It's Always Someone's Birthday

So my cousin is having her second baby in April and a few weeks ago we did a gender reveal party. If you are unfamiliar with this, basically the parents find out the gender of their baby by cutting into a cake that has been dyed either pink or blue. They had their sono tech tell me the sex of the baby, and I made the cake for them. So the question of the day was:

Is it a boy?

Or is it a girl?

The mom and dad each cut into a rattle at the same time, and…

It’s a BOY!! Congratulations to Kristy and Nick! And little Nico, who gets a little brother!

Just a few details on how I made the cake:

I dyed poundcake batter with blue gel coloring and baked it in my Wilton Sports pans. Then I torted and frosted both halves of the sphere and put them together. Next I added a crumb coat of frosting and covered the cake in either pink or blue fondant. To make the bottom of the rattle, I made a huge cake pop and used a candy stick instead of a lollipop stick. I covered the pop in either pink or blue sanding sugar. The pops were tricky since they were so large. I had to stand them up in beer steins while they dried.

A matching bow made the perfect final touch!

This cake was fairly easy. Really the only trouble I had was that I a blonde moment (or fake blonde in my case) and FORGOT to dye the first cake blue. Seriously. Didn’t even notice until it was halfway through baking. That cake got made into cake pops and brought into work. For the next 2 batches, I decided to leave myself a nice reminder:

As you can see, it worked (and thankfully no family dropped by while I was baking and accidentally found out the gender of the baby!).

I know, I know…everyone is SO over fall and ready for the holiday season. Out with pumpkin and in with peppermint and gingerbread! I made this cake around Halloween, and didn’t get to post about it until now. It’s been a busy few months.

To make the cake look like a caramel apple, I poured melted caramel over the frosted cake, and then added crushed candy to the bottom (in this case, it was candy corn-flavored m&ms). To make the caramel, melt a bag of caramels with 2 TBSP of water over medium heat on the stove top. Wait for the caramel to cool and thicken before pouring on the cake. Otherwise, the caramel will melt the frosting and  it will come out very thin. I learned this the hard way. After the cake is covered, wait 5 or so minutes  for the caramel to set and add the candy. Then add a wooden skewer and bow and you are all set.

The inside is a pumpkin cake, frosted with traditional buttercream frosting . To get the round shape, I used my Wilton Sports Ball Pan Set. I bought it for another project originally, but I find it comes in so handy anytime I need a perfectly spherical cake. This pan requires a heartier cake batter (as opposed to a delicate cake), otherwise the cake will fall. I was quite happy to find that this cake held up well in the pan.