Spring Blooms Cake Pictures

An original, SalleeB's Kitchen design for a spring half sheet cake - blooming red bud branches, daffodils, narcissus, hyacinths, and yellow, drop flower clusters.

The daffodil and narcissus blooms are piped using Wilton petal tips #104 and #102. Use a square of parchment paper on a flower nail to shape each blossom. Put the blossoms into the freezer until you are ready to place them. 

The narcissus petals are made using the Wilton #104 tip and the ruffle was the Wilton  #102 tip. 

The green centers were formed with a #3 piping tip.

The red bud branches are made with a Wilton #10 piping tip and the blossoms are a Wilton 2D tip. 

Narcissus and daffodil leaves are formed with a Wilton #352 leaf tip

Hyacinths are made with a drop flower tip. Layer the clusters to get a rounded, 3D look. In the pictures the hyacinths shown have 3 layers of blooms. 

The cake top is textured with the end of a spatula. 

Move the spatula from side to side in about 2 inch, vertical strips, long side to long side of the cake.

Don't measure anything exactly so you can have a more random look. 

The borders are made with a #16 star tip. . 

And that is how to create a SalleeB's Kitchen Spring Blooms cake. 

Rubber Ducky Smash Cake

Right to Left: Beginning to End

It has been 364 days since my youngest grandson was born! His mom asked me if I would make his smash cake.

Of course I said YES!

Step 1

• Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Make a white cake mix according to the package directions.
• Grease and flour a 1.5 quart crock pot insert - see the picture below.

• Put liners for 2 jumbo cupcakes into  jumbo cupcake pan.
• Filling the jumbo cupcake liners 2/3 full of batter and pouring the rest into the greased and floured cake pan.
• Cook for 20 - 24 minutes. Check the jumbo cupcakes by inserting a toothpick into the cupcakes about halfway between the edge and center of the cupcakes. If the toothpick comes out clean, your cupcakes are done.
• Remove the cupcakes from the oven and let cool for about 10 minutes in the pan. Remove from the pan and let cool on a cooling rack. 
• Cook the cake for another 16 minutes and check the cake for doneness with a bamboo skewer about halfway between the edge and center of the cake. If the skewer comes out clean, your cake is done.
• Remove cake from oven and cool for 10 minutes before removing it from the pan. 

Step 2

• After cooling the cake and cupcakes, wrap them in plastic wrap and put them in the freezer until good and firm.
• Remove wrapped cupcakes and mini-cake. 
• Cut the rounded tops off of the two jumbo cupcakes to form a flat surface.
• On one of the cupcakes only, cut off 1/3rd from the bottom end. This will be the bottom of your duck head.
• Pipe a dam of frosting around the top, outside edge of the trimmed cupcake, then fill with a thin coat of frosting inside the dam. Place the whole jumbo cupcake, topside down, onto the top of the frosting. Apply a thin base coat to the cupcakes and put back into the freezer until the frosting is firm. 
• Apply a base coat of frosting to the duck head and the mini-cake. Finish frosting the head and the body of the cake. and chill until the duck head can be handled  and attacked to the mini-cake as pictured below. 

Cake Pictures for Family

My grandson's 1st birthday smash cake, a rubber ducky cake in all buttercream.

My parents 59th anniversary cake. Sugar-free yellow cake with a super thin base coat of buttercream and tons of buttercream flowers.

Watch for the blog posts about these two cakes.

Homemade happiness on a plate! 

Spring Fever and Piping Practice

Unseasonably warm temperatures have me thinking about spring flowers. 
Yes, spring fever has struck and I succombed to it by making floral cupcakes for the Ladies Tea and Luncheon at church. Spring fever isn't the only reason I made these cupcakes. 

I have been wanting to practice piping buttercream flowers with my new petal tips. 
I did find that piping the flowers individually on a flower nail was time consuming. However, I believe that the end results were worth the amount of time spent piping each purple bloom onto a square of parchment paper on top of a flower nail. What do you think? 
I also piped the daisy/aster blooms indiviually. 

Purple flowers - 104 tip and a 3 tip for the yellow centers
White flowers - 102 tip and a 5 tip for the centers
Green ruffles on the cupcakes - 104 tip
Yellow drop flowers - 224 tip

The Cupcakes
Lemon and strawberry are the two flavors I chose to use in these cupcakes. I purchased a box of each flavor at the local grocery store. After mixing the cake batters, I put about 2 Tbsp. of yellow lemon cake batter in each cupcake liner. Next, I topped the lemon cake batter with pink, strawberry cake batter. A swirled "S" with a butter knife created marbled cupcakes that are pink and yellow. 

I made 2 dozen cupcakes and used the left over batter to make 1-9 inch layer cake. After cooling the layer cake, I wrapped it in plastic wrap and it is in the refrigerator freezer compartment waiting for me to torte it, or slice it crosswise, and to fill/frost with buttercream frosting.

Baked Italian Pasta Skillet

Yield: 4-6 servings         Time: about 40-50 minutes

Ingredients

• 8 ounces of small shell pasta
• 1/2 pound ground chuck
• 1/2 pound whole hog, mild pork sausage
• 1/2 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1  - 4 ounce can mushrooms, drained
• 1 - 24 ounce can meat spaghetti sauce
• 1 - 10.5 ounce can cream of mushroom soup
• 1/8 cup water
• 1 cup shredded Colby jack cheese, slightly packed
• 1 Tablespoon Parmesan Romano cheese
• 1 ounce, or about 18 thin slices of pepperoni

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F or 175 degrees C
• Fill a 2 to 2.5 quart sauce pan about three-quarters full of water and bring to a boil. Do not add salt.

• While you're waiting for the water to boil, chunk up and brown the ground chuck, pork sausage, and dried Italian seasoning in a 12 inch, oven safe skillet.

• Sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon of Italian seasoning over the meat and mix it with a spatula as the meat browns.
• Place the browned meat into a colander that is sitting on top of another dish, or paper towels to drain off any excess fat.

• When your pot of water begins to boil, pour in shell pasta, and cook until al dente, about 7 - 8 minutes. Let the pot of water come back to a simmer after adding the pasta, but don't boil it. 
• While the pasta cooks, rinse your oven proof skillet briefly with hot water to remove excess fat.
• Next, combine the spaghetti sauce, mushroom soup, drained mushrooms, water, teaspoon of brown sugar, and 1/4 tsp. of dried Italian seasoning in the skillet.

• Add the browned meat.
• Drain the al dente pasta and stir it into the skillet of meat sauce.

• Slice pepperoni slices into quarters and sprinkle over the top of the pasta mixture.
• Next, sprinkle the cup of shredded cheese over the top of the pasta
• Finally, sprinkle the Parmesan Romano cheese over the top of the shredded cheese.
• Bake in preheated oven until the cheese is melted and bubbly, about 20 - 25 minutes.

Enjoy eating some almost homemade happiness on a plate!