Cakes for a Cause

I had the opportunity to donate some cupcakes to a bake sale fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I baked 24 chocolate with raspberry filling and sweet frosting and 24 vanilla with strawberry and sweet frosting. I look forward to donating to their next event to help out their cause.

Corbin's First Birthday

My best friend's son's first birthday was a blast! With a smash cake for the birthday boy, cupcakes and a sheet cake.

The sheet cake was an 11x15" sheet, chocolate cake with strawberry jam filling, frosted with sweet frosting.
The smash cake was a 6" round, same cake, filling and frosting. The cupcakes were extra chocolate batter, no filling. The theme was dots, so I did a dot border around the cakes and sequin sprinkles on the cupcakes.

Mason's Piñata Cake

White Chocolate Cake
5 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
12 (1 ounce) squares white chocolate, chopped
1 cup hot water
2 cup ( 4 sticks) butter, softened
3 cups sugar
6 eggs
2 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt. In double boiler, melt together white chocolate and hot water. Cool to room temp. In mixer, cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Stir in flour mixture alternately with buttermilk. Mix in melted white chocolate. Pour into 11x15" sheet pan, bake for 45-60 minutes. 

Buttercream, m&m's and whipped cream frosting in between the layers.






















Whipped Cream Frosting
4 cups heavy whipping cream
8 tbsp powdered sugar 
2 tsp clear vanilla extract 

In mixing bowl, combine heavy whipping cream and sugar. Beat on medium high until stiff peaks form. Add vanilla, beat for 1 minute.

Buttercream Frosting
6 cups powdered sugar
4 sticks (2 cups) room temperature butter
4 tsp clear vanilla extract
4 tbsp heavy whipping cream
food coloring as needed.


Cream together butter and sugar. Beat for about 3 minutes until light and fluffy. Add vanilla, beat for 1 minute. Add heavy whipping cream, beat for 3 minutes, until fluffy.

Frozen buttercream transfers:

Use the mirror image when doing buttercream transfers.

Start with foreground, outline, then fill. Then cover the back with the color of the frosting on the cake, white in my case. Try to get the frosting level. Let freeze until hard (usually about 15-20 minutes) otherwise the buttercream will stick to the wax paper.

Position on cake. Pull wax paper away.

I piped on the tail and filled in any gaps. 

Flag border piping.

Pipe on bridle and reins, wording and bottom border. Voila! 

Shawn's birthday cake

Cake for a coworker. Cake mixes are Betty Crocker Devil's Food and French Vanilla. Alternate scoops of each batter into two 8" round pans, greased, floured and parchment paper cut to size. Use a long skewer and sweep through the batter (not too much) to create the marbling. Since one box is enough to fill two pans, I used the leftover batter for a 18 cupcakes of vanilla and devil's food to take to work to feed the masses. Buttercream is the new recipe I used for the Pumpkin cake and everyone agreed is much silkier than the buttercream I made before. I wanted so badly to use the rainbow sequins I bought.

Buttercream Frosting
12 cups powdered sugar
8 sticks (1 cup) room temp unsalted butter
4 tsp clear vanilla extract
8 tbsp heavy whipping cream
Divide as needed and add food coloring to desired shade.

I made the 1M technique swirls on the cupcakes and topped them and the cake with the rainbow sequins. No pictures of them though.

Baby Shower Spice Cake Cupcakes

The second treat featured at the baby shower were these Spice Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting, blue sugar crystals and cupcake picks. I used blank 4x6" index cards and created the circles and words in Microsoft Paint to make the cake picks. I printed them out in doubles, cut around each circle then glued them together with a toothpick in the middle.

I also created the signs for the treats and folded them in half. I did not get a chance to make fresh cinnamon buns-from-the-oven however, I was too exhausted from two days of baking and decorating to pull that off.

I used the 1M Wilton swirl technique with a 10" decorating bag and a star tip 195 (?). The cupcake stand is a cardboard, assemble yourself Wilton kit that I added some of the same It's a Boy! ribbon to with a hot glue gun.

I grouped the cake picks on each level of the cupcakes and voila!