Romy's Baking and Cake Decorating

  A birthday cake for our recent vacation! It seems unreal that Bubby is turning 22!  Last year we had a big party for his 21s birthday, but it feels like that was only 6 months ago. This year we elected to travel to Grandpa's area and spend the day with him.  So as to not have to cook, we'll eat at a Mexican restaurant and we'll sing happy birthday with a dessert from their menu.  The weather forecast is for hot and rainy weather. Not ideal for traveling over 2 hours with a frosted and decorated cake.  But we can't have Bubby not have a birthday cake!  I came up with the idea of having a "Birthday Eve" cake.   Bubby couldn't think of what flavor cake he wanted.  In the end I suggested an Oreo cake , and he liked that idea. Since I wanted to make a 6-inch cake, for just the three of us, I went with  this recipe  from Sugar and Sparrow. I've made it before, in two 8-inch pans.  It does have a sizable amount of batter for a cake ...

Vanilla Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Cake Recently I got to make a birthday cake for a young friend of ours who was turning 18. He is a film fanatic and especially likes gangster movies.  I knew I'd have to make a cake in honor of this! The flavor requested was a simple Vanilla Cake with Chocolate Buttercream .  The mom told me there would be up to 30 people at the party, so I knew it would have to be a 9" cake.  I have several vanilla cake recipes in various sizes I've made over the years, but I wanted to try a new recipe this time. I chose  this recipe  from Sugar & Sparrow, an online blog I've recently found. I tend to like her recipes a little bit better than my old go-to, Sally's Bake Blog.   The recipe makes two cake layers.  So I made two layers several days beforehand. Knowing I'd have a spare cake layer, I "cored" one of the cakes to try a small bite beforehand and was satisfied that it baked up well and tasted good.  I froze ...

  A special Graduation Cake Bubby graduated from High School! I still have to pinch myself to believe it, because it feels like I just dropped him off at preschool.  On that day so long ago, I was so nervous about how he would do that I couldn't go home and waited the entire three hours he was there at the nearest café in case they needed me to pick him up. A lifetime ago, when he was 3! The family was coming to a brunch at our house before the early evening ceremony and we prepared a nice spread including a corn chips with guacamole, a cheese array, pork tenderloin, local asparagus, couscous salad and plenty of beverages. I decorated the house to make it look festive for the graduate and he received lots of gifts of money, a watch, t-shirts and more. The grand finale of the afternoon needed to be a special cake. I decided to try  this recipe  from Preppy Kitchen because I wanted a hefty cake in 8-inch pans.  I liked how simple it was to put together! I didn't h...

My Birthday Cake 2024 My birthday was coming around again, yikes! While flipping through my recipe binder, I spotted a recipe for a buttercream I wanted to try: Pineapple Buttercream . That gave me the idea to make a Pineapple Cake . It would be something different, and it would give me a chance to decorate the cake like a pineapple, something I'd been wanting to try. Since I wanted to make a 6-inch cake, I looked for a recipe for pineapple cupcakes. I found  this one  in a website I'd never tried before, called "Baked by an Introvert".  Usually, a recipe for 12 cupcakes will yield two thick 6-inch cake layers that make for a cake tall enough to decorate.  The recipe I was wary when I saw that the recipe called for using crushed pineapple and its juice. I was worried this would yield a dense cake, but I followed the recipe as is. After 32 minutes the two cake layers were done. I was surprised to see how thin they were! It seemed like they barely rose in the oven at a...

Bubby is graduating high school this year! It feels like I just dropped him off at preschool 5 minutes ago, and it's hard to even remember everything that happened in between. He's participated in an afterschool social group for the last two years, and yesterday was their farewell event. When they asked parents to send in snacks, I knew a cake was in order.  And I had all the ingredients in the pantry to make a Vanilla Sheet Cake.  Something I've actually never made before! I used  this recipe  from Joy of Baking. I used a Pyrex 9x13 glass pan, which is great for transporting cakes because it has handles and a lid. More on that later... The cake was supposed to take 35 minutes in the  oven but thankfully I checked at 33 minutes and it was ready to come out. In fact, it looked a bit overbaked, and I hope it wasn't dry. I took the cake out of the pan, which I'd lined with parchment, to cool on a rack so I could frost it faster. In the meantime, I made a simple van...

Easter Cake 2024 I did a quick check with the family to see if they wanted carrot cake again for Easter, or coconut cake for something different.  Carrot cake won the day!   I decided to try a new recipe and went with  this one  from King Arthur Flour.  I specifically wanted to bake it in 8-inch rounds in order to have enough space for a fun decoration, but not too much space.  This recipe is for 9-inch rounds, so I was prepared to have leftover batter and make cupcakes.  But it only filled the pans halfway up, so I used up all the batter.  Since the change in pan size made me a bit nervous about dry edges and uncooked centers I baked them at 345 F.  At 35 minutes they were well underdone. I raised the oven temp to 350 and checked again in 5 minutes and they were still raw in the middle.  I gave them an additional 10 minutes, and then they were done.  And maybe even a bit over dry, though hardly noticeably. I needed 2 batches o...

St. Patrick's day shamrock cake All year I've been thinking about the Guinness cupcakes with Guinness buttercream from last year. One good thing about time flying, soon it was time to make  the recipe  from Sally's Baking Addiction's blog. I did want a change, though, so it was a perfect opportunity to use my shamrock cake pan. I purchased it over 10 years ago and had only used it once before!  Since it's silicone, this pan comes with a metal holder that it nestles into, and the holder has a handle on each side to help put the pan in and out of the oven. It's also a beautiful shade of Kelly green.   Shamrock cake pan Lately I've been wary of silicone, so I lined the bottom of the pan with parchment paper.  The recipe, which is for16 cupcakes, yielded just the right amount of batter to fit in the pan!  I placed the filled pan onto a bakers sheet to make it even easier to put into the oven. The only change I made to the recipe was leaving out the espress...

When a friend from my book club announced that she was having her second baby, the rest of us immediately started planning the baby shower. I knew I wanted to knit a gift for the new little one, as I've done for all the "book club babies".  I ended up knitting a vest with a whale motif  and that turned into the inspiration for the cake too! I decided to try an Oreo Cookie Cake because I've never done one before and I knew it would be a crowd pleaser.  I used  this recipe  from the Life Love and Sugar blog.  I made some changes to the recipe: taking out the Oreo fillings, using larger broken off pieces instead of crushed Oreos, and baking it for longer than 18-23 minutes.  My cakes were in the oven for about 27 minutes.  And actually, I didn't use Oreos, but instead went with Whole Foods' 365 brand chocolate sandwich cookies. They may not be a health food, but they do have better ingredients than Oreo brand. The cake layers were delicious but, dis...

Remembering a cake I made last June to donate through Icing Smiles. Icing Smiles is an organization that provides cakes to critically ill children. I had signed up a long time prior and was thrilled when an opportunity came up that fit my abilities. A long story ensued. There are two types of cakes one can make through Icing Smiles: a Dream Cake and a Fun Cake. A Dream Cake is usually more elaborate, two-tiered, etc. I accepted an opportunity for a Fun Cake since I'm not a professional baker nor am I that experienced. The child was a little boy named Abdiel who lives in nearby Holyoke and was turning 5 years old. The directives I received were for a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse-themed cake and that it needed to be for 40 people. I only got this information after accepting the request and it gave me pause. I'd never made a cake that big, and it was for more servings than a Fun Cake is supposed to have. But I didn't want to back out. And at least their requested flavor was simply v...