Preschool Graduation Cake

Here's the finished graduation cake - ready for tomorrow! I used the cake topper and stars I made below as decoration along with some apples, graduation caps and letters and numbers. I made a yellow butter cake and filled it with raspberry jam and a fantastic white chocolate almond buttercream (recipe on CakeCentral.com).

Hope it's a big hit at the school tomorrow! But regardless, my little graduate loves it and that's what is most important.

My Little Fondant Graduate

Here is the next piece to the upcoming preschool graduation cake. I made a little fondant graduate. My son thinks it's him and is so excited about it. This was fairly easy to do since the body is really just one large rectangle of fondant that I shaped and cut arms into. Then I added little black shoes, a head and a graduation cap. All you need is water and some toothpicks to hold everything together. Now he's drying so he'll be ready for the top of the cake this weekend.

Cake Decorations That Stand Out

I have been experimenting with a new type of cake decoration and thought I'd share it with you. I simply took some yellow fondant and used a little star shaped cookie cutter to make yellow fondant stars. I then took some thin flower wire and threaded it into the base of the star. It helps if you dip the end of the wire in some water first as the fondant will stick better. Once dry, I will use them to decorate the preschool graduation cake I'm making this weekend. There are so many variations on this. You can use different shapes and colors or even letters to spell out a child's name. And you can keep the wires straight or curve them for different effects. Very easy to do and very cool looking!

From Cakes To Cookies

Switching gears for a little bit, I thought I'd share with you my favorite cookie recipe. It's for the most wonderful sugar cookies and is so easy to make and work with. All you need are some really fun cookie cutters and some royal icing to turn this simple recipe into delectable treats for the whole family.

Here's what you need:

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup softened butter
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract

Start by combining the flour and salt in a medium sized bowl. Then in a large bowl, beat the sugar and butter at medium speed until fluffy. Beat in the egg, vanilla and almond extract. Gradually add in the flour and salt mixture. Beat at low speed until well blended. Form the dough into two discs and wrap them in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or until firm. Then you simply roll out the dough and use your cookie cutters to make fun shapes. Bake 10 to 12 minutes at 350 degrees until the edges are very lightly browned. Cool on wire racks and then decorate!

Cake Ideas For Twins

Twins means twice the cake fun come birthday time! The Kung Fu Panda cake shown above was submitted during our recent kids' cakes contest and won an honorable mention award because of it's creativity and great likeness to the cartoon character. This particular cake was likely made using a buttercream transfer. There's a great article on eHow giving step-by-step instructions to make your own frozen buttercream transfer.

Other fun ways to celebrate twins with cakes would be to make two different characters like Dora and Diego or Elmo and Abby Cadabby. For boy twins, how about Batman and Spiderman? Or for girl twins, you could do any two of the Disney princesses. If you have a fun twin's cake to share, send it to me at info@cakesandkids.com and I'll feature it on the CakesAndKids.com website.

We Have A Winner!

Our first kids' cakes contest has come to an end and we were so excited by all the wonderful submissions we received. It was really a challenge to choose a winner but the cake above embodied all we were looking for in a fantastic kids' cake. This beautiful fairies cake, submitted by Monica of Mission Viejo CA, is imaginative, creative, technically superior and fits the kids' cakes theme perfectly. Congratulations Monica!

See our honorable mentions here. I'll be featuring many of the cakes we received on this blog over the next few weeks so check back often or, better yet, use the box to the right to become a subscriber.

And stay tuned for our next kids' cakes contest for your chance to win a $25 gift certificate to Michaels craft store!

Birthday Candles, Not Just For Blowing Out!

I love this kids' cake idea for beginners who don't want to deal with complex shapes just yet. Simply make a few long rectangular cakes and cover them in fondant or frosting. Then decorate them with brightly colored stripes, dots, stars or whatever else your imagination can conjure up.

Use cookie cutters to make the decorating part easier and plan your color scheme around the party theme. You could go with bright primary colors, pastels or neons.

Finish the cakes off by cutting out some flame shapes in yellow and orange fondant and attach them to lollipop sticks and then stick them in the tops of the cakes. Voila, you have some really fun birthday candle cakes!

Personalized Cakes And Kids Notecards

As I'm sure you know by now, I love anything personalized that I can create myself. So I figured I'd tell you all about the great personalized notecards I just ordered from Cardstore.com for Cakes And Kids.

