Made By Melissa

Every time I have made a cake lately, I have stared at this recipe on the Softasilk cake flour box. It looks so beautiful and sounds like an excellent combination of flavors. I finally broke down and used it for my Wilton Course 2 final cake. The recipe can also be found at the Pillsbury website.

Since I only used 2 small oval pans for the cake, I had enough of the batter left over to make cupcakes! The raspberry cream frosting is really what makes this cake, I made half of the frosting since I only used it to fill the cake and frost the cupcakes. The frosting is very soft though, I needed to keep putting it back in the refrigerator while frosting my cupcakes.

Raspberrry-laced vanilla (cup)cakes

• Cake
• 3 cups Pillsbury Softasilk cake flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1-1/2 cups butter or margarine, softened
• 1-1/4 cups sugar
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1-1/2 teaspoons clear vanilla
• 4 eggs
• 1 (12 ounce) jar Smucker’s Seedless Red Raspberry Jam (I only used maybe 1/2 cup to fill the cupcakes)
• Frosting:
• 2 cups butter or margarine, at room temperature
• 7 1/2 cups powdered sugar, (2 pounds)
• 1 cup Smucker’s Red Raspberry Fruit Syrup (I could not find this, so I used this recipe to make my own)
• 1 teaspoon clear vanilla
• Fresh raspberries (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray three 9-inch round cake pans generously with no-stick spray with flour.

Mix cake flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda; set aside. Beat softened butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on high speed until fluffy. Beat in flour mixture, milk, vanilla and eggs on medium speed until blended, scraping bowl occasionally. Beat 2 minutes longer. Spread batter evenly into prepared pans.

Bake 19 to 23 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire rack. Cool completely.

Beat room temperature butter and vanilla in mixer bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Gradually add powdered sugar and syrup; blend until well combined. Place 1/2 cup frosting in a pastry bag fitted with a #4 tip for piping.

I used a traditional buttercream to complete my cake, but these are the directions to complete the raspberry-laced vanilla cake.Level cake layers as necessary. Cut each cake horizontally to make two layers by marking the side of cake with toothpicks and cutting with a long, thin serrated knife. Place 1 layer cut side up, on serving plate; spread with 1/3 of raspberry jam to within 1/4 inch of edge. Top with other half of layer, cut side down. Spread with raspberry cream frosting. Repeat with remaining layers. Frost the sides and top of cake. Pipe remaining frosting on top of cake in a lattice pattern. Refrigerate cake to set frosting. Allow cake to stand at room temperature 10 minutes before serving. Garnish with raspberries.

To make the cupcakes: Bake for 10-12 minutes. When cool, use the cone method to fill with raspberry jam. Frost with raspberry cream and top with a fresh raspberry.

Yay! I completed course 2! Originally I wasn’t sure if  was going to take this class. I didn’t really see myself making a lot of cakes with flowers, and I am kind of anxious to start the fondant class. But in the end I decided to give it a try, and I am really glad I did! I feel like I learned a lot about working with royal icing, and I love how all of flowers came out! I also learned a couple of new borders and other decorating techniques.

Tonight’s class was all about the final cake. I started off by learning a rope border, then how to make a basket-weave design. Then I took all of the flowers I had made throughout the course and piled them on to the cake, along with the colorflow birds.

Next up is Wilton Course 3, fondant and tiered cakes! I am really looking forward to working with fondant and continuing to build on what I have already learned.

I made this cake for my best friends Birthday! She wanted a chocolate cake with raspberry filling in any design I wanted to make. I chose the drop flower cake because I have been wanting to make it since I saw it in the Wilton Course 1 book. It is also a relatively easy cake to make, which is good because I was very busy that day, and looks very pretty! The recipe for the chocolate cake can be found here, and the raspberry filling here.

I made this High School Musical cake for K’s Birthday. She really wanted a a strawberry cake, so I decided to try this recipe from allrecipes.com. The cake came out ok, it was very dense though. I think next time I might try some of the reviewers suggestions of adding the egg yolks, then whipping the whites separately and folding them in at the end. I frosted the cake with buttercream frosting from my Wilton cake decorating class.

I had a hard time figuring out to decorate this cake. Finally I decided to see if the grocery store would let me buy the cake topper they use for their cakes, and sure enough they did! The cake topper also doubles as a CD holder, not bad for six bucks! Then I piped a red shell border around the top and bottom of the cake and free formed some musical notes around the side. I was pretty proud of how it came out! When I added the candles, I used a star tip to make small stars around the outside, then put a white candle in them. Unfortunately, in all the craziness of the party, I didn’t get a chance to take a picture of the inside of the cake.

