Cinnamon Ginger Cheesecake Icing/Filling Recipe

I had a request for this recipe and so I decided to post it on here for a quick way to share...

I started with the Basic Buttercream Filling Recipe that I found online and modified it in order to ice my Pumpkin Ginger Cupcakes):

Here is what I came up with:

Cinnamon Ginger Cheesecake Icing/Filling

1 pound bag of powdered sugar
1 small box cheesecake pudding mix
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla
1/4-1/2 cup milk/water (I usually use water - but you can use milk if you know it can be kept refrigerated)
2 sticks butter (room temp), cut into ½ inch slices
1/2 cup shortening

*Using the whisk attachment on your electric mixer, mix the powdered sugar, pudding mix, ginger, cinnamon, salt, vanilla and water at low speed until smooth. (Add 1/4 cup water and then add a little at a time until the powdered sugar is all mixed in and it is smooth).
*Add butter, one slice at a time, until incorporated
*Add shortening and whip at highest speed 10-12 minutes, until volume increases by at least 50%.

Brownie Ice Cream Cake

Another cake made jointly with my friend from church - brownie on the bottom and ice cream on top. There really isn't much to this cake - very simple to do. The birthday girl (who isn't big on cake but loves brownies and ice cream) loved it!!

Cake Cookies - Chocolate

A friend of mine recently made some cookies from a cake mix that were so awesome that I just had to try it out. Now, I have made cookies from a cake mix before (see this post about Lemon Cookies), but these were different. The basic recipe she gave me is:

1 box Cake Mix
8 oz. Cream Cheese - softened
1 stick butter - softened (i used margarine)
1 tsp. vanilla (or other flavoring)

*Cream the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add remaining ingredients. Roll into balls and bake at 350 for 10-13 minutes.

Now - I also found various recipes online that also called for an egg (here is one). I ended up adding an egg to my batch because my cookie dough was so thick I thought it could use a little extra moisture. Next time I will try it without the egg. My cookies did not turn out the same as my friend's texture wise, but they were still tasty.

I used a chocolate cake mix, and rolled the balls in pieces of chopped chocolate chips and pecans before baking. These were a gift for my mom for Mother's Day and she definitely enjoyed them!! :-)

Strawberry Cupcakes

Well, back when my daughter's topsy turvy birthday cake was going to be 3 tier - the top tier was going to be Strawberry with Strawberry Cream filling. Since I already had all the ingredients - I just decided to make some cupcakes out of it. I decided to go with a simple Whipped Cream Icing since they were going to be filled already and would have plenty of sweetness. They turned out great!!

Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Filling topped with Whipped Cream Icing...

Topsy Turvy - Little Mermaid (Ariel) Cake

When I asked my daughter what she wanted on her 4th Birthday Cake - she chose Ariel. So I found a picture online of something I thought I could do. I've been wanting to try a topsy turvy cake, so this was my chance. The original plan was to do a 3 tier topsy turvy, but I ended up going with 2 mostly because I didn't have room in my fridge for something that tall and we definitely didn't need that much cake for the number of people coming to her party.

I had an issue with my smaller tier - and lost a layer in process - so it is shorter than it should have been. But - I learned from the experience and I know what NOT to do next time - lol.

The bottom tier (below) went much smoother as far as icing and cutting the shape of it...


Close-up of Ariel once I figured out how to get her on there without sitting slanted...


The starfish were my favorite... Isabella wanted to make one too - so you can see her working on it here...


A trip around the finished cake...

Front...


Side...


Back (you can see Isabella's starfish to the left)....


Side...


Blowing out her candles...


Bottom Tier - Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Mousse Filling...


Top Tier - White Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Filling...

Cake and Cupcakes - St. Patrick's Day

Every month - our church has a dinner to celebrate that month's birthdays and anniversarys. A good friend of mine is pretty much in charge of the dessert portion of these fellowships and I help her when I can. For March, we decided to do cupcakes with a St. Patrick's Day look to them. We also made a special birthday cake for our Pastor's wife.

I was so happy with how this bow turned out...


The list of cupcakes...


The cupcake display...

1st Birthday Cake - Pink & Brown

Yesterday, I got to spend the day with a friend helping her make her daughter's first birthday cake. We had a lot of fun - and the cake turned out so cute. I just love the Pink & Brown combo...

There is still saran wrap in the bow to keep it puffed overnight while it finishes drying...

Valentine's Day Peanut Butter Cheesecake Pops

My husband has been wanting me to try cheesecake pops for a while. So I thought Valentine's Day would be the perfect chance to surprise him with these. He loves Peanut Butter and he loves Cheesecake - so I found a recipe for a Peanut Butter Cheesecake Pops and went for it. The recipe didn't work quite like it should have, but with a few modifications, I think it would be perfect. He loved them anyway - so that's all that really matters!!

