Tired of traditional cake? Try a brownie cake!

One of the fun things about being a cake decorator and a grandma is being able to design birthday cakes for my grandchildren... at least the ones that are local. Occasionally, I will be visiting my out of state grandchildren on or near their birthdays, so I will get to decorate simple cakes for them. 

As you can probably imagine, my kids have had more than enough cake while growing up in the Leavitt home. We even resorted to buying birthday pies from Marie Callender's, so we would have a nice break from cake.  Now, for my daughter's family, I rarely make traditional cakes for their birthdays. This year I have made cream puff cakes, fruit pizzas, and their favorite... brownie cakes. 

I love working with brownies because they are dense, easy to shape, and most often there is no need to use the support that you would in a normal cake. And then the taste... well, who doesn't love a really great brownie? Rich, moist, chocolatey, layered with delicious buttery chocolate buttercream and maybe raspberry, peanut butter, or salted caramel filling. Wow! I get hungry just thinking about them. Granted, it has taken several years for me to perfect my brownie recipe at our high altitude. For my favorite brownie recipe, click here. One of the most important keys to baking a really great brownie is DO NOT OVERBAKE! Check for doneness a few minutes before recipe time... every oven is different. 

Here's some photos of the latest brownie cake I designed for 5 year old grandson, Hunter...

 Pirate treasure chest brownie cake... no support needed. Used a small wedge of RK treats to prop open the top.

Look at those rich fudgy brownies inside! Layered with buttercream, and entire cake was covered with chocolate buttercream and modeling chocolate. Bring on the milk!

Other cakes I have designed from brownies...

 Granddaughter Lexi's Harry Potter cake

 Granddaughter Carissa's Zootopia cake

 Granddaughter Lexi's July 4th Birthday/Baptism cake

 Granddaughter Carissa's Olaf Frozen cake

 Lexi's piano cake

Son-in-law Eddie's "Superdad" cake

Grandchildren and Birthday Cakes

One of the joys of life is seeing the looks on the faces of your grandchildren when you present them with a birthday cake designed especially for them. Every cake is made with an extra cup of love, and seeing their eyes light up when they see the cakes is worth every bit of all of the work that goes into these special creations. Since most of my grandchildren are far away, I don't always get to design cakes for them, but for right now, I do have 4 of the 14 nearby. And when I am fortunate to visit on one of their birthdays, Grandma sometimes gets to bake a cake at their home, even though those are not as deatiled as the ones I make at home.

Here is a sampling of some "Grandma Cakes". . .

The joy on their faces is worth everything...

Happy 2015! What happened to 2014?

Sorry it's been so long since my last post, but these last few months have been absolutely crazy. My hubby and I both came back from an Arizona Thanksgiving being sick with this icky respiratory stuff, and are just now feeling better. So we worked through my busiest catering/cake/cookie December ever, being less than our normal selves and with my catering partner out of town. It was difficult, but somehow we made it through. Still trying to catch up on my rest. Whew! 

Every little girl is still into Frozen. I started off the season back in November with another Frozen cake. I love making Olaf... each one has a little different pose, but he's a cute character to design for a cake. Used more isomalt for detail. Oh, did I mention how much I love isomalt? I got creative on some of my wedding cakes with isomalt too, which I will show you a bit later. Love the stuff! 

Here's a couple of other birthday cakes I made in November...

Then came the crazy December...

Started off with cookies, lots and lots of cookies... 50 dozen for a PTA function for my grand-daughters' school. I always learn the hard way... will not do that again. Too many cookies for my smaller than commercial kitchen. 

And more cookies...

And cinnamon rolls...

And then the annual goodies for the friend and neighbors...

Chocolate covered Ritz peanut butter cookies, chocolate covered brownie bites, and toffee

All packaged and ready for delivery

This is something new I tried... chocolate covered bacon for my bacon loving friend...

It was actually very, very yummy!

At the end of November, I purchased some really fun new decorating tools... anything to make my work easier and a little more fun and creative... and used some of my old tools in a different way. That will be the subject of my next post, but these are some of the finished products...

Cake for my granddaughter's piano recital (which I had to miss by the way because of a catering job :( )

3 wintry wedding cakes, to go along with wedding catering gigs... I really enjoy decorating winter wedding cakes.

Last, but not least... a cute little gender reveal cake... by the way, it was blue inside...

We ended the month with a catering gig for 100 on New Year's Eve afternoon. And no, we didn't celebrate much that night. Just glad to be home on our cozy little couch, watching Back to the Future II to see what 2015 was supposed to be like! Happy New Year!