Showing posts with label cake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cake. Show all posts

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Courtney's Birthday Cake

Tomorrow we're celebrating one of my favorite people's birthdays! And tonight I made a cake. I decided to try and be artsy with it and this is what I came up with. But before you all start calling me a Susie Homemaker I should warn you that I made this cake right after I got home from watching Django Unchained. So thanks to my love of Tarantino movies, this cake may a little agressive. No I'm kidding. It's not. But I just wanted to tell you that I went and saw Django and I loved it and you should all go see it because it makes me want to become a vigilante. But instead I went home and made a cake. There's always tomorrow.

ANYWAY- I started by making a three layer chocolate cake. Full disclosure, I used a box mix because it's a lot faster and my record of making edible boxed cakes is a lot better than my record for making edible cakes made from scratch. I glued each layer together with buttercream frosting (made from scratch, thank you very much) and put it in the freezer.

Then I went and saw Django.


Then I came home and took the cake out of the fridge. I froze the cake because it's easier to frost when the cake is colder. When the cake is at room temp. the cake is more like a sponge and can sometimes get crumbs in the frosting.

I took the frosting and added a few drops of red and yellow food coloring to create a coral-ish pink. Then I put a light layer of frosting on the cake.


I used a leaf tip with the frosting and created a ruffle around the top of the cake. I made 3 laps around the cake with the same color of frosting. I then added a few more drops of red food coloring to the frosting and took a few more laps around the cake with the leaf tip. I then added a few more drop of red to the frosting and took the darkest pink and took laps around the cake until it was completely covered. I then took the darkest pink and wrote "Happy Birthday Courtney" on top of the cake.



Writing on the top of the cake was very frustrating. Maybe because I'm a perfectionist but I rewrote it 4 times. That meant that each time I messed up, I had to take a toothpick and remove the frosting very carefully in order to not mess up the layer of frosting beneath the writing. In order to make a baseline to anchor my letters, I took a piece of paper and took the edge and made a thin indent line in the frosting. The line is still there if you looks very carefully. Usually if you do this you can smooth out the line with a few drops of water but the top of the cake had a texture to it so I didn't want it to be completely smooth so I left the lines because you can't really see them.

I like making cakes. My mom and my grandmother decorate wedding cakes and they've taught me a few things. Actually, in middle school I took a cake decorating class from the woman who taught my grandma how to decorate. I'd like to get more into it and practice more but when I'm done decorating I have a whole cake and I don't want to eat it. At least, not by myself. I guess I should start attending more birthday parties.