This weekend we celebrated my son’s third birthday! I cannot believe he is 3! But I digress…

I wanted to do something fun and different for his cake. He loves ice cream (and will do just about anything to get some – including listen to his mother!) so I knew it would be a win for him!

The cake is an 8″ round chocolate cake. I baked that as usual and let it cool. I then used an 8″ round springform pan for the top layer. I took out a tub of vanilla ice cream and a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream and let them sit on the counter for about 20 minutes to get nice and soft. Once it was soft, I dropped scoop-fulls of ice cream into the spring form pan so half was vanilla and half mint chocolate chip. That went into the freezer.

After about an hour, I took the springform pan of icre cream out of the freezer and went around the edges with a spatula before opening the pan. Voila! I had a round layer of ice cream! I immediately popped that on top of the chocolate cake and put the cake back in the freezer.

Here is a slice:

After it was good and solid again, I iced the cake in Cool Whip. I know I could make whipped cream icing but I was worried about it separating.

Lastly, I iced the cake after it was perfectly frozen. I used buttercream icing and fondant to decorate the top.

Some things I learned making an ice cream cake:

1. Let it sit out for a few minutes before trying to cut it. It was really solid!

2. Put it back in the freezer after you serve it. The left overs melted all over my counter!

3. Have fun! And it was worth the try!!!

Here are some springy / summery cupcakes I made that turned out super cute. They were for a baby shower and were modeled after the Mommy’s wedding cupcakes:

There are vanilla with chocolate icing and chocolate with vanilla icing.

I ran out of the chocolate icing with two left so they got some pink vanilla icing that looked so cute I wished I had done more like them!

Welcome, Spring. Please stay a few more weeks before ushering in the hot summer.

Yum! Yum!

This is the second time I’ve made this cake. Both times for a great friend of mine, Kathleen. She introduced me to the idea of a Swedish Princess Cake and it gets easier to make each time!

The Swedish Princess cake is a layered cake with many different parts. My husband laughed when he saw the prep time read: 6 hours to 1 month. It literally could take you that long if you wanted!

The cake starts with a thin layer of vanilla genoise cake topped with raspberry jam and a small bit of homemade whipped cream. Then you add a second thin layer of cake and a fat layer of homemade custard. Lastly, the third layer of cake is added and covered in a mound of whipped cream that extends around the sides as well. Traditionally, it is covered in a thin layer of marzipan but I had fondant on hand so I used that. You should really put a real rose on top but, again, for convenience, I made one from fondant.

I’d be happy to share the recipe if you are interested. I will warn you that it is about 5 or 6 pages long… Email me if you’re interested and let me know if you’ve tried a Princess cake before!

A few weeks ago, I made a cake for some old friends. Their son turned one and it’s hard to believe! I feel like he was just born!

The theme of the party was jungle! Here are some shots of Parker’s sweet jungle cake:

There was a vanilla with strawberry filling layer and a chocolate with vanilla cream filling. It looked like a tasty cake!

After icing the cake in blue and green sugar icing, I added some fondant animals and trees that I made with the help of my friend, Madalyn. The elephant was one of my favorites!

Cute little giraffe! Edible markers made the spots easy to put on! The grass is made with a grass piping tip (many holes) and I used a slightly lighter color of green so it stood out on the green background.

Snakes… Zebra… all fondant. No marker.

Happy Lion! More trees…

The back of the cake featured a baboon/monkey animal. I also added a bunch of snakes to the top and left room for the “1″ candle in the middle!

I loved the little snake peering over the birthday banner! Happy 1st, Parker!

Here are a few cakes I made recently:

This baby shower cake was fun to make. The sea animals were made with help from my friend, Madalyn. They are made from fondant and edible marker. It turned out super cute!

This is Riley’s second birthday cake. I love the bubbles with the words in it. It turned out better than I had hoped!

This last one isn’t as clean and perfect as most of my cakes. It was made for my Dad’s 60th birthday party and was finished just before the party started! The highlight of this cake is the postcards that are made from a square fondant piece and edible markers. It tasted delicious and that is all that really matters, right?

I hope you are finding time for fun hobbies this spring!