Sweet Escape Baking

Just A Girl…Who Loves to Bake

Posts Tagged birthdays

Happy Birthday to ME!

Jul 27

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Last year I wondered if it was normal to make yourself a birthday cake, and then I made two. This year I restrained myself and only made one.

The cake is marble and has chocolate fudge frosting. I used left over frosting from the baby shower cake I created the same weekend as my birthday, which I dyed to purple. I recently got a brand new cupcake cookie cutter that I finally found a use for. I used the same technique as the onesies on the shower cake, and rolled different colors of fondant into the white to create sprinkles, as well as the striped letter for the “Happy Birthday!”

For now, I think making your own birthday cake is okay, I’m hoping it doesn’t go farther than that in the future (i.e. my own wedding cake, or baby shower cake) ;)

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A Questionable Birthday

May 14

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Chocolate Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting

I really enjoyed making this cake for a few reasons. The first being the challenge of the interesting shape, a new favorite that I will definitely try again. I baked the cakes in square pans and used circle cookie cutters to cut out the edges. It gives the cake a unique shape and adds depth to a usual present themed cake.

The second reason was the challenge of creating question marks for the cake. At first, I was convinced my alphabet cutters included a question mark, but I was wrong, only a exclamation point. I was ready to throw in the towel until my wonderful boyfriend suggested using the “2″ cutter. I did just that, bending the final product slightly to create the question mark. We debated about the little arm and whether it was correct, but in the end I won out.

After putting the cake together, I was a little worried I had just made The Riddler a birthday cake, but was happy to see I was the only one who noticed the resemblance.

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Backyardigans 1st Birthday Cake

Apr 2

Posted by admin in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

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Last week was my sweetest, most adorable, most lovable nephew’s first birthday. Backyardigans is one of the only things that can get that sweet, adorable, and lovable boy to sit still for more than a few minutes, so a cake was requested. I used bakeries cake as my model and created away. While it was a very time consuming cake, I have never been happier to make a cake for any reason.

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Pablo is the little man’s favorite character, and therefore the most difficult one I had to make.backyardigans-4
Look at him holding up the dot that is falling off. Yes, I did that on purpose!backyardigans-5backyardigans-6backyardigans-7
A view from the top. I’m very proud of that bow, the nicest one I’ve been able to make. I’m definitely going to keep making small bows just like this!backyardigans-8
backyardigans-9backyardigans-10I used a white cake and dyed each of the three recipes blue, yellow, and green respectively. Then I used the same technique as the rainbow cake for M’s birthday cake. Finally, I filled the cake with the most delicious chocolate frosting. I am convinced every cake needs this frosting from now on.
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Foofa Cake

Jan 30

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This week I created a cake designed around the character Foofa from Yo Gabba Gabba. I created the character out of marshmallow treats and modeling chocolate.
I made the marshmallow treats and modeling chocolate from scratch. The modeling chocolate was not the right consistency and that caused some problems, including getting the character as smooth as possible and making the arms look normal. I will buy the chocolate recommended by Chris Rossum and his team from my class at the NY Cake Convention to see if it makes a difference.

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The cake is red velvet with cream cheese frosting. I covered it in white fondant and decorated with flowers and butterflies. Overall, I think it turned out great.

I’m looking into taking Wilton classes at my local Michael’s because I want to get the techniques a little more perfected, specifically getting my cakes to lay flat when I tier them.

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A Lucky 30th

Aug 12

Posted by alissa in Cakes, baking | 2 Comments

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The boy’s big brother had a milestone birthday last weekend and I had yet another chance to try my skills at cake making.
A set of dice was requested because of an upcoming trip to Atlantic City. I got to thinking, and was excited to make a cake that represented something fun and playful.

An exciting trip to the cake decorating store with Shirlene and Luka (I’m determined to make his first work “cake”) ended with already dyed red fondant and some really cool chocolate molds.
The next day I got to work with the assistance of Alicia, who was interested in seeing how a cake was put together after I made her this. We rolled, molded, cut, and generally just made a mess out of my kitchen.
Lately, I’ve been watching a lot of cake shows on TV (Cake BossandAmazing Wedding Cakes) and have noticed that after they crumb coat the cake they use a pastry bag, or ziploc in my case, to add an even layer of frosting around the edges. After trying this on the last two cakes I have made I have found that it makes covering the cakes easier and allows a bigger buffer zone between the fondant and the cake. Anyway, who doesn’t love extra icing.frosting
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I seemed to have a lot of trouble with the red fondant. At times it was too soft and I would stick my fingers through, other times it was too dry and it would crack. Does anyone have similar problems with pre-colored red fondant?

We finally managed to cover the cakes (one was a mess, but strategically placed chocolate playing cards helped) and decorate with molded chocolate.
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Overall it was a success. Especially the eating part of the cake. Chocolate Sheet cake from Cooks Illustrated and Cream Cheese Frosting with chocolate chips. I think that combination is my new go-to when making any cake.
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Lastly, I have to thank Alicia for the awesome photos! I’m going to have to invite her over more often so I can get more pictures of the process, however messy it might be.

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My First Cakes

May 26

Posted by admin in Cakes | No Comments

In the past few months I’ve had the opportunity to try my hands at making fondant covered cakes.

For Easter, I made an Easter Egg. On the inside was carrot cake with a cream cheese frosting molded into the shape of a half egg. I then cut various pastel colored fondants into shapes and patterns to resemble a decorated egg.

It’s a little lopsided…It was one of my first attempts to make such a complicated shape…Here it is from the side…


For a birthday, I decided to make a computer programmer and fellow Mac person, a cake version of the Mac Logo.


I attempted to make a grey colored cake, but without wasting too much of the white fondant I had to make the black fondant lighter, I got this darkish grey instead. I was very pleased with the shape (I printed out a 6 inch version of the logo and used a 6 inch pan to get the right size).

On March 23, a baby named Luka was born. I may be biased…but he is probably the cutest baby ever! I made this cake to celebrate that day!


This was actually my first official fondant covered cake. I used a large yellow ribbon along the edges and a smaller blue ribbon to balance the size. I used various pastel colored circles (cut with different sized cuters) to decorate the cake. At the time of decoration, we were not sure if a girl or boy would be greeting us so I made it as gender neutral as possible.

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