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How to Make a Letterboard Cake

I have to give the credit for this cake to one of my Instagram followers. While I am not sure it was her intention was to make her own letterboard cake, a string of messages sparked this cute idea!  

This letterboard cake would be perfect for an announcement, birthday, or any other special event. Since I am sort of out of announcements, I just made it for the heck of it! 

But seriously, how cute would this be for a gender reveal!? Why didn’t I think of this sooner?

Tools and Recipes

All you need for the cake is one batch of your favorite cake recipe or cake mix baked in a square baking dish. If you want to make this a two-tier cake, double up your cake and use some of your extra buttercream to fill the center. 

Here are some cake recipes you may like:

You will also need one batch of buttercream, although I had enough buttercream left over to frost a few cupcakes. 

Aside from the cake, you will also need the following:

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How to Make It

I will say, this was one of the easier cakes I have made. The most time-consuming part was cutting out the individual letters, but that wasn’t very difficult. 

The trick to this cake is just to pipe straight lines. Which is why you see me change directions of piping a few rows in. I noticed that the lines got thinner towards the end of the line. After a while it seemed like they sloped up. Going back and forth seemed to straighten out the lines. 

Other than that little tip, there is really nothing else you need to know to make this cake!

4th of July Firework Cake

A lot of times, my motto is less is more. 

But not with this cake. The motto for this cake is MORE is MORE!

Which is perfect for 4th of July, and hence why I am calling it the 4th of July firework cake, because it reminds me of a firework. Just all the red, white, and blue, all over the place. 

Wilton Cakes was kind enough to send me one of their new cake decorating kits and I had so much fun coming up with this cake which was inspired by a few of the various cake designs they had in their book.

I decided to cover the entire sides of the cake in red, white, and blue sprinkles and then cover the top of the cake in red, white, and blue buttercream stars and rosettes. 

Other than the sprinkles, frosting, and food coloring, which I already had on hand, everything I used to decorate the cake came with the How to Decorate Cakes and Desserts Kit which made it incredibly easy to make!

How to Make It

As I mentioned above, I used the How to Decorate Cakes and Desserts kit, which comes with an awesome instruction and inspiration book (below) and all the supplies you will need to decorate your cake.

The kit also comes with 10 piping tips, 3 couplers, a spatula, decorating brush, and 24 piping bags in two different sizes. 

I also used their tiltable turntable, gel food coloring, and white buttercream icing. 

The instruction book shows you everything from how to bake your cake, cut your cake, layer your cake, and frost your cake. Since I am still learning how to decorate cakes, a lot of their instruction was very helpful.

Since the theme for this cake is “more is more” I added these red, white, and blue non-pareliels to give it a marbled funfetti look. If you want a true funfetti look, I recommend using jimmies instead of nonpareils. 

I used a box cake mix for this cake to make things easy on myself. You can see my tips for making a boxed cake mix taste homemade here. 

The cake is made up of two layers baked in a 6″ cake pan. For a larger cake, double the amount of batter and bake it in an 8″ or 9″ cake pan. 

Once the cake is baked, cooled, and leveled, spread the buttercream icing over the first layer. Top with the second layer of cake and another layer of icing, this time spreading it around the entire cake to seal in the crumbs. 

Chill the cake for about 30 minutes. 

After the crumb coat has chilled, spoon the buttercream into a large piping bag fitted with the specialty tip 789. Pipe the buttercream around the sides of the cake so that there is a nice thick layer of icing. 

Use the off-set spatula to spread the icing around the cake. It doesn’t have to be pretty, because the sides will be covered with sprinkles. 

How to Decorate It

Speaking of sprinkles, mix together all the red, white, and blue sprinkles you can get your hands on. I like mixing together jimmies with some larger round sprinkles and sanding sugars. I also through in a few novelty sprinkles. 

To cover the sides of the cake, place the cake in the center of a baking sheet covered with parchment. Pat the sprinkles all around the sides of the cake. Reuse any extra sprinkles that have fallen away.

