How to Keep Cake Crumbs out of Your Icing

Having problems keeping your cake crumbs out of your icing? I always wondered how the pros did it. One day I stumbled on the "dirty ice" method by accident. Actually, I didn't even know it was called that until watching an episode of Cake Boss. Basically, in order to keep cake crumbs from showing through your icing, you need to ice the cake with a thin layer of icing to "catch" all the crumbs. 

Before putting on any icing, lightly brush any loose crumbs from the cake. Then take a small amount of your regular icing and thin it out a bit with a little extra water. Thin icing spreads easily. Thicker icing will drag across the surface of your cake and create more crumbs than necessary.

As demonstrated in this picture, you'll still see cake crumbs in the frosting, but this is only your first layer.

Next, let the "dirty" layer set. Depending on the humidity in your home, this may take an hour or two. The icing should "crust" a little so that the crumbs remain caught in it. Once it's set, you can smooth a second layer of icing on the cake.

See? Much smoother and you don't see all those chocolate cake crumbs. :)

If you want to see how this cake looked in the end, check out this post.

Muppet Baby Shower Cake for a Science Teacher

When I told one of my sisters-in-law my idea for this baby shower cake, she looked at me with a raised eyebrow as if I were crazy. 

However, cake baking is a lot like writing: you've got to know your audience. This would not have been the right baby shower cake for any of my sisters-in-law. However, this cake wasn't for them. It was for the male science teacher at my school. I'll admit I was a little worried about what his wife would think, but it turns out she's an elementary school teacher and enjoys the Muppets, too.

I got one of the best compliments ever on this cake. The day after the shower, the science teacher told me it reminded him of the cakes from Jarosch Bakery. If you're not familiar with this bakery, let's just say this is a high compliment indeed!

Muppet Baby Shower Cake

(Congratulations on your latest creation!)

To make this cake, I stacked two 9x13 chocolate cakes on top of one another and used a raspberry mouse filling (see basic recipe here).

Then I used the frozen buttercream transfer method for the design. Here's a quick recap.

First, find a picture of your chosen image. I find coloring books, greeting cards, and the internet very helpful.

Next, flip your picture over so that you're looking at the reverse side and trace over the pattern with a black marker. You'll want the reverse side because you'll be flipping it over onto your cake later.

Tape the picture onto a cookie sheet (or other flat surface). Tape a sheet of waxed paper over this. With black icing and a small decorating tip (#4 or #5 is fine), outline the entire picture.

Using colored icing and more small tips, fill in the outline until you've covered every bit of the image.

Fill a decorating bag with whatever color icing you will use for the background. In this case, I used white. Pipe a layer of this icing over the entire image.

Freeze for several hours or overnight. After you've baked, cooled, and iced your cake, take your decoration out of the freezer. Flip it onto the cake and carefully peel off the waxed paper.

I must have used some pretty strong colors on this cake because the icing left a nice ghostly image on the waxed paper after I pulled it off. Kind of cool, huh?

After you've moved your frozen buttercream transfer, you can add writing and borders to your cake. I also piped a series of small dots around the edge of the image to make it look a little like a picture frame.

My favorite part of this design is that it looks a little like Beaker is horrified at the idea of having a baby, and Bunsen is laughing over what the expecting couple has to look forward to. :) All in good fun, my friends, all in good Muppet fun.

The next day I received a lovely thank you card from the science teacher. He even used a card created by his very talented mother. Isn't this a lovely fall card she made?

A Sea of Oswald Cupcakes

A Dora birthday cake wasn't quite enough for one little girl, so she also got some cupcakes. My plan was to arrange the cupcakes in a circle and do one giant Oswald the Octopus face.

Alas, cupcakes are ornery little things when you want to put them into a circle. 

First of all, they end up more octagonal.

 Second, they don't want to stay put. I even tried several kinds of tape on the bottom of the cupcake liners, but nothing wanted to stick. I guess whatever they put on the cupcake liners to help keep the cake from sticking also keeps tape from sticking.

Instead, I made a bunch of individual Oswald faces. Hope they make you smile!

Another Dora Birthday Cake

What can I say? My friend's daughter really likes Dora, so this is her second Dora birthday cake in a row. To see last year's, check out this post. Since this year's cake needed to be a small 8-inch one, I decided just to do Dora's face and used a frozen buttercream transfer.

Dora Birthday Cake

 

Luckily, I still had my Dora face pattern from a previous cake. I taped this to a cookie sheet and then taped waxed paper over it.

Then I outlined her face using the dark chocolate icing I was used for her hair. After outlining it, I can began to fill in all the features until I had a solid decoration.

Next, I covered the entire pattern by piping white icing over everything. The cookie sheet went into the freezer to solidify over night.

