LydMc

Birthday Book Brownie! This  year's birthday cake was extra special because I got to share it with another awesome character... Dewey! I love a good book and this guy's no exception. I drew the little dude as part of my Leadership class project (a do nation station benefiting the local library) , and then made the cake in honor of Dewey's official debut. So what kind of cake do you bake for such a celebration of literacy? So we meet again... A book cake, of course! Or in this case, a book brownie. In the interest of fewer crumbs in the library (and because I make a killer brownie), I opted for a brownie cake instead of the usual.  Books & Brownies? Yes, please! A good tip for showstopping brownies? Doctor up a boxed mix with tasty extras like cinnamon, vanilla and chocolate chips. I also swap out half the oil for applesauce, as it's less oily and you can't tell the difference. Isn't he cute?? When it came time to decorate...

The 4th of July is a great time to celebrate freedom, independence and our nation's birthday. It's also a great time to bust out the fireworks (where legal), barbecues and patriotic baked goods! As it turns out, I actually started out just planning a baked good to celebrate the  July  birthdays of two of my coworkers. When one requested cherry pie, I could not help adding one more birthday to the mix. My, my, this American pie Instead of the typical lattice top, I simply added three full dough stripes across the bottom of the pie and three half stripes across the top. I added white sugar to the stripes to make them extra white and tossed it in the oven for about 20 minutes. (If you're looking for a good crust recipe, by the way, check out  Pie Crust V   on Allrecipes.com. It's my go-to crust recipe for most of the pies I make.) The stars were baked separately on a cookie sheet (also topped with white sugar) for about six minutes. Once both the pie and s...

Thanks to my old roomies for this yummy classic! Birthday cakes are a great tradition, especially the not so traditional kinds. You may have seen how I like to take my baked goods in creative and often nerdy directions with the Firefly inspired  Jayne Hat Bundt Cake , the Psych Pineapple Upside Down Cake , the Final Fantasy 6 (FFVI) Ultros Cake , and the yummy and surprising  Pinata Cake , but that's hardly the tip of the iceberg. To help celebrate my own recent birthday, here are some birthday cake throwbacks to whet your appetites! Super Smash Bros., old school! My first ever nerd cake was way back in my tween years (before I had a digital camera to properly document the occasion). Thanks to my brothers who came before me, I got an early start as a nerd and modeled my cake loosely after Link's level in the original Super Smash Bros. Please note that this is right out of the N64 version - clearly I was on to something with King Dedede and Zelda!  The...

Glamorous  Cake Shots courtesy of  Frank ! Another birthday, another baking adventure. This time the lucky birthday gal was my wonderful great aunt Linda, one of the sweetest, craftiest people I know. I wanted to make a cake as lovely inside and out as her, so decided on an angel food piñata cake with fun surprises inside. My great grandmothers' bundt pan. First things first - baking. To make things extra special, I used a bundt pan my grandmother, great grandmother and great aunt all used to bake dating as far back as the 1930s. I guess they had bigger ovens back then, as I actually had to supplement my creation with a bit of store-bought cake when I lost the top after it exceeded the capacity of my toaster oven. What can I say,  I'm adding memories! Every day I'm tunnelin'. Moving right along, construction of the cake was surprisingly simple thanks to how cleanly angel food cake carves. Just cut off the top of the cake and dig a nice little...

In the presence of octopus royalty. While I enjoy creating tasty, fun and often nerdy treats for any occasion, I find birthday cakes to be especially entertaining. I've made a lot of cakes in my time, but the product of one of my more recent birthdays is one of my all-time favorites:  Ultros! Look at me! I'm a birthday cake! In case you're not familiar, Ultros is a giant, mischievous purple octopus from the video game Final Fantasy VI ( FFVI ). If you like playing video games and you haven't tried it yet, this game is worth checking out. As a testament to its awesomeness, it's been released for SNES, Playstation and Gameboy Advance (& I may or may not own all three...).  The Legend of Zelda is my favorite video game series by far, but in terms of single best game, FFVI takes the cake.  Speaking of which... I have more lives than I do arms! Creating an octopus birthday cake is surprisingly simple. For the body, I baked one layer in a typica...