Cakes — Page 17

Crayola Crayon Cake (Back to School) Collab with Socraftastic

September 2, 2014 by Jenn

It’s September 2, and we’re headed back to school! To celebrate, my friend Sarah from Socraftastic, and I decided to make a crayon collab! Over on Socraftastic, Sarah is going to show you how to make Crayon Lipstick! Here, I’m doing a Crayon Cake demonstration.

I got to meet Sarah a year ago when we were both chosen to participate in a creator program that YouTube was running at YouTube Space LA. She is one of the sweetest girls you’ll ever meet, and she is incredibly talented! I’m so lucky she let me join her in this Back To School video! Make sure you head over to her channel and subscriber to her.

The only “challenging” part of making this cake is getting the correct colours, and the piping of straight lines. I had to do a lot of straightening once we were done filming! I have to get better at piping on an angle that the camera demands. That’s a behind the scenes secret you’ve just been told!

To get the correct colours of the Crayola box, I had to go and get a box of crayons to be my subject. You’d think a kindergarten teacher would have crayons in all corners of her house, but not me! In my opinion, there is not a perfect science to matching colours. Along the way, you start to learn what colour makes what, but it’s mostly a lot of experimentation. To match the orangey yellow buttercream of the Crayola box, I used mostly yellow gel paste, and a few drops of orange gel paste until the colour was a match against the box. To make the dark green, I used regular green gel paste, and added drops of black until I had the dark colour. You could get away with making yours with a bit less black than I did though, as it looks really dark against the yellow contrast.

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Filed Under: Cakes, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: back to school, back to school cake, bts, crayola cake, crayola crayons, crayon, crayon cake

No Bake Nutella Oreo Cheesecake

August 21, 2014 by Jenn

When I taught you how to make your own Nutella in my previous post on the weekend, there was rumour of a hazelnut shortage. Well, now, four days later IT’S TRUE! Get to the store and hoard the hazelnuts as they’re predicting the cost of Nutella to rise dramatically due to flooding in Turkey, where 70% of the world’s hazelnuts are grown. I also learned recently that we have hazelnut farms here in British Columbia, so the next time that I make to the Coast, I’m going to have to go and check one out!

Now that I’ve added to the hazelnut panic, I’d like you to go and make some homemade Nutella, and use it to make this cheesecake. This is one of the most delicious, amazing, drool-worthy cheesecakes I have ever eaten, never-mind made. Being that the cheesecake is a no-bake recipe, the layers remain light and fluffy once they are set. I also tried a baked version of this recipe, and I felt that this one was far better. I definitely prefer a light cheesecake over a heavy, dense one.

I went with a traditional cheesecake crust for this and used graham crackers. I think that an Oreo crumb crust would be amazing as well, but I felt that the graham cracker crust made the Oreo cookies stand out more than they would have if the crust was all Oreo’s as well. This no-bake cheesecake is also amazing without the additions of the Oreo’s and the Nutella. I made them into cute Cheesecake in a Jar a couple of months ago, so if you prefer a plain cheesecake, you’ll definitely love the basic recipe.

Thank goodness Oreo’s aren’t threatened, or this cheesecake would be bound for the endangered species list.

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Filed Under: Cakes, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: cheesecake, No Bake, no bake cheesecake, no bake oreo cheesecake, Nutella, nutella cheesecake, nutella oreo cheesecake, Oreo, oreo cheesecake

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Cake- TMNT

August 13, 2014 by Jenn

TURTLE POWER! Having grown up in the 80’s with only a brother to be entertained by, I was “forced” to play with his Ninja Turtles, and “forced” to watch the TV show a time or two! I guess that was payback for making him play Barbies and My Little Pony!

When I heard there was a new 2014 movie coming out, I knew I had to make a cake- for remembrance sake! I can’t say I’ve kept up on the on goings of the Turtles since the 80’s and while making the video for this cake, I had to research which Turtle was which; Michelangelo is the orange mask, Donatello the blue, Raphael the red one, and Leonardo wears the purple mask. Don’t ask me which one has which weapon though! I obviously didn’t pay much attention to role play when we were with Splinter in sewer! I don’t think it’s a toy or series that really warrants much deep thought- why are turtles running around on two legs being ninja’s in the sewer?

I think this is a perfect cake and cake pop idea for those of our viewers that have been asking for it, as well as “boy” themed cakes ideas. For this cake I use TMNT cake pops to place into the top of the cake, and they provide a fun little extra for four special party goers! I hope all the children of the 80’s and the kids of today (a whole new generation that loves the Turtles), enjoy this cake idea!

Turtles in a half shell!

