birthday cake extravaganza!

As I continue to enjoy baking goodies for the fantastic parties Extra-Ordinary Birthdays provides for children and their families living in homeless shelters, this month was a Mickey Mouse, basketball, and princess extravaganza.

Pinterest is a great resource, which I used to find ideas for the My Little Pony cake and microphone cupcakes that were served at previous celebrations. Believe me, there were plenty of great photos on Pinterest for this batch of cakes.

The cake recipes I used can be found here and here. I used store bought frosting.

For the Mickey cake:

-Use a 8 inch round cake pan and a 8 by 8 square pan. From the square pan, you'll use a mold to cut out circles after the cakes have cooled. I made two Mickey cakes, so cut the square cake in half across the diagonal, cut out the "ear", and then cut the ear in half horizontally. 

-If you'd like your cakes to be more flat, use a parchment collar.

For the basketball cake

-Use gel food coloring for the main frosting, and chocolate frosting for the laces. I used a small Ziplock bag to pipe. See "let them eat cake" for more on food coloring and piping.

For the cupcakes:

-Again, used gel food coloring.

-Gave the frosting a twist by coloring some cream cheese frosting purple and piping it on top of the chocolate frosting. You can also swirl the frosting.

-See "champagne cupcakes" for tips on piping with a Ziplock.