Homemade Birthday Cake on Vintage Plate

This one was beautiful. It was the centerpiece of a vintage inspired outdoor birthday party. Pink on a beautiful pink glass cake stand was perfect. I don’t know the name of the glass but I’m sure someone knows. And making it this way insures that it will taste good! And coming from a mom who has tasted a lot of birthday cakes. I certainly love the parties where the cake is good.

So, if you don’t have the money, time or don’t think you have the talent or tools to make a fancy cake, never fear. Just make a pretty cake. It’s all about blowing out the candles anyway. Did you know that?

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Colorful Balloon Birthday Cake

A great way to add color to a birthday cake without looking to generic is to chose a pattern that has large blocks of color. Here this mom was using color to connect the elements of the party and used balloons as the image on the cake. They were big enough and totally colorful enough to have the cake stand out.

Other ideas for using blocks of color on a cake would be to use circles of varying sizes. My daughter is in kindergarten this year and they are studying geometric shapes. That could make a fun cake. Then you could always do a striped cake with the stripes in a pattern of colors or random colors. Even the stripes could be of varying patterns.

If you are having a hard time envisioning it, I’m going to share a secret of mine. Go to the wallpaper store or a high end fabric shop and find a fabric that matches the colors you are using and has the shapes you like. And then use that fabric as inspiration for your cake. There are some really beautiful fabrics out there right now. This should not be a tough one to find. Maybe a tough one to chose from as you’ll like too many of them.

Good luck creating your cake and have a color happy party!

Photo taken by Amy Hall of Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR.

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Halloween Cupcakes

Kids young and old…….and even moms and dads…..love cupcakes. And there’s nothing better than a cupcake with really good frosting.

These cupcakes were made from a box. Oops. Did I just admit that? The kids don’t want anything fancy and when you are planning a birthday party, in my mind, the cake part of this is just nothing to worry about.

The frosting is my cream cheese frosting colored orange and then bittersweet choc was melted to make the spiderwebs. If you don’t have a piping bag and plan to use a plastic bag like we suggest below, be carefully of putting hot chocolate in it. You might want to opt into using black colored icing instead.

Couple of tips. The Cream cheese frosting doesn’t set hard which is part of what makes it so good. But when you are piping the spiderweb just keep this in mind. Make sure you wait until the cupcakes are cool before icing or it will slide all down the side. Use a good coloring liquid for the icing. The inexpensive ones at the grocery just don’t go very far! And lastly, if you don’t have a piping bag, you can easily do these spiderwebs by putting the chocolate in a zippered plastic bag and cutting a very small hole in one of the bottom corners.

Whether you are having a Halloween Party, a Birthday Halloween Party or just a play date, these Halloween cupcakes are super cute to have set out. And they are yummy to eat.

Resources: Click here for our our Cream Cheese Icing Recipe. For the cake mix, I use Duncan Hines Mix. Bittersweet Chocolate can be found at higher end groceries. Or you can just using icing colored black.

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Halloween Birthday Party Cake

In actuality, the cake was not for the kids……it’s a cream cheese cake and I didn’t think that most of the kids would want any. So, I had the cake for the parents and then had ice cream for the kids. The parents loved it and it isn’t a very heavy cream cheese cake.

Party Girl with her Cake

What was interesting about this age is that it took my daughter forever to blow the candles out…….maybe it was the 30 pairs of eyes that were looking at her. Yet, my 4 year old just dug right into blowing the candles out.

Photos taken by Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR.

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Princess Party Fondant Cake

These folks are truly artists with fondant. I have been to another party where they make the cake ans it was equally as beautiful. Just amazing. They are in Portland, OR. Not sure if they will ship the cakes or not. But even for your own idea, this was a beautiful Princess Party Fondant Cake and it also tasted great……which is always a plus……

Resources: Bakery Bar in Portland, OR.

Photo taken by Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR.

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Bumble Bee Bug Cupcake

This bumble bee cupcake is chocolate with chocolate icing. Then the bee is a soft yellow squirt of icing with small stripes. The wings are slivered almonds.

