Bri's 5th Birthday - Rainbow Cupcakes and Zebra Cake

So, for Brianna's 5th birthday (almost a year ago *ahem*) she asked for rainbow cupcakes and a zebra cake. Obviously I obliged, thanks to All You and Cookies, Cupcakes and Cardio.

First, the pictures from the party:

The rainbow cupcakes:

All you need is whatever cake mix you want for the cupcakes (Bri chose chocolate) and then vanilla or cream cheese frosting, so you can mix in blue food coloring for the "sky". Spread the frosting on the cupcakes. Take an Airheads Extreme Rainbow Berry candy belt, fold it, and stick it in both sides of the cupcake. Press on a few mini marshmallows around the rainbow for clouds.

Super easy and so cute! I will tell you that the next day, the Airheads will start melting and become really slimy. I feel it's my duty to tell you that if you have any leftover on top of cupcakes - just go ahead and eat them all the first day!

I got the zebra cake recipe from Cookies, Cupcakes and Cardio. She is an amazing blogger who makes you feel like you can do anything in the kitchen!

If you go to her link I posted above, you'll see her YouTube tutorial on how to make this cake.

Ingredients:
2 ½ cups all purpose flour (300 g)
2 cups sugar (400 g)
¾ cups vegetable oil (180 mL)
1 teaspoon vanilla (5 mL)
2 ¼ teaspoons baking powder (~11 mL)
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1 cup milk (240 mL)
white, pink, and black gel paste
vanilla buttercream (that is a link to her homemade recipe)
black fondant
pink buttercream
Wilton tip 1A

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In the bowl of a stand mixer combine flour, sugar, baking powder, vegetable oil and vanilla on low/medium until ingredients are mixed together.

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing on low in between additions.

Slowly add the milk while the mixer is on and mix until all ingredients are completely combined.  Divide batter into three different bowls with one bowl having half of the batter and the other two having a quarter each.

Color the large bowl with white coloring, and the smaller two with black and pink respectively.  Mix coloring until no light streaks remain.

Spray two 8” pans with non-stick spray and line bottom with parchment/baking/wax paper.  Place four tablespoons of white batter into the center of each pan.  Then, directly into the middle of the white batter, place two tablespoons of black batter.  Directly into the center of the black batter, place two tablespoons of pink batter.  Repeat white/black/pink batter additions until all the batter is used up or pans are ⅔ full.  Place pans into oven and bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Allow to cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, remove from pan, and cool completely on a wire rack.

Once cake is cooled, level, stack and cover in white buttercream.  To cut the fondant pieces, roll fondant out very thinly and using a rolling cutter (pizza or pastry) slice long, narrow stripes and arrange on white cake as desired.  To finish the cake off, using the pink buttercream with Wilton 1A tip, pipe a small beaded border along the bottom of the cake.

(Photo credit: my dear old dad!)

Now, I know that mine does not look professional. I couldn't get the fondant to work like she was getting hers to work on the YouTube video. I have issues with fondant. But I'm still happy with how it turned out, and I really love the inside.

January 14, 2013 - Brianna's Birthday Cake

Okay, since it's only four months until Brianna's birthday, I figured I should probably blog about the birthday cake I did for her birthday last April. Boy, it's amazing how many things I forget to blog about...

So, one day I was scouring the internet and came across this cake:

http://sweetapolita.com/2011/04/rainbow-doodle-birthday-cake/

If you don't want to check out the link, it's a rainbow birthday cake with fondant that you can draw on. Well of COURSE I knew this would be perfect for Brianna who is into all things girlie. It was actually very simple to create.

To Make the White Cake:
2 sticks (226 g) butter, room temp
2 1/3 c (466 g) sugar
5 egg whites, room temp
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 c (375 g) all-purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 1/2 c (355 g) milk, warmed for 30 sec in microwave to bring to room temp
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple GEL food coloring. Liquid will not be vibrant enough!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Oil and line how ever many 9" cake pans you have. I only used three, and just washed them in between colors.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Cream the sugar and butter, then add the egg whites and add them a little at a time. Add the vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Then, alternating between wet and dry, add the milk and flour mixture in two parts.

Divide the batter amongst 6 bowls and then whisk a fair amount of the appropriate food color into each bowl. Keep in mind that the color of the unbaked batter will be the color of the baked batter. Pour into the pans and bake for 15 minutes each.

When you remove them from the oven, let them rest on the cooling rack, in the pan, for ten minutes. Then flip, cover, and stash them in the fridge to cool quickly.

There is a really good buttercream icing recipe on the page for the cake. The pictures I have here actually don't have any icing at all between layers because it was a test run.

I then bought fondant (from Walmart/Michaels/Hobby Lobby in the cake decorating section) and fondant markers (same section). I let Brianna decorate by coloring on the cake... again, this was the test run.

My pictures from the party turned out quite blurry so I didn't get a great picture of the inside of the "real" cake.

All in all this was a pretty simple cake that looks pretty awesome to a little girl!

This is the "real" cake from the outside - like I said, all the other pictures turned out quite blurry. But she loved it and I definitely would make this again if she asked me to!