Funfetti Birthday Cake

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I’m 36! Happy birthday to me 🙂 Ever since I can remember, I’ve always had funfetti cake for my birthday. I’m not sure if my mom made it from scratch or the box cake from pillsbury, but it has always been my favorite! And here I am, a grown adult, baking my own birthday cake. Why not, right?! It’s what I do. For this cake I did a 3 tiers but I’m not sure of the sizes. If you are curious, please let me know and I’ll go measure but this recipe will be perfect for 2 (8) inch cake pans.

If you are in the mood for some birthday cake or celebrating a birthday of a loved one, here you go! Homemade funfetti with buttercream, sure to please ages 1-100 🙂 Let’s bake a cake!

What you will need:

2 (8) inch cake pans, greased and lined with parchment paper

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1 cup granulated sugar
3 egg whites
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup sprinkles (plus more for decorating)

For the buttercream:

1/2 cup butter at room temp
2 (+) cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 340 degrees. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, powder and salt. Set aside. In another large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until creamy. Add in egg whites, vanilla, sour cream and milk and beat until combined. Slowly beat in flour mixture until just combined. Fold in the sprinkles.

Divide batter evenly into cake pans. Bake for 20-30 minutes depending on size. Allow to cool slightly before inverting onto a wire rack. Cool completely before frosting and decorating.

To make the buttercream, beat all ingredients until desired consistency. Add more powdered sugar or milk as needed. Decorate cake!

Store covered at room temp or in the fridge.

Vegan Chocolate Cake

No butter, eggs or milk in this super dark chocolate cake! How is that possible? Science! This cake is super moist and delicious, it will probably be my new go-to birthday cake recipe. I topped it with not-so-vegan peanut butter buttercream for my husbands 37th birthday. YUM! If you want to keep the entire cake vegan, though, use whatever frosting you like 🙂 I provided the cake recipe and the buttercream recipe that I used in this post.

Also, this recipe only made an 8 x 8 inch pan, but you can easily double it for a 9 x 13 if you’re feeding more people. The buttercream however, will probably cover it. It makes a ton, I have some left over in my fridge which will probably (definitely) be eaten with a spoon when I’m hungry 😉 And last but not least, this cake is SO EASY to make! no mixer required, just a bowl and spoon and you are done!

So here we go! Let’s go make a vegan cake!

What you will need:

8 x 8 inch baking dish, greased

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon white vinegar
5 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 cup water

For the buttercream:

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 teaspoons milk
2 cups powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder and sugar. Add in vanilla, vinegar, oil and and water and stir until combined. Pour into prepared dish and bake for 25-30 minutes. Allow to cool completely before frosting. Note: if you doubled the recipe, you will need to bake longer so just keep an eye on it.

For the buttercream, beat together the butter and peanut butter until smooth. Add in vanilla, milk and powdered sugar and beat until completely smooth and you reach desired consistency. Spread over top of cooled cake.

Slice and enjoy!

Store covered at room temp.

Birthday Cake Batter Cookies

These are the BEST birthday cookies ever! Seriously, if you’re celebrating someones first birthday or their 100th, these are the perfect cookie treat! I love me some cake but you can’t beat that birthday cake taste in cookie form 🙂 Serve these alongside a cake and you’ve got the best of both worlds! Oh, AND you can even go to Cold Stone Creamery and get some Birthday Cake ice cream and then you’re REALLY set!

So, go get those sprinkles and let’s bake some cookies…

What you will need:

Cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cup vanilla boxed cake mix
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup sprinkles

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cake mix and baking soda. Set aside. In another large bowl, or bowl of your electric mixer, beat butter and both sugars until creamy. Add egg and vanilla and beat until well incorporated. Slowly beat in flour mixture. Stir in both chocolate chips and then the sprinkles.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough for 1-2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Place chilled cookie dough by rounded tablespoons onto prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Allow to cool on cookie sheet before transferring to a wire rack. Tip: Before transferring to a wire rack, I added a few more chocolate chips to the tops of each cookie to give them some more oomph 🙂

Enjoy! And Happy Birthday to everyone celebrating!

