Baby Shower Cakes

These are the cakes I made for my Aunt and Uncle's Baby Shower.  The cake on the left is a Cherry filled Cherry Chip Cake (using the WASC recipe with Cherry Chip box mix) with Chocolate Cherry Ganache frosting and filing. The design is a communicator badge from Star Trek Deep Space Nine (DS9). 

The cake on the right is a 6-layer WASC cake with a Vanilla Cream Cheese icing and filling with fresh strawberries between each layer and covered with vanilla flavored Fondant. The design is a Hunny Pot in the theme of Winnie the Pooh.

The Chocolate Cherry Ganache Recipe

Ingredients:

2 C Heavy Whipping Cream

16 oz coarsely chopped dark chocolate

5 drops concentrated Cherry flavored extract

Steps:

1) Microwave the whipping cream a large microwave-safe bowl for 3 minutes (bowl should be twice the volume of the cream to avoid boiling over).

2) While whipping cream is in the microwave, coarsely chop chocolate and place in a large food processor or blender.

3) Pour the heated whipping cream over the chocolate and allow it to sit for 2 minutes. At the end of the 2 minutes, add in the concentrated extract then pulse or blend the mixture until there are no chunks of chocolate left.

4) Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature (about 2 hours). Pour over cake for a thin icing, or blend for about 5 minutes with a hand mixer for a thicker frosting. 

5) If the icing does not thicken enough to use as a frosting after 5 minutes of mixing, place in the fridge for about 20 minutes. When you take the bowl out of the fridge, mix for 2-3 minutes until the frosting is fluffy and spreadable.

Sugar Cookie Cake

This cake is a new experiment of mine. I saw a version of this on CakeCentral.com; however, reviews of the recipe listed weren't very favorable. So I created my own version mixing a bit of WASC with the Sugar Cookie Vanilla Cake recipe on  CC.  I replaced milk with sour cream, modified the amount of Baking Powder and Flour, and eliminated Cake Flour to make it more of a pantry-friendly recipe.  I make some small test cakes and a 10" round and the cake turned out amazing! Easy to carve, dense enough for stacking, but still moist and fluffy! I hope you enjoy! (Here are the cakes right out of the oven- notice how evenly it baked!)

Ingredients:

1 C room temp butter

2 tsp Vanilla

3 C Sugar

1/3 C Sour Cream

6 Lg Egg Whties (about a cup) 

3 2/3 C All purpose Flour

1 ¾ tsp Baking Powder

½ tsp Salt

*Pre-heat oven to 325

**Grease a pan with cake release

Recipe Steps:

Step 1: Cream together butter, vanilla, sugar and sour cream until smooth.

Step 2: Slowly mix in the egg whites (about 1/3 at a time)- keep the mixer on low for about 5 minutes as you mix in the egg whites. After 5 minutes, turn the mixer on medium for an additional 3 minutes- This step is CRUCIAL. Don’t under-beat or the cake might crumble after cooking.

Step 3: Mix together the remaining dry ingredients.

Step 4: Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients about  1 C at a time until entire mixture has combined.  Continue to mix for an additional 2 minutes until smooth.

Step 5: Bake at 325 F for approximately 25-30 minutes in a 10” round pan or 9x9 square pan.