Pretty. Easy. Cake.

I for one, LOVE cake... and I'm sure I'm not alone! I also love PRETTY cakes and have wanted SO badly to make one but I don't have my own decorating tips and typically try not to eat much cake in order not to gain 100 pounds... haha.

A couple weeks ago, my mom asked me if I'd make my grandma's birthday cake and I got SO excited about making it that I started to overload my brain with all of the possibilities! I decided not to make the cake batter from scratch though, since I'm kind of new at this whole "from scratch" thing anyhow and I don't know how my own would turn out.

So I went to the store and bought a Duncan Hines marble cake mix. I figured it would be a crowd pleaser :). Then I baked the cake as directed on the box.

I made it almost like a tiger striped effect just for fun too, not that you could really tell when you cut into it but it still looked cool ;-)

I placed one 9 inch round cake on the bottom of my cake holder and trimmed the top so it was flat.

Then I made a filling to go between the layers. I love raspberry so I bought Smuckers "Simply Fruit" seedless red raspberry spreadable fruit....

but that didn't seem like enough pizzazz...

So I ground up some mini semi-sweet chocolate chips with a coffee grinder to make them even smaller and mixed them into the raspberry filling which gave it a little texture. Plus who doesn't love raspberry and chocolate together?! 

Side note; chill your chocolate chips in the fridge or freezer before doing this so they don't warm up and get all goey in your coffee grinder ;-)

Next I made butter cream frosting!

I found the recipe at www.cooks.com;

VANILLA BUTTERCREAM FROSTING
1 package powdered sugar (16 ounces) 1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick) 3 tablespoons milk 2 teaspoons vanilla Beat sugar, butter, milk and vanilla with electric mixer at low speed until well blended and smooth. If frosting becomes too thick, beat in additional milk by teaspoonfuls until the frosting is of spreading consistency.Makes about 2 1/2 cups frosting. Submitted by: E.J.H.

I doubled the recipe because I wasn't sure how much frosting I'd need, which was good because I did end up needing a bit more than the one batch and I also got to practice writing with the decorating tips I borrowed from one of my bestest friends :) Thanks Cait!!

Another great tip I got from Cait, is if you want your frosting to be white, buy CLEAR VANILLA! It worked great!

Oh and I should also mention, I chose this buttercream frosting recipe because originally I had thought about using fondant, but after looking at the price and finding out from a Micheal's employee that it doesn't actually have much of a taste and is kind of chalky, I decided against it.

Buttercream however is a great alternative to fondant because there are techniques to making it smooth which I will share below. In the future though, when I have time, I'd love to learn how to work with fondant and maybe see if I could add some flavoring or something to experiment! (Don't worry I'll be sure to blog it haha)

I went to Micheal's craft store to buy a set of 12 Wilton disposable decorating bags as seen in the background of the last few pictures. Those bags make clean-up a breeze! I believe they were approx. $5!

Next you can see that I assembled a frosting bag with decorating tip and put in some of the buttercream frosting to be able to pipe the frosting around the outside of the first 9" round cake. This ensures that the filling does not drip out of the sides.

So the filling doesn't exactly look super appetizing from this angle, but I assure you it is delicious! 

Next I placed the second layer on top but placed it upside down since I knew the bottom was really flat and I wouldn't have to cut it and risk messing up :) It worked well! I filled in the gaps in the middle with a little extra frosting in the decorating bag then squeezed the rest of the frosting out on top of the cake to spread it and frost the top and sides. 

As you can see above, the frosting does not look smooth, and smooth is what I wanted because I like the look of fondant. So I went to youtube.com to find videos on how to smooth buttercream frosting. I learned that with a little time and parchment paper (or wax paper) you can make it look great! 

First I put my frosted cake in the refrigerator to set the buttercream until it started to flake. Then I took about a foot of parchment paper and cut it in half, I used a piece to start smoothing down the edges. The warmth of your hand starts smoothing the frosting through the paper, but you have to be careful!

 If you start smoothing before it's cold enough, you'll have a sticky mess. If you're smoothing and you start to notice the frosting sticking to the parchment paper, put it back in the fridge to cool some more. Wait about 5-10 minutes before you smooth again. Repeat these steps a few times until your cake is to it's desired smoothness! 

Here you can see it's starting to smooth out nicely!

 While the cake was cooling in the fridge between smoothing sessions, I took some parchment paper and decided to start playing around with lettering and designs!

As you can see my grandma's name is Barbara :) I am so glad I did this ahead of time to get an idea of how fast the frosting comes out and how to recover if you get air bubbles! 

I chose to color the frosting accents pink for writing and green for details

For the bottom I actually went through and tried out a few different tips on the parchment paper until I found the one I liked. I also LOVE these little five dot flowers in pink because they are so easy and cute! I decided to put one flower in the middle of each "slice" according to the cake holder. You can see the lines on the bottom that I used as a guide.

I added the green swirly vines... then the lettering!

Now you're probably wondering why I did not center the lettering...? Well during my trip to Micheal's I was trying to find a cute shoe figurine to place on top of the cake since my grandma collects those little fancy shoes you find at the Hallmark stores. I tried a few different stores and I couldn't find one!! So instead, I saw this white "B" hook on sale for $1!

I took out the screws and hanging hooks in the back so I could paint it.

I also bent the hook at the bottom so that the white metal was straight (for the most part) and I could stick it into the cake for decoration! 

Brad went out for me, the sweetheart that he is, and bought a can of glossy pink spray paint for a couple of dollars at the hardware store AND he even painted it for me as I was finishing the decorating process! How nice was that!? :)  He even wanted to put a third coat on it before we left for the party, but I talked him out of that seeing as I didn't want paint on the cake ;-) haha

So here's the finished product!! 

Happy Birthday Grandma!!

The cake was a hit at the campground party with our family! I was so happy to be able to make my grandma's cake for her and most of all to spend some quality family time with everyone! 

Thanks for reading! Sorry for not posting much lately, I come and go in waves sometimes :) hehe