Yellow Butter Cake with Vanilla Buttercream

I made this cake for my husbands 35th birthday. He sent me the recipe from another blog called thekitchn.com. They have a ton of awesome recipes so go check them out if you have not already!

I must say, this is probably going to be my new go-to cake! Great for any occasion, even weddings! Dress it up or down, decorate it how you want, or don’t. It is so easy, not many ingredients are needed and it is so delicious! I could eat it in one sitting, no joke.

mmmmmmmm 🙂

So without further ado, let’s go bake a cake!

What you will need:

For the cake:

Two 9 inch round cake pans, greased and lined with parchment paper

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups whole milk

For the buttercream:

1 cup unsalted butter at room temp
4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 teaspoons +/- whole milk

Note: The decorations you see pictured are just vanilla wafer cookies dipped in melted chocolate

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside. In another large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until nice and creamy. Add in eggs, one at a time and beat well until incorporated. Beat in vanilla.

Slowly add in flour mixture, alternating with the milk. Beat for a full minute or two until the batter is a nice consistency. Pour into prepared pans and bake for 25 minutes.

Allow to cool on a wire rack before inverting to cool completely.

Now make the buttercream! Beat the butter until creamy and smooth. The key to making your own buttercream is that you cannot beat it enough. I used a hand mixer and my arm was about to fall off! Next, add in 3 cups of powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time and beat until incorporated and smooth. Add in vanilla and 2 teaspoons of milk. Keep beating, adding another cup of powdered sugar and more milk if needed until you reach desired consistency.

Look at this buttercream! YUM

Frost the cooled cakes, decorate and enjoy!

Peanut Butter Cake with Chocolate Frosting

So, it was just my husbands birthday and we went to Key Lime Cove for the night. It was a lot of fun and our 3 year old loved it! When we got home I wanted to make him a cake, even though it wasn’t his birthday anymore. But it’s what I do! He LOVES peanut butter. I’m sure I’ve mentioned that before. So I always try to incorporate it when I’m making him desserts. The buttercream frosting is one I always use but the cake is new and super delicious! It is a little bit dry, more so than I would have liked. But it tastes so peanut buttery that it works, especially with a cup of coffee 😉 And the frosting is super yummy. Oh, and the best thing about this recipe is that it is only one tier so it does not make a lot. Perfect for my family of 3. So… let’s go bake a cake!

What you need:

8 inch round cake pan, greased

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
Dash of salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
2/3 cup creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk

For the frosting:

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 Tablespoons milk +/-
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside. In another large bowl, beat together the butter, peanut butter and brown sugar until nice and smooth. I just used a hand mixer since we aren’t making a lot of batter. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined. Slowly add in the flour mixture, alternating with the milk until just incorporated. Batter is thick. Spread evenly into prepared pan and bake for 28-30 minutes. Let cool about 10 minutes before inverting to cool completely.

Make the frosting. Beat butter until smooth and creamy. Add half of the powdered sugar, the vanilla and 2 tablespoons of milk. Beat until creamy. Add the rest of the powdered sugar and 1 tablespoon of milk and beat until creamy. Add the cocoa powder and 1 tablespoon of milk and beat until you reach desired consistency, adding more milk as necessary.

Tip: I used a hand mixer for this as well. Adding the ingredients slowly really helps get a nice, fluffy buttercream frosting. Also, beating. Beat and beat some more until your hand hurts 🙂

Frost the cake, decorate and enjoy! Store covered.

We didn’t have any candles so I used matches 🙂 I wanted to see what it looked like.

Birthday Cake

AH! It’s my 100th post! So cool that it just happens to fall on my 31st birthday. Well, yesterday was my birthday so close enough 😉 Naturally this post is about cake. And not just any cake. A chocolate cake with chocolate AND pink buttercream frosting and 4 tiers! What?! If you follow me on Instagram you know that these pans were my great grandma’s. Never been used, stashed away for me to break them in 🙂 I was super excited to try them out and wanted to make a different shaped cake. It turned out great and the pans are amazing! They will definitely get a lot of use. So, here we go! Put on your aprons and let’s make a cake…

What you will need:

Here’s a picture of the actual recipe and then I’ll tell you what I used/did.

