I had the pleasure of creating two cakes for a logo dessert auction a few weeks ago. I decided to have one presented from my blog and one in coordination with my blog and my place of employment. One of our core values is Community – what better way than to demonstrate this than to participate in the auction.
I knew when I decided to participate in the auction that I would make a candy cake – as those are always a big hit – I mean come on … who doesn’t love them some candy! The second cake I decided on the “Lumberjack Cake,” which has not only taken the internet by storm, but also has been tagged with my name on Facebook many times by friends and family. I decided to forgo the axe and use simple ribbon to accent this great looking cake.
For those who are not familiar with the “Lumberjack Cake” it is a red and black checkered cake to simulate plaid and the outside looks like a tree stump. For obvious reasons, I didn’t cut into the cake to see the checkered effect, but I will be making another one in the very near future just so I can cut it open and see it!
It amazed me how many compliments I received on these cakes by coworkers and friends after I had posted photos online of the cakes, and it’s all in the details! Simple details!
For the candy cake, I made a chocolate cake and frosted it with a chocolate buttercream. I then used King Sized Kit-Kats to wrap around the cake. I broke them into two segment pieces and placed them side-by-side with the flat side toward the buttercream. Once they were set, I wrapped a ribbon around and tied it tightly to ensure the Kit-Kats stayed upright! Then I simply placed the GIGANTIC Hershey Kiss on top and proceeded to place candy around it. I did use scissors to open each candy bar and push down the wrapper so that I could stick the candy bar into the cake to keep it upright. I filled in the open spaces with M&Ms. The baking and cooling time were the longest parts of putting this cake together! This type of cake is a visual crowd pleaser. Kids go nuts for it (I think because they think they get to eat all the candy!). I don’t necessarily think that anyone would eat the cake AND all the candy on this cake – no judgement if you do! – however, I look at this similar to fondant. Does anyone actually eat the fondant and/or all the details made from fondant?
For the “Lumberjack Cake” I made a vanilla cake colored red, maroon and black, and I used my Wilton Checkerboard pan set. I colored my same chocolate buttercream black and used that to put between the three layers of cake and then used the plain chocolate buttercream to frost the rest of the cake. I used Giant Sized Hershey bars to make the “bark” on this cake. I simply held the bar up to the cake to measure how much needed to be removed and cut it off. I then used large end of a piping tip to “chop” up the end to make it look uneven and broken. To make the grooved marks to simulate bark I took a writing piping tip and simply drew lines up and down and sideways onto the flat side of the candy bar. I put the Hershey side towards the buttercream. To give it a little depth and dimension a dipped a piece of parchment into some white candy melts and gently wiped it over the grooved marks. Once all the pieces were done, I wrapped the cake in them and secured the bottom with a ribbon. For the top, to simulate rings – I just darkened my chocolate buttercream with a little more chocolate ganache and piped circles on the top and used an offset spatula to smear it all together – turing the cake as I held the spatula to the buttercream.
Two impressive cakes, that honestly didn’t take me long at all once I had figured out what I was going to do! It’s all in details for these two cakes, and those details were easily done.
This recipe frosts 24 regular cupcakes OR 12 extra large cupcakes with a 1:1 ratio of frosting to cupcake! You can half this recipe and probably be just fine.
piping tip, however, I don’t suggest doing this at 9:30 p.m. (lesson learned!) or you may be up awhile. I don’t drink coffee, but if it tasted as good as this buttercream, I may just start!
First it was a red, white and blue swirled vanilla cake frosted with a simple vanilla buttercream, decked out with a fondant and buttercream logo.
Second was 24 Finding Dory cupcakes – 12 chocolate, 12 vanilla, frosted with vanilla buttercream, topped with cute candy decorations (Pop Rocks, Starburst coral and fondant seaweed, and sticker characters from the movie.
Third was a chocolate and peanut butter explosion cake! Chocolate cake frosted with peanut butter buttercream topped with chocolate ganache and chopped up peanut butter cups.
So I went to work making enough cake and cupcakes to feed a small army. I decided on keeping the cake flavors simple, but to go slightly crazy on the frostings!
I made 84 cupcakes (not all shown) and one double 13×9 cake. The cake was chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and filled with chocolate ganache and decorated with PB cups and a printed sugar sheet (thanks Callie and Frank’s Bakery!)
The cupcakes were chocolate cake either frosted with marshmallow buttercream, espresso buttercream or chocolate ganache buttercream, and vanilla cake frosted with either peanut butter frosting, chocolate ganache buttercream, vanilla buttercream or filled with key lime curd and topped with marshmallow buttercream.
For the Key Lime Curd:
For the Cinnamon Cupcakes:
After letting my cupcakes cool, I used a large piping tip to hollow out the center of my cupcakes to make a good size whole for the curd to go into. I then piped a generous amount of frosting on top and sprinkled with gold luster dust for a pop of color and pizazz. These are birthday cupcakes after all!
Have Sweets, Will Share. 