Home » Cake

Tag: Cake

A Robot Party!

My baby boy turned three years old this past weekend! Oh my gosh, I cannot believe he is already three!! Where has the time gone?!

Monte has recently become attached to the movie Robots. I actually had not heard of it until recently, but Monte wants to watch it ALL THE TIME. It’s okay though, because it’s a pretty cute movie. Travis and I decided we would have a themed robot party and he loved it!

We decided to have his party at the Grimes Community Center. We rented out a large room and rented the tumbling equipment to go along. It ended up working out perfectly! The kids really enjoyed burning off some energy.

I ordered special invitations from, of course, Etsy 🙂 Unfortunately, I do no have a picture of the invite, but you can take a look to see what they looked like and purchase yours from here!

I also ordered him a special t-shirt with a robot, his name and age on it. This has become a tradition. I usually order a t-shirt with his birthday theme, name and age every year. It’s something fun and something we can keep forever 🙂 I ordered his robot t-shirt from here.

We also got the idea to build robots as decorations from Pinterest. They were very easy to put together. We just wrapped old boxes with solid color wrapping paper, added googly eyes, glued pipe cleaners on the top for antenna’s, and used construction paper for the rest! They turned out really cute and Monte knew exactly what they were, “Robots!”

We had small snacks, cake and drinks. I found this fun idea on Etsy also! It was easy to print out the labels, fold them, and staple to snack baggies of chex mix. You can purchase these labels here.

I also offered a small craft … “Build a Bot”! I had foam shapes, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, pom-pom balls, popsicle sticks, and glue sticks sitting out. The kids were able to create their own robots. This was perfect for some of the bigger kids that attended and the little ones loved it also!

Of course, there was cake! We ordered our cake from Kissner Cakery and I highly recommend her! She did such a fantastic job and everyone loved the cake. Not just the appearance, but it was tasty also.

Overall, Monte had a great time celebrating his birthday. The robot theme came together very nicely and it was super easy! There are so many ideas out there!

What birthday themes have you done? 

 

Fall Festivities

This past weekend was a crazy weekend!

Travis and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary at Exile Brewery Co. in Des Moines. The food and beer were delish!

We celebrated my birthday! It was the perfect fall day (one of the reasons why I love fall so much).

The day started out with bloody mary’s with this fella (my dad).

A wonderful birthday cake baked and assembled by my hubby.

Then watching some Nebraska football!

Amelia was also baptized!

It was kind of neat that almost exactly 4 years ago we were getting married in the same church that our daughter was being baptized. Look how much our family has grown since October 2010?!?

Afterwards we celebrated! And what better way to celebrate then with food!

I thought this was the perfect theme! Very fall-ish AND easy to throw together after the baptism.

Cache Bake Shoppe made the baptism cake. We have fallen in love with this bakery, since they made Monte’s baptism cake. They have made several cakes for us since then and they did an awesome job once again! I highly recommend them!

Monday we crashed …

We had such an amazing weekend! We are so thankful to all our family and friends who came and celebrated ; and those who did not make it but sent gifts and their well wishes. Also, to everyone who cooked and helped put everything together. We are very blessed!

Pumpkin Caramel Frosting Cake

It’s Monday!! How was everyone’s weekend? I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing weekend and enjoyed the gorgeous temperatures.

I had a great weekend and definitely enjoyed lots of fallish things including: football, pumpkin beer, Crockpot Apple Butter Ribs (recipe coming soon!), apple cider, AND a homemade Pumpkin Caramel Cake …. which leads me to the story of my failed attempt of homemade caramel 🙁

Travis’s mom and dad’s birthdays were on Friday so everyone came over Saturday evening to celebrate. I decided to make a Pumpkin Caramel Cake I found on Pinterest. The actual recipe can be found here.

The first steps are to make the caramel cream cheese frosting.

FROSTING

  1. 1 cup sugar
  2. 1/2 cup water
  3. 1/2 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
  4. 1 1/2 sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
  5. 2 tablespoons heavy cream
  6. 1 pound cream cheese, cut into 2-inch cubes
  1. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, water, vanilla bean and seeds. Cook over high heat, stirring, until the sugar is dissolved. Using a wet pastry brush, wash down any crystals from the side of the pan. Cook over moderate heat without stirring until a medium-dark amber caramel forms, about 9 minutes. Remove from the heat and immediately stir in the butter and heavy cream. (Don’t worry if the butter separates.) Discard the vanilla bean.
Seems pretty easy right? I started with combining the first three ingredients.
This was also my first time using a vanilla bean. Before this weekend I had always thought a vanilla bean looked like well … a bean? Nope, it was long and looked almost like a twig. You can see the two halves floating around in the pot.
After the sugar dissolved, I turned down the heat to medium and waited for it to turn a “medium-dark amber color”. The recipe stated it would be about 9 minutes, but it was much longer then that when I began to notice the change in color. I would say 15 minutes?
It’s hard to tell by this picture, but this was my final product. I took the pot off the stove and added the butter and cream and discarded the vanilla bean.
2. Transfer the caramel to the large bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a whisk and beat at low speed until the caramel cools slightly and comes together, about 5 minutes. With the machine on, beat in the cream cheese, 1 cube at a time and beating well between additions, until silky. Transfer the frosting to a bowl and refrigerate until very firm, at least 6 hours.
The caramel looked great, but it definitely had a burnt after taste to it. I added the cream cheese hoping the taste would go away, but it didn’t. So I placed it in the fridge and continued onto baking the cake.

CAKE

  1. 2 cups all-purpose flour
  2. 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
  3. 1 teaspoon salt
  4. 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  5. 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  6. 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  7. 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  8. 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
  9. 1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
  10. 4 large eggs
  11. 3/4 cup vegetable oil
  12. One 15-ounce can pumpkin puree
  13. 1/2 cup whole milk

 

3.Preheat the oven to 350°. Butter and flour two 8-inch round cake pans. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour with the baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, nutmeg and cloves.

4. In a bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the brown sugar and eggs at medium-high speed until fluffy, 3 minutes. Beat in the oil, then beat in the pumpkin puree. Alternately add the dry ingredients and the milk in 3 batches, beating well between additions.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and smooth the tops. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Let the cakes cool on a rack for 20 minutes. Run a knife around the edges to loosen the cakes, then invert them onto a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Place one layer on a plate and spread with 1 cup of the caramel–cream cheese frosting. Top with the second layer and frost the top and side. Refrigerate the cake for 2 hours before serving.
The cake portion turned out great and I had no issues!
Saturday morning I ran out to the store and picked up another pound of cream cheese. I decided to just use a jar of caramel sauce I already had and mix in the cream cheese.
This frosting turned out a lot better and I felt more comfortable adding it to the cake!
I completely forgot to take a final picture of the cake 🙁 but it turned out great and everyone enjoyed it!
Check out the site where the original recipe was posted for an awesome picture of the finish product here!
Have you ever made homemade caramel before? What advice do you have for me so it doesn’t taste burnt?
 
Enhanced by Zemanta