I used their "make your own photo card" feature and simply uploaded an image file that I created myself with my site address, logo and tag line. I've ordered from Cardstore before and love the quality of their recycled paper so I'm excited to get these in the mail. I plan to use them to send out gift certificates to our Kids' Cakes Contest winners - the first of whom will be announced this coming Saturday 6/20.

So if you're in need of some notecards for either personal or business use then give Cardstore a try!

How To Bake Level Cakes

So here's my big secret to baking beautifully level cakes - Wilton's Bake Even Strips.

You simply damp these strips down and then wrap them around your cake pans. Then when you put your cakes in the oven you won't end up with the big dome shape you're expecting. This means there's less leveling involved once your cake comes out of the oven. It makes it easier to stack your layered cakes and provides a much smoother surface for decorating.

And, yes, they really do work! I own a set and use them all the time. And they're a great buy because you can re-use them time and time again. Try them out and let me know what you think.

Summer Fun - Beach Or Pool Party

With summer literally around the corner, Moms are starting to plan pool parties and beach parties for their kids. The party supplies above from Birthday in a Box are perfect for this type of party. Bright and colorful and packed full of fun!

For cool pool party favors, get some brightly colored beach buckets and shovels and fill them with things like inflatable beach balls, flip flops, fun sunglasses, water guns, pinwheels, swim goggles, bubbles and gummy fish (or goldfish crackers for a healthier alternative).

When it comes to the cake, probably one of the easiest solutions is to make a large round cake and decorate it like a beach ball using different colored stripes of either frosting or fondant. Or you could make a tall square cake and cut out the top like a castle's battlements. Cover the cake in frosting and then sprinkle with brown sugar to look like sand. Stick a flag in the top and you now have a really cool sand castle cake. Remember to have the water balloons ready for your kids' pool party!

Fondant Tips

Here are some of my favorite fondant tips if you're just starting to work with it:

• Make sure you knead the fondant well before trying to roll it out so that it's workable
• Sprinkle your surface with a little cornstarch to help prevent sticking
• Use a wide non-stick rolling pin
• I like to use a rolling mat like the one pictured above because it's marked with sizes so you know how wide you've rolled your fondant (there's nothing worse than rolling your fondant out and placing it on your frosted cake only to find it's not big enough to cover the cake)
• Roll your fondant to be about 1/8 to 1/6 inch thick
• If your fondant tears, use a little bit of shortening on your fingers to repair it (don't use water as it dissolves the sugar in the fondant and will only make it sticky)
• You can attached fondant decorations to a fondant covered cake using water or royal icing
• When not using your fondant, keep it wrapped in plastic wrap as it dries out quickly
• You can store wrapped fondant at room temperature for 1-2 months (do not refrigerate or freeze it and it gets way too hard to work with)
• Here's a great chart showing how much fondant you need to cover different size cakes

Hope these tips are helpful - wishing you lots of fondant fun!

Homemade Party Planning Ideas

I ran across a blog the other day and thought I would share it with you. With the economy the way it is I know that we're all trying to save a little money and kids' parties can be expensive. Aside from making your own homemade kids' cakes, there are some other great ways to plan parties that will save you money.

Party Planning Mom is a blog that provides some great, fun ways to cut costs when planning your kids' parties. From homemade crafts to creative food ideas, you can find some wonderful ideas in this blog. Check them out and let me know what you think!

Buzz Lightyear Kids Cake

This is an example of one of my early homemade kids' cakes. When I was starting out, I focused on making a fairly simple sheet cake and used interesting cake toppers to make the cake really shine. For this Buzz Lightyear cake, I made a rectangular cake and covered it in white fondant. I used some purple fondant stars (cut out with a cookie cutter) as decoration and then sprinkled the cake with purple, blue and black edible glitter.

The figures on the cake were small toys purchased from the Disney store that I attached using just a dab of quick drying royal icing. The moon was definitely the most unique and noticeable feature. I took a styrofoam ball and covered it in a thin later of frosting. Then I rolled out a large circle of white fondant and draped it over the styrofoam ball. I molded the fondant to the ball as much as possible and then cut off the excess at the bottom. Don't worry too much if the fondant creases at the bottom because it won't be visible once you place the moon on the cake. I used a small round bottle cap to make the indentations in the moon surface and then sprinkled it with white pearl dust so it sparkled. I used some long wooden toothpicks to attach the moon to the cake.

