captain america cake with flag inside and haupia coconut filling

My oldest baby Matthew turned seven yesterday! This was the first year where he invited his own friends to his birthday party (as opposed to us inviting our friends and their kids!) So he invited three kids from school, and then my family and our neighbors also came to celebrate with him!

This year he wanted a Captain America cake, so Captain America cake he got! On the outside AND on the inside! I've always wanted to make a flag-inside cake for July 4th or something, like this one at 17 and Baking, but never had the chance ... until now!

For the inside of the cake, I made two batches of vanilla cake (recipe in my new book!), divided and colored them, and baked them in 8-inch round pans. One batch of vanilla cake will make two 8-inch cake layers, so I ended up with four cake layers. Since I only needed three (one red, one white, one blue), I wrapped the fourth layer really well in plastic wrap and froze it for later.

To fill the layers, I made a haupia coconut whipped cream filling, based on Matthew's love of coconut (he recently decided that chocolate haupia pie from Ted's Bakery in Hawaii was his favorite dessert ever!). To give my whipped cream a nice coconut flavor, I used Trader Joe's coconut cream, since it was thicker and more concentrated than regular coconut milk.

To assemble the cake, I cut both the white and red cakes in half horizontally. The first white layer went on the cake round, and then I filled it with the coconut whipped cream. Then the first red layer went on top, along with another layer of coconut whipped cream.

Next I took a 4-inch cookie cutter, and cut out the middle of my blue cake layer (this layer does not get cut in half horizontally). Then I also used the 4-inch cookie cutter to cut out my remaining white and red layers.

Then I placed the blue ring layer on top, with the 4-inch white cake layer on the inside of the ring, more coconut filling, and then the 4-inch red cake layer. This is what makes the flag inside!

For the outside of the cake, I whipped up a batch of cream cheese buttercream (recipe also in my new book!), and did a quick crumb coat on the top and sides of the cake. Then I used a toothpick to draw my Captain America design on the top of the cake.

 Finally, I used used the markings to fill in the design with piped stars - white for the star, blue for the circle around the stars, and then alternating rings of red and white.

Matthew loved the cake! And it went perfectly with his Captain America shirt! :)

Although, he didn't even notice the flag inside! He didn't even realize it until I asked him about it on the way home! I had to show him a picture to prove it, and even then he asked "how come there are no stars on the blue part of the flag?"... (sigh)

He also only took one bite of the cake before running off to play with his friends, so he didn't even notice the coconut filling!

But, before bed that night we asked him on a scale of 1 to 10, how much fun he had at his party. At first he said it was a 10. And then he changed his mind and said it was 100! Awww...

Happy Birthday, my Matthew! Thanks for being such an awesome kid! :)

*** Update: You can also see the Captain America cookies that I made to go along with the cake, here!

mother's day coconut cake with surprise inside heart, fresh whipped cream, and raspberries

Last year for Mother's Day, I made this flower suprise-inside cake. So when my friend Helen sent me a link to this super cute typography cake, I got the idea to do a cake with letters "MOM" inside the cake when Mother's Day rolled around this year. I was so excited, I even bought these mini alphabet fondant cutters!

The typography cake used "edible dough", but I didn't know what that was (and it doesn't sound very tasty either), so I decided to make the letters cut out from chocolate cake! So I baked up a homemade 8-inch chocolate cake, let it cool overnight in the fridge, and the next morning I set out to cut my letters out of cake!

Only, it didn't work. The cutters were so small, that I couldn't get the pieces of cake out in one piece! I suppose that's why the typography cake was made from "edible dough" in the first place - doh! I thought about using fondant instead, but who wants fondant baked into the middle of their cake?! So, I had to abandon my surprise-inside letters idea and settle for a simpler (and bigger) shape to cut out of chocolate cake. Hearts it would be!

Once I cut out a bunch of shapes, I made a batch of homemade vanilla cake. Except I've been toying with the idea of making a non-dairy white cake, so I decided to replace the butter with coconut oil, and I replaced the milk with coconut milk. It would be a coconut cake!

