Tag: cake

How to Decorate a Store Bought-Cake so you don’t Have to Bake!
I love creating fun, themed parties for my daughter’s birthdays. A big part of the party theme is the cake, but with all the other planning that goes into a party, I stopped actually baking the cakes and starting buying cakes from Costco and re-decorating them. By doing it this way I know the cake will taste delicious, but I still get to be a part of decorating something more personalized for my kids. Below is the basic idea of how I do it. There are affiliate links at the bottom of the post to most of the items I used.

Usually, I gently scrape the excess frosting off the cake and redecorate with my own frosting and party-themed style. In the picture below, I bought the round chocolate fudge cake (the one with all the chocolate shavings on the top) and added my own bright frosting, sprinkles, and LOL Doll decorations to the top. Pro tip: when you buy a cake with chocolate shavings on top, you get to eat them while removing them from the cake. Yum!

This year, however, the round fudge cake was not available. So I decided to buy a plain sheet cake and try to wing it. It worked out surprisingly well! Everyone around here loves Costco’s chocolate sheet cake and it wasn’t as difficult for me to rework as I thought it would be. Take a look at how I did it below for my daughter’s mermaid cake!

I started with this plain chocolate sheet cake. I used a bench scraper to gently scrape off the excess frosting. Then, because I wanted to make a round cake, I needed to cut my cake into circles. (I know, I could have made my life easier and just decorated the cake as is, but where’s the challenge in that? Also, my daughter had seen some baking shows and really wanted a tall layer cake.) I experimented with a few different sized round bowls to see which size would get me three layers. You can see in the picture above the outlines of the bowl on the frosting.
Next, I cut three circles out of the cake. I used my bowl as my guide so they would all be perfectly round and the same size. This did leave a bit of leftover cake which I served to some of my guests who didn’t want as much frosting and I also froze some to bring out one cold February night when we all want a treat at home.
I gently stacked the layers as I cut them out. I didn’t put anything in between them, but I did use large straws as dowels for stability. I pushed three straws down through all three layers. I needed to cut the tops of the straws so they didn’t show.
Finally, I added a quick crumb coat from the frosting I scraped off at the beginning before putting the cake into the refrigerator until the next morning. This step was the hardest, I really needed to be careful to not pull off any of the cake. On the morning of the party, I quickly whipped up a batch of buttercream frosting and tinted it teal, pink and purple. Decorated my cake in a fun Mermaid theme and had a great party!

For the cake details, I bought white and blue pearlized sprinkles to be water bubbles. For the seaweed, I bought Haribo Sour Streamers and cut the green ones into long pointed strips, then pushed them into the frosting on the bottom. I then twisted them and pushed them into the frosting on the top. They held very well and of course, all the kids wanted a piece with seaweed on it!

And what mermaid cake would be complete without a mermaid? I bought this Schleich Mermaid figure from Amazon and placed it on top with some extra frosting details and a candle. While obviously not a professional cake, it was perfect for my six year old and perfect for me because I didn’t have to bake anything!

Items in this post:

Mermaid on top of cake: https://amzn.to/2NtN4lN
Similar cake turntable: https://amzn.to/37S9iFv
White “Bubble” Sprinkles: https://amzn.to/2NfWYat
Blue “Bubble” Sprinkles: https://amzn.to/2R2qPnW
“Seaweed” Haribo Sour Streamers: https://amzn.to/39XWeAn
Similiar LOL Doll Cake Sprinkle Mix: https://amzn.to/2QHUfsz
LOL Doll Series on Cake: https://amzn.to/35Ameys

*affiliate links

Looking for kid gift ideas? Check out some of our favorite gift ideas!
Fossil and Gemstone Dig Kits
Science Kits
Name Puzzle
January 10, 2020
How to Decorate a Store Bought-Cake so you don't Have to Bake!
I love creating fun, themed parties for my daughter’s birthdays. A big part of the party theme is the cake, but with all the other planning that goes into a party, I stopped actually baking the cakes and starting buying cakes from Costco and re-decorating them. By doing it this way I know the cake will taste delicious, but I still get to be a part of decorating something more personalized for my kids. Below is the basic idea of how I do it. There are affiliate links at the bottom of the post to most of the items I used.

Usually, I gently scrape the excess frosting off the cake and redecorate with my own frosting and party-themed style. In the picture below, I bought the round chocolate fudge cake (the one with all the chocolate shavings on the top) and added my own bright frosting, sprinkles, and LOL Doll decorations to the top. Pro tip: when you buy a cake with chocolate shavings on top, you get to eat them while removing them from the cake. Yum!

This year, however, the round fudge cake was not available. So I decided to buy a plain sheet cake and try to wing it. It worked out surprisingly well! Everyone around here loves Costco’s chocolate sheet cake and it wasn’t as difficult for me to rework as I thought it would be. Take a look at how I did it below for my daughter’s mermaid cake!

