel food coloring and tinted store bought fondant until I felt the color was right. Tinting fondant is easy. Just insert a toothpick into the coloring, dab it on the fondant and stretch it like taffy until the color is evenly mixed. Repeat until you have the right color.

Next I rolled out the fondant (about 1/8 inch thick I’d guess) and used a butterfly cookie cutter that I got at a cake supply store in town. It’s a simple shape, but is one of the small cookie cutters. It’s only about an inch or so wide. So, I cut out tons and tons of butterflies. It’s true that I actually did cut out at least 77 of these babies. One — at — a — time. This took a while.

To get the sense of flight that I wanted, I needed to bend the butterflies and let them dry to harden. I used two methods to do this: one was the edge of a cardboard box that I lined with aluminum foil, the second method was to put line the interior of a plastic box. Anything would work, as long as it is sturdy enough to hold them in place while they dry.

These are plastic shoe boxes that I lined with aluminum foil and placed the butterflies around the edges. I pressed them each into the corner to bend them and left them overnight to dry.

Now the fun part. This part might intimidate some, but I loved it. I didn’t have a plan on where these butterflies would go. I just knew that I wanted to have a swarming effect on the cake so I started at the bottom and worked my way around in curves until I got to the top.

To get the butterflies to stick to the cake, I used the butter cream icing like glue. I used a kitchen knife to spread some on the bottom of the butterfly, then I would place it on the cake and shoved it in a little.

I did one layer of butterflies in the first curve.  I left room on top for the cake topper.

Then I started to add a second layer.

The topper was a jumbo cupcake with one large butterfly and some teal sugar crystals around the edge of the butter cream. I made this butterfly the same way I did the small ones; I just used a larger cookie cutter. This is the piece of cake that I gave to my daughter to eat. She got the whole cup cake and loved it!

Here’s the swarm. I really piled the butterflies on in certain areas, making the swarm bigger and then taper down in parts. This is what I love about this cake.

This is where the swarm started (on the right) and ended (on the left, leading up to the cup cake sitting on top of the cake.)

Here’s a close up of the little guys.

They just look like they are in flight to somewhere great.

Don’t you just want to be there on this flight?

I just can’t get enough of this cake.

At the last minute the cup cake paper liner was really bothering me. It had come loose and I didn’t know what to do. I looked around for ideas and in my kitchen junk drawer was a piece of beautiful, shimmering opaque ribbon. I tied a bow around the cupcake wrapper and viola! the cupcake was complete. I actually think this is one of the details of the cake that I love the most. It adds the perfect touch to this cake.

Here is a piece right before I got to taste it. I can still taste it now. Even though I used a store bought box mix, this cake was amazing. The icing made it. It was moist, beautiful and delicious.

Related:

• Simple use of fondant
• The original duck cake for my son’s first birthday. The first birthday cake I made.
• My Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake (with photos)
• My car cake (with photos)
• Rocket ship cake (with photos)
• All my cake links

You too can make this cute Easter bunny cake. My mother has been making this cake for years. It’s so simple and even though it’s not the fanciest cake, it is always a winner with kids. I have fond memories from childhood holding up this cake at Easter to have our photo taken with it.

There’s no special equipment needed for this cake — just two round cake pans.

Materials and ingredients:

• Two round cake pans (I use 9 inch)
• White icing (you can make your own or use store bought)
• Coconut, one bag
• Food coloring (pink for the ears and paws and a color for the bow tie)
• Candy for eyes, nose and buttons
• Licorice for whiskers (we didn’t have any so I used spaghetti on this bunny)

How-to make and decorate the cake:

First, bake a cake using two, 9-inch round cake pans. If you are using a box mix, one box is enough — just split the batter between both pans.

After the cakes have cooled, you’ll need to cut them into the correct shapes and place them on a flat surface. No fancy materials required. Next time I make this, I’m going to attempt a better background than a regular sheet pan covered in foil, but that’s all I had at the time I was baking. The beauty of this cake is that it really doesn’t take much to put a smile on a kid’s face.

Here’s my crude drawing, but you’ll get the picture with it.

1. Take one of the round cakes and cut a circle out of the middle of the cake. That will be the head. That’s A.
2. With the remaining, outer circle, cut that into 5 pieces. Or, four if you don’t want a tail.
3. With the second cake, cut four rounded semicircles from the sides of the cake. These will be used for ears. You’ll be left with B, the body.
4. Put A on your board where you want the head.
5. Put B below A, for the body.
6. Take two pieces (6 and 7) and put them for one ear. Take the two other large pieces (8 and 9) for the other ear.
7. Then, you’re left with pieces 1-5. Put these on the sides of the body for the paws.

Once the pieces are on the pan in the right locations, all you do is frost like a regular cake. Put frosting between sections 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 of the ears so they stick together. Also put frosting between the body (section B) and each of the paws (sections 1,2,3,4). The frosting doesn’t have to be smooth since it will be covered with coconut.

Next, sprinkle coconut over the entire cake. I usually pat it down a tiny bit so that it stays on the cake and we don’t have any fly-away pieces, but I don’t think it’s necessary.

Next, color the coconut. It’s easy: grab a zip top bag, toss in a handful of coconut, add a few drops of food coloring, zip the bag and shake, shake shake.

Decorate away!

I like to use pink for the ears and paws.

For the bow tie — I did this free hand. Just put down the blue coconut in the shape of a tie and gave it a  pat to stay in place.