The next morning, I baked and iced the cake. The Dora face was turned upside down onto the cake, and the wax paper was peeled off. I used a star tip for a swirly border on top and shells along the bottom.

Since Dora is about five shades of brown, I decided the cake needed a bit more color. So I used some purple icing to make little star flowers with yellow centers. I froze these for a bit and then pressed them into the side of the cake with a dab of icing as "glue."

Olympic Cupcakes

If you're looking to have some fun with your dessert while watching the Olympics, try this easy cupcake design.

Olympic Cupcakes

What you'll need:

icing in five colors (blue, black, red, yellow, and green)

star decorating tip like #14 or #16

cupcakes (your favorite recipe)

Fill decorating bags with of the five colors in the Olympic rings (blue, black, red, yellow, green). Pipe a circle of icing around the top edge of the cupcake.

Arrange cupcakes so that they are in the same order as the Olympic rings. You can do this as a whole group like I did in the photo to the right, or make an individual grouping of five cupcakes like I did in the first photo. I used mini cupcakes, but you could also do this with full size ones.

Minnie Mouse Birthday Cake

Last week, I had the rare opportunity to make a birthday cake for my two-year-old niece who lives in Atlanta. My brother had a work conference in Chicago, so the whole family came up to visit. My niece's actual birthday isn't until tomorrow, but we had to get in the celebration while we could!

Minnie Mouse Birthday Cake

The idea for the design came from the birthday card I had bought. Minnie sure looks cute here, and the design is relatively simple, which meant time for a frozen buttercream transfer!

I did a whole post on buttercream transfer here, but this is a quick run-down of the process for you. First, I traced the design from the birthday card onto some parchment paper. Then I flipped the parchment paper over so that I'd be working the reverse image. After making sure the outline was dark enough, I taped it to a cookie sheet and then taped a piece of waxed paper over the parchment paper.

Using black icing, I outlined the entire design. Then I filled in the spaces using the appropriate color icing. (I used the available piping tips that I had, like #3, 4, and 5.)

Once I had the design filled in, I covered the whole thing with a layer of white icing that I piped on top of the colors. Then I placed the cookie sheet into the freezer over night.

After I baked and iced the cake, I took the buttercream transfer out of the freezer and carefully flipped it onto the cake before peeling off the waxed paper. I finished the decoration by adding the writing and the border. Voila! The perfect birthday cake for a two-year-old.

Easter Cupcakes!

Happy Easter! This post will probably reach you too late to enjoy this year (unless, of course, you're Greek Orthodox and celebrating next weekend), but I thought I'd share anyway. You can always keep it in mind for next year. :)

Easter Cupcakes

There are actually two different designs here. The one requires coconut; the other requires a special decorating tip.

Method #1: Green Coconut Grass

In a small bowl, place the desired amount of coconut. Add a few drops of green food coloring and then toss like you're making a salad. Continue tossing until the green dye has spread as evenly as possible.

Ice your cupcake with white icing. Sprinkle some green coconut on top to be your "Easter grass." Then add a few jelly beans or chocolate candy eggs.


Method #2: Green Icing Grass

Tint your icing green. Fit a decorating bag with Wilton tip #233. (This tip has many tiny openings on top. It's good for making grass as well as hair.) Put your icing in the bag and hold your bag directly above your cupcake. Squeeze and pull up quickly. Release the bag after a short squeeze, and you'll have a little tuft of grass. Continue all over the top of the cupcake and then add your jelly bean or chocolate candy eggs.
If you want a fun way to display them, you can add some colorful plastic grass around the edges like I did in the photo above. Just don't let your guests eat the plastic grass. :)

Flower Cupcakes for a Baby Shower

Looking for a fun cupcake design that would work for a baby shower or bridal shower? Try making these flower cupcakes!

Flower Cupcakes for a Baby Shower

Materials:
Your favorite cake recipe
A full batch of icing
Decorating bags with tips and couplers
Wilton Sugar Pearls
Wilton Cupcake Cups

I found these baking cups in my local Joann's Fabric and Craft Store in the cake decorating aisle and realized they'd be perfect for an upcoming baby shower for a co-worker. Aren't they cute?
The directions on the package said to use three tablespoons of cake batter per cup. My small cookie scoop is one tablespoon, so I scooped three of them into each flower cup.

Then I used tip #32 to make a large rosette on top of each cupcake. In the center of each flower, I put five Wilton Sugar Pearls.

There was enough cake batter left that I was able to fill a six-inch round cake pan. Since I made both chocolate and yellow cupcakes, the little cake I made had a yellow layer on top of a chocolate layer with a raspberry filling in the middle.

My co-workers did a beautiful job arranging the cake and cupcakes on the table with the punch. Yummy!

