Category Archives: Cake

Cream Cheese Buttercream

Recipe will frost about 18 cupcakes, or 1 small cake

8 oz. (one pack) cream cheese, softened
7 tbsp salted butter, softened
4 cups (480 grams) powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tbsp milk or cream

Beat butter & cream cheese using a stand or electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy, about 1 minute. Add vanilla extract & mix on low until just combined. Do not over mix the cream cheese.
Slowly add powdered sugar, about 1 cup at a time, beating on low speed for a few seconds between each addition.
Add 1-2 tbsp of milk or cream until desired consistency is reached. Increase mixer speed to medium/high & mix just until smooth.

Adapted from The Kitchen is My Playground

Happy Easter!

Mary Berry’s American Victoria Sandwich

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Are you as obsessed with The Great British Baking Show as I am?

I’m actually quite sad that the latest season just ended.

For the finale, the contestant’s technical challenge was to make Mary’s Victoria sandwich without a recipe.

A Victoria sandwich is is a two-layer light sponge cake filled with a layer of jam & buttercream.

Seeing as how I am not British – not even close – I am only able to take Mary Berry’s word that this is a classic cake & that the jam should be raspberry (with “all the bits”, as she says).

I’ve been wanting to try to create one of the recipes from the show since I started watching Season 1 on Netflix earlier this summer. I figured this one shouldn’t be terribly difficult. Not like the Prinsesstårta!

The only thing is that Mary Berry’s recipe is written in U.K. Measurements. I have no idea how much 225g of self-raising flour is. The PBS website is nice enough to link to this conversion site at the bottom of the recipe, but it only converts grams to ounces – not cups. I still have no idea how much 8oz of flour is. So with my little food scale & Google, I came up with the below recipe conversion.

Hence this is Mary Berry’s American Victoria Sandwich.

One key difference for me is that I do not have self-raising flour. Therefore, I used all purpose plus extra baking powder. (Side note: God is real, you guys. I had JUST enough flour to make this!)

I also made my own caster sugar with a food processor. I was going to skip it but I read that regular granulated sugar wouldn’t give the sponge the right texture & could be grainy. To make enough caster sugar for this recipe, I pulsed 1 1/4 cup of sugar in the food processor for about 30 seconds.

I was all set to follow Mary’s proportions for buttercream (7 tbsp buter, 1 3/4 cup powdered sugar if anyone is interested), but then I accidentally threw the whole stick of butter in the mixer. So 2 cups of powdered sugar it was. It’s so much easier to use the whole stick of butter anyway!

I did cheat a little & used store bought raspberry jam – seedless. Sorry, Mary. I know you like “all the bits”, but my husband does not!

My 2 sponges domed up more than I would have liked in the middle, so I did trim them. But that just meant I got to taste test them before serving them to my friends!

I cannot tell you how this compares to the British original.

I can only tell you it was delicious!

Mary Berry’s American Victoria Sandwich

Victoria Sponge

4 eggs
1 cup caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour, lightly spooned – not scooped
2 level tsp baking powder
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing

Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease two 8in round cake pans & line with parchment paper.
Break the eggs into a large bowl. Then add the sugar, flour, baking powder, & butter. Use an electric mixer to mix together until well combined, being careful not to over-mix. (According to Mary, “The finished mixture should be of a soft ‘dropping’ consistency.”)
Divide the mixture evenly between the cake pans. Use a spatula to gently smooth the surface of the cakes.
Place the cake pans on the middle shelf of the oven & bake for 25 minutes. Don’t open the oven door to check them until at least the 20 minutes mark.
When the’re done, remove them from the oven & set aside to cool in the pans for 5 minutes. Then transfer onto a rack to cool completely.

Buttercream

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
2 cup powdered sugar
1-2 tbsp milk

Using electric mixer, beat the butter in a large bowl until soft.
Add half of the powdered sugar & beat until smooth.
Add the remaining powdered sugar & 1 tablespoon of milk. Beat the mixture until creamy & smooth. Add the remaining tablespoon of milk if the buttercream is too thick.

To assemble:

Choose one of the sponges to be the bottom & put it down on to a serving plate.
Spread the raspberry jam (store bought or homemade) on the cake, then pipe the buttercream on top of the jam.
Place the other sponge on top & sprinkle with caster sugar to serve.

Cupcakes For Cupcake’s Baptism!

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Yesterday was Cupcake’s baptism!

She was such an angel about it! She was asleep up until we got up on the church altar. Then she opened her eyes & perked up, almost as if she knew that the ceremony was all for her.

