Category Archives: Cakes

March 23, 2012 · 8:00 am

Red Velvet Cake Balls

We’re back with my BabyCakes! These are what I refer to as cake balls, not to be confused with cake pops.

Here are the first ones I made a while back… along with some tips and some mistakes. (Number one tip being use a piping bag/zip top bag to fill the reservoirs.)

These were for a 15 year old’s birthday party, and the request was for red velvet. My manual that came with the babycakes had a recipe for red velvet, so I used that.

(I have never made, or even EATEN red velvet until I made these. Not bad, not bad… maybe that’s why the world is currently obsessed?)

The recipe made about 40 cake balls.

For the icing, I wasn’t sure what to use. For the lemon cake balls, I used my regular cookie icing. It was light and soft, and perfectly complimented the lemon.

For these, I wanted something heavier/thicker, but still somewhat soft. (As opposed to hard chocolate shell or something like that. In the end I had a combination of the two. I mixed together candy melts with a tiny bit of milk, then melted it in the microwave. The mixture was thin, so I added a bit of powdered sugar to make it more like icing. It was actually easier to dip these balls into than regular candy melts.

I don’t know exact measurements, but I would say I used about 1/4 cup candy melts and a teaspoon or so of milk. I melted for 20 seconds, then stirred until it was completely combined. I added about a spoonful of powdered sugar, but more can be added to get a good consistency. Too thin, add powdered sugar… too thick, add a few drops of milk. Pretty sure you can’t really screw this up.

The end result was colored (from the candy melts – no food coloring needed), vanilla flavored, dried well so that they could be handled, and was soft to bite into. Like a frosting shell. I will definitely be making this again for cake balls!

Here is the inside! Pure fluffy cake…

psst! – Kendra, see my little clippy on the piping bag up there? These things are heaven. Don’t leak and easy peezy to get on and off.

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Tagged as blue, cake balls, candy melts, green, icing, purple, red velvet

March 16, 2012 · 8:00 am

Cake Decorating 101

I am taking a cake decorating class! I don’t know why I waited so long to do it. Thank you Kendra at The Royal Cookie for the motivation to sign up!

My girlfriend’s birthday was last week and I was SOO busy I was not able to make her something. My first cake decorating class cake is for her!

(Sorry there are some steps missing here, I was busy learning and not taking enough pics. I will take more next time!)

cakes leveled…

quick frost…

smoothed out the frosting (forgot to take a pic)… then applied a piping gel pattern transfer…

decorated my design and added her name…

and did a quick star border around the base!

More to come as I attend more classes!

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Tagged as black, orange, teal

January 9, 2012 · 9:33 pm

Bubblegum Cupcakes

I was inspired and intrigued by this photo. When I was younger, I was in love with this blue bubblegum flavored ice cream at the nearest waterpark. It had real gumballs throughout. So naturally when I saw a bubblegum cupcake, I wanted to create it myself!

Whenever I make cupcakes now, I put my batter in piping bags so that I don’t make a mess when filling my liners. A big ziploc bag would work too, just cut one of the corners.

The actual cupcakes didn’t come out as pink as I wanted, but at least I had good pink liners on them.

Look how pink I got my frosting! I used my normal buttercream recipe, but substituted half of the vanilla for bubblegum flavoring.

I had to get gumballs to decorate them. Apparently it’s hard to find gumballs in all the stores around here. This is how I had to buy them.

They turned out pretty cute. Too bad I work during all daylight hours and couldn’t get better lighting for these photos!

The taste? Exactly like bubblegum. It’s good. A little weird because it’s so much like bubblegum, that you expect what’s in your mouth to be chewy. Very strange sensation, worth a bite!

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Tagged as bubble gum, pink

January 3, 2012 · 10:09 pm

Lemon Cake Balls

First things first, I have to make an important distinction that will impact the future of my little baking blog.

Cake Pop = bake cake, crumble cake, mix in frosting, form into balls, dip. Whether it has a stick or not, this is the essence of a Cake Pop. I have an entire category dedicated to them. They are heaven. If you have never tried one, go to Starbucks and get the pink one.