Frozen Buttercream Transfer

This cake was my first attempt at doing a frozen buttercream transfer. Usually, this method is used to create a character image that is later transferred onto a cake. I was making a birthday cake for a friend, and I wanted it to have a three-dimensional "picture frame" feel to it. Since buttercream transfers are rather thick and naturally stand out from the cake, I decided to use this method for the frame part of my decoration.

I'll give a brief description of what I did, but the best explanation I found for how to do a frozen buttercream transfer is on the Wilton website.

Frozen Buttercream Transfer

Supplies:
Buttercream Icing (recipe here)
Waxed paper
Desired design outlined on paper
Cookie sheet or flat board
Decorating bags and tips

To start, you'll need your design outlined on a piece of paper. For this cake, I measured the width and length of the picture frame I wanted. If you're doing a character for your cake, you'll want the reverse image (just flip over what you've drawn and trace it).

Tape the waxed paper down over your drawing. I taped both the drawing and the waxed paper to a cookie sheet so that I could easily move it all to the freezer later.

Take a decorating bag filled with your outline color and trace your design. Since I simply wanted the picture frame to be brown, I outlined with chocolate buttercream icing.
Then fill in your design using a tip like #4 or #5. Be sure to really fill in every corner since you want your transfer to be solid. You can smooth it with a spatula.

Once you've completely filled in your design, fill another decorating bag with icing the same color as the background of your cake. My cake was going to have a white background, so I used white icing. Outline and fill the entire design with your background color.
Place your sheet in the freezer for at least ninety minutes or overnight.

After icing your cake, pull the transfer out of the freezer. Quickly, flip it onto your cake and peel of the waxed paper. Finish decorating your cake with borders, lettering, or whatever else you desire.

Holiday Cookies: Melting Snowman Oreo Balls

The inspiration for this cookie came from this Kraft website. Their recipe used Nutter Butter cookies, but I decided to try this with the Oreo balls recipe instead. The only problem was that the white chocolate did pick up some of the dark Oreo cookie crumbs, but they seemed to melt right into the white chocolate eventually.

Melting Snowman Oreo Balls

Ingredients:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 package Oreo cookies, finely crushed
16 oz. white chocolate
about 48 mini Oreos
colored icing for decorating
(I used the Wilton Icing Writers.)

Finely crush the Oreo cookies. (You can use a blender, food processor, or--my personal favorite for letting out aggression--a Ziploc bag and a rolling pin.)

Mix the crushed cookies with the cream cheese. Line a couple cookie sheets with waxed paper. Roll the cookie mixture into 1-inch balls on placed on waxed paper. (You should get 45-50 of them.) Freeze for at least ten minutes.

Melt the white chocolate. (Follow instructions on baking chocolate box or white chocolate chip bag.) Working with just one cookie sheet at a time, dip the cookie balls into the melted white chocolate. Before the chocolate hardens, top each one with a mini Oreo so that it looks like a top hat for your snowman. (The mini Oreos come in the Snak-Saks as pictured to the left.)

Next, decorate the snowman's face by giving him a nose, a smile, and two eyes. You can use colored icing that you made or store-bought decorating icing. I used the Wilton icing writers for this. They worked pretty well, although I had to knead the little tubes first or they came out too runny. (Maybe my icing writers are getting old?) Also, I wish they had an orange one for the nose.

The decorating works best if the cookie is still cold when it is dipped in the white chocolate. That way the chocolate begins to harden fairly quickly but not too quickly. You'll want to get the little Oreo hats on right away, and then add the face as soon as the chocolate gets a firm surface. A goopy chocolate snowman means facial features that melt right off!

Yields: about four dozen cookies

Chocolate Candy Cane Cake

I adapted this recipe from the Kraft website. The original version had candy canes in the cake itself. I was worried about the cake ending up crunchy. They also suggested using cool whip for the icing. I used buttercream icing with peppermint extract.

The cake was made to celebrate a special occasion at work, so I didn't add the crushed candy cane decorations until it was time to serve it. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so the only photo I have is one of the last piece that was left and I was able to take home. (Update: a co-worker has sent me a photo she took with her phone--I've added it to the end.)

Chocolate Candy Cane Cake

Ingredients for cake:
1 Devil's Food cake mix
1 instant chocolate pudding packet
8 oz. sour cream
4 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Ingredients for icing and decorating:
1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening (e.g. Crisco)
1/2 cup margarine
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
2 tablespoons water
4 cups powdered sugar
about eight small candy canes, crushed

To make the cake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray cake pans with cooking spray. In a mixer, beat the first six ingredients until thoroughly blended. Stir in the chocolate chips. Pour into prepared cake pans and bake for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool for 10 minutes before inverting onto wire racks.

Once cake has cooled completely, make the icing by beating together the vegetable shortening, margarine, vanilla, peppermint extract, and water. Gradually add powdered sugar and beat until smooth.