Basically I made a crustless cheesecake in a 9x13 and froze it after it was cooled completely. Then cut it into squares - put sticks on the squares - and dipped them. It isn't difficult - but it is time consuming.

The finished display (before wrapping them up)...


The inside...


After wrapping them individually (a few had been eaten at this point)...


I ended up with about 90 pops - so we decided to decorate some of them with simple sprinkles and send to our daughter's Valentine's Day party at her preschool...

1st Birthday - Sports

For my son's first birthday - I had no idea what kind of cake to make. So, I started at the party supply store - found the sports theme - and found my inspiration. Below is a picture of the balloon, but all the decorations matched this.


I decided I could make cakeballs to be basketballs and footballs and then just do a small simple cake with stars and his name to bring it all together...

Along the way with the cakeballs - the footballs were a little more challenging to shape - but once I figured out my method - it went pretty quick...




Almost finished...


The finished cake and display...

My First Wedding Cake

Well, the wedding day has come and gone and I'm way late in posting about it. But I survived and everything turned out great - even if I did only get 2 hours of sleep the night before the wedding - lol!! :-)

Since I waited so long to do this post, I really don't even remember what order I did everything in or what days I started doing what part of the project, but the important thing is that it all got done!!

I did finally decide a week or so before the wedding that I should string fondant pearls on dental floss in order to make assembly of the cake at the site really fast (just wrap the ribbon and pearls around the base of each layer - and done). Luckily, I had my wonderful husband to help with the pearl project, because it was pretty time consuming. But I just love how they turned out - so well worth the effort.

Some of our pearls...

A close up - the ones in front have some pearl dust on them - so this is what all of them looked like in the end...


I believe it was Thursday - 2 days before the wedding, all the cakes were baked, filled then iced with buttercream, and covered with fondant. Here is my rolled out fondant for the 12 inch tier - I literally could not make a larger cake in my kitchen since this fondant was rolled out as large as I could get it on my counter...

I was so relieved when I got the largest tier covered without tearing the fondant!!

trimmed...

One of the smaller tiers...

All finished with the fondant - cakes back in the fridge for the night...


On Friday (day before wedding), I spent most of the day dipping cake balls that I had made earlier in the week. Dipping them seems to take longer than almost anything you do with cake balls (and I had a little over 250 of them). Thankfully, I got them all dipped before the rehearsal (which in case you didn't know I had to be at the rehearsal because I was also in the wedding along with the rest of my family since it was my brother's wedding). I was so crammed for time, though, that there were no pictures taken at all of the whole cake ball process. Sorry!! But in case you are wondering - we had 3 flavors of cake balls. I used 2 cakes for each flavor - so I made a total of 6 cakes for this...

(1) Chocolate Cake Balls (Chocolate Cake with Buttercream Icing)
(2) Strawberry Cake Balls (Strawberry Cake with Buttercream Icing)
(3) Peanut Butter Cake Balls (Butter Cake with Peanut Butter)

After we got home from rehearsal, I decorated the cake balls - which pretty much just means I put the stipes on and put them in their pretty candy cups for serving. Then it hit me just how much more I still needed to do to get the cake ready for quick assembly the next morning. So the work began - and ended around 2am. Again - SO thankful for my wonderful husband and all he did to help the process go quicker!! In the middle of the night - I do not normally function well - but I guess the excitement of it all just kept me going!!

I finished the largest tier completely - with ribbon and pearls attached. We also put the dowel rods in each tier and I cut the ribbon to the correct length for each tier. Here is the completed bottom tier...

Then I went ahead and stacked the cake so I could decide what I wanted to be the front and mark it (this also was to help me spend less time Saturday messing around since I had to be ready for pictures by 9am with the cake finished!!). I also went ahead and put all the flowers in the top tier. Finally - the cake was ready (well as ready as I was getting it until the wedding)...


So finally, after cleaning up and packing up everything I might possibly need for assembly the next morning, we headed to bed for a lovely 2 hours of sleep!!

We got to the church around 8:15 am Saturday morning and right around 9am - I was finished. I can't believe how quickly I got it all together even with having to get my mom to steam my sheer fabric (covering my cake stand) because it got all wrinkled in my bag. This seemed to take FOREVER because she couldn't remember how to work the steamer at first - but somehow it all worked out anyway.

Done...

Closeup of the flowers on top - these are actually made out of paper. The bride made them for me to match the bouquets used in the wedding...

Closeup of the serving knives and a better view of the cake balls...

The whole display - completely finished!!!


I truly could not have imagined this cake to be any better than it actually turned out. I had so many ideas in my head, but to see it all come together better than I imagined was just wonderful!! Plus it made me SO happy that my brother and his new wife loved it too!! Since I have never made a wedding cake (or any cake this large) before, I was so nervous that they would be disappointed in the end.

Next big project?? My baby boy's 1st Birthday cake at the end of January!!