Finally, prepare the piping bags to decorate the top of the cake. 

For the larger piping tips (2D and 1M) mix together red, white, and blue icing by spreading lines of icing on a sheet of plastic wrap. Roll the plastic wrap into a tube, then feed the tube into the piping bag with the piping tip inside. You made need to cut off any excess plastic wrap so the icing flows through.

Then prepare three other piping bags, all fitted with a coupler and a smaller piping tip. Fill each one with a different color. 

Start by piping the larger stars and rosettes first. Then fill in with the smaller decorations. Don’t be afraid to layer them on top of one another. Also feel free to change out the piping tips using the couplers to get lots of various shapes. 

Once you are done, sprinkle a few sprinkles right on top. 

And viola! Your very own super patriotic cake! Perfect for 4th of July!

Supplies and Recipe

Follow my How to Make Boxed Cake Mix Taste Homemade tutorial for an easy semi-homemade cake. Or I highly recommend my vanilla cupcake recipe, which will make 1 6″ round two layer cake. Double to make a larger cake. 

 

The Best Ever Carrot Cake

I’ll admit, that up until recently, carrot cake was my least favorite of all the cakes. It wasn’t until I made this recipe that I completely changed my mind about carrot cake. Who knew that a cake packed with fruits and vegetables could be so delicious?

Not me!

But that is exactly what this cake is. Moist and oh so delicious!

How to Make It

Well, since I have made this recipe before, I thought it was only right to make a video so you can see for yourselves! Also, wait till the end to see how I decorated the cake (three different ways, although I only showed two). 

But in case you like pictures and words, here is a brief recap of how to make it.

First mix together the sugar, eggs, apple sauce, maple syrup, and vanilla extract.

Until it’s nice and smooth.

Sift in the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Then mix until everything is incorporated. 

Fold in grated carrots, pineapple, coconut (preferably unsweetened), and chopped pecans. 

Then pour the batter into whichever vessel you would like to bake your cakes in. I have baked this in a sheet pan, a square pan, cupcake tin, even a waffle iron! But for this cake, I baked the cakes in two cake pans.

To make sure the cakes are even, I actually weigh the batter in each pan. OCD much? I am really not, but I just like knowing that my cakes will be as even as possible. 

Finally, decorate your cake however you wish! I highly recommend frosting the cake with cream cheese frosting, because that is really the best frosting for carrot cake. 

But if you prefer buttercream, I highly recommend this Swiss buttercream recipe, which is my absolute favorite. 

However you choose to frost this cake, or even if you leave it completely naked, you will love this cake. I can say that confidently as a former non-carrot cake lover. 

And, if you happen to have any leftover batter, you can make waffles with it!

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Buttercream Flower Heart Cake

If you have followed this blog or my Instagram long enough, you know that I love a good floral pattern. Most of the time you will find me adding flowers to cookies. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t perfect for cakes, too. 

Especially this Valentine’s Day cake in the shape of a heart!

The great thing about this buttercream flower heart cake is that both the flowers and the heart shape of the cake are actually pretty easy to achieve if you have the right tools on hand. 

All you need is a round cake pan, a square cake pan, and a few piping tips. You got all that, right? 😉

Tools Needed:

Well, pretty much all you need is a couple of cake pans and some piping tips. Okay, and maybe a few other things like food coloring. 

For the cakes, my recommendation is to make sure your round cake pan is equal in size to your square pan, if not smaller. I.e. if you have a 9″ square pan, use a 9″ round cake pan, too. However, if you only have a 9″ square pan and a 8″ round pan, you can cut the edges of the square cake to make an 8″ cake (which is what I did). Does that make sense?

To make the various shades of pink and green I mixed together some of my Americolor gel food coloring:

  • Lightest pink color is a mixture of taupe and light pink
  • Medium shade of pink is just a couple drops of maroon
  • Darkest shade of pink is watermelon and coral red
  • Light green is avocado
  • Dark green is forest green

To create the flower and leaf shapes, I used the following piping tips:

  • For the roses I used a #2D and #1M piping tips
  • The dark green leaf was created with #366 tip
  • For the light green blobs I used a #32 tip

Most of these piping tips come in this piping tip set. 