Strawberry Cake from Scratch

• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 (3 ounce) package strawberry flavored gelatin
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 4 eggs (room temperature)
• 2 3/4 cups sifted cake flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup whole milk, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup strawberry puree made from frozen sweetened strawberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and dry strawberry gelatin until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, mixing well after each. Combine the flour and baking powder; stir into the batter alternately with the milk. Blend in vanilla and strawberry puree. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a small knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow cakes to cool in their pans over a wire rack for at least 10 minutes, before tapping out to cool completely.

Buttercream Icing (single recipe)

• 1 cup solid white vegetable shortening
• 1/2 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/4 teaspoon butter flavor
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 pound confectioners sugar (approx. 4 cups)
• 1 tablespoon Meringue powder
• pinch of salt

Cream together shortening, flavoring and water on low speed. Sift together dry ingredients and add to shortening mixture. Mix on medium-low speed until all ingredients have been thoroughly mixed together, scrape down sides of the bowl and mix an additional minute or so, until creamy.

Add 1 tablespoon of water to reach medium consistency- used for piping border.

Add additional 1 tablespoon of water to medium consistency to reach thin consistency- used for frosting the the cake and writing.

I take any opportunity I can lately to bake a cake. This past weekend at work was one of my co-workers last day, so of course I volunteered to make the cake. I have wanted to make the America’s Test Kitchen Fluffy Yellow Layer Cake since seeing it in the March issue of Cooks Illustrated. 

I have to tell you, I have been in a bit of a baking funk lately- it seems like everything I have made, I have screwed some part of it up. This recipe continued that trend for me, I thought my ingredients had sufficiently come to room temp., but upon combining them, everything turned into a gloppy, greasy mess. But I was determined to make this cake, so a load of dishes and trip to the store later, I tried again and this time it came out perfectly. 

To me, nothing goes better with yellow cake than chocolate frosting. I adapted the chocolate buttercream frosting from the one given to me in my Wilton cake decorating class to frost and fill the cake. I wish I had a picture of the inside of the cake, but I didn’t want to bring my camera to work.

This classic combination of yellow cake and chocolate frosting was very, very good.

Fluffy Yellow Layer Cake

• 2 1/2 cups cake flour , plus extra for dusting pans
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon table salt
• 1 3/4 cups sugar (12 1/4 ounces)
• 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter , melted and cooled slightly
• 1 cup buttermilk , room temperature
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 6 large egg yolks , room temperature
• 3 large egg whites , room temperature

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9-inch-wide by 2-inch-high round cake pans and line bottoms with parchment paper. Grease paper rounds, dust pans with flour, and knock out excess. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 1 1/2 cups sugar together in large bowl. In 4-cup liquid measuring cup or medium bowl, whisk together melted butter, buttermilk, oil, vanilla, and yolks.
In clean bowl of stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, beat egg whites at medium-high speed until foamy, about 30 seconds. With machine running, gradually add remaining 1/4 cup sugar; continue to beat until stiff peaks just form, 30 to 60 seconds (whites should hold peak but mixture should appear moist). Transfer to bowl and set aside.
Add flour mixture to now-empty mixing bowl fitted with whisk attachment. With mixer running at low speed, gradually pour in butter mixture and mix until almost incorporated (a few streaks of dry flour will remain), about 15 seconds. Stop mixer and scrape whisk and sides of bowl. Return mixer to medium-low speed and beat until smooth and fully incorporated, 10 to 15 seconds.
Using rubber spatula, stir 1/3 of whites into batter to lighten, then add remaining whites and gently fold into batter until no white streaks remain. Divide batter evenly between prepared cake pans. Lightly tap pans against counter 2 or 3 times to dislodge any large air bubbles.
Bake until cake layers begin to pull away from sides of pans and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 22 minutes. Cool cakes in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes. Loosen cakes from sides of pans with small knife, then invert onto greased wire rack and peel off parchment. Invert cakes again and cool completely on rack, about 1 1/2 hours.

Chocolate Buttercream

• 1 cup solid vegetable shortening ( I was out of regular, so I used butter flavored)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4-6 tablespoons of water, divided
• 1 pound confectioners sugar (approx. 4 cups)
• 1 tablespoon meringue powder
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder

Cream shortening, vanilla and 4 tablespoons of water on low speed until combined. Sift together confectioners sugar, meringue powder, salt and cocoa powder. Add dry ingredients to shortening mixture, mix on low, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Once ingredients have been thoroughly combined, add additional 1-2 tablespoons of water to create thin consistency icing to frost cake with.

This month’s Master Baker ingredient was Easter candy. Since I knew I would be working Easter Sunday, I wanted to make something that I could take to work. I also used this cake to practice some of my newly learned cake decorating skills. The Easter candy I used in this cake: Dove Milk Chocolate Eggs, Cadbury Mini Eggs (best Easter candy ever!) and marshmallow Peeps.