Some people, however, do not like Cake Pops. (Crazy, right?!) They say they are too sweet, too rich, whatever. I use those phrases sometimes too, but not about Cake Pops! Others think the texture is weird. They’re gooey-ish, so it almost seems like they are uncooked. I hate lots of foods because of texture, so I can’t hate those people either. Anywhooo, I won’t judge. Because there is a solution to these Cake Pop hating individuals.

babycakes!!!

It bakes cake (and just cake) into balls, so that you can skip the whole crumble-cake, mix-in-frosting, form-into-balls part. You just bake the cake, then dip it! Another bonus, the little balls of cake take just 4-5 minutes to cook! Sorry for all the exclamation points, this is just a very exciting idea.. especially for all the Cake “Pop” haters.

So has anyone else caught on to the dilemma here?

What do you call these little balls of cake? Although the machine refers to them as Cake Pops, they are not the same thing and I refuse to refer to them with the same name. After much thought on the matter, I have decided to call them…..

Cake Balls.

Creative, I know. (For future reference, Cake Ball posts will be classified under “Cakes” and not “Cake Pops.”)

So here we go with my first Cake Ball run!

I went with a from scratch recipe for the first time, ~~but I am pretty sure box cake works with it too~~. I’ll let you know next time. (**update** boxed cake does not work!)

First batch was a little brown. Still tastes amazing though!

If you put too much batter in the holes, it makes a little edge where the sphere halves meet. Easily broken off though.

If you don’t put enough batter in the holes, the top half of the Cake Ball is not round. Like these…

Cake Balls ready for their coating!

These are lemon flavored, so instead of coating them in candy melts (like you would use for Cake Pops), I wanted to do more of a glaze. Think donut holes!

I used the same glaze I use on my cookies, but I added some lemon extract and lemon juice to make them just as lemony as the cake.

I dropped them in a bowl of glaze, covered them well with a spatula, then fished it out with a fork and tapped off as much as I could. I carefully set it on the wire rack (with wax paper underneath) and gave it some rainbow sprinkles. Sprinkles make everything 549463135487 times better.

Aren’t they pretty?!

See?! The inside isn’t gooey, just fluffy cake! Very good fluffy cake. A couple people said it reminded them of a donut, especially with the glaze coating.

**Disclaimer – All words above are my views only and I was not paid to talk about the babycakes product. It was a Christmas gift from my brother actually. 🙂 What a good brother I have!

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Tagged as cake balls, icing, lemon, lemon cake, sprinkles

December 31, 2011 · 6:52 pm

Rainbow Treats

Rainbow Treats for a rainbow party!

Cupcakes…

and cakepops!

The purple and red were chocolate…

and the yellow and blue were vanilla cake!

I really ❤ cakepops. Bakerella, you’re a genius!

If you love cakepops too, you should try making them! I have had some hard times, did some troubleshooting, and I updated my cakepop instructions. Let me know if you try them and how they turn out!

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Filed under Cake Pops, Cakes

Tagged as buttercream, candy melts, chocolate, rainbow, vanilla

December 16, 2011 · 9:25 am

Winter Layer Cake

I had some leftover cake batter and decided to bake mini cakes and layer them for a work treat.

Vanilla buttercream and chocolate buttercream decorations. Snowflakes of course, I’m on a snowflake kick.

Two chocolate layers, two vanilla layers…

I had the best idea, but not until it was too late. How awesome would it have been if I did chocolate frosting between the layers!? Oh well, maybe next time.

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Tagged as buttercream, chocolate, vanilla

December 6, 2011 · 8:30 am

Chocolate Cupcakes

Here are some cupcakes I did for a friend:

I did the same chocolate cake recipe I used here, but this time with chocolate buttercream frosting.

