Lauren's Birthday Treasure Chest

Sorry so long, I will try to get up the cakes I have done over the past few
months up! Here is the first, Lauren's Birthday Cake! This was fun, lots of work, but fun!
The chest is chocolate cake, the top is lemon. All covered in fondant! The "treasures" are ring pops, jolly ranchers, candy necklaces, and chocolate coins, with brown sugar for the sand.

Two Cakes...

I have been on a cake hiatus lately, then two weeks ago I did two "simple" cakes for family. This next week I have two more cakes on the calendar. One is for my daughter and the other for a friend. Originally my daughter had decided on an American Girl themed party, but after watching the "Pirates of the Caribbean" Movies, decided on a different kind of theme completely. First she wanted me to make a cake that resembled the "Black Pearl", the famous pirate ship owned by Jack Sparrow. Hummm, I don't think so, I am not that good, and finally convinced her that my talents were more in the way of a treasure box cake. So a treasure box cake it will be. At this point I am planning on using fondant to cover it.

The photo is a cake by Martha on Cake Central.com that we are using to get ideas from for making my daughter's cake.The second cake will be a larger two or three round tiered cake for a friend's surprise birthday party. Her husband requested a cake with Eeyore on it. In the past I had actually done her a cake with cute little chocolate transfer Eeyores and didn't really want to go that route again. What I I did come up with was a cake in her favorite color of lime green buttercream frosting, gum paste butterflies painted in orange, lime green, pink and blues, and a couple of her little Eeyore figures. Just need to get them without her noticing they are missing! One cake will be lemon, and the other White Chocolate Raspberry. When I have a better idea of how many people to expect, I will make a final decision on sizes.

Patriotic Themed Cake

Our family recently went on a 9 day tour with a Christian Tour group that went through Plymouth/Boston, MA, New York, NY, Gettysburg,PA, Washington, DC, and Williamsburg/Jamestown, VA. Last night we had a little reunion to get together and share photos and memories. I did the cake for dessert.

I was such a great idea on paper, but I wasn't all the pleased with the final look....but that is me. Everyone at our reunion last night loved it. The cake was a 14 inch round and very difficult to work with. It was so moist that when I leveled and cut it into layers, the top broke. Fortunately I was able to get it all together and get a good crumb coat on before I did the final frosting. Here it is before I did the top and final smoothing.

After I got the letters made, which I must say was absolutely the hardest thing about this cake! Never having worked with JEM lettering before and trying to do it in less than one hour was a nightmare. It was hot as blazes in the kitchen and I must have cut out a hundred letters to just get the ones that ended up on the cake. And getting them on the cake was absolutely frustrating! Once I got finished you will noticed that I sprinkled red and white sugar on it to cover up my fingerprints!
On the side I used an impression mat with lines. Love the look, and it's so easy to do, thank goodness! My daughter helped me get the ribbon on and then we taped the photos on with double stick tape. They held up pretty well through the event.

The pictures of the cake were taken on my cell phone because none of us brought a camera. I didn't check them before cutting the cake and later I realized they didn't turn out very well. When my DH asked last night if I wanted more pictures I said "don't bother." Today I told him, next time remind me that it will matter the next day!

The cake was a White Almond Sour Cream cake with a thin cream cheese cake pie filling with a layer of fresh strawberries. Lauren told me one little girl had 5 pieces, guess that meant it tasted good too!

Raspberry Version of WASC Cake

A few months ago I posted about the cake I did for an auction at our church and came up with a Raspberry version of the White Almond Sour Cream Cake. One of my readers asked if I would post the recipe with my changes so here it is!

Sandi's Raspberry WASC Cake

2 boxes of white or yellow cake mix
2 cups of all purpose or cake flour
2 cups of Giradelli's Sweet Ground White Chocolate. (This is in place of the sugar)
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
5 eggs (or 8 egg whites, I use whole eggs, unless I am making a white cake)
1 2/3 cups water
1 cup Torani Raspberry Syrup
4 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
2 cups or a 16 oz. carton of sour cream

I begin by adding all the wet ingredients first, then add the cake mix and blend just a little. I add the salt to the flour and sift a bit to make sure it distributes evenly, and then the sugar. Beat together for about 2 to 3 minutes, will have some lumps, but shouldn't have huge ones.

Pour into prepared pans. I use Cake release by Wilton for all my cakes, as well as baking strips.

A new trick I have tried is using rose nails, directions for that can be found at here. Be sure to read the comments as some readers have some other tricks for larger cakes. I use five when doing a 12in or 14in cake. And I always use baking strips, I have more success with them keeping my cakes more even.

Here is the original recipe for WASC.

Raspberry Filling:
1- 8 oz. pkg Cream Cheese (softened)
1/2 cup Raspberry Jam (seedless)
1- 16 oz. tub Non-Dairy Whipped Topping (Cool Whip) ****I used prepared Pastry Pride instead of Cool Whip, it will hold up better because it stabilized to be used for frosting and fillings.

Instructions

Beat cream cheese in medium sized bowl until creamy. Add jam and beat until very smooth. Add whipped topping and fold into raspberry mixture. It will thicken as you fold in the whipped topping.

I found it too be a bit too tangy so I used more Pastry Pride to give it a sweeter taste. I had a lot left over and found that I need to rewhip the extra when I needed to use it again. Best to use it with in a week.