3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
4 oz. unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled

For the buttercream:

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
About 5 cups powdered sugar
A few tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
Food coloring (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease your pans with butter. In a large bowl, beat vegetable oil and sugar until well blended. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla. Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt and then add about a third of it to wet mixture. Add half of buttermilk and alternate with flour. Beat in lemon juice and melted chocolate.

Evenly pour batter into pans. This was tough for me since I never used 4 different sizes at once. Bake the smallest size for about 30 minutes. The other ones were all done at different times, I just kept an eye on them to make sure they didn’t over bake.

Allow to cool 10 minutes before inverting to cool completely. Level the layers by using a serrated knife, then frost with buttercream.

To make the buttercream:

In a large bowl, beat butter until smooth and creamy. Add 2 cups of powdered sugar and 1 tablespoon of milk. Add 2 more cups of powdered sugar and another tablespoon of milk and vanilla and keep beating until you reach desired consistency. Since I used pink frosting, I took out about 1/2 cup at this time and set it aside. Add cocoa powder to remaining buttercream with another tablespoon or 2 of milk and beat until nice and creamy. Frost the cake!

For the pink, I added 2 drops of red food coloring to the frosting I set aside and piped it on using a Wilton #8 tip. Very time consuming! Thank God I don’t get paid for this because I was stressing out! Not perfect, but it’ll do 🙂

Slice and enjoy!

And here’s my beautiful set up. I’m 31, not 12 , I swear 😉

Here’s the cake after about 11 of us dived in 🙂

Sugar Cookie Pops

We went to a 5 year olds birthday party this weekend and it was butterfly themed! I’ve always wanted to try making cookie pops. I have a great sugar cookie recipe, so I just needed to be creative to showcase the cookies once baked and decorated. I was really nervous making these because I used lollipop sticks, not cookie sticks. And I didn’t know how they were going to bake! But they turned out great, and the cookie baked very nicely to the stick.

This is more of a how-to-make-cookie-pops rather than a recipe. But you can find the sugar cookie recipe I use here! Or use whatever one you like, or use store bought cookie dough! It doesn’t matter. So, here we go. Let’s make some cookie pops!

Note: As a baker, you learn that practice makes perfect. This was my first time making cookie pops and I definitely learned a lot from this experience. Hopefully you all can take SOMETHING from this post and make your own cookie pops 🙂

What you will need:

Sugar cookie dough
Lollipop sticks (or cookie sticks)
Cookie cutter in desired shape(s)
Frosting, sprinkles, other decorations
Cardboard box in desired size
Wrapping paper
Scotch tape
Scissors
Pen

What to do:

First, get your box ready. Decide how many cookies can fit on it and poke holes gently with a pen in desired places. I used a Victoria’s Secret box 😉 I flipped it upside down. Then, make sure your sticks can fit in snuggly. Note: I will do this differently the next time around. I will get a decorative box and fill it with flower foam. But to save money, I just used what I had.

After your sticks are placed where you want them, take them out. Wrap the box with wrapping paper. Note: You don’t have to do this step if you got a decorative box to start with.

Once your box is wrapped, find the holes with your fingers and gently push in the lollipop sticks to make sure they fit.

Take them out and set them aside.

Next, roll out your sugar cookie dough. It’s better to go a little thicker than usual so they don’t crack, about 1/4 inch to 1/3 inch. Cut out your cookies and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Make sure there is enough room for the sticks. Tip: Cookie dough should be very cold. Cutting out sugar cookies with room temperature dough just doesn’t work. Always put any unused cookie dough back in the fridge until ready to roll out more.

Place the sticks on top of each cookie and press gently so the stick goes about halfway into the cookie.

