Lily's Cake

So I am becoming more experienced with working with fondant. I learned a lot of lessons from my practice cake, and corrected some of the mistakes that I made last time. I made a few brand new ones, but I also made some improvements. Hurrah!

I'll tell you the story as I go through the pictures.

First, I baked two large round cakes and two small round cakes (I really wanted to say Short Round cakes), with one of each chocolate, and the other white. Lily really wanted white cake (don't ask me why) so we compromised and made it half and half.

Then I made the faux Costco cream cheese filling. I actually had the correct ingredients on hand this time (and I discovered Dream Whip!) and it turned out awesome! It's a fabulous consistency and it tastes wonderful. If you're thinking about doing a cream cheese filling for a cake, and just figured you'd do a cream cheese frosting, DON'T! It might turn out too sweet, and I highly recommend this filling. I'll share the recipe at the bottom. (Unless you're doing a carrot cake, then it's probably fine to use cream cheese frosting as the filling.)

Here are the cakes stacked with the filling. That blob of filling on top is to use as mortar to attach the top layer. I discovered without a doubt that brand name cake mixes taste better than the store brand. They are also more fluffy and soft and moist. Spring for the name brand cake mixes, folks.

And there are both layers all stuck together. BUT! It was at this point that I realized that I had to cover each layer with fondant separately. I shouldn't have stuck them together yet! ARGH!
Here is the butter cream frosting. When you make fondant, you have to put a layer of butter cream frosting on first so that the fondant has something to stick to. It's also nice so that you can peel off the icky fondant and still have frosting!
So here is the bottom layer with the butter cream frosting on it.
When I made the fondant, I had this decision moment early in the process. I'd known since I made the last cake that I would have to make this decision, but I was still being wishy washy about it when it came time to do it. See, when you color fondant, if you want more than one color, you have to make it all white and then mix the coloring in later, which takes a lot of kneading. (And I planned on making a purple cake, and then making different colored dots all over it.) OR you can just color it all the same color and have your Kitchen Aid do the work for you. But then you can only have one color, or you have to use that base color of fondant to make your other colors. I hemmed and hawed (is that how you spell it?) until the very last second and finally decided to just color the whole thing purple so that I wouldn't have to knead for hours and hours and hours. I also figured that gel food coloring just might be powerful enough to overcome the base purple color. So I colored the whole kit and caboodle purple. Then, when I'd covered the two layers, I took a few blobs of fondant and attempted to make them beautiful colors. I think I was really tired of it at that point, because I came up with an ugly mauve, puke green, and an ok-but-not-vibrant blue color. Meh. Good enough. I didn't love it, but I knew I'd made my bed and I'd have to sleep in it.
BUT THE NEXT DAY!!!

The next day, I started making the cookies to decorate the cake. I knew I'd either have to recreate my ugly dot colors, or having un-matching colors. But here's the deal. As soon as I made the following frosting colors, I knew that I was not going to tolerate those ugly dots. Who wants ugly muted colors when you can have such awesome vibrant colors!? These are the three bowls of cream cheese frosting that I used on the eating cookies.
See, look how gorgeous they are! I love the bright colored dinosaurs!
These are the decoration cookies (as opposed to the eating cookies). For these, I wanted a nice smooth looking frosting, so instead of using the yummy cream cheese frosting, I made a simple icing out of milk and powdered sugar. I used the icing to make nice smooth-looking decorative cookies for the cake, and then we ate the cookies with the yummy cream cheese frosting!
So anyway, back to my ugly dots. While I was making the sugar cookies, I had a stroke of genius (if I do say so, myself... and I do). I thought that instead of using fondant for the dots, I could use cookies! And hey, if it didn't work, I'd be no worse off. So I took little blobs of cookie dough, and set to dying them various bright colors. Once again, if you've never used Wilton gel food coloring, and have only used the little dropper bottles that you use for Easter eggs, you're really missing out. Gel food coloring is a-mazing. So anyway, the cookie dough looked really bright and beautiful, so I crossed my fingers that they would still be bright once baked.
And they were! So here's how you do it, in case anyone else out there ever has the urge to attach cookies to a fondant cake.

So after you dye your cookie dough and cut it out, stick it in the oven. About halfway through baking, or when the cookies are no longer shiny looking, open the oven and pull one cookie out of the oven and stick it straight onto the cake right where you want it. It should be cooked enough to end up looking like a cookie, but doughy enough that you can mold it to the shape of the cake. The heat of the cookie melts the fondant ever so slightly enough for it to stick tight, but not enough for it to slide or anything. So just hold your piping hot cookie tight to the cake in place for 30 seconds or so, or until you're confidant that it's suck. Then take your next dot straight out of the oven and stick it on. Whatever you do, don't take the whole pan of cookies out of the oven because by the time you get to the last cookies, they'll have cooled and hardened and will just crumble instead of molding to the cake. I think it's possible that I've come up with a new cake baking technique. Has anyone else ever stuck cookies to a cake?
The rest of the cookies pre-frosting.
The old ugly fondant dots. GOODBYE!
Lily tasted a cookie and gave it her stamp of approval.
Jim said that the kitchen looked to colorful not to take a picture of it. I say, the picture doesn't even do it justice.
The finished product! Notice that I also made colored-dough letter cookies to spell Lily's name, and iced them with contrasting icing colors. Oh, and I used kabob skewers to attach some of the cookies, and the ones on the bottom layer I just glued on there with extra cream cheese filling, which worked great.

To sum up, the grand total was:

4 cakes of two different flavors
cream cheese filling
purple butter cream frosting
purple fondant
ugly fondant dots
dinosaur shaped cookies
colored dot and letter cookies
cream cheese frosting in three different colors
decorative icing in three different colors

all equals ONE BIRTHDAY CAKE!!!


And here's what you've really been waiting for! This is the cream cheese filling that I made, and it's pretty close to what Costco makes. I got it off of a Wilton discussion forum, so I can't claim ownership. But if you have to write something on the recipe card, I'm not opposed to a title something like:

Alyson Klein's Wonderfully Delicious Cream Cheese Cake Filling

1 Pkg Jello Instant French Vanilla Pudding (small package, not large)
1 Envelope Dream Whip
1-1/2 cups light cream
4 oz Philadelphia Cream Cheese softened
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp Knox unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup cold water

Pour powdered pudding and powdered Dream whip into medium bowl and add the light cream, blend on low speed with electric mixture until blended. Switch to high speed and beat 6 minutes scraping down sides occasionally with spatula. Add softened cream cheese and vanilla and beat another minute. Pour 1/4 cup water into small saucepan and sprinkle gelatin over it. Stir and the let stand for one minute. Heat gelatin mixture over medium heat until gelatin dissolves and mixture thins ad turns clear. DO NOT allow to boil. Remove pan from heat and set aside for a few minutes and allow mixture to cool off a bit. Don't let sit too long-it will begin to gel after about 10 mins. or so. Pour gelatin mixture into pudding mixture and beat thoroughly, scraping down sides of bowl for 1 minute. Cover tightly and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. When ready to fill cake mix with mixer until nice and creamy. If too thick add a little bit light cream until desired texture achieved. TIPS: recipe can be doubled-use a large bowl. Flavors develop when sitting over night. If cake you are filling is crumbly, pipe filling between layers and spread with knife dipped in hot water. (Recipe courtesy of Carol Chisholm.) Delicious, creamy, not too sweet and sturdy enough not to squish out from between layers. ENJOY!!!!!!