Alvin's Ice Cream Birthday Cake

Every year, I would get my little brother a birthday cake for his birthday. He particularly like requesting ice cream cake. This year for his 12th birthday, I'd decided to make him one.

My little brother loves watching basketball and playing NBA basketball games, so I decided to make a cake with a basket ball theme. At first I was just going to make one with a basketball, but that's too plain. So at the end, I decided to make a jersey with a basketball.

The jersey is made with vanilla cake with vanilla ice cream, and the basketball is made with chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream. My little brother only likes vanilla ice cream, so it made my life a bit easier when it comes to picking out flavors. The jersey had the number 12 on it, which represents his age. I had the hardest time getting the basketball color icing to go darker. I gave up after awhile but glad that at least the cake turned out okay...well, minus the fact that I forgot to color the side of the jersey red.

The cake was pretty big. After feeding 14 people, there was still about half of the jersey left. I personally think the vanilla cake and vanilla ice cream combo tasted better. 

I'm glad he likes the cake and the ice cream. He asked to keep the rest at the end of the night. =]

Happy Birthday Bro!! <3

Elle's Birthday Cake

So for my friend, Elle's, birthday, I decided to make her a cake. Knowing that she has a cat and loves cat, I decided to make a cat cake. My original plan was to make a cat cake like her cat Freiya, which is black. But I changed my mind after awhile because I do not want to give her a black cat on her birthday. I know I know, I sound superstitious right? Maybe.

I drew a sketch of how I want the cake to be during lunch time two days before the cake was due. My sketch included a two tiers cake. I started baking the cakes Friday night after work, which was a day before the cake was due. Unfortunately, my cake for the first tier did not turned out the way I wanted. I gave up around 3am in the morning. The next day, I woke up and baked another cake, but this time it was too dense, so with time restrain, I decided to just make it one tier. I was glad it turned out alright.  

 This was the cake 7 hours before due time at dinner. I was stressing a bit after taking this photo because it resembled a rat as well. Oh no! So I added some extra things later.

And this is the finished cake. I added the paws and the fish 2 hours before dinner. I'm glad it made it look more like a cat.

Here is the birthday girl, Elle, and her cake. She looks so pretty from the orangy red glow. The waiter did an awesome job in putting the cake on a plate and putting candles on it for me. Yay!

It's a dark chocolate cake with raspberry preserve and raspberry buttercream frosting. I added very little buttercream because the cake itself is pretty rich already. I just need that fruity flavor from the raspberry to balance it out.

The party of 7 ended up finishing half of the cake, which comforted me a little about failing on the 2nd tier. I also got some great compliments about the look of the cakes and the taste of it as well. I was also glad that Elle knew it was a cat! Yay! Happy Birthday Elle!