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Filed Under: Cake Pops, Cakes, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: 80's toys, cake pops, comic book, comic cake, movie, Ninja Turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Cake, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, TMNT, TMNT cake pops, TMNT movie, turtle power

Frozen Cake with Elsa

July 18, 2014 by Jenn

This is one of my most favourite videos that I have done; the reason for that being that I got to make it with my adorable niece, Elsa! We have been inundated with requests for a Frozen themed cake since the movie came out, but I HAD to wait for Elsa to come and make it with me. I couldn’t do it without her as it’s her favourite movie, and Disney clearly named their main character after her.

Elsa is three years old, and she stood on a tiny stool for over an hour while we put this cake together. She was patient, helpful and did an amazing job for any child, never-mind one that is only three! She loved clapping along with me to sync our mics, and when the time came to decorate, or follow instructions, she was right on and eager to do it! Being that my brother and his family live in Minnesota, I don’t get to see them often. I can sure tell that he and my sister-in-law have done an amazing job raising two lovely children. It was such an honor to be able to put this cake together.

To make this cake, you have to learn how to make candy. It’s really simple, despite the fact that you need to use boiling hot, liquid sugar!! Follow my previous post and video tutorial on how to do that here.

I can’t make a video of a Frozen cake without commenting on what a great movie Frozen is. Disney did a great job with appealing to the masses, and the ages. I’m not one to watch Disney, or cartoons much anymore, but with this movie, I loved it so much that I bought it. I loved everything about it, and sang along with each song. Call me crazy. I’ll let it go.

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Filed Under: Cakes Tagged With: birthday, birthday cake, cake, Elsa, Elsa cake, Frozen, Frozen birthday cake, Frozen cake, Frozen characters, Frozen dessert, hard candy, ice castle, ice chunks, mountain cake, tiered cake

Giant Ice Cream Sandwich Cookie Cake

July 11, 2014 by Jenn

I made homemade Vanilla Ice Cream a couple of days ago, and I had so much of it, that I knew I had to come up with something to make with it, in order to use it up. There’s only so much ice cream that you can give away!

A couple of weeks ago, I was at a local store (The Superstore) and on sale was a silicone pan shaped like a giant cookie! I didn’t know what I was going to use it for, but I knew I needed it. My storage room does not need it, but I did!

Fast forward a couple of weeks and ice cream plus cookie pan equals ice cream sandwich! I wanted a cake-like topping and bottom for the sandwich, and I’d been wanting to use a simple recipe, sometimes called a “wacky cake”. It doesn’t have any eggs, and uses ingredients that were easy to find back in the day. The baking soda and vinegar combine as the leavening agent and make a light fluffy cake which is the perfect pairing for the ice cream. As far as the cake pan goes, you definitely don’t need a new pan for this though, and you can bake the cake in a regular 8″ cake pan if you wish.

If you want to use homemade ice cream, follow our recipe here. But if you prefer, getting yourself a couple of liters of ice cream from the grocery store works as well.

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Filed Under: Cakes, Cookies Tagged With: chocolate, chocolate cake, cookie cake, giant cookie, giant ice cream cake, giant ice cream sandwich, giant sandwich cake, ice cream, ice cream cake, ice cream cookie cake, ice cream sandwich, vanilla ice cream

Transformers Cake- Using a Shaped Cake Pan

July 5, 2014 by Jenn

Learning how to use a shaped cake pan was how I learned to decorate cakes- so therefore, it’s how you should learn to! Hahaha!! Just kidding. Using a shaped cake pan is ONE of many ways you can learn to decorate, and since it’s the way that I’m familiar with, I chose to show you in this tutorial. When using a shaped cake pan, the lines and indentations are made for you, so the spatial piece that comes with design isn’t as tricky. There is still some amount of challenge as you have to figure out where each line is connected, but all in all, it is way easier than free-handing a complicated design.

When baking the cake batter in the cake pan, I will be honest and tell you that using a box mix is probably the better choice. For whatever chemical/preservative reason, the baked box mixes come out of the cake pan much easier than a cake from scratch does. I’d rather not think anymore about what that reason is!

There are many ways you can go about decorating a shaped cake, but I find it easiest to start with the outline, and then do the little areas that are other colours, or specific shapes etc, so once those are all done, you can quickly fill in the rest of the cake with the main colour(s).

