Okay, I’ll admit three weeks ago, I didn’t really know what the “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” was. Turns out it is ALL the RAGE with the preschool set. And since Eileen and I were in charge of making a birthday cake for a darling little girl’s second birthday, we had some research to do on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!

Eileen did ALL of the research, and found a really great cake design on flickr that we used as our inspiration. Our cake was a bit smaller than the model, so we ended up making some modifications that I think made it look just as great as the original!

Eileen started us off right by pre-making the cake using our all time favorite chocolate cake recipe and by making and coloring a bunch of our homemade fondant (based on this recipe), so when I arrived for decorating on Saturday, we were able to go straight to icing. We made our standard buttercream (1 pound butter + 4 cups powdered sugar + tablespoon vanilla) and I iced and trimmed our layers. You always ice a fondant cake first (don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be pretty) then apply the fondant.

Next up, fondant rolling. Fondant is like pie dough–you have to roll it out evenly, in a circle, and it CANNOT stick! Maybe I’ve just rolled a lot of pies in my day or I’m a little OCD (likely the latter), but for some reason I’m really good at rolling out fondant. So Eileen always nominates me for the job. You used cornstarch to keep the fondant from sticking, but you have to be careful to keep it on one side when you roll.

I’ve never mastered actually applying the fondant to the cake, so that’s Eileen’s job! You smooth it and pull it, trimming as you go to get that famous, smooth fondant look!

Once we had the cakes covered, we turned our attention to the individual fondant pieces that would form the Clubhouse. We used round objects in the kitchen (measuring cups, tupperware) to cut the base of the clubhouse and the mickey head, but we handcut all of the other pieces. It was a bit tedious, but worth it. Then we slowly applied the pieces to the cake, using a bit of water to attach each piece.

We added some characters bought from the Disney store, and we were really happy with the results!

And so was our birthday girl–who went up to the cake and asked “Is that the Clubhouse?” in her cute 2 year old voice!

Lots of happy clubhouse cake eaters!

So this past weekend was one sugar filled fest at the beach house.

Combining Easter (and all of those peeps, chocolate eggs, and bunnies) and a 75th birthday bash in honor of my dear grandfather is certainly a recipe for a sugar rush. Luckily I ran 9 miles on Saturday morning in preparation for my half marathon in three weeks (remember, you can help support the Greenbaum Cancer Center and enter my raffle for a $50 Amazon.com gift card here) before the sugar onslaught began, because later that day, I was one sugary mess.

Not really a mess because I ate too much sugar (I left that up to my little cousins, who at 10 and 7 tore into some Easter candy, hardcore) but more because I had volunteered to make my grandfather’s birthday cake, a towering whipped cream confection iced in 7 minute icing, that I then attempted to stick coconut flakes into.

Well friends, apparently coconut flakes are heavier than they look. Because not only were those little buggars hard to stick onto the sides of the cake, but then they successfully pulled the seven minute icing down the sides of the cake, even after I put the thing in the fridge. I tried to push the icing back up the sides right before I served, but yeah, it didn’t really work. But that didn’t seem to hurt the charm of the cake at all, since this was pretty much snarfed immediately. Sugar Rush!

Coconut Whipped Cream Cake
Adapted from All Cakes Considered (which is one of the funniest cookbooks I’ve ever read!)

This is a classic cake, and it’s still a crowd pleaser. Try different extracts in the cake and icing to spice it up!

For the cake:

3 cups sifted cake flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups heavy cream
4 eggs, beaten thick and lemon-colored
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the frosting:

2 egg whites
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons cold water
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract extract

Shaved coconut topping.

Directions:

For the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease two 9-inch-round cake pans or 3 8-inch pans or line them with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, sift the flour, salt and baking powder together. Set aside.

Using a hand-held or stand mixer on high speed, whip the cream until soft peaks form. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until light and foamy. Add the sugar, then the vanilla extract. Gently incorporate the flour mixture into the egg mixture. Place half of the batter into each of the prepared cake pans and bake 30 to 35 minutes (20-25 minutes for 8 inch pans) or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake has only loose crumbs attached. Transfer to a wire rack. After about 20 minutes, invert the cake layers on the rack to cool completely.

For the frosting: Place the egg white, sugar and water in the top of a double boiler or in a large bowl set over simmering water. With a hand-held mixer, beat on low speed for 7 minutes or until the mixture thickens and appears glossy. Add the coconut extract and beat to incorporate.