How to Make It:

Start by baking a round cake and a square cake in the flavor of your choice.  You can even use your favorite boxed mix if you like! Level the cakes so that they are both flat and both the same height. 

Cut the round cake in half so that you have two equal pieces. 

Place the to half rounds along two of the edges of your square cake to form a heart shape. How easy was that!?

Cover the entire cake in a layer of plain frosting so that all the pieces of the heart are stuck together. This layer of frosting doesn’t need to be pretty because it will get covered up. 

Divide the rest of the icing up in to several smaller batches and colors them in various shades. 

To decorate the cake, start by making the large roses to fill in most of the empty space of the cake. Then go in and fill in some of the holes with the leaves. 

Add more flowers and leaves until you can no longer see any of the cake underneath. 

You could totally make this! And I didn’t even tell you the best part. 

To make this cake you don’t even have to make anything from scratch. You could make your favorite boxed cake mix and even used the canned frosting. While I would highly recommend making your own frosting (this is my favorite buttercream recipe and this is my favorite cream cheese frosting recipe), I know not everyone has the time or desire to make frosting from scratch.

Plus, there is something so nostalgic about store-bought cake mix and frosting out of a can, right?

Now you have no excuse but to make this for your sweetheart, your kids, your mom, your dog, yourself. Whoever your Valentine happens to be!

 

Thanksgiving Turkey Cake

This is about the closest thing I am going to get to a Thanksgiving turkey this year. And I am totally okay with that!

We had friends over for a little Friendsgiving this past weekend and I used it as an excuse to make this Thanksgiving turkey cake. I had seen quite a few similar cakes on Pinterest and Instagram, so I thought I would throw my hat into the ring. 

I think he turned out rather handsome, if not a little goofy looking. But there is nothing wrong with goofy.

To make him, (Yes, I decide that it is a “him” and I named him Tom. Tom the Turkey.) I made one batch of this pumpkin spice cake. I also whipped up a batch of my cream cheese frosting for the filling. Since I wanted his outer layer to be brown, I made a chocolate ganache which I then whipped to form a frosting.

Chocolate ganache is actually pretty simple to make. However, I totally understand if you want to run out and grab a can of chocolate frosting or bake your own chocolate buttercream.

All you do is pour hot cream over chopped chocolate and let it melt. Once it has completely melted, you toss it in the fridge to harden. I recommend doing this overnight as it does take a few hours. When it is nice and set, transfer it to a bowl of a stand mixer and whip it up. Ta-da! 

I used that whipped chocolate ganache to completely cover my entire cake. 

Then I stuck in the feathers that I made with my red, orange, and yellow candy melts.

Added some eyes using leftover cream cheese frosting.

And a beak and a little red thing….anyone know what that’s called?

Now you can make your very own Tom the Thanksgiving turkey cake! But you don’t have to name your’s Tom. You don’t have to name it at all. It’s kind of weird to name your food.

Recipes used:

Supplies used:
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Candy Agate Cupcake Toppers

Afer making these agate slice cookies not too long ago, I became a bit obsessed with geodes and agates. I watched countless videos of people making beautiful geode cakes. I even watched people paint agate slices on all sorts of things. Since geode cakes have sort of been perfected (I mean, come on, this is just ridiculously amazing), I set out on trying to make agate cupcake toppers. These are the things I think about, guys. Not about world peace or solving the debt crisis…how to make a candy agate to put on top of a cupcake.  

It took several attempts and quite a few burned fingers, but I finally found a method that worked the best.

In my first attempt, I tried crushing candies like I have seen other people do online. That worked out okay, but they didn’t seem all that realistic. For my second attempt, I used isomalt, which is a fancy form of sugar that a lot of bakers use. Again, it worked okay, but it still wasn’t the effect I was looking for. I also ran out of isomalt, so it may have eventually worked for me, but I couldn’t keep experimenting.