Afterward we had a little party at our house to celebrate.

So of course I made a cake!

A pull-apart cupcake cake to be precise. Cupcakes for my Cupcake’s baptism ❤

This cake was so easy to assemble! I used 1 box cake mix, about 3 tubs of frosting, & some chocolate candies.

I think it came out looking beautiful.

I’m very much looking forward to raising little Cupcake to be a God-fearing woman.

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10

Pull-Apart Cupcake Cross

assembly instructions

28 cupcakes
~50 oz frosting (about 3 tubs)
candies for decorating

Assemble the cupcakes into the desired cross shape.
Frost each cupcake with a large rosette ( I used Wilton 2D tip)
Fill in the gaps with more rosettes.
Decorate with colorful candies.

Pregnant Tiramisu

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I have been pretty good this pregnancy about following the guidelines of what not to eat. Not too paranoid, but definitely avoiding the basics.

No alcohol. No cold cuts. No sushi. Limited caffeine. Nothing with raw eggs.

Raw eggs is one that seems straight forward, but isn’t. Meringue frosting? Raw egg whites. Homemade mayonnaise dressings? Probably has raw eggs. Tiramisu? RAW EGGS.

I had never made tiramisu before, but earlier in my pregnancy I had a hankering for it & looked up some recipes to see if I could substitute the obvious non-pregnancy friendly ingredients out. I was surprised when nearly every recipe called for raw egg yolks, & some also use the raw egg whites!

I figured tiramisu was just one more thing I’d have to add to my ‘No’ list. Until I came across this post by Lily from Little Sweet Baker. She did it! An amazing egg-free tiramisu recipe! With a few substitutions, baby & I could enjoy tiramisu after all!

Not only is this recipe safe for pregnancy, it’s also amazingly simple – which is great since pregnancy brain is in full swing around here. To make the tiramisu truly pregnancy friendly I used decaf espresso & omitted the liquor. My husband & I switched to decaf espresso when we found out about the baby, so that was no issue. I also increased the amount of vanilla extract a little to ‘make up’ for the liquor taste.

I ended up making this recipe several weeks ago when we had some friends over to watch a football game & it was a big hit! One of my friends is really sensitive to caffeine & was grateful for a decaf tiramisu recipe. So it’s not just pregnancy friendly!

Serve with a decaf cappuccino & have yourself an (almost) authentic Italian night!

Pregnant Tiramisu

1 cup whipping cream
1 cup mascarpone, softened
¼ cup sugar
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
1.5 cups decaf espresso, cooled
lady fingers
cocoa powder for dusting

Using an electric mixer, beat the whipping cream until stiff peaks form.
In a separate bowl, mix the mascarpone, sugar, and vanilla extract.. Add mixture to whipped cream and beat again until smooth.
Dip each lady finger into the cooled espresso. Do not soak too long or they will get soggy. Line a 9×9 square baking dish with a layer of dipped lady fingers.
Spread half of the cream mixture over the lady fingers. Repeat another layer of lady fingers & cream. Chill for a minimum of 4 hours, best if overnight.
Dust with cocoa powder before serving. (If you do this before chilling the tiramisu, like I accidentally did, it will still be delicious! Just a little less pretty.)

Easter Cake

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Tomorrow is Easter Sunday!

Easter came early this year, which happens from time to time since its date is the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring.

Maybe that’s why this year Lent has seemed a little less Jesus-y for me than in years prior. We just celebrated Christmas & here is Easter already.

Nonetheless, just like Christmas, Jesus is the reason for the season.

My coworker is throwing her annual Easter picnic & egg hunt. Last year I made a bunny cake & brought my niece with me to the egg hunt. It was a lot of fun.

This year I am so over all the bunnies.

Easter isn’t about bunnies & egg hunts. It isn’t even about family & good food. It’s about Jesus.

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

With that being said, Easter is a celebration! Up from the grave he arose! So it should be bright & fun 🙂

I hope I captured that spirit in this cake.

Funfetti cake with crushed M&Ms in the center, cream cheese frosting & malted eggs for decor.

Easter should be fun, especially for children. But it’s that cross in the center that is the most important piece of this whole weekend.

Happy Easter! He is risen, indeed!

Caramel Apple Cake

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I was trying to think of something fancier to call this cake, but alas, I came up empty.

This cake is so good, y’all!

I made this cake for Thanksgiving, but it’s not exclusively a holiday dessert. It’s a wonderfully delicious any time you’re craving cake cake!