Then place a thin piece of cookie dough on top to hide the sticks. Don’t worry too much about lumps, it bakes pretty even. Plus, they will be decorated which hides any imperfection. (Tip: On some of the thicker cookies I made, I was able to just twist the lollipop stick into the cookie so I didn’t have to add anymore cookie dough. Find what method works best for you.)

Place cookie sheet in fridge for about 10 minutes so cookies don’t lose shape while baking. Then, bake as directed. Leave cookies on cookie sheet to cool 10 minutes before carefully transferring to wire rack to cool completely. Decorate and stick in your box! So cute! Enjoy 🙂

I used a Wilton #5 tip and piped on the frosting for these butterflies. Seriously, so easy and super adorable!

And the finished product!

Cookie Monster Cake

Here is Liam’s 2nd birthday cake 🙂 So cute! And not too difficult to make. It’s just a chocolate layer cake with buttercream frosting dyed blue. In this post I will tell you how to do it so you can make it, too! We had so much fun celebrating with family and friends this weekend. Having kids is so much fun around this age. Seeing his eyes light up when he opens a present is priceless. I’m glad Christmas is right around the corner 😉 Well, onto baking a birthday cake…

What you will need:

Two 9 inch round cake pans sprayed with non-stick spray and then round parchment paper placed on the bottoms

For the cake:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup warm water
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the frosting, eyeballs, and mouth:

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Blue food coloring
Piping bag
Wilton specialty tip #233
2 Oreos
2 brown M&M’s
1 1/2 ounces white chocolate
A few cookies (I used Chips Ahoy but you can really use whatever cookie you want, or even bake your own if you have time)

To make the cake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In another large bowl, whisk together eggs, water, milk, vegetable oil and vanilla. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix until combined. The batter will be thin. Divide evenly between the prepared pans and bake for 26-30 minutes. Let cool for 15 minutes on wire rack before inverting to cool completely.

To make the eyeballs:

In a microwave safe bowl, melt the white chocolate. First for 30 seconds, stir, then 10 second intervals until melted completely. Dip the tops of each Oreo in the white chocolate and then place an M&M on top. Place in fridge to harden.

To make the frosting:

In a large bowl (or bowl of your electric mixer), beat butter until smooth. Slowly add powdered sugar until smooth and creamy. Beat in vanilla. Add in blue food coloring until you get desired color. I used 25 drops of liquid food coloring. Beat until frosting is nice and smooth.

You can frost the cakes however you like, really. To get the hairy look, I used a Wilton #233 tip. My hands were killing me by the time the top of the cake was done. So the sides were not “hairy.” I need cake decorating skills, for sure 🙂

Fo the mouth, I just broke up Chips Ahoy cookies. Super easy and tasty. Enjoy and have fun with it!

M&M Cookies

These cookies did not turn out as I’d hoped. But maybe it’s because I have high standards for myself and because my son is turning 2. My son is turning 2. Holy. Crap. Tomorrow we are having friends over to play and help us celebrate and I wanted something more fun than just chocolate chip cookies. So, M&M’s came to the rescue! I’m doing a red and blue theme for Elmo and Cookie Monster. Saturday I will be posting a Cookie Monster cake recipe so stay tuned! I just still can’t believe my baby is 2. Anyway, let’s bake some cookies…

What you will need:

Cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

For the cookie dough:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup crushed M&M’s
About another cup of M&M’s for the tops of the cookies

To make the dough:

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside. In another large bowl (or bowl of your electric mixer), beat butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated. Beat in vanilla. Gradually add the dry mixture until just incorporated. Stir in crushed M&M’s. Cover the dough and refrigerate at least 1 hour or overnight.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit. Scoop dough by rounded tablespoons and place on prepared cookie sheet. Press M&M’s on top of each cookie, as many or as little as you like. Bake for 10-12 minutes and let cool on wire rack. Enjoy!

Mine spread out too far because I used too much sugar. I adjusted the recipe for this post, so next time they will be better!

I made these little guys from the first batch that I completely ruined. Yay for creativity!

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