I have been wanting to try this Hershey’s chocolate cake recipe for a while, as it is always highly recommended. The cake was excellent, very moist and dense, but not fudgy. I was a little worried that it was not “chocolatey” enough when I tried the piece I trimmed off the top. But after sitting overnight, it seems like the chocolate flavor developed more.

The frosting on the other hand proved to be more of a challenge then I expected. Maybe it’s something about the Master Baker blog event that my intended recipe will not work out. Last month, I had planned on making an apple strudel, but that was a disaster, so I ended up making cinnamon biscotti. Well this time, the frosting I had planned on making was a complete flop. It turned to liquid and would not set. So, after some frantic google searching I settled on the recipe below from grouprecipes.com. I am so glad I did, it was a perfect match with the chocolate cake. I think it tasted a lot better then my original frosting as well. It was sweet, but not as sweet as a buttercream frosting and the texture was great for decorating with.

I love how this cake came out, and it was a hit with all of my co-workers. I am really proud of myself for taking this “vision” of the cake I had in my head and transforming it into a really cute cake! The colors are slightly different then they appear in the picture, they look better in person.

Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake

2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY’S Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans. I dropped about a cup of the Dove eggs into the pan. When the cake baked up, these settled on the bottom, but retained their shape providing an extra bit of chocolatey goodness!

Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. 10 to 12 servings. I wasn’t paying attention to the amount of cake batter this made and baked it in my 8-inch round, 3-inch deep cake pan. Let’s just say it overflowed *slightly* and filled my house with a lovely burnt chocolate smell.

VARIATIONS:
ONE-PAN CAKE: Grease and flour 13×9x2-inch baking pan. Heat oven to 350° F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.

THREE LAYER CAKE: Grease and flour three 8-inch round baking pans. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost.

BUNDT CAKE: Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes. Cool 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost.

CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.

Marshmallow Frosting

2 cups unsalted butter, softened
1 jar (1 lb) marshmallow fluff
1 pkg. ( 1 lb.) confectioners sugar (about 4 cups)
1 tsp. clear vanilla extract

 On medium-high , beat butter until fluffy, 2 minutes.

Add fluff, beat 30 seconds. Gradually beat in confectioners sugar and vanilla until combined. On medium-high, beat 1 minute.Fill and frost cake, using some of frosting to pipe decorative edge around top of cake.

How I decorated the cake: Fill the cake with the white icing. Set aside about 3/4 of a cup then tint the rest of the icing a pale green. I used a combination of Wilton gel coloring in Willow and Kelly greens. Frost the cake with the green, then transfer the remainder of the green in to a pastry bag. Using a number 21 star tip, pipe a green border around the bottom of the cake. Press Cadbury Mini-Eggs into every-other star. Set green icing aside. Tint the remaining icing lavender. I used Wilton gel coloring in violet. Transfer to a pastry bag with a coupler. Write your message on the top of the cake with a number 2 round tip. Change the tip to a number 18 star tip and pipe a border around the top edge. Using the green icing with the number 21 tip, pipe 2 mounds of frosting under where you want each Peep Bunny to go. Stick a toothpick about 1/2 way in to the Peep, then set on top of the mounds of frosting, pushing the other half of the toothpick into the cake.

Tonight I learned the Wilton rose (which we will never speak of again), the shell border, figure piping, drop flowers, and the cake was the “clown” cake.

The shell border is the most common cake border out there, it is the one you see on 99% of the cakes you would buy at the grocery store. It is a pretty easy border to make, and looks very pretty. Figure piping covered making little heads, teddy bears, hearts and fruit, as well as the clowns for the cake. The drop flowers are super cute little flowers that would be perfect for a spring cake.

I made a funfetti cake this time using the diet soda trick. My cake did not rise very much though, I am not sure if it was because I used the diet soda or something else. The cake was decorated with a star border on the top and bottom, multi-colored dots around the side and of course the clowns on top.

Clown Cake

Next class: The final class of course 1! Yay! The final cake revolves around the rose spray (ugghhh). It will incorporate leaves, vines, bows and floral accents. I will be spending my weekend practicing roses.

Supplies needed: There are no new supplies needed for this class, but I am going to pick up a couple more small spatulas.

This class built on the basics learned in the first class. I had to bring in an iced, 8-inch round cake which we then decorated and turned into a rainbow cake.

I have to say that the cake baked up beautifully. I baked the cake in an 8-inch round, 3-inch deep cake pan with the bake-even strips. I lowered the temp of the oven to 325 degrees and increased the baking time- I am not exactly sure how long, I started checking the cake at 1 hour and pulled it out when it looked done. After the cake cooled I used the cake leveler to level the top and make the layers.

