simmiecakes

Guitar Cake

Sorry about the delay in posting. But now we’re currently buried under like a foot and half of snow and since there’s nowhere to go, might as well finally get off my lazy butt and write this up.

So. Guitar cake. It’s rockin’. For real. This cake plays music. In fact, it plays “Freebird”. Check it out.

I started by baking two 9×13 vanilla cakes. I found a profile of a Gibson Les Paul which I cut out to make a template for the body of the cake. Using that I traced out the right shape.

I had to use some of judgment to get the entire shape correct. I sort of guesstimated on the shape of the head and the length of the neck.

After I cut out the shape, I went about adding the electrical components that make the cake play music. Just like the boxing gloves cake, I used a musical greeting card for the music.

I wired up the musical insert of the card to a switch. This time the switch was embedded in the cake though, so I had to make a little box for it to sit in. I used a straw as a conduit for the wiring.

After I got all of the wiring hooked up, I put on a layer of vanilla buttercreme icing. Then I forgot to continue taking pictures through the rest of the decorating.

I used red fondant to cover the body of the cake and black fondant for the neck. The accents were all done using fondant pieces and the gold parts were painted with an edible gold glaze. I spent a long time trying to figure out how to do the strings, but I ended up using this silver, elastic, thread from the craft store.

The gigantic rocker switch is what makes the music play.

And that’s about it! Easy-peasy…

I can’t believe it took this long…

Ok Maryland, what the heck?? Actually, let’s extend this to the entire Baltimore-Washington Metro area. Yes, DC, Virginia, this is directed at you guys too.

I deal with the slow driving in the left hand lane. I deal with the lack of use of directionals (blinkers, tickers, turn signals, whatever). I deal with the incessant traffic because of the ridiculous beltways. I deal with tailgating, cutting me off, and being rear-ended twice within the first 4 months of living here.

But I can’t deal with this.

Why is your idea of treating the roads to not treat the roads and just let people who are not used to driving in the snow try to figure out how to drive on slippery, snowy roads?? This just leads to more traffic, accidents, traffic caused by said accidents, and road closures. And this isn’t the first time this has happened. All I wanted to do today was go out and enjoy a little snowboarding, but the incompetency of the mid-Atlantic states ruined my plans.

Ok, rant over.

In other news, I made a pretty sweet guitar cake this week. I’ll give you guys a peek soon.

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day…

And this is what happens when I have too much free time on the weekends. I’m not entirely sure how this came about, but apparently we decided we were going to have a hearty breakfast. As long as hearty means ginormous.

It started with some breakfast polenta…

Then we moved onto french toast…

And ended with fresh homemade biscuits and blackberry jam…

There may have been some bacon in there too…

And the best (worst) part is that we ate almost all of it. (Ok, I have like 9 biscuits left and we threw out a piece of french toast.)

Baby Shower Cookies

It’s been a very green and pink couple of weeks for me. First I made an adorably-whimsical birthday cake and followed that up with these little baby shower onesie cookies. I’m finally learning to plan ahead a bit so I can afford the time it takes to add many of the little details. I’d like you to please note the buttons. Yes, those are individual sugar crystals that I added with tweezers in place of the stitching. Those were added as the clock was rounding 12:30 AM (apparently my time management skills aren’t that great) and that’s when I stood there, in the middle of my kitchen, tweezers in hand, and thought to myself, “I think you have a problem. This is ridiculous” To which I responded by leaning over, tweezers in hand, and continued adding 8 sugar crystals to each cookie. I think they make them pop a bit more. Totally worth it.

The design of the cookies was based off of the invitations for the baby shower. It was definitely a bit of a challenge translating paper art to cookie art. You’ve got to tiny-ify everything. Challenging, but fun.

Ella’s 4th Birthday Cake

Did you have birthday parties as a child? Were they awesome?

I remember I had one birthday party at a craft store and we made these little figures whose bodies were jars that we filled with candy. My little figure had a straw hat, but by far, the best part of it was that it was filled with candy. Have I mentioned I have a bit of a sweet tooth?

But most of my birthday parties were backyard affairs. The Jackster and I would make a box cake, set up some croquet and badminton (ha, what a refined 8-year-old I was!), and always, always, always have a pinata. One time we didn’t have a chance to get a real pinata so my mom took a big green trash bag and filled it with candy. Good enough for me. I mean, it was filled with candy! (About that sweet tooth…)

Well, Ella had a birthday. She turned 4. I don’t actually know Ella, but I know her party was princess themed and that with a name like Ella, how could she not be as cute as can be?

I really liked making this cake. It’s red velvet cake with cream cheese icing. I’m definitely better at smoothing on fondant than I am smoothing on icing, but I really like the overall look of this cake. We all agreed the best way to describe this cake was…whimsical. I mean, just looking at it makes me smile.