Assemble the cake, placing icing and coconut between each layer. Add coconut to the top and sides. Serve immediately (unless you want siding icing!) or store in the fridge until ready to serve.

It’s official. Today I enter the last year of my 20s. Where did the time go? It seems like just yesterday I was wishing to be 25. I wouldn’t give back any of the past ten years for anything because they’ve been pretty fantastic–I got married, bought a house, started to see the world, and made just about the best set of friends a girl could ask for! Oh and I found all of you through a new found joy of cooking and blogging!

In the spirit of capping off my 20s with a fantastic year, I’ve come up with a list of 30 things I want to do before I turn 30. Not that life ends at 30 or anything (I know it doesn’t!) but I want this to be one fabulous year, so let’s get this thing going!

30 before 30–in no particular order!

1. Run a marathon (this terrifies me!)
2. Run 3 more half marathons
3. Enjoy a spontaneous picnic with friends near the Eiffel Tower
4. See a new country
5. See a new continent
6. Visit wineries!
7. Eat at Cindy Wolfe’s Charleston
8. Eat at Woodberry Kitchen
9. Give Brian Voltaggio another chance
10. Make puff pastry from scratch
11. Build my biggest cake ever
12. Become a transatlantic Disney park-goer
13. Run in foreign countries
14. Keep my niece for a whole weekend and return her in one piece!
15. Enter a baking or recipe competition
16. Attend a blogger conference
17. Overcome my fear of ferry boats and take a ride to Cape May
18. More work on that fear of water…by at least sticking my toes in the water when I’m at the beach! And getting in pools when they’re available!
19. More canning. And branching out from fruits. I hear pickles are good
20. Attend a wine or beer themed meal
21. New PRs on all of the race distances I’ve already run–5K, 10K, Half Marathon
22. French Bread–from Scratch!
23. Stick with strength training. For real this time
24. Spend more time with family, and see my cousins. I miss them!
25. Make 2011 a beach summer
26. Take a day long bike ride on the Eastern Shore
27. Learn to shoot on something other than auto or aperture priority on my camera
28. Go on a trip with just Noel. I know this sounds crazy, but I’m a social animal, so we normally travel in packs!
29. This one’s for Noel–learn to truly love the cats. Especially Ariadne, aka the furry devil.
30. Keep pushing myself every single day. Because as one of my friends who I admire a great deal says “Everything you want is there, right outside your comfort zone.”

How fitting that on Valentine’s Day I’m wishing the love of my life a happy birthday!

That’s right, Noel had a birthday this weekend. And due to some miracle, I didn’t have to work (this is traditionally my busiest weekend of the year!) so we made a spontaneous last minute decision to head to the beach to relax and celebrate with the family!

Noel celebrated with some of his favorite things–late night HGTV watching–he loves that House Hunters International show–with beer, sleeping late, and then dinner and beer at Dogfish Head. As a special treat, I made him one of our favorite breakfasts–crusty bread french toast using this recipe. After watching HGTV til 4am, he woke up for breakfast, enjoyed it, then went right back to bed!

So happy birthday, to my partner in crime, Noel. I love you! And I owe you a cake next weekend!

Okay I’ll admit it–I’ve fallen a bit behind. I baked these cupcakes all the way back in August and I’m just now sharing them with you. You know how it goes–life, a vacation, and a ridiculously large wedding cake sometimes get in the way of a good thing.

But if that thing is good enough, you want to talk about it after the fact, so here I am. These cupcakes were ridiculous–like little pound cakes more than your standard yellow cupcake. They seriously just melted in your mouth. And any cake–cup or not–that can do that goes down as a winner in my book.

The other thing that makes these cupcakes worth remembering is that they were for a certain co-workers 30th birthday. She thought she was going to be all slick and get by with no one knowing about her birthday, but yeah, we’re more together than that! So she came in to find her cubicle strewn with streamers and big “30!” balloons all over her desk. Throw in the spread of fruit and the cupcakes, and I don’t think she was too bent up about turning 30 after all.

Vanilla Pound Cake Cupcakes
Adapted from King Arthur Flour

The bakers in the King Arthur Test Kitchen are officially my favorites. They’ve never failed me, and they’re stuff always rocks. Like this cake–who thought there could be such a different and delicious yellow cake out there? Especially one with an odd technique? Well here it is, thanks to my friends at KAF!

