Mason's Mustache Bash!

I was fortunate enough to have been given the opportunity to make a two-tiered cake and a smash cake for a sweet little boy's first birthday party today.  The theme was "mommy's little man," complete with mustaches, bowties, and suspenders. 

Mason's mamma gave me a couple of inspiration photos, the invitation, and the colors: navy blue, lime green, and light blue.  She wanted chevron on the bowtie of the party cake and on the sides of the smash cake.

The insides of the cake matched the theme as well.  The top tier was a blue velvet and the bottom tier was a traditional "white cake"... but green!

The smash cake was a-whole-nother animal in itself.  Chevron is a notoriously difficult pattern for cakes.  It's hard to get the clean, crisp lines, and one mistake can ruin the whole thing.  Which is why it is traditionally done in fondant.  But, the whole point of a smash cake is to make a mess.  You can't make a mess with fondant!  So I spent all this time researching how to achieve a crisp chevron...with buttercream...on the sides of a round cake.  There were no answers.  And then, it just hit me... I could just use the petal method and offset the colors.  It was so beautifully simple, and the result was incredible.

 

 and of course, mommy's little man needed his own little buttercream mustache so he could really make a mess of things!

The cakes-- and the party-- were a success!

Give thanks.

Thanksgiving week was a busy one here.  Naturally, I make all the sweets for the table.  There was, of course, the traditional pumpkin pie.  It's also tradition to have buckeyes at the table being that the Ohio State vs. Michigan game now always falls on Thanksgiving weekend.  Finally, I decided to make a hybrid red velvet cake and cheesecake.  Bellies were full.

Of course wanting to bake a pie from as scratch as possible, I assumed I would be roasting a whole pumpkin and pureeing the flesh.  When I took to Google to get the logistics down, I stumbled across this Forbes article explaining why canned pumpkin is better for pies.  As it turns out, the pumpkin Libby's grows and cans is really more of a squash and resembles the butternut squash more so than it does the pumpkin.  In fact, the article concludes with some tips if you're really dead set on baking a farm to table pumpkin pie.  The last tip is to simply use a butternut squash; none would be the wiser.  Now, I LOVE me some butternut squash.  I will grill it up in steak-like strips and eat that for dinner on its own.  My husband enjoys my butternut squash ravioli, but you wouldn't catch him noshing on a strip of squash.  As he was the one insistent on a whole pumpkin pie, I caved and used the canned stuff.  I felt like I was cheating.  The only thing I could do to balance things out was to make the crust from scratch, which is also alarmingly simple.  I didn't get a good picture of the pumpkin pie, but let's face it... without a decorative crust (which mine was lacking), if you've seen one pumpkin pie, you've seen 'em all.

Ditto for the buckeyes.  Although I use a combination of peanut butter, cashew butter, and almond butter and dip them in dark chocolate, they look just the same as the traditional bunch.

But now, we move on to the show stealer... the cheesecake stuffed red velvet cake.



As you can see, I jazzed it up with a little ombre frosting.  So here's the nitty gritty on this cake.  It's only a 6 inch cake, but also came in at about 6 inches high as well.  There are three layers: the top and bottom are red velvet cake, and the center layer is pure cheesecake.  The whole thing is frosted with a traditional cream cheese frosting, using the rose method.

Wanna see the inside?  Are you sure??

 

 

Here's another one up close, just to get you really salivating...

Despite the overindulgence on turkey, this was a smash hit!!

Market Research

After trick or treat was over, my husband and I were left with an abundance of candy. Not wanting to let my inner fat kid completely take over and have snickers for breakfast, I decided I needed to find a way to make use of our leftovers, Pretty Sweet style. 

We had some of our friends over to test out my new creation, for which I have yet to come up with a name more clever than "Butterfinger Cupcakes." I feel another Simspons reference coming on...

Anyway, the first couple we had over to test the cupcakes approved to say the least. In fact, Erin gave arguably the most vulgar-and-complimentary-at-the-same-time response when she finished. She put the wrapper down and said "I think I need a cigarette." Admittedly I was shocked and flattered. 

Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of the first, ahem, satisfying cupcakes. Naturally, we had more friends over so I could whip up a fresh batch. Here they are, chocolate cupcakes with a butterfinger ganache center and peanut butter cream cheese frosting. 

And of course we need to see the center of these bad boys...

We have another couple coming tonight to complete our market research taste test, but I think it's safe to say these are making a permanent appearance on the menu. 

Any ideas on a catchy name?