Now for my adventure with the frosting:

I had never made chocolate frosting before, so I started off with the frosting recipe on the cocoa box. It was too runny to pipe, so I ended up adding a lot more powdered sugar to make it thicker. I honestly couldn’t tell you what the end quantities were… next time I make it I will keep better track of it. If I had to guess, I used at least 2x the powdered sugar. It still wasn’t thick enough, so I decided to add another stick of butter. The butter would not integrate into the frosting (because it was so runny) so there was little lumps of butter throughout. I stuck the whole thing in the fridge thinking it would thicken up a bit and then I could try whip it again. Still didn’t work… As a last ditch effort, I stuck the whole bowl of frosting in the microwave. I let it all get runny and melty (and smooth!) then I stuck it back in the fridge for a while. When I pulled it out and stuck it back in the mixer, it whipped up perfectly! I will be making it again, as it was approved by the chocolate lovers in my family. Except next time I will know exactly what to do to thicken it up!

The bling on top is blue candy melts with clear sugar crystals. Same technique as the pumpkins here.

I love these plastic cupcake boxes. The cupcakes slide in and out easily, nothing gets messed up from bumping into each other, and they are stackable!

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Tagged as candy melts, chocolate, chocolate frosting

November 22, 2011 · 12:39 pm

Orange Soda Cupcakes

If you haven’t heard, you are about to have your mind blown!

With just a box of cake and a can of soda, you can make cake (or cupcakes)!! That’s it, no other ingredients necessary! Okay maybe you need more ingredients if you want frosting, but STILL, this is exciting!

I have seen it with Dr. Pepper, Coke, 7-up… but who loves orange soda? I love orange soda. I do I do I do-ooo! I grew up on it, and I am just fine – so please don’t judge me or my parents for raising me on the single most sugar-filled kind of soda out there – Sunkist! 🙂

I had a 2-liter instead of a can, so I just measured out 12 oz of orange soda and added it to my box cake powder, and mixed until it was combined. I decided to do cupcakes because they are easier to share… and I recently bought these cute little snowflake cupcake liners…

You can see the batter got a slight tint of orange. 🙂

For my frosting I used my regular buttercream recipe, but I substituted all of the milk and vanilla for orange soda. Most of the orange flavor in these came from the frosting. Yumm!

I added a little sugar to the top for a sparkle!

I had the hubby taste one for me so I could get a bitten-into picture.

The cupcake was sooo moist! Craziness I tell you, this soda non-sense. Can you image the possibilities?

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Tagged as buttercream, orange soda, soda cupcakes, sunkist

October 28, 2011 · 10:04 pm

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Halloween cupcake time! These were for kids attending a Christian school, so they couldn’t be anything scary… No jack-o-lanterns, bats, spiders, ghosts, etc. Instead we did just regular pumpkins, without the faces.

I used the same technique for these pumpkins as the paw prints from my Puppy Cupcakes. This time I wanted to add some sprinkles. (Kids love sprinkles!)

Outline the pumpkin…

Fill it all in…

Swish it all around with a toothpick to make it smooth…

Cover it in sprinkles, and shove a little topper in it…

These are the giant confetti sprinkles I used for the toppers. My husband broke them perfectly for me so that they would look like stems.

Aren’t they gorgeous? I got very excited about these 🙂

I found these awesome cupcake boxes at the baking store.

All packed up safely ready to go to school!

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Tagged as buttercream, candy melts, halloween, pumpkin, sprinkles

October 19, 2011 · 9:50 pm

Puppy Cupcakes

I got an email on a Monday wanting to confirm that I was still making puppy cookies for Wednesday. Uhhh I don’t remember ever being asked to make puppy cookies! I was slightly freaking out, not knowing how to respond… I politely said I couldn’t find any correspondence regarding puppy cookies.. and she realized she had forgotten to ask. 🙂 phew!

It was too late to try and make cookies, so I offered to do cupcakes instead. Puppy was the theme, and she asked for them in fall colors. Since I was crunched on time I couldn’t do anything fancy like with fondant or something.. this is what I came up with:

I melted dark chocolate candy melts and loaded it into a squeeze bottle. Squirted it onto wax paper into little circles, smooth it out and then let it harden (which I seem to have no pictures of… except in the corner of the one below!) This was easy peezy!

Then I colored my frosting half orange and half yellow, loaded it into the piping bag a blob at a time of each color. Then it came out all swirly! (It kind of just looks orange here but trust me on the swirly.) Lastly I peeled the circles off the wax paper, and placed them on top the cupcake.