The first actual challenge for me was frosting the cake. I used the cake icer tip to apply the icing and a flat spatula to spread and smooth the icing. This was much harder than I thought it would be. I had a hard time getting the icing to stick to the cake when it was coming out of the icer tip, then trying to smooth the icing with the spatula without it coming off the cake. This is the method my instructor recommended, but I am not sure it is the best way for me or maybe I just need more practice. If anyone has any tips, please feel free to leave a comment!

I brought my cake to class and learned how to decorate with the star tip, write with the round tip and how to do a piping gel pattern transfer. After a couple rounds on the practice board, I found the star tip and round tip fairly easy to use. The piping gel transfer technique is something that I think will definitely be helpful for future cakes.

Here is the end result:

Rainbow Cake

Next class: Flowers and figures, the Wilton rose, shell border and drop flowers. The cake is the clown cake.

Additional supplies needed: additional colors: black and orange, and the creepy clown heads. I also picked up another pack of couplers for a total of 10. I will need to bring an 8-inch round, frosted cake to class.

Why do you build me up (peanut) butter cup, baby?

This was my inspiration for the Eat to the Beat blog event. Elly, over at Elly Says Opa, created a this event, where you have to make a dish that somehow relates to food. I struggled with this for several days, before I heard this song on the radio. With it’s catchy lyrics and up-beat tune, Build me up Buttercup, but The Foundations, is one of my favorite oldies songs. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of this sooner.

I was aiming to re-create the chocolate peanut butter cup dessert that is served at Uno’s. Nate loves this dessert. It has a crumbly cookie bottom, creamy peanut butter center and smooth chocolate top. I could not find any similar recipes out there, so I set out to make my own.

This is a very rich dessert, perfect for sharing!

Peanut Butter Cup Dessert

• 1 cup crushed chocolate cookies (I used chocolate Teddy Grams)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 4 tablespoons melted butter, divided
• 1 1/2 cups peanut butter
• 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I think next time I may do 3/4 semi-sweet and 1/4 bitter-sweet)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine crushed cookie crumbs, sugar and 3 tablespoons melted butter. Divide and press into the bottom of 4 ramekins. Bake for 4-5 minutes in preheated oven, set aside to cool. (This step could probably be skipped, but I think baking the crust helps it hold together better)

Mix together peanut butter,  remaining tablespoon of butter and confectioners sugar, until smooth. Spread peanut butter mixture over cooled cookie crust.

Melt chocolate chips in a medium bowl over just barely simmering water, stirring occasionally. Pour chocolate over peanut butter mixture and spread into a smooth layer. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

To serve, dip ramekin into a bowl of warm water for a minute or so. Invert onto a plate, then onto serving plate. Serve with vanilla ice cream (I was out) and garnish with chocolate sauce.

I happened to be wandering around Whats Cooking? board last week when there was a post about this guy, Blake and he was giving away this stuff that he makes. Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche, to be more specific. Blake was doing a Dulce give-a-way that night, and I just happened to score a sample.

One taste and I knew I had to make something special with my little jar of peanut-caramely goodness. Hmmm, what to make…… cheesecake! So I adapted this recipe to make 2 small cheesecakes in ramekins, with a Dulce de Leche swirl. These little cheesecakes were fabulous! I heated the Dulce to make it easier to swirl, but as soon as I dropped it in to the batter, it hardened slightly, so my swirls aren’t as pretty as I would like. If I happened *winking at Blake* to come across a larger container of Dulce de Leche, I think it would work better in a large cheesecake. Honestly though, this stuff would be good on anything. Make sure you visit Blake’s website and sign up to be a Sooper Hero- then maybe you can have your very own little jar of PBDDL.

Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche Swirl Cheesecake

• 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon melted butter

• 1 (8oz) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 egg

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine first 3 ingredients to make graham cracker crust. Press into ramekins, bake for 4-5 minutes for crust to harden slightly. Remove from oven and let cool.

Put a pot of water on to simmer for the water bath. Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Slowly beat in sugar and vanilla. Beat in egg,  just until well blended. Pour filling into the prepared crust.  Heat the PBDDL in the microwave for about 5 seconds. Put little dollops of PBDDL all over the cheesecake, then swirl in with a toothpick. I used all of my little jar of Dulce for my 2 ramekins.

Set the ramekins in a pan. Put the pan with the cheesecake on the oven rack then slowly add boiling water to the larger pan to a depth of about 2 inches. Bake the cheesecakes for 25-30 minutes, until the middle is almost completely set. Remove from oven and let sit in the water bath for another 15 minutes to cool. Remove from water bath and cool on a rack for 45 minutes - 1 hour, then transfer to the refrigerator for another 2-3 hours.

When ready to serve, run a knife around the edge of the cheesecakes to loosen, invert onto a plate, then onto  the plate you want to serve them on. Garnish with peanuts.