Ella, I hope you had a terrific birthday! Enjoy being 4, I remember it being an excellent age!

Persimmon Coffee Cake

When I was little, The Jackster gave me this book called The Tiger and the Dried Persimmon. It’s a Korean folk tale about a tiger who wanted to eat an ox but got distracted by a crying baby. The baby’s mother gave him a piece of dried persimmon which made him stop crying. So, naturally the tiger thought that the dried persimmon was some amazing fearsome beast. Hilarity ensues.

But anyways…I was a big fan of the book and since then, persimmons have always been a real treat, right up there with Fruit Roll-ups (still love ‘em!) or carob covered rice cakes (no joke, the Jackster would buy me those when I was little and I thought they were just about the greatest things ever).

So imagine my excitement when I walked into the store the other day and there they were! By the case. Piles and piles of shiny, gleaming, orange persimmons just sitting there. Naturally I decided that I should grab as many of these delectable treats as I could. So I bought a case. Fourteen ripe persimmons for me to do as I pleased. Which then posed a slight problem. What was I supposed to do with fourteen persimmons? We ended up eating a few and then I took a bunch and made this delightful coffee cake. It’s light, slightly sweet, and the persimmon flavor really shines through.

Persimmon Coffee Cake

adapted from Jessica’s Dinner Party

• 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 5 Tbsp butter, softened
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup persimmon puree

Combine the flour, sugar, and 4 Tbsp of the butter in a large bowl until it forms a loose crumble.

Take 1/2 cup of that mixture and put it in a small bowl. Add the remaining tablespoon of butter and the nutmeg to the small bowl and stir and set aside. This is your topping.

In the large bowl, add the baking powder and the baking soda to the remaining crumble mixture. Then add the eggs and persimmon puree until fully combined. I used fuyu persimmons that were really really ripe. You basically just cut open the persimmon and scrape out the fruit. Mine were so soft that I didn’t have to do much more than gently mash them with a fork.

The batter becomes quite a lively orange color. Pour the batter into a well greased 9″x9″ pan.

Sprinkles the crumb topping evenly over the batter and bake in at 375º for 30-35 minutes.

Oliver the Octopus Cake

Meet Oliver. You can call him Ollie for short. Ollie is a Christmas octopus. Oh, haven’t heard of those before? I mean, he’s all dressed up and ready to go. He’s got his Santa hat and he’s even snazzed it up a bit with the bow tie. If Ollie had had more time to get ready, I think he might have slipped on some French cuffs and his fancy cuff links.

Ollie came to New Jersey with me for some Christmas celebration. He enjoyed a few appetizers, smelled the delicious aromas of casseroles, and watched over Christmas dinner. And he didn’t even have to pitch himself off the table in an attempt to calm the dinner conversation. All-in-all, I think he enjoyed himself…until we enjoyed him.

Sushi Cake

Sushi cake. Makes you think of Christmas, right?

Ok…there’s an explanation. Remember the Medoways? The Medoways of basketball and television cakes? For the past few years I’ve been going to Medoways for some Christmas celebration. The Medoways are one of those great Italian families. Great, like big family, lots of food, lots of fun. Being Italian, on Christmas Eve they have a fish feast. I think they are supposed to have 7 different fish, but I don’t think I’ve ever counted. I’m pretty sure I’m usually too busy stuffing my face.

As part of the fish theme, I usually bake some sort of fish baked good. One year it was a fish cake, last year it was fish cookies. This year, I broadened my horizons from fish shaped (not flavored, don’t worry!) baked good to a fish based food product. And while some yellowtail snapper is most likely delicious, it doesn’t make a very pretty baked good. But sushi. Sushi is pretty. So sushi it is.

Any suggestions for next year?

Manger Cake

Ok, I must admit when I first got asked to make a manger cake, I didn’t know what a manger was. In case you hadn’t figured out from all the Hanukkah posts…I’m Jewish.  So, this is what I thought a manger was:

Turns out that’s a manger scene. I was all set to make the sheep, the wise men, maybe a goat. Good thing I was set straight by the Hills and was told that the manger is just the trough the Baby Jesus is in.

My manger is a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream icing. A few quick swipes with the fork gave the icing a bark like exterior. The manger needed a little something extra so I added some wooden planks made out of chocolate. The hay was made from yellow fondant, rolled thin and cut into pieces with a pizza cutter. We made the hay the night before and let it dry out overnight to give it a more hay-like texture.

Each piece of our linguine-hay was meticulously put on the cake to give it that casual strewn-on look. Isn’t that the way it always works?

Merry Christmas!

There’s been a frenzy of baking in the land of Simmiecakes.

You know, some traditional Christmas baked goods.

Except not really.