I started with this plain chocolate sheet cake. I used a bench scraper to gently scrape off the excess frosting. Then, because I wanted to make a round cake, I needed to cut my cake into circles. (I know, I could have made my life easier and just decorated the cake as is, but where’s the challenge in that? Also, my daughter had seen some baking shows and really wanted a tall layer cake.) I experimented with a few different sized round bowls to see which size would get me three layers. You can see in the picture above the outlines of the bowl on the frosting.
Next, I cut three circles out of the cake. I used my bowl as my guide so they would all be perfectly round and the same size. This did leave a bit of leftover cake which I served to some of my guests who didn’t want as much frosting and I also froze some to bring out one cold February night when we all want a treat at home.
I gently stacked the layers as I cut them out. I didn’t put anything in between them, but I did use large straws as dowels for stability. I pushed three straws down through all three layers. I needed to cut the tops of the straws so they didn’t show.
Finally, I added a quick crumb coat from the frosting I scraped off at the beginning before putting the cake into the refrigerator until the next morning. This step was the hardest, I really needed to be careful to not pull off any of the cake. On the morning of the party, I quickly whipped up a batch of buttercream frosting and tinted it teal, pink and purple. Decorated my cake in a fun Mermaid theme and had a great party!

For the cake details, I bought white and blue pearlized sprinkles to be water bubbles. For the seaweed, I bought Haribo Sour Streamers and cut the green ones into long pointed strips, then pushed them into the frosting on the bottom. I then twisted them and pushed them into the frosting on the top. They held very well and of course, all the kids wanted a piece with seaweed on it!

And what mermaid cake would be complete without a mermaid? I bought this Schleich Mermaid figure from Amazon and placed it on top with some extra frosting details and a candle. While obviously not a professional cake, it was perfect for my six year old and perfect for me because I didn’t have to bake anything!

Items in this post:

Mermaid on top of cake: https://amzn.to/2NtN4lN
Similar cake turntable: https://amzn.to/37S9iFv
White “Bubble” Sprinkles: https://amzn.to/2NfWYat
Blue “Bubble” Sprinkles: https://amzn.to/2R2qPnW
“Seaweed” Haribo Sour Streamers: https://amzn.to/39XWeAn
Similiar LOL Doll Cake Sprinkle Mix: https://amzn.to/2QHUfsz
LOL Doll Series on Cake: https://amzn.to/35Ameys

*affiliate links

Looking for kid gift ideas? Check out some of our favorite gift ideas!
Fossil and Gemstone Dig Kits
Science Kits
Name Puzzle
January 10, 2020
Triple Layer Cookie Cake – Easy but Impressive!
My kids just recently had a taste of their first cookie cake ever. They were amazed and obsessed immediately so when it came time for my daughter’s birthday, she insisted I make her this triple-layer cookie cake we saw over at Life, Love and Sugar. Never one to back down from a challenge I gave it a shot and it was amazing! What a great way to make a girl feel special on her birthday.
- Chocolate, Funfetti and Chocolate Chip
We created 3 cookies to make the layers: one Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie, one Funfetti Chocolate Chip Cookie and one Chocolate Chip Cookie. I made the recipe as written for the cookies, but chose to create a chocolate whipped cream frosting instead because our family don’t really care for buttercream. It – was – delicious! I used this recipe for the frosting. The only thing I did differently was to add about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of dark cocoa powder.

Let me tell you, holy cow! This frosting was so light, fluffy and delicious that I could have eaten the whole bowl right there in the kitchen. Thankfully, I didn’t and popped it into the refrigerator for a few hours to help it set up for piping on the cookie layers. I used this Cake Decorating Tool from Wilton to pipe and decorate the cake. I couldn’t find the exact cake stand I have, but I used a Turntable Cake Decorating Stand similar to this one to both frost and serve my cake on. My kids love helping by turning the stand while I frost the cake.
Seriously decadent, impressive looking and actually not that hard to make! Here are some tips from my experience:
- I cooked two of the cookies the day before, wrapped them well in plastic wrap and they held up perfectly overnight on my counter.
- I did use some skewers that I cut to size to help prop up the cake layers so they didn’t completely squish my frosting. These cookie cakes are very heavy!
- Make sure to keep the whipped cream frosting very cold before you start piping and put the cake in the refrigerator right afterwards. The cold will help your frosting keep it’s shape.
- Use lots of sprinkles, life is better with sprinkles.
*affiliate links
September 16, 2019
A Dog Birthday Cake Recipe for Your Best Friend!
My dog’s 10th birthday – she was a little confused!

Dog owners out there, this post is for you! Our dog recently celebrated her 10th birthday and my kids wanted to do something special, she is their best friend after all. After thinking up different places we could take her we decided, because it was a cold and rainy day, we would make her a small cake and party hat as a way to celebrate. My daughter’s quickly went to work decorating a piece of paper to make a hat worthy of their superdog while I went to work baking.

Well, not right away. First I had to scour the internet for a cake recipe that was both healthy for my dog and only used ingredients I already had at home. That is when I found this recipe at a blog called Spoonful of Sugar Free, which has some pretty good human recipes as well.It had everything I was looking for. Specifically, this cake only has 4 ingredients (egg, apples, peanut butter and baking powder), all of which my dog likes and can eat. The cake bakes easily in 20 minutes, and because I didn’t have a small cake pan, I used a piece of tinfoil that I folded into the shape of a circle.
As I got to work baking I realized the only thing missing to make this cake complete was the frosting. The cake recipe I had found didn’t include frosting so I decided to improvise.

Simple Dog Cake Frosting Recipe

Ingredients:
1/4 cup natural peanut butter
1/4 cup plain greek yogurt

Process:
Really simple, just mix the two ingredients until they are combined and creamy. Store in the refrigerator or use immediately. And that’s it! Once the two ingredients came together it looked like real buttercream frosting!

My kids cut and taped their decorated paper into the shape of a hat while I frosted the finished cake and tada! A celebration fit for an amazing dog.
April 17, 2019