Another easy way to make a cool homemade kids' cake that looks advanced but really isn't!

Cakes And Kids Featured On PurpleTrail.com

Just recently, CakesAndKids.com (the companion website to this blog) was featured on Online Invitations & Party Ideas website PurpleTrail.com. The article focuses on saving money during these difficult economic times by making your own homemade kids' cakes. The author highlights some of my favorite cake tips that make a daunting task seem just that little bit easier.

PurpleTrail provides a great selection of online invitations as well as some cool party ideas. PC Magazine named them one of the Top 100 undiscovered sites of the year.

You can read the full Cakes And Kids article here.

Fondant For Beginners

One of my favorite books if you're just starting out with fondant is the "Celebrate With Fondant" book by Wilton. It covers the basics such as how to roll out your fondant and cover a cake making a lovely smooth surface. It shows you how to make fondant decorations, simple fondant figures and more. The book is packed with large colored pictures and step-by-step photos that make it super easy to follow and replicate. This really is a great starter instruction book for anyone that would love to try working with fondant but is feeling just a tad intimidated. Buy it now and happy decorating!

Princess Cakes - A Royal Affair

Are you looking to make a real statement with your princess cake? But still hoping for something that isn't going to take all day to make? Then consider this fantastic (and affordable at just $18) castle cake kit by Wilton.

This cake set allows you to make 2 simple round cakes that are stacked one on top of the other. You add some basic decoration to the cakes and then really bring it all together when you add the towers and turrets that are provided with the set. This cake kit allows you to make a really stunning princess cake with just some basic decorating skills.

Bolt Kids Cake Is Done

So here's the finished Bolt kids' cake ready for tomorrow. My son loves it so hopefully the rest of the 1st grade class will too. I made a 9x13 rectangular cake and frosted it with a decorator icing that I smoothed out, after it began crusting over, using one of my favorite cake tips.

I made the grass using green frosting and a Wilton #233 decorating tip. The lightening bolt, circles and message were made from fondant. And I already explained how I went about making Bolt in my prior post. Thanks for checking out my latest creation - happy baking!

Fondant Bolt Figure For Kids Cake

Just yesterday I volunteered to make a Bolt cake for my son's 1st grade class who is having a picnic on Monday followed by a showing of the Bolt movie. It's their second to last day of school and so I thought the cake would be a fun way to end the year.

I just finished Bolt himself (pictured above). He's made from fondant in 3 basic pieces: his head, his body and his tail. I decided it would be easier to make him sitting down than standing really just because of gravity more than anything else. So, I simply molded the white fondant into the shapes I needed and then added the extras as follows: two small, light pink fondant triangles inside the ears, a black nose, brown and black eyes and a brown collar with a small yellow disc for the dog tag. I used a sharp gumpaste modeling stick to create the indents on his paws, his hind legs and his mouth. For the final touch I used a little watered down black food coloring to put some shading around his legs and paws and used yellow and black edible pens to draw the lightning bolt on his side.

Tomorrow I will bake and frost the actual cake and add Bolt as my cake topper. So stay tuned for the final results tomorrow!

Personalized Kids' Party Invitations

If you're looking for a really personal touch while planning your kid's birthday party, then consider these great personalized party invitations that feature your child's very own name along with all the pertinent party details. You can find an invitation to match any theme and at just $0.99 they are not only loads of fun but also very affordable. Another big plus to these personalized party invitations - you don't have to hand write the same party details over and over again!

Balloon Cake - Up, Up And Away

With the new Pixar movie "Up" now in theaters, it won't be long before kids are asking for Up parties and birthday cakes. The good news is that a balloon cake is one of the easiest to make yourself. Here are a couple of great options:

1. You can make a plain sheet or round cake and then cut out some circles (or ovals) from colored fondant. Attach them to the cake and then draw or pipe on the balloon strings.


2. Make several round cakes and decorate them in different colors. Place them together on one large cake board and make some balloon strings from thinly rolled fondant. This idea would work well if you're having a large party.

And rest assured, as soon as Up party supplies become available, I will add an Up party theme page to my CakesAndKids.com site.