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar
3 1/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, soft
1 1/4 cups milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 large eggs

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line muffin tins with paper.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together the sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter and beat at low speed, until the mixture looks sandy. Combine the milk and vanilla and add. Mix at low speed for 30 seconds, then increase the speed to medium and beat for 30 seconds. Scrape the bottom and sides of the mixing bowl.

With the mixer running at low speed, add 1 egg. Increase the speed to medium and beat for 30 seconds. Continue adding the eggs, scraping after each addition, until all 4 are added. Scrape the bowl once more, then beat at medium-high speed for 30 more seconds.

Scoop by heaping 1/4-cupfuls into the prepared muffin tins. Bake 23 to 25 minutes.

I iced with my very fun 1M tip from Wilton–always a good way to make cupcakes look extra special!

My nephew Connor loves Jeeps. Really, he loves all kind of trucks (he’s an equal opportunity type of kid) but Jeeps have a special place in his heart. So when my sister-in-law Misty asked me to make Connor’s birthday cake, I knew I had to go for the Jeep!

I found the perfect Jeep cartoon in a clip art directory, but I was unsure how I could get the image on to the top of the cake, since I had a special request for chocolate cake with chocolate icing, and I had never done image transfer on chocolate before. But some careful thinking and throwback to elementary school art skills saved the day, and I want to share that technique with you!

Instead of tracing the design onto wax paper, then outlining that image in gel icing, I decided to trace the image into the icing of the cake using a toothpick, then slowly cut away pieces of the image to trace the details. This method worked well on large cartoony inanimate objects (like the Jeep) but I suspect it wouldn’t work quite as well on something more detailed (like a cartoon character).

The trick here was to cut tiny pieces away at a time. Trace, cut, trace, cut some more. Yes, it took some time and some scissor skills, but in the end, I think it was totally worth it!

After I finished the tracing, I outlined the tracing with black icing, then filled the Jeep in with a star tip. I really was so happy with that little truck. To finish off the cake, we left the icing on the sides messy (think mud) and crushed up some Famous Chocolate Wafers with icing to create cookie/dirt “rocks” that we used as a border. Who knew rocks could be so tasty?

Finally, we finished the whole thing off, with custom 3D cake toppers from Two Sugar Babies. Her stuff is really amazing, so if you need something custom in fondant, look her up!

In the end we ended up with one happy little boy, who only wanted to eat a piece of his Jeep. My mission was accomplished.

About a month ago, one of our oldest friends, Bill, called me up. As he usually is, Bill was direct. “How do I go about getting you to make a cake for Amelia’s [his youngest daughter's] birthday?” Me–”well usually we start with what she wants, and we go from there.” Bill–”okay, I’ll work on finding out what that is.”

If it seems like that was easy for Bill–well it was. But for a reason. Bill is a very special friend. He and Noel have known each other since well, forever ago (forever ago being when Noel sported a mullet). They started a theatre company together. Bill was the person who first really introduced me to Baltimore, back when I was still a scared college girl from waaaay out in the sticks. He introduced me to Noel. Got me my first job out of college. He and his oldest daughter were in our wedding. So yeah, we’ve got history. And history deserves cake.

And what a cake it was. Amelia’s final 5th birthday cake order was something only a 5 year old could dream up–chocolate cake (could it be blue cake? no, not unless it was red velvet, which the adults vetoed), with pink icing with blue swirled in. And strawberries on top. Because with a cake for a May birthday, why not add the pick of the season?

At first I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to do a swirled icing, but thanks to my failure to read the entire request email until after I had made a whole bowl of blue icing, only to then read the whole thing and discover the icing was supposed to be pink, and some ingenious late night thinking, I ended up with a new technique. Since I had a whole bowl of pink and and a bowl of blue, I would mix them. Put two scoops of pink in a bowl, followed by one scoop of blue. Scoop onto the icing spatula, being sure to get some of each color. As I spread the colors swirled–it was like magic before my eyes. As I added a little more pink here, a little more blue there, making the perfect colors! I felt like I was five again, coloring with my cray-pas oil pastels.

And once I got started I couldn’t stop. Why not pipe a fun border and some decorations? It’s a little girl’s birthday after all, and little girls need fancy!

In the end, all of the work was worth it. When we delivered the cake Amelia immediately declared it the “miracle, best birthday cake ever!” and wanted to dig into it right away. We convinced her to wait until the party–where all of the kids and the adults enjoyed the cake. And we had a winner!