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Superhero Cake

I love how the design on this superhero cake matched the image on the invitation! That can really tie a party together. That and colors. The bakery that my friend uses is called the Dessert Tray in Beaverton, OR. Not sure if they ship but I know there are bakeries out there that do offer shipping and will even do fun shapes.

But back to this superhero cake. Some folks think that the party is all about the cake. And I do not disagree with them. I am always up for a bite of cake. If I’m going to ruin my diet on cake, I want it to taste good and this one was delish!

It’s amazing what you can do with fondant. Any design you think of can be transposed on to a cake. There are even companies who will digitally copy an image on to the fondant! Anyway, I think it would be very hard to do a cake in the shape of a superhero and this solution worked out perfectly.

Resources: The Dessert Tray

Photo taken by Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR.

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Truck & Car Cakes

These cakes are mini cakes made from one pan form. I took a black disposable table cloth and painted a road on it to be the centerpiece of the table. Then after decorating the cakes, I put them on the road with some figures we had around the house for a little whimsy.

The truck and car cakes are small enough that they are just like cupcakes. Which if you have a child you know that cupcakes rule right now. Each child can easily eat one. I used the cake directions from the pan and they not only turned out well but were even yummy!

Resources: Williams Sonoma Car and Truck Cake Pan made by Nordic Ware. These aren’t available on Williams Sonoma any longer but the pan is very heavy duty and I would not blink twice about purchasing it second hand from someone reselling it online. Pan makes 8 different kinds of cars and trucks.

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Princess Birthday Castle Cake

This Princess Castle Birthday Cake I made for my daughter’s 4th birthday. It’s not the most perfect cake but she loved it! Remember that’s what matters. It doesn’t have to be a perfect cake for the little ones to ooh and ah over it. Just a little glitz and they are happy which makes you feel good about the time it took to make the darn thing.

First cut a piece of cardboard a little larger than the size of your castle and cover it with aluminum foil.  (You’ll want to assemble the castle cake on what you plan to serve it on as you will not be able to transfer it from one platter to another!) I made 4 cakes to cut up for making this castle. Needless to say I had a bit of waste. Make sure cakes are completely cool.  It’s easier to work with and when icing your castle, it won’t slip off the sides. There was one full cake for the bottom. I cut a cake up for the wall of the castle. It was wide and probably could have been a little less wide. Then I made 2 or 3 layers of circular cut cake for the turrets.

Slip cut pieces of wax paper under the edge of the cake between it and the aluminum foil. Any icing that runs off the side will fall on the wax paper.  You’ll be removing the wax paper when you are finished icing the cake and everything will look all nice and neat. You’ll want to “seal” the cut edges of the cake with an icing that hardens so that you can ice the cake top with whatever you like. Again. I’m all about taste, so I used my cream cheese icing for the top layer. It doesn’t give a perfect edge but it is soooo good.

To embellish the princess castle cake, I found some chocolate cookies with royal symbols on them for the doors, windows and bridge. The jagged edges on top are made with mini marshmellows. Pink sprinkles give the top a little color. And the towers are made from 2 ice cream cones coated in pink sprinkles and topped with a toothpick and pink ribbon for the flag. I didn’t want to purchase a whole package of these ice cream cones so I went to the local ice cream shop and bought 2 cones only. They were happy to sell them to me.

You can go as far as you want with your own decorations on your princess birthday castle cake. Don’t stress out over it but have fun making it!

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Pig Party Cupcake Favors

Cupcakes are a great favor for a simple party for little ones. There’s nothing better than going home with a cupcake to eat later. I made a custom box for the kids to carry them home in so that the icing didn’t get all over the car! You can see those in another post.

For this pig party we had a regular size birthday cake in the shape of a pig face. Because of that, I didn’t want the cupcakes to be replicas. So, I used the colors and just made simple dots. This could also be done in black and white for those pigs that are black and white. Not all pigs are pink!

Here I used my cream cheese frosting for the pink layer and for the dots. It makes the decoration a little sloppy just like a pig!

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