Sponge Bob...and a yellow cake recipe

Where would we be without Sponge Bob? Sponge Bob represents pure stupidity in children's television...yet we all laugh away. I, myself, have watched one episode (it was enough).

This cake, however was so fun to do! It made me almost like Sponge Bob for a brief second...almost. I covered the whole cake with yellow marshmallow fondant, added a stripe of white and brown along the lower half, added eyes and spots, and a red tie, and bada bang, got yourself a Sponge Bob. I outlined all the details with black royal icing.

Last year I made a Dora birthday cake for this customer. One layer was a yummy homemade chocolate cake and the other layer was a doctored yellow cake mix. This year they requested yellow cake. They said they have been thinking about my moist yellow cake for the last year. Ha-Larious! So.....here is a simple recipe for what they say is AMAZING yellow cake! I have tried three or so homemade yellow cake recipes. This easy one is comparable to homemade.

Doctored Moist Yellow Cake
Pretty much made up by me from two other recipes I have tried

1 box yellow cake mix
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp butter flavored extract or lemon or vanilla ...whatever you want

Happy Happy Birthday!

I believe that the best birthday present you can give anyone, is a nice, fat, rich, chocolatey, homemade cake.( well, I can actually think of a few things I might want more, i.e. money, but you catch my drift!) So this cake is a no fail recipe that I promise you will use EVERY time! I found it on The Girl Who Ate Everything. Then I just added my personal touch by making the letters out of fondant. So incredibly beautiful, easy and delicioso!!!! This post is a shout out to my precious first born child who turned 5 this week! I cannot believe it! Kindergarten here he comes!



The Best Chocolate Cake
from The Girl Who Ate Everything
1 box devil’s food cake mix
1 small box Jello instant chocolate pudding mix (not the sugar or fat free kind!)
1 cup sour cream
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 cups mini semisweet chocolate chips (you can use regular too)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a VERY large bowl (4 qt), mix together everything except chocolate chips. Batter will be thick. Stir in the chocolate chips. Pour batter into cake pan of choice (I normally use two 9-inch pie pans). You could use this batter to make any kind of cake: sheet cake, cupcakes, bundt cake, etc. For cooking time, use the cooking times on the back of the devil’s food cake box as a guide and add around 10 minutes to whatever it says. Do the toothpick check, and if it’s not done, I check on it every 5 mins after that. It usually takes around 45 mins for two, 9-inch pie pans.

Bibbity Bobbity Boo

In honor of the "Royal Wedding"(sorry, just thought that should be capitalized and in quotations) I thought that I would post a picture of a cake that I made for a princess that is as equally stunning as the Duchess herself! But first I had to share this little beauty that I found on facebook. Seriously so funny!



So, once again I had a bit of a learning curve with the fondant so let me share some do's and don'ts with y'all (you do know I am from Texas right? Just thought I'd share!) I used a whipped cream frosting again because the taste cannot be beat, but it definitely makes for some more challenging decorating. I initially made the stripes on the cake with pink fondant, but I put it on the night before and the pink bled onto the frosting, (lesson learned!) so you need to wait and apply to a nice crisp buttercream frosting if you are using fondant detailing. I ended up piping the dots and stripes with royal icing. The pink circle on top is also made from fondant. I am signed up for yet another class where I will be learning a lot more about fondant and I am so excited to share what I learn with y'all (there I go again!)

Until then, happy experimenting!

The Box's Fav. Chocolate Cake Recipe

A talented gal pal of mine just started a cake blog called Catastrophic Cakes. I was thinking of her on Friday when I was putting the finishing touches on a week long project-my first fondant cake. It truly was catastrophic. I felt like anything wrong that could have happened happened. My headboard broke (see pict. The bed, blocks and words are fondant. The toys are toys.) and I had to use the footboard instead. The text "Happy" broke and I had to piece it together like a puzzle for the presentation. Okay it really wasn't that bad in the grand scheme of things...especially since it was the first time I have literally EVER touched fondant. The part that was catastrophic was the cake part. I had no clue how to level, fill, etc. (Soon to be resolved...taking a great class in a few weeks and I will share what I learn.) My frosting recipe I chose turned out pretty crusty after spreading it out and you can see little cracks across the whole top. Oh Well! I gave it to them for cost and lesson learned! I should not be overly confident in my capabilities until I take some more classes!

Also, this last weekend, I did some bridal gown cookies that were to die for and these cupcakes. Aren't they cute? I will teach you how to make the stars later this week.

But for both projects...I used this recipe. My fav. chocolate cake recipe by far...and I have tried alot! This recipe stays moist for DAYS! We love it!

The Box's Favorite Chocolate Cake Recipe...so far

Source: My Kitchen Cafe

Makes two 8-inch or 9-inch cake layers , 1 9X13-inch pan

Makes about 2.5 dozen cupcakes

Put the following ingredients into your cart...

1 ¼ cups unsweetened cocoa powder

2 ½ cups all purpose flour

2 ½ cups sugar

2 ½ teaspoons baking soda

1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder

1 ¼ teaspoons salt

2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk

1 ¼ cups warm water

1 ¼ cups buttermilk

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Put your apron on and get busy...

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, making sure the baking rack is in the middle of the oven.

Prepare your cake pans by cutting out a piece of parchment or wax paper to line the bottom of the pan. Grease the pans, place the parchment or wax paper in the bottom of the pan and lightly grease again. Dust the pans with flour (or cocoa powder if you don’t want the white dusting on the finished cakes). Set the pans aside.

Using a fine mesh strainer, sift together the cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Add the eggs, yolk, warm water, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Mix on low speed (with a handheld mixer or in the bowl of an electric stand mixer) until smooth, about 3 minutes.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. Bake the cakes for about 32-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean or with moist crumbs. Do not overbake! Remove the pans from the oven and set the pans on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Gently run a thin knife around the edges of the pans and unmold the cakes, removing the parchment paper liners from the bottom of the cakes. Let them cool completely, top sides ups, on a wire rack.

Trim the tops of the cake layers with a long serrated knife to make them level.