One Bowl Chocolate Cake
Adapted from Martha Stewart

This may just be the perfect chocolate cake recipe. It’s moist, delicious, and totally chocolatey without being too rich. It almost reminded me of a brownie as I was taking it out of the pan, which certainly contributed to it’s crowd pleasing quality. And amazingly it didn’t crumb all over the place, not even in the crumb layer. Tastes good and a decorators dream? Thank you Martha! I forgive you for making me sift ALL of the dry ingredients!

Ingredients:

Makes 2 eight-inch square or 3 eight-inch round layers

Unsalted butter or cooking spray, for pans
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (I used 1 1/2 cups of skim milk with one tablespoon of white vinegar mixed in)
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter pans, and line bottoms with parchment; butter parchment. Or simply spray the pans with a cooking spray for baking.

Into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, sift cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. With the mixer on low, stir in eggs, 1 1/2 cups warm water, buttermilk, vegetable oil, and vanilla until smooth, about 3 minutes. The batter will be very thin, but bubbly at this point.

Divide batter among prepared pans. Bake, rotating once, until tester inserted in center comes out clean, 35 to 45 minutes for 8-inch layers, depending on amount of batter. If you’re only using one pan (I used one 10 inch round pan to make two 10 inch layers, make sure you measure out the batter and put equal amounts in the pans. This will help your layers to be even!)

Let cakes cool in pans on a wire rack for 20 minutes, then remove from pans and cool completely, right side up on rack. Ice with delicious buttercream. My current favorite recipe is three sticks of butter (3/4 pound), to one pound of powdered sugar. Add in the powdered sugar 1/4 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition. After all of the sugar is incorporated, add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla, then mix well. Add and coloring and ice away!

Then get ready for a little birthday magic!

I had been talking to my sister-in-law Misty about making a birthday cake for my youngest niece–Kendall’s–1st birthday since oh, the kid was about 9 months old. Misty casually mentioned the idea, and I’ll admit, I was crazy about it from the start. Because a first birthday party for a little girl is a great big old excuse to make a cake that is over the top cute. And I LOVE cute!

The cake planning was going GREAT until we hit an unexpected snag a month before the big event–Kendall had developed a bad milk allergy. So we needed a dairy free cake recipe. When Misty told me, I figured this was no big deal. Milk is a common enough thing to have issues with, so I figured there would be lots of recipes out there. Boy, was I wrong.

I went to site after site of trusted food recipes, and after none of my favorites yielded a recipe, I turned to the great cookbook in the ether–Google–to see what I could find. It seemed that no one had simply a dairy free yellow cake, that wasn’t also gluten-free, vegan, or from some scary boxed mix. Not that there is anything wrong with gluten-free or vegan recipes, they just weren’t what I was looking for.

So after a few days of frustrated searching, I decided to take a different route. Why not adapt a known recipe to be dairy free? I knew that Whole Foods sold a vegan butter substitute–Earth Balance. Now to see if I could find a buttermilk replacement. Here Google was a bit more helpful–after a quick search, I found that people had luck with mixing vinegar and soy milk to make soy buttermilk. Who would have known?

I did decide to do a test run–the unknown baking habits of soy buttermilk and vegan buttery spread scared me just a little too much to adapt the recipe cold for an event as important as a first birthday party! So a week before, I baked a half recipe, enough to make just a single 8 inch round of cake. I made up some rhubarb sauce as a topping. And I served it up to my batch of recipe tasters, The Usual Suspects.

The result? They. Loved. It. Yeah the texture was a little bit different than your standard yellow cake, but it still tasted great. And you know if five adult foodies love a cake, kids will go crazy!

With inspiration from some fun fondant and a spring themed party, Eileen and I put together a design for a butterfly cake with a little whimsy and a lot of buttercream! The stuff first birthday dreams are made of.

Delicious Dairy Free Yellow Birthday Cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

This cake, although dairy free, is the real deal. It’s a big, dense but moist yellow cake. When you make it, don’t be alarmed if the batter looks more curdled than what you’re used to. It happened both times I made this recipe, and had no effect on the final cake.

Ingredients:

4 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) vegan butter substitute, such as Earth Balance
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups full fat soy milk
2 tablespoons white vinegar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 13 by 9 pan, or two 8-inch round cake pans with non-stick spray for baking.

Combine two cups of soy milk and vinegar and set aside.