In the end, it was plain old sugar that worked best for me! I boiled water, corn syrup, and sugar until it reached that “hard crack” temperature, then I dyed it a bunch of different colors and layered the colors together. 

Here, I’ll just show you!

The very first thing I did was to make molds for my agates out of tin foil. I made them all different shapes with rough, uneven edges. I sprayed each mold down with a bit of baking spray so that the sugar wouldn’t stick to the foil.

Next, I worked on the sugar. I boiled together the sugar, corn syrup, and water until it reached 300 degrees. Then I poured it into individual silicon muffin cups (which came in super handy!) and tinted each one a different color. Some I made a dark shade, others I made a very light shade. I also left a couple plain.

Keep in mind, if you decide to make these yourself, that the sugar does start to cool and harden relatively quickly. Each time I made an agate, I reheated the colors I was working with in the microwave until they were easily pourable. If they are too hard, not only will they not pour very easily but they won’t create those concentric rings of color. 

To make the agate slice, I poured one of the colors into the center of the foil mold. The candy should be hot enough that it starts to fill the surface. Then I poured a darker shade of the color into the center. I followed that with either the clear or light shade of the same color and alternated a couple of times until candy filled the mold. 

While the candy was still hot, I sprinkled some very coarse clear sanding sugar right into the middle and used a toothpick to press them into the candy. 

The candy itself cools in just a matter of minutes. Once they were completely hardened and cool to the touch, I peeled the foil away from the candy to reveal one beautiful agate cupcake topper!

For the cupcake itself, I kept it pretty simple. I didn’t want to take anything away from the candy agate. I spread on a bit of buttercream frosting, then dunked it into a bowl of the coarse sanding sugar and stuck the agate right on top.

Maybe I had lowered my expectations after my previous two failed attempts, but I was actually a bit blown away by how cool they turned out. I love how the colors flow together and the light can shine right through them. 

While they don’t look exactly like agate slices, they definitely look like some sort of really awesome gem or geode. I could definitely see these topping cupcakes for lots of different occasions. I made my favorite vanilla cupcakes with my favorite buttercream frosting for these to keep it simple. But you could make any flavor you like. I think people will be so impressed with the cupcake toppers, they won’t even care what kind of cake is underneath!
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How to Make Floral Inspired Cupcakes

Decorating cakes and cupcakes has been my latest obsession. I have been jumping on every opportunity to make cupcakes for friends just to practice and hone my skills. 

I’ve actually found that for the most part, decorating cupcakes (I won’t speak to cakes since I haven’t had as much experience with them) is MUCH easier than decorating cookies. It requires a lot less time. And you have license to be a little more abstract with your decoration, particularly flowers. 

Of course, you could make some super realistic looking flowers or decorations that I am sure would challenge my previous theory, but for now, this girl is perfectly happy sticking to some fun and easy ways to decorate cupcakes! 

Which is why I thought I should show you my 5 favorite cupcake decorations! They are all “floral inspired”. I don’t want to call them flowers, because like I said below, you may have to really use your imagination to consider them flowers. But when paired all together, they look like a beautiful bouquet!

This is kind of a tiered flower with two layers of petals and dot in the middle. For this flower I used a big round tip, like a 2A. For bigger petals use a 1A, smaller use a 12. 

These hydrangea inspired cupcakes are my favorite because they are just so easy! Using a 2D tip, you just dot the top of the cupcake in these pretty little flowers. They piping tip does all the work for you!

And because hydrangeas are typically multicolored, I like to add multiple colors of icing into one piping bag so that every flower has a little of each color. I recommend sticking with 2 colors, and not doing any more than three unless you are going for a specific look. 

This rose decoration is one that I make a lot, even when I am not going for a floral inspired cupcake. It’s just such a beautiful cupcake decoration. But when you add a couple leaves, boom! it’s a rose!