To decorate the cake, I first iced the bottom layer and sprinkled a few crushed candy canes on top. Then I placed the second layer on top and iced the entire cake. The final candy cane decorations were not added until just before serving because I didn't want them to bleed into the icing.

How to Stripe Your Icing

Ever wonder how bakeries get more than one color in their icing decorations? The trick is called "striping," and it's actually pretty easy to do. All you need are decorating bags, clean paintbrushes, icing, and gel icing colors.

These cupcakes were for a birthday party for two of my nephews. The theme of the party was Cars. I couldn't find any good Cars muffin cups or cupcake decorations, so I just used these generic car and truck muffin cups I found at JoAnn's and then striped the icing. The older boys said they looked cool. :)

How to Stripe Your Icing

What You'll Need:
1) decorating bag(s)
2) gel icing colors
3) icing
4) clean paintbrushes (ones that you've never actually used with paint!)

There are two ways you can do this. If you've got good quality gel icing colors, dip your paintbrush in the color you want to strip your icing. Run your paintbrush up the inside of your decorating bag. You can repeat this process on the opposite side of the bag with the same color or a different color. Then fill the bag with white icing. As you push the icing through the bag, the color you striped along the inside of the bag will transfer to your icing.

If you have the liquid kind of food coloring instead of gel colors, you can still create the same effect with a slightly different procedure. In small bowls, mix some icing with the color you want. Then use a small spatula or knife to spread some of the icing along the inside edge of the decorating bag. Repeat again on the opposite side. Fill the rest of the bag with white icing.

For the above cupcakes, I didn't have the right kind of gel icing color, so I used this last method with small amounts of blue and green icing.

Black Forest Gateau

When I saw this recipe in a cookbook, I had to look up the word "gateau." (French words and I just don't get along.) It turns out that "gateau" simply means "fancy cake." I guess that's fitting for this cake.

I love black forest cake, and someday I'll have to post my high school German teacher's super easy recipe for black forest cake. (It's truly a cake, and not a fancy "gateau.")

Here is my version of the Black Forest Gateau.

Black Forest Gateau

Ingredients:
5 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa
6 tablespoons butter, melted
15-ounce can of dark sweet cherries, pitted
2-1/2 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
4 tablespoons kirsch/cherry brandy (optional)
a few maraschino cherries with stems (optional)
chocolate sprinkles (optional)

Cut a piece of wax paper into 2 circles to match the bottom of two 8-inch cake pans. Place a wax paper circle on the bottom of each pan and then spray the pans with cooking spray.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a mixer bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar for 10 minutes. Mixture should become thick and pale. Sift together the flour and cocoa. Fold gently into egg and sugar mixture. Melt the butter and fold in gradually.

Pour batter into cake pans. Bake for 30 minutes. Cake should spring back when touched lightly. Cool for 5 minutes and then turn onto wire rack. Peel off wax paper.

While cake is cooling, drain and chop cherries. Whip cream until soft peaks form. Add powdered sugar and incorporate into whipped cream. Take two-thirds of the cream and mix with chopped cherries.

Split each cooled cake horizontally. (If desired, you can sprinkle each layer with a tablespoon of cherry brandy.) Place one layer on cake plate. Spread one-third of cherry whipped cream on top. Place another layer on top. Spread with cherry whipped cream. Repeat one more time and then place finally layer on top.

Use reserved whipped cream to frost cake.

To achieve the decorated version in my photo. Place some of the plain whipped cream in a decorating bag with a star tip and make rosettes along the top and stars along the bottom. Drop chocolate sprinkles inside circle of rosettes. Make three large rosettes in center of cake and place a maraschino cherry in each rosette. Sift powdered sugar over top for frosted look.

Yields: about 16 servings

How to Make a Dora Cake

Buying a character cake pan is always an option when your child wants their favorite cartoon character on their birthday cake. But what if you can't find that cake pan or you're worried that you'll spend $13 only to use the cake pan once because next year your child has a new favorite? This is when I use my old transfer technique!

Dora Birthday Cake

I found this photo of Dora online. Then I copied it into a Word document and made the picture big enough that it would cover most of a 9 x 13 pan. Then I used my transfer technique which you can find on this blog entry.

I did the best I could matching the colors and then added a couple buttercream flowers in the corners since I noticed Dora is often pictured with bright orange flowers around her. I used tip 2D to create the flowers on some waxed paper. Then I threw them in the freezer to harden for a few minutes. After I arranged them in the corners, I added a few silk leaves that I bought at the craft store.

Because there was little room to write "Happy Birthday," I decided to make it look like Dora was saying it. On a purple index card, I wrote the Happy Birthday message. I glued it to the back of another purple index card and taped a lollipop stick in between the two. Then I inserted the stick end into the cake so that the message would stand up.

Presto! A Dora birthday cake!