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. At low speed, beat in soy milk mixture until just combined (mixture will look curdled). Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing until each addition is just incorporated.

Spread batter evenly in cake pan, making sure to push the batter to the edges and into the corners, which will help to give you a more level cake. Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 50-55 minutes for a 13 by 9, or 35 to 40 minutes for rounds. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack, then cool completely, about 1 hour.

When cake is cool, ice with your favorite icing. We actually used a real buttercream (with butter) per Misty’s request. We just made sure Kendall didn’t have too much of it. But if you’re going dairy free, a crisco buttercream would work great here.

Feed the cake to the happy birthday baby! Who, by the way, ate every single crumb of her cake!

Something to add to the list of things you may not have known about Beth–I used to be quite the little athlete.

I played a little bit of everything–including one ill fated season of basketball–but my main sports were softball and soccer, both of which I played for over 10 years with the Freedom Optimist Leagues.

So when my mom asked if I would be willing to make a big cake for Softball’s 2010 Opening Day Celebration, I agreed. Because what’s better than giving back to the program that gave me so much? And I knew there would be lots and lot of adorable kids all geared up for another season of softball. And really who can say no these faces? Not me.

But since I’ve already shared the recipe I used for the cake with you, I decided to do a tutorial. A how to assemble a cake so ridiculously large you think no one will ever finish it, but it’s gone in 45 minutes, tutorial.

Yeah. Seriously.

*Don’t forget to enter the Reusable Grocery Bag Giveaway!*

How to Assemble a Really Big Cake
A Tutorial

Although it may seem simple to assemble a really big cake, it’s actually a bit more work than just plopping the two (or in this case, four) individual cakes together. If you want your cake to look good, you need to make sure the cakes are relatively level, and that your icing is uniform. The tips below should help you get good results, even if you’re not a cake pro!

Step 1: Try to get your cakes to come out of the oven as level as possible. There’s a reason I love my go to big cake recipe–those cakes bake level. Also, pick a cake that is firm, with a tight crumb, but won’t dry out. You don’t want something that is going to break in half when you go to move it, but you also want it to taste good! Again, the go to recipe is a winner in this category.

Step 2: Before you start icing and assembly, make more icing than you think you could ever possibly need. Icing is your glue, but it’s also your corrective tool. If your cake sags in the middle or is a bit uneven, you’re going to use icing to even it out. And this isn’t just a trick for amateurs–have you ever noticed how much icing is on a wedding cake?

Step 3: Make sure you have a large cake board at the ready to put your cake on. This cake is going to be heavy, so foam board or heavy duty cardboard is best. Put some icing on the board before you put the cake on, this will help keep the cake in place.

Step 4: See that picture above where the edge of the cake looks shaved off? That’s on purpose. After you put one layer on top of the other (with lots and lots of icing in between–the cake will soak some of it up!) and line them up as best you can, take a look at the cake from all angles. If something looks like it’s hanging out of line, or if it’s uneven, take a large serrated knife (like a bread knife) and trim the edges. This will help your cake look professional in the end.

Step 5: Crumb Coat! The biggest difference between professional and amateur cakes is the crumb coat, which is a thin coat of icing which will lock in the crumbs from the cake. This should be as thin as you can get it, then you need to let is set so it will hold the crumbs. If you’re using a shortening based icing the crust will form after a few minutes of the cake setting out in the air, but if you’re using a butter icing, put the cake in the fridge for a few minutes to encourage the icing to set.

Step 6: Ice it thick. Use lots and lots of icing to ice your cake, and use it even out places where the cake looks saggy or uneven. No one will notice that the cake underneath all that icing is uneven, they’ll be way too impressed with that flat expanse of a cake! Once you have the icing on and it’s relatively even, and crusted, use an icing towel or a regular old Viva brand paper towel to smooth out your icing. By gently rubbing the towel (I find a circular motion works best), you’ll be able to get that super smooth look.

Step 7: Decorate! This is the fun part, and (for me at least) the easy part! All of that smoothing stresses me out! We used an image transfer method for this cake, but you can really do whatever you want. My only tips are to use color and to keep a toothpick at the ready, because if you don’t like something, you can use that toothpick to scrape it right off!

Now enjoy! If you’re traveling with a big cake make sure you have a secure way to transport it–a cake carrier or a box is best. Because you would hate for all of that work to meet a tragic end!

And don’t forget to grab a piece before it’s gone!