I looked up several apple cake recipes before landing on one from EatInEatOut. I tweaked it a bit & made it my own. The original recipe has nuts & is frosted with maple buttercream & pecans – it looks really amazing! I wanted to go the caramel route, so I decided on caramel buttercream & sauce with toffee chip garnish.

The caramel sauce & caramel buttercream recipes are amazing enough to merit their own post, but since I put it all together I wanted to give you guys the full picture.

Yep.

Seriously, SO GOOD!

The cake itself is really yummy even without frosting. With a few tweaks it would make a great apple muffin recipe. Hmm…

It also wasn’t terribly difficult! I used honeycrisp apples & the hardest part is probably dicing them, but I took a few shortcuts. I peeled them, used an apple slicer to slice & core them, then used a slap-chop to get little crunchy pieces of yum.

The batter before adding the apples is really thick! Reminded me of gingerbread cookie dough. But the apples are very moist & so once I stirred those in the batter was more cake-y than cookie-y.

The caramel sauce is amazing. I got it from The Pioneer Woman. Truly it’s more of a brown sugar sauce than caramel, but the taste & consistency are caramel-y enough for me! It reminds me a lot of sugary glaze part of the monkey bread muffins I’ve made previously – but much richer. At first I was worried it was too runny, but that was only because it was piping hot. So if you make this recipe & think the caramel sauce is too runny, it’s probably fine – just melted!

Of course, this cake also needed some buttercream. So I looked up the Wilton caramel buttercream recipe & just changed the proportions to suite my needs. The below recipe made just enough buttercream for this cake.

This cake is definitely worth all the work. It really wasn’t so bad. I put on some Christmas music, poured a glass of wine, & got to work while my husband kept me company in the kitchen.

Later on I frosted the cakes with the buttercream & put toffee chips all around the bottom. Then, I poured the caramel sauce all over it. This was one of the easiest cake decorating jobs ever. This cake is just as delicious as it is pretty!

Everyone loved it! The cake has a great apple flavor & the caramel sauce is slightly salty which offsets all the sweetness. The buttercream is creamy (well yeah, it should be, right?) & delicious.

All 3 of these recipes are winners. Put them together & they are unbelievable!

Apple Cake

Recipe adapted from EatInEatOut.

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 apples, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray two 8in. cake pans with baking spray.
In a bowl mix flour, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt & baking soda.
In a separate bowl, use an electric mixer to beat eggs, sugar, vanilla & oil for 2 minutes.
Slowly add dry ingredients to mixer bowl until combined. The batter will be really thick.
Stir in apples by hand; batter will become less thick. Pour batter into cake pans. Bake until done in the center; 40-45 minutes.
Cool completely before frosting.

Caramel Sauce

Recipe from The Pioneer Woman (heavy cream version)

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 stick salted butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a low boil & whisk gently for 5 to 7 minutes.
Caramel will be runny when hot, but thicken as it cools. Caramel will harden in the fridge; to bring to pourable consistency microwave for a few seconds at a time. For cake decorating, caramel should be cool but pourable.

Caramel Buttercream

Recipe adapted from Wilton

1/4 cup solid vegetable shortening
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup caramel sauce
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1-2 tbsp heavy cream

With an electric mixer, cream shortening and butter. Add caramel sauce and vanilla.
Add powdered sugar one cup at a time, beating on medium speed until fully incorporated.
When all sugar has been mixed in, add heavy cream a little at a time until light and fluffy.

Blueberry Cake with Lemon Buttercream

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Recently my husband bought these pancake & sausage on a stick things for breakfast, like a breakfast corn dog with pancake instead of cornbread. A blueberry pancake. I took my first bite at my work desk & it was pretty tasty. Then I looked down at my breakfast pancake dog & saw that it was purple. Like, really purple. Marie from Breaking Bad would love these. But then again, who wouldn’t like pretty food?

Somehow this lead to me wanting to make a purple cake for the 4th of July.

I was unamused with my search for a blueberry cake recipe. They all basically said, “toss some blueberries into your cake. Done.” So I sort of came up with my own, using boxed cake mix.

This is becoming my pattern. I like it!

I didn’t just want pieces of blueberry in my cake, I wanted my whole cake to be blueberry!

I started by making a blueberry ‘sauce’. I’m really not sure what to call it. It wasn’t really reduced, I just cooked the blueberries with lime juice & sugar to make a liquidy blueberry concoction.

Then I strained my concoction to get 1 cup of liquid. I used this to replace a cup of water from the boxed white cake instructions, & saved the solids to be added to the cake batter later.

Check out that purple!