For these cupcakes, use a 1B or 2B (any closed star tip) and make spiral on top of the cupcake. The 1B will give you a more open rose, like the one on the left. The 2B or smaller tip will give you a tighter rose, like the one on the right. 

For the leaves, use a 366 or any large leaf tip. Leaves are really easy to make. You just press the tip into the side of the flower, squeeze a blob of icing out of the tip while gradually moving the tip away from the cupcake. Then stop squeezing and swiftly pull the tip away creating a little tip.

This daisy looking cupcake is very similar to the cupcake at the very top except there is only one layer of petals. I also used a bigger round tip, a 1A, to create the fatter petals and a 12 tip to make the yellow center. But again, any big round tip will work!

To create the multicolored petals, I wiped a little bit of pink icing on one side of a piping bag, then filled the bag with the white icing. That way, just a bit of pink would streak the petals as the were piped out of the bag. 

Now this is my favorite cupcake. It combined the flowers that are on each of the cupcakes into one bouquet! I like to start with the rose, since it’s the biggest, then surround with hydrangeas, dots, and leaves. With these, you can really do anything you want! Be creative! 

See, you can totally make these. Just use your favorite cupcake recipe (here’s one!) and your favorite buttercream recipe (I’ll be sharing mine soon!) and get to decorating! 

To see a list of all the tools and ingredients I used for these cupcakes, see below (Note: this post contains affiliate links, which means every time you follow the link and purchase something, I get a small commission which I’ll probably use to buy more butter, sugar, and piping bags)

 

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Damn That’s Good Carrot Cake

The title of this post is a direct quote from a coworker who tasted this carrot cake and uttered “Damn, that’s good carrot cake!”. This carrot cake even received a standing ovation from my boss. (Can you consider it a standing ovation if it’s just one person standing? sure, let’s go with it. It helps my story.)

Yesterday morning I dropped the cake off in our break room then ran downstairs to grab a coffee. By the time I had returned to the office, my boss had grabbed a piece of cake. As I was sitting down she yelled from her office, “Lindsey, did you make this carrot cake?” After I said yes, she proceeded to stand and slow clap. I mean, I have made some good stuff before, but nothing that has received a slow clap! (She went on use about a dozen different synonyms for moist and told me this was the best thing I had ever made.)

So between the standing ovation/slow clap and the “Damn, that’s good carrot cake” comment, I’d say this is, well, one damn good carrot cake! 

The ingredients in this aren’t a whole lot different than any other carrot cake, except for a not-so-secret ingredients: apple sauce, maple syrup, and nutmeg. All three are super subtle. You probably won’t even be able to tell that they are there, but they make a huge difference. 

The apple sauce helps make the cake super moist without adding any fat. The maple syrup adds another layer of sweetness that helps balance out all the flavors. And the nutmeg plays off the cinnamon to bring out the flavors of the pecans, coconut, and pineapple. 

While it may look like a hot mess of ingredients (this is definitely the most ingredients I have ever added to a cake), it’s really simple to make!

First mix together all the dry ingredients in a small-ish bowl. Just something big enough to hold all the flour. Then, in a larger bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients. Dump the dry into the wet and whisk until you have a batter. 

Now it’s time for the party to start! Add the carrots, pineapple, pecans, and coconut to the batter and fold in until everything is nicely incorporated throughout the batter. 

Just a side note: I prefer to have my nuts pretty finely ground whenever I add them to baked goods. I do not like biting into a huge chunk of pecan when I eat my cake. So I recommend tossing them into your food processor and grinding them down into something that resembles a coarse meal. It’s okay if there are some bigger pieces. 

Now just add it to your pan and bake for about 35 minutes. 

I baked mine in a square pan because I wanted it to be more like a sheet cake. But you could also split this into two 8-inch round pans if you wanted to make a layer cake. 

After it has baked and cooled, you can frost this bad boy with some of my all time favorite cream cheese frosting. Cream cheese frosting it just amazing on carrot cake. Everything that was healthy about the carrot cake before, can be thrown out the window once you add the frosting. And that’s why they work so well together. 

