I volunteered to make the cake for my friend’s son’s 2nd birthday. He wanted an elephant cake. I think it turned out really cute. Click on the images for a larger version.
Thanks for looking! Continue reading if you want the details on making an elephant cake.
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On Saturday we went to the Asian and Indian markets in Helsinki. I’m allergic to most fresh fruits, but cooked and canned are okay. I saw a can of lychees and decided to try it. It was good, but there was a lot in the can. I looked for recipes and found an entire website devoted to lychees! Leecheysonline.com has a lot of very interesting recipes. I found a recipe for Sticky Lychee Muffins but decided to try it as an upside-down cake. I only had half a cup of chopped lychees left so I halved the recipe. The ingredient list has 1/2 cup of packed brown sugar, but also calls for 12 teaspoons, separated, later in the recipe. The 12 teaspoons are not on the ingredient list.
Since I halved the recipe, I baked it in a loaf pan. The cake smelled delicious when it was cooking. The cinnamon was very fragrant.
Fresh from the oven. Looks and smells yummy.
From the side. Look at those luscious layers.
Lychee Upside-Down Cake
We would definitely make this again. Since I used the canned lychees, it’s something that would be easy to make at the last minute or when unexpected guests stop by. Thanks for looking.
I made a cake and a blanket for Nadia Laukkanen’s baby shower. First the cake! There wasn’t really a theme for the shower, but she is having a girl. I was looking for an idea and thought about some kind of princess cake. While looking at pictures and thinking about what I was going to give her as a gift, I thought of some Hello Kitty fabric I have. I searched for Hello Kitty cake pictures and found a great site with a template. DLTK has lots of great things and I’ve printed a lot of pages from the site in the past. The HK template is here. I made my favorite chocolate cake the night before the shower and let it sit all night. Tip: covering the bottom of the cake pan with some parchment cut to fit will keep the cake from sticking. Yes, I did that. The chocolate cake I make is very dense and was easy to cut. If you are using a cake mix or some other recipe that has a lot of crumb, you should freeze the cake before cutting it. Here is the template on top of the cake and I pulled the excess cake (Is there such a thing?) away as I cut it. I pulled gently to be sure that I had cut all the way through.
After cutting the head shape out, I transferred it to the decorative base. Isn’t it cute already?
I forgot to take a picture of this part, but it’s a very important step when dealing with a cake shape that has been cut out. Spread a very thin layer of frosting all over the cake to seal in the crumbs. It will keep you from spreading the crumbs into your decorations.
After the crumb coat, I spread a thicker layer of frosting over the cake. I used a 7-minute frosting recipe from Food Network. I wanted a WHITE frosting and my usual favorite is a little yellow. The decorations are cut out from foam.
For her gift, I made a no-sew fleece blanket. This was super easy and took about two hours. It’s just two pieces of fleece fabric knotted together.
I also made a little card but forgot to get a picture of that. Thanks for looking!
Here’s a cake I made for my valentines. It’s chocolate mint. Yum!
I made juice concentrate from the white and red currants that grow in our yard.
It’s some tastey stuff!
Yesterday was Cinco de Mayo, the 5th of May. You can find out more about elsewhere. To celebrate, we invited a friend over and I made layered (because I’m lazy) chicken enchiladas and guacamole. Since I’m a real blogger now, I took pictures of the entire process! 😀
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