While the cake was baking, I made lemon buttercream.

It was my first time making it. My mother in law makes delicious buttercream all the time & never uses heavy cream. I took her word for it & got good results using 2% milk. Mmm!

After baking for approximately 30 minutes & cooling, I frosted my colorful cake. I got to taste a little bit of it when I was leveling the cakes to stack them. More mmm!

Since this cake was for the 4th of July, I got a little patriotic.

I should get bonus patriot points because red & blue mixed together gives you purple.

I was so excited to serve this homemade dessert at our first big shindig at our new house. We had our families & Sunday school friends over for a 4th of July party.

This cake was so good, everyone has some even though we were already stuffed to the gills.

The cake & the party were a big success!

Blueberry Cake

1 box white cake mix
3 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup water
18 oz fresh blueberries
juice from 1/2 lime
1/2 cup sugar

Remove stems/leaves from blueberries. In a medium saucepan, cook blueberries, lime juice, & sugar for 3-5 minutes. Mash up the blueberries a bit.
Strain the blueberries until you get about 1 cup of liquid. Save the blueberry mash.
With an electric mixer, mix eggs, water, blueberry liquid, oil, & box cake mix on low for 30 seconds. Then mix on medium for 2 minutes.
Pour cake batter into 2 8″ round cake pans. Spoon blueberry mash into cake batter & mix.
Bake for about 30 minutes, until set in the center.

Lemon Buttercream

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
4 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon lemon extract
3 tablespoons milk

Beat softened butter on medium speed with the paddle beater for about 3 minutes.
Add sifted confectioner’s sugar and stir on low until incorporated.
Add lemon extract and milk. Beat on medium-high for 3 minutes.

This is my 50th post! I’m very excited about that. This blog has helped me in ways I could never have anticipated when I started it in January.

Wedding Wednesday – Our Christmas Wedding Cake (& Mustang Grooms Cake!)

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Happy Wednesday! The work week is half over & Memorial Day weekend is coming!

Today I wanted to share our wedding cake with y’all.

Our venue included the cake & gave us 2 vendors to choose from. We went with Edible Creations. They have an awesome selection of flavors & their cake decorating is amazing, too! We chose Vanilla Rum & South Florida Red Velvet – it’s red velvet with a hint of key lime!

This is the picture I got from Pinterest & showed the cake decorator.

This is the cake we got.

So much better than we could have ever expected! The cake itself is pretty simple, but the Christmas decorations put it over the top!

I bought a ceramic cake topper & personalized it a bit by painted the red accents.

We were very excited to cut into it, as you can see.

We had a no cake smashing rule. He thought about it, though.

I didn’t even think about it.

BONUS: Groom’s cake!

My husband knew he was getting one, but the design was a surprise to him. He loved it!

See you next Wednesday for more wedding fun!

Easter Bunny Cake

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Tomorrow is Easter! I’m super excited this year. The Lenten season was very meaningful to me. But more on that ~~later~~ here! 🙂

Today my husband & I took our niece to an Easter egg hunt my coworker put on. It was a lot of fun! Everyone brought a little something to contribute, so of course I brought dessert.

This Easter bunny cake was super easy! Apparently it’s an old Kraft recipe. I used the template below to cut 2 round cakes into the necessary shapes.

I actually used a 9″ cake for ‘A’ & an 8″ cake for ‘B’ & ‘C’. I liked this a little better than the pictures I saw online because the ears & the bow tie weren’t giant.

I baked my cakes, cut the pieces, & frosted them individually. Then, I assembled them together.

I gave him a cute little bunny face & festive bow tie 🙂

The kids (and the adults) loved it!

This is a great bunny cake because you can get as fancy or as creative as you want!

Today was a very nice day spent with family & friends.

Happy Easter! He is risen, indeed!

Mrs. Dessert Monster

Part-time baker; full-time mami

Category Archives: Cake

Cream Cheese Buttercream

Cream Cheese Buttercream

Happy Easter!

Mary Berry’s American Victoria Sandwich

Mary Berry’s American Victoria Sandwich

Cupcakes For Cupcake’s Baptism!

Pull-Apart Cupcake Cross

Pregnant Tiramisu

Pregnant Tiramisu

Easter Cake

Caramel Apple Cake

Apple Cake

Caramel Sauce

Caramel Buttercream

Blueberry Cake with Lemon Buttercream

Blueberry Cake

Lemon Buttercream

Wedding Wednesday – Our Christmas Wedding Cake (& Mustang Grooms Cake!)

Easter Bunny Cake