It you want to add some rosettes like I did, separate out about 1/2+ icing into two separate bowls. Color most of it (about 1/2 cup) orange, and the rest of it (about 2 tbsp) green. For the rosettes I used a #21 piping tip, but you can also use a small closed star piping tip as well. For the leaves I used a #352. 

Mark out 16 slices of cake. In the center of each piece, pipe a small rosette by making a small spiral with the #21 tip. On the side of each one, pipe two leaves. Easy peasy, right? 😉 You got this!

But with or without the decoration, this cake is sure to win you over some fans. I was definitely surprised by the reaction I received for this humble little carrot cake. According to some people, it is now the best thing that I make!

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The best carrot cake you will ever make!

Autumn Wreath Maple Pecan Cake

Autumn Wreath Maple Pecan Cake

I feel bad for Thanksgiving. As soon as the page has been turned on October and Halloween is over, everyone sets their sights on Christmas. Starbucks already has their red cups out, Christmas decorations are front and center at just about every store, and I have already seen a few people put up their lights and trees. 

And even though I love Christmas as much as the next person, lets pump the breaks here folks and give Thanksgiving it’s fair share! And even though Thanksgiving is really all about the food (nothing wrong with that), it should also be a time to reflect on everything that we are thankful for. 

Autumn Wreath Cake

One thing I am definitely thankful for is this cake! I know I say everything I make is good (well, not everything, but anything that ends up on the blog), but this cake is AMAZING. And I don’t throw that term around all willy nilly. I mean it!

I started with a basic vanilla cake, but I swapped out some of the sugar for maple syrup and then folded in some toasted pecans. When I tasted the batter, I was actually a little disappointed in the maple flavor. It just wasn’t popping like I thought it would. Then, when I stated a bite after it had baked, that maple flavor really exploded! 

The cake by itself tastes like a stack of pancakes that has been drenched in butter and maple syrup. I mean….come on! How could you refuse a slice of that? The pecans not only add a nice crunch, but that deliciously nutty, buttery flavor. 

Maple Pecan Cake

But it’s not just about the cake flavor, its also about the decoration. This is the first time I had really attempted to decorate a cake this elaborately. Just like with cookie decorating, I picked up most of my tricks from watching lots and lots of You Tube videos (you can learn anything on YouTube). One of my favorite channels is How To Cake It! You must watch her videos, she is amazing!

Maple Pecan Cake

Anyways, I started by leveling all my cakes and removing the caramelized edges. Because I wanted this to be a “naked” cake, I wanted all the edges to look perfect and to be able to see the little pecan pieces through the buttercream. 

maple-pecan-cake-14

In between each layer, I spread on a generous portion of Italian meringue buttercream and the scattered on some toasted pecan pieces. Once all the layers had been stacked up, I topped it off with the rest of the buttercream and spread the excess down the sides of the cake. I made sure to fill in any gaps between the layers. Then, with a bench scraper, I scraped off all the excess. 

While the cake chilled in the fridge, I made the wreath decorations. The leaves are made out of various colors of fondant rolled together and cut out with some leaf shaped pie crust cutters. The branches are made out of melted chocolate, piped out to fit on top of the cake. And the flowers are piped out with buttercream using some really awesome techniques that were also learned from YouTube. 

maple-pecan-cake-15

Once the branches had hardened and the flowers were hard from the freezer, I assembled everything into a wreath! Doesn’t it look pretty!

I think it would be perfect as the center piece for a Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving dinner! Or just make the cake (sans decor) and eat it anytime. Trust me…you won’t regret it. 

Maple Pecan Cake

You can watch how I made the cake in the short video below. I apologize in advance for the poor quality, I am still learning how to work my new camera and the editing software. But I am hoping to do a lot more videos, since that is practically how I learned everything I know. 😉

 

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Autumn Wreath Maple Pecan Cake

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