There are a number of companies that sell shaped cake pans, but Wilton seems to lead the way in shaped Character pans. A simple Google or Amazon search will offer you hundreds of choices of characters! Garage sales or yard sales are also an excellent source of cake pans. Cake pans sometimes serve a one time birthday purpose, and then collect dust in the bottom of a cupboard. If you are lucky like me, you head to a garage sale from a former cake decorator and you hit the mother load of shaped cake pans! That is how I acquired the many shaped pans that I had, but when I stopped decorating cakes as a business, I sold them on an online site- which brings me to the point that online buy and sell sites are also great places to get cake pans. There’s no need to pay the full amount (usually $25-$50) when you can get it for $5 second hand.

As when exploring anything as a beginner, reaching perfection takes time. Don’t give up. Practice until you’ve got it perfectly decorated. And then you can thank me later. Haha!

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Filed Under: Cakes, Videos Tagged With: beginning cake decorating, cake, cake decorating, decorating, easy, easy cake decorating, Optimus Prime, Optimus Prime Cake, shaped cake pan, Transformers, Transformers cake, wilton, Wilton Cake Pan, Wilton shaped cake pan, WIlton Transformers

Canadian Flag Cake for Canada Day (Surprise Inside Cake)

June 22, 2014 by Jenn

“The flag is the symbol of the nation’s unity, for it, beyond any doubt, represents all the citizens of Canada without distinction of race, language, belief or opinion.” Honourable Maurice Bourget, Speaker of the Senate, 1965

In Canada we celebrate our Nation each July 1. Our Canadian flag is a very simple design . . . red panels on each side of the flag, in the middle white with a red maple leaf in the centre. I THOUGHT this would be an easy cake to make. I thought wrong. Very wrong.

After the success of our American Flag cake tutorial that we put out for the Forth of July last year (2013), I knew that this year, I HAD to make one for my country! When I started out, I thought it would be super simple, and I would find success the first time out. Not-so-much. 6 practice cakes later, I had finally nailed it, and it was ready to be filmed for YouTube stardom!

I wanted a very distinct maple leaf in the centre of the flag, and with that, I caused myself a problem. The maple leaf kept coming out of the second bake missing sections of the leaf, or looking like a red blob. I tried cutting the maple leaves out of regular cake, using cakepop mix, and I tried prebaked sugar cookies, until finally, when I had almost given up, I thought I would try freezing the section I needed for cutting the leaves out. Thankfully, it worked!

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Filed Under: Cakes, Holiday Baking, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: cake, Canada cake, canada day, Canadian cake, July 1, red and white cake, surprise inside, surprise inside cake

The Fault In Our Stars Pull Apart Cupcake Cake

June 20, 2014 by Jenn

I loved this book despite the fact I used up a box of tissues while reading it! If you haven’t heard of The Fault In Our Stars, you must get to the library/bookstore/iBooks now! It is a super easy read, and despite the heavy underlying storyline, it remains somewhat light and fun to read.

I heard rave reviews about the book on Amazon, but the aspect that made me want to read it the most was that it was written by a fellow YouTuber!! John Green and his brother run the channel VlogBrothers, where they are “raising nerdy to the power of awesome.” Obviously with the success of TFiOS (and his other novels) he is a New York Times Bestseller and an award winning author.

I received a TON of requests for TFiOS cake on my YouTube channel, and knowing that I couldn’t let my YT subscribers down, I had to come up with a way to make the story into a cake. At first I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make a book cake, but it just wasn’t interesting enough. I still plan to make a book cake tutorial, but it’s on the back burner.

Being that I was constructing a cake about a serious topic (cancer), I wanted to keep it light and hopeful– no sense of pulling the tissue box out when there is cake around! I’ve been wanting to make a pull apart cupcake cake for a while, and with the black and white clouds on the cover of the book, making the pull apart cake was the perfect match!

Filming the video was slightly awkward as I couldn’t pipe the words upside down, so you’re probably going to have to turn your computer around to see me working on the piping portion of the cake. When we build our new studio, I will have to make sure we have somewhere to place the camera over my shoulder! Sorry ’bout that!

I haven’t been to see the movie yet, and I’m not sure if I will. I am always disappointed when I go to see movies that have been made from books!!! Is that bad? Or do you feel the same way? Let me know I’m not alone!!! If you haven’t read the book yet, you can get it HERE

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Filed Under: Cakes, Cupcakes, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: blue cupcakes, cupcake, cupcake cake, John Green, pull apart, pull apart cupcake, pull apart cupcake cake, TFiOS, The Fault In Our Stars

Crayola Crayon Cake (Back to School) Collab with Socraftastic

No Bake Nutella Oreo Cheesecake

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Cake- TMNT

Frozen Cake with Elsa

Transformers Cake- Using a Shaped Cake Pan

Canadian Flag Cake for Canada Day (Surprise Inside Cake)

The Fault In Our Stars Pull Apart Cupcake Cake

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