Honey Cake

Cinnamon Swirl Honey Butter Cake, trimmed and ready for frosting

Last weekend we celebrated Ava's 4th birthday. For the longest time, she had said that she wanted a honey cake. Well, I knew where she got this from - it was a Winnie the Pooh book where Pooh had made a honey cake for Kanga's birthday. I thought that I remembered a recipe on the back of the book, but the day before her birthday I found out that there wasn't one.... oops!
     That sent me on a long adventure online, trying in earnest to find a suitable honey cake recipe. Despite two days of searching, I just couldn't find one of "birthday cake quality". So, I made one up myself. And it was so extremely delicious, tasted like honey butter, but not heavy like most baked goods that contain honey. It remained light and fluffy, moist and crumbly, and sooooo delicious!
     I frosted it with a Swiss meringue buttercream (far superior to traditional American buttercream, in my opinion), and decorated it with last minute fondant flowers and bees. I still need practice with writing with icing, but I think that the rest of the cake was absolutely perfect :)

Peony Flower Mini Cake

I really love this little mini cake. The pan I used for it has a filling indention for both layers, so it holds a good bit of filling (think molten chocolate cakes, caramel oozing out of an apple cake, you name it).It is the perfect size for two people to share (or one person and their dog), which is why I made it for my mother in law for her birthday. Well, that and the fact that I am determined to make really wonderful gumpaste flowers. I still don't have the foam mat things for flower forming, but who knows? My birthday is coming up.... LOL.

Anyway, this flower is not a real peony, nor is it even styled COMPLETELY after one, but I think it looks close enough to call it that. So, here ya go: a 4 inch butter cake, filled with strawberry lemon filling, and topped with a delicious home made lemon fondant, and pretty gumpaste "peony":

and here is the giant size, so you can see the details:

Wedding Cake in a Week: Part 2 (and 3, and maybe 4 ...)

MAN, this was just a craaazy week! However, as promised, here is that post with pictures of the cake.... Hopefully I will be posting more often as well, because I have 2 other cakes that I want to share with you, as well as some yummy foods. My kitchen has been busier than ever! HA! Now, on to cakes:

The second step to making the wedding cake was to bake the cakes. My mom came over to help, and we baked for hours and made fresh lemon filling. Then she had to go home and I was left to make a large vat of buttercream. Apparently, my Black & Decker mixer just couldn't handle the stress and the beaters started clanging together.... So, my darling husband went back to the store to exchange it for a new one (I had only had this mixer for a couple months). I was way too pooped to finish making the frosting, so I put the lid on it for the next day, when I was feeling much more refreshed. I was able to level the cakes, fill and frost them (just a skim coat), put them in the freezer, then take the rest of the day off. I only had a few more things to do to completely finish the cake, like make another vat of buttercream, make some last-minute-color-scheme-change flowers (blue flowers and added blue "ribbon" in the bow), roll out fondant ribbon, frost the cakes and decorate them. The wedding was Saturday evening, so I actually had a day off on Thursday, then got back to it on Friday night, when I made the blue changes. Saturday morning, I got up bright and early to a surprise visit from my favorite helper elf: My mom :) She helped make breakfast, get it out of the way, then get the cakes all ready to go. Here is a collage of some of the preparation: filling the cakes, then getting the buttercream perfectly smooth (not that it stayed that way, though...lol).

So then I decorated and stacked the top two tiers and the bottom two tiers, placing several dowels in each one to support the tier above it. My plan was to decorate the cake in its entirety and then transport it to the church. I soon came to my senses. That would be a heavy cake! So, as difficult as it was to stack the buttercream iced cakes (by the way, don't even ASK me to make you a buttercream iced tiered cake. I have vowed not to until I can figure out a much much better way to do it...LOL), I resolved to stack them AT the church, and finish decorating there. Problem was, because this was a last minute change, I had no plans on what to carry it in. So, this is how the top tier arrived at the church:

The bottom tier rode on a towel on the floor of the van, nestled between my leg and the van door (yes, I was on the floor with the cake to make sure that it didn't topple over). Here is a picture of how it looked when we were about to go. This was already a heavy cake, requiring myself and my darling husband to carry it. This is why you dowel your tiered cakes. if not, the bottom layer would be crushed under the weight of the rest of the cake. (Notice the dowels in the photo?)

After we got the cake safely to the church, I allowed my legs to "wake up" from the ride over, and took a few deep, non-panicked breaths, I stacked these guys. That was not the most fun in the world. I completely messed up the buttercream perfection on the 3rd tier :( and ended up having to re-smooth it at the church! UGH! However, I think it turned out great..... What do you think?