I poured a bit of the batter into the bottom of my prepared loaf pan ...

... and then placed my chocolate cake heart cutouts into the batter. (Note that I placed the hearts upside down, so that I could flip the cake upside down and have a flat bottom as the top of the cake, and then the hearts would be right side up. That sounded confusing, but I'm sure you know what I mean!).

The cake came out of the oven and looked rather flat. Darn. I suppose the problem could be either: a) I used coconut oil of butter, b) I used coconut milk instead of milk, or c) the fact that I've never baked my vanilla cake recipe in a loaf pan. (I'll have to experiment with this more!)

Once the cake cooled, I whipped up a batch of fresh whipped cream, and covered the top and the sides of the cake. (Note that if I were to make this a truly non-dairy coconut cake, I would use a meringue frosting instead of whipped cream.) I had just done this ruffled baby shower cake the weekend before, so I used the same piping technique on this cake. It didn't look quite as nice as the baby shower cake though, since my cake wasn't very tall it didn't have quite the same effect.

Before serving the cake the next day, I decorated the top with fresh raspberries. 

I just love the color combination of the cool creamy white with the bright fresh red of the raspberries!

I couldn't wait to cut the cake and show my mom the surprise-inside chocolate heart!

The cake wasn't quite coconut-y enough, but at least the heart came out quite cute, even though the words "MOM" inside the cake would have been way cuter. Guess I'll have to figure out a way and save that for next year. :)

Happy Mother's Day!

flower surprise inside cake with dried pineapple flower topper for mother's day

Since I didn't do any baking at all during our month in Hawaii, I decided to show you the cake that I made for Mother's Day back in May.  After seeing this post at Tide and Thyme on making dried pineapple flowers as cupcake toppers, I had decided that I wanted to try making some to decorate a cake instead!  I followed this tutorial at Annie's Eats, and ended up with these beautiful dried pineapple flowers!

For the cake, I wanted a simple vanilla cake, but with a twist - I wanted it to have a red velvet flower "surprise" inside the cake!  To do this, I baked up a red velvet cake and then let it firm up in the fridge.  Then I used a flower shaped cookie cutter to cut out my flower shapes.

Next I made a vanilla cake using this recipe at Sweetapolita, filled up the cake pans halfway with batter, and then dropped in the red velvet flowers before filling the cake pans with the rest of the batter! (I actually first saw this technique at A Cup of Sugar A Pinch of Salt)

After the cake layers were baked and cooled, I filled it with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, since I wanted something light and airy and not too sweet, and then frosted it with whipped cream as well.

Finally I added a piped beaded border on the bottom, and finished it off with a dried pineapple flower!

And the best part about the cake, the surprise inside!

Happy belated Mother's Day! :)

rainbow sprinkles birthday cake for grant

We celebrated my wonderful husband Grant's birthday this week, and of course I wanted to make him a special cake.  There were three things I wanted this cake to be: 1) light, 2) bright and happy, and 3) it would have a special surprise inside!  Like this:

It's a heart inside!  A chocolate mousse heart, to be exact.  I got the idea from I Am Baker's heart cake, except she filled her cake with a crumbled cake and frosting mixture (similar to what cake pops are made out of).  I used this recipe for the white cake, and the chocolate mousse recipe from my triple chocolate mousse cake.  And then to keep it light, I frosted the whole thing with freshly whipped cream.

For the decoration, I wanted it to be cheery and bright, so I chose to use rainbow sprinkles on the sides.  Also, I had wanted to incorporate rainbows because my husband is from Hawaii, the rainbow state!  But it actually didn't come out how I had envisioned - I wanted it to be so full of sprinkles that you couldn't see the frosting.  But since I had used whipped cream, it was too soft and not dense enough, and the sprinkles sank into the frosting when I smashed them into the sides.  So I got rainbow sprinkles that look like stubble :(

Then I outlined a simple rainbow heart on the top with rainbow chips, and added a birthday message piped in melted chocolate.

The cake came out light, and not too sweet, and had that classic white cake and white frosting "birthday cake" taste, with a little chocolate surprise!

Happy birthday, my love!