I used large M&Ms for the face and some jelly beans for his mouth and for the yellow buttons.

Usually, I use skinny licorice for whiskers, but we were out so my mother suggested the spaghetti, which worked out great.

Don’t let this one get away from you. It’s super easy, doesn’t take long, and your kids will remember it when they are grown.

Related:

• I like this version of the Easter bunny cake that stacks the paws up for a dimensional look.
• Another popular version of this easy Easter bunny cake uses just the head of the bunny with a big bow tie. Very cute.
• All of my cakes (Mickey Mouse cake, duck cake, fondant cakes and a rocket ship cake to name a few.)

Here it is — my son’s fourth birthday cake. He showed a lot of interest in the Space Shuttle this past year so I started to research trying to create that. I thought twice. That’s just beyond my experience level at this time. So, I started to do more research and found some rocket ship cakes made from a Wilton football mold.  Bingo!

I made the cake, iced it with homemade butter cream icing and covered it in store-bought fondant. Next, I cut out the blue shapes from the extra white fondant. I painted them wiht blue luster dust by using lemon extract and a baker’s paint brush.

The stars were cut out from colored fondant (use the gel coloring) and set on top of the icing with water underneath to make them stick.

Next came the flames. I cut strips from the orange fondant and carved into them with a steak knife. Then I placed them on top of one another and shaped them.

I had some fun and used the orange to marbleize the fondant.  Then, I decided it looked like a planet and put it on the board with some extra stars.

The top wing was made from cutting the shape from fondant (freehand cut it). I made this piece about 1/2 inch thick and put three toothpicks in the bottom and then laid it out overnight to dry. It hardened enough so that I could put it in the cake and it stood straight up.

Look at the rocket ship cake that I got my inspiration from that I initially used to develop my cake. I think the inspiration cake is great. While mine isn’t quite as good, I think it’s a good shot given I have limited fondant experience. I think it’s ironic that the inspiration cake is for a 40 year old, while my cake is for a 4 year old, but aren’t we all kids at heart?

Related:

• Simple use of fondant
• The original duck cake for my son’s first birthday. The first birthday cake I made.
• My Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake (with photos)
• My car cake (with photos)
• Butterfly cake (with photos) — my favorite cake so far.
• All my cake links.

Baby photo credit: doriana_s

• If you have simple PhotoShop skills you can follow my easy to use instructions to download this free photo frame (shown above) and add your own image inside the red frame. Instructions are at the end of this post.
• There’s time to make chocolate covered strawberries. And, they’re quick and easy. The kids would have fun with this project.
• Valentine’s Day crafts for kids.
• If you’ve got some time today or even tomorrow you could attempt to make a Valentine’s Day cake that will *wow* everyone who get a piece. There’s a surprise on the inside — when you cut into the cake it displays a red heart. The baker shows a simple tutorial on her blog. You’ve got to see it.
• One of the allrecipe.com users, Celeste, submitted a photo of a Valentine’s Day (or I should say Night) picnic she created for her and her husband fireside at their home. Looks very romantic.
• RealSimple.com has a Valentine’s Day dinner menu that claims to be “stress-free.”

When all else fails, wait until the kids are in bed and put on a movie. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you are together.

Photo Frame How to:

1. Open valentinewrap.psd in PhotoShop.
2. Click (highlight) on the “Insert your photo here” layer.
3. In a new window, Open your photo.
4. Size your photo to 375 x 500 (width x height). (Go to the Image menu, choose Image size, type in your dimensions and click OK.)
5. Drag your photo to the open valentinewrap.psd file. Since the Insert your photo here layer is highlighted it should show up behind the red border.
6. Save the file as a JPG. (File Menu, Save as.)

DOWNLOAD THE FILE NOW.

Enjoy!

I recently finished reading “A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table” by Molly Wizenberg, with my book club. It’s a memoir of a woman’s life as she progresses through the passing of her father, a move to Paris and the eventual finding of the man she will marry. It’s a quaint story to which many can relate, but what I liked most of all is that at the end of every chapter she lists a recipe pertaining to the story.

For example, for her wedding she made 25 (I think it was 25) decadent chocolate cakes. She claims they are so easy to make and freeze well. How can making 25 cakes be easy? I had to try it. Well, not making 25, but I made one successfully.

First, I melted chocolate and butter over a double boiler.

Stir until creamy.

Lookin’ good.

Mix in sugar.

Bake. It comes out a little crusty on top. Then you have to flip it onto a plate, then flip it again to get it right side up.

Here it is in all its beauty. This ancient plate doesn’t to this cake justice. It needs to be sitting on a fine piece of china or a pretty little cake stand, dusted with powdered sugar.

Here’s the side view. It’s a rich, dense cake with tons of chocolate flavor.

Everyone at book club made a recipe from the book and we had quite the feast that night (see links to recipes below). I wish my camera were working properly that night so I could show you the food. You’ll have to click the links below to see them on Wizenber’s Web site, Orangette.

Related:

• A Homemade Life on Amazon.com
• Orangette the blog 
• Recipes that the ladies from book club made — all are super delicious:
  
  • Gâteau au chocolat fondant de Nathalie (aka Chocolate Wedding Cake)
  • Banana Bread With Chocolate and Cinnamon
  • Chocolate Covered Macaroons
  • Caramel Corn
  • Slow Roasted Tomatoes
  • Sugar Cookies with icing (ours were made in the shape of hearts )
  • Pickled grapes and pickled carrots (I can’t find the recipes online for these, but they were good)