Vanilla Buttercream Frosting (on a Edsel Logo Cake)

For my son's 20th birthday he wanted a vanilla cake with buttercream frosting and minimal decorations and something more "grown up" than past birthday cakes, so I decided to make him an Edsel logo as
he and his father own a 1959 Edsel Villager (pictured left).



I used a boxed cake mix, but went in search on the internet for a buttercream frosting recipe, as I had never made it before and found this super easy and delicious recipe on Food.com for Vanilla Buttercream Frosting by Sprinkle's Cupcakes (featured on Oprah).

I used canned decoration frosting to look like the emblem on the front of the car and instead of writing out EDSEL I just used the letter "E".   As the canned frosting did not come out consistently it; there would be nothing and then it would glob out, resulting in less than professional looking results but tasted great and my son loved it.

If I had it to do over, I would use red licorice strands for the logo and lines and just used decoration frosting around the edges.



I wasn't sure how much I would need as the amount was set up to frost cupcakes, so I went for 18 "cupcakes", but probably ended up with enough left over to frost another cake.  The recipe below is what I used, but you can click on the hyperlink and type in number of cupcakes and the software calculates what you will need.







Vanilla Buttercream Frosting (From Sprinkle's Cupcakes)

•  1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, softened (I used unsalted butter)
• 5 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons milk 
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract 
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

In a bowl, combine butter sugar and salt and cream them together (I used a mixer).

Add milk and vanilla and beat 3-5 minutes until creamy.   It came out very thick and I added a teaspoon of water to get it to more easily spread on the cake.

Inspired by Starbucks - Chocolate Cake with Salted Carmel Icing

This is based on a recipe over at Salsa Pie made using a chocolate cake mix, canned frosting and carmel topping made from scratch.   It is super-rich - I was not able to eat this entire piece and a good serving size for this would be about 1/4 of the above piece and delicious accompaniment to serve with tea or coffee between meals.   I think this would also be good with smashed pretzels sprinkled on the top instead of the sea salt to give it added texture.

Over at  Salsa Pie she also has instructions on making everything from scratch.

Ingredients:

• 1 boxed chocolate cake mix (I used a Fudge Chocolate cake mix)
• Ingredients required to make the cake (mine was 1/4 vegetable oil, 3 eggs and 1 cup water)
• 1 can white frosting
• Carmel topping or Homemade Carmel topping

 Ingredients for Carmel Topping

•  1 1/2 cups brown sugar, 
• 1 Tbsp cornstarch
• 1 cup cream or milk
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 Tbsp sea salt

Bake cake according to instruction on the box and allow to cool..

 Once cake has cooled, frost with canned frosting.

Mix together brown sugar and cornstarch in saucepan.  Turn on heat to medium -high.

Slowly add milk to mixture a little at a time mixing the entire time then add butter and continue to stir until melted.

Bring to boiling then turn heat down to medium and cook for 8-10 minutes stirring regularly.  Allow to cool before putting on the cake.

Use a large spoon and drizzle the carmel topping on top of the cake.

I put 1 Tbsp of sea salt in a bowl and started to use the spoon to shake over the top, but it went on too heavy and I ended up using my thumb and forefinger and pinching a bit and the sprinkling on the top for better control.

POP ROCKS COOKIES

This is a fun novelty cookie to eat, as you get a crackle and pop in every bite. This is a fun cookie to make, if you can find Pop Rocks. Around the 4th of July I ran across several posts on the internet that incorporated Pop Rocks in to cookies but when I went to find Pop Rocks at major retailers/grocery stores like Wal-Mart, Meijers and Kroger, I found they didn't carry them and I had all but chucked the idea, until my son brought home a pack that he had picked up at Family Dollar (we have found since they also carry them at Dollar General). Item used: (This made 24 1 inch mini-cookies)

• Slice and Bake or pre-formed squares Sugar Cookie dough
• 1 can Vanilla Frosting
• 2 pack pkg of Pop Rocks
• Blue Food Coloring (optional)

Bake the Sugar cookies according to the instructions on the package and allow them to cool.

If you want to tint the frosting, you can just put a few drops in the frosting can and stir it up.

Frost the top of the cookies.

Sprinkle the Pop Rocks on top of cookies.

15 Minute Sea Creature Cookies

For when you want to bake special cookies and take and/or serve, but just don't have the time. Clean up is minimal as you slice the cookies on parchment paper right on the baking sheet and mix the food coloring right in the can of frosting. Items used:

• Refrigerated sugar cookie dough
• 1 can vanilla frosting
• Gummy sea creatures
• Blue Food coloring
• Baking Parchment paper
• Knife

I used a bag of octopus and there were 10 of them and ended up with 13 cookies, but you could use any type of gummy sea creatures. Our local Walmart has sharks and even some "Finding Nemo" ones.

Preheat oven to temperature indicated on package, place baking parchment paper, slice into 1 inch slices and place approximately 2 inches apart then place in oven to bake according to package.

While cookies are baking, open up can of frosting and add approximately 15 drops of blue food coloring and mix in the can using knife.

Remove the cookies from the oven and allow to cool, or you can speed up the process by sticking them in the fridge for a few minutes if you have shelf space.

I know, cookies are not suppossed to be square - the reason these turned out this was as that I left the dough out of fridge too long before slicing them - wait until you are ready to start the project before taking out of the fridge to avoid this.

Once cookies are cool, frost them with the blue frosting.

Put your sea creature(s) on the top and you are done!

JELLO CAKE VERSION - TROPICAL CAKE WITH ORANGE CREAM FROSTING

This is a version of the following Jello cake that I posted previously.

http://craftsandcreationswithkathy.blogspot.com/2009/05/peach-jello-cake-with-whipped-peach.html

With the summer days being hot, we were in the mood for something tropical and this hit the spot.

I used a lemon cake mix and used orange juice instead of water and baked according to the directions on the box then allowed the cake to cool then poked holes in the top with a fork.

I then used a small box of Tropical Fruit jello and 1 cup of boiling water, mixed it together then poured over the cake.

For the frosting, I used 1 8oz tub of whipped topping, 1 cup powdered sugar and 1 cup of orange juice.

RADIOACTIVE EASTER PEEPS

This was inspired by estherwaayenberg instructable at Instructable.com, http://www.instructables.com/id/Edible-Easter-Nests/

but with a twist after I saw the green peeps at the store, I decided to make mine radioactive.

Ingredients:

1 box of Green Easter Peeps

1 pkg - 11-12oz of Chocolate Chips (I used milk chocolate)

1 cup of Chow Mein Noodles

20-30 Jellybeans

Optional:

1 pkg ready to use green frosting (or you could just use any frosting)

Makes 10 nests

Boil water in the bottom double boiler (or the equivalent), reduce heat and pour the chocolate chips into the top of a double boiler (or the equivalent)

Stir the chocolate until it is completely melted.

Mix in the chow mein noodles throughly.

Spoon the mixture by large spoonful onto a plate or into a cointainer to make 10 nests. (I used the topper to a commercially prepared cake turned upside down.)

This is optional, but to secure the peep and and jellybeans to the nest, I put on a little bit of green frosting.

Put on 1 peep per nest and 2-3 jellybeans per nest. Then put in the fridge until you are ready to serve them.

Here they are in quarantine.