Ladybug Cake

One thing I have REALLY enjoyed doing as Momma is making our kiddos special birthday cakes.  For C's first birthday I made him a big and little monkey head similar to Q's ladybug.

 for his second birthday I made him a baseball, baseball field and baseball cake pops.

 Now for our little lady I got to make this SUPER fun ladybug cake!

Overall I am happy with how the cakes turned out but if I make a ladybug cake in the future I might do a few things differently.

I used this yellow cake recipe from Bakerella, which was amazing!! It was very good and moist. This will be my permanent yellow cake recipe.

Ladybug Cake:

Moist Yellow Cake (adapted)
from Bakerella

1 cup (2 sticks) of butter (room temperature)
2 cups of sugar
4 eggs (room temperature)
3 cups of sifted flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup of whole milk (room temperature)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 
1/2 teaspoon butter flavoring (I used butter flavored shortening, it worked well)

Baking Bowls and Pans Needed:
1 large baking bowl (big ladybug's body)
2 small custard cups (small ladybug's body & big ladybug's head)
Mini Muffin Pan (small ladybug's head)

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Grease and flour all pans 
• Using a mixer, cream butter until fluffy.
• Add sugar and continue to cream for about 7 minutes.
• Add eggs one at a time. Beat well after each egg is added.
• In a separate bowl combine (combine salt, baking powder, and flour 
• Add flour mix and milk (alternating to creamed mixture), beginning and ending with flour.
• Add vanilla and butter flavoring to mix; until just mixed.  
• Poor 3/4 of your cake batter into a large baking bowl (like this one)
• Poor enough batter both of the small custard cups (like these) until 3/4 full
• Poor enough batter to fill 3/4 of one small muffin in mini-muffin tin

Bake Time in Oven:
Mini-Muffin - 8 minutes
2 Small Bowl - 18 - 28 minutes
Big Bowl - 50 + minutes, place bowl on a baking sheet before sliding into the oven, once cake rises and is golden on top tent with foil to prevent top from over browning

Frosting:
Cook's Country 2010 April/May Issue

3 sticks of butter unsalted
3 tablespoons of heavy cream
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups confectioners' sugar

1. cream butter with an electric mixer using whisk attachment, beat butter, cream, vanilla, and salt on med-high until combined, about 1 minute.
2. Reduce mixer sped to med-low. With motor running, slowly add confectioners' sugar and mix until smooth, 1-2 mins. Increase speed to med-high and beat frosting until light and fluffy, about 5 mins.
3. Add desired food coloring, see details below.

Chocolate Frosting:
Prepare as above. Using 2 1/2 sticks of butter and adding 8 oz semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled, in step 1. In step 2, 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder can also be added for additional chocolate flavor. (I didn't make this large of a batch, I used the remaining vanilla I had added 1 additional stick of butter to it and then added only the melted semisweet chocolate, this was plenty chocolaty and delicious)


Assembly:
1. let cakes cool on a wire rack. Using a butter knife or flexible spatula loosen the cakes from the edge of  each pan before removing. Place plate or serving platter on top of the bowls and turn upside down to release cake, tap bottom of the pan gently to help release the cake. The muffins should pop out of the pan with gently pulling the sides up and using a knife from underneath. 


2. Flip your bowl cake over and trim the top bump off your cake so it is flat. Flip back over and place on your serving platter with enough room for the head on one side. Do the same with one of your small bowl cakes if needed.

3. Trim a moon shape out of your remaining small bowl cake to mimic the curve of your large bowl cake. This will be the big ladybug's head (see above), use toothpicks or wooden skewers to secure. For the small ladybug use the small muffin cake and secure to small bowl cake with toothpick.

4. Add red food coloring to about 3/4 of your vanilla butter cream until the desired color is achieved. Frost the body of your large and small ladybugs using a butter knife or small spoonula. Be careful near the head and bottom to not get messy.  It is easier to use a freezer bag and cut off the tip on one corner and carefully pipe on frosting to meet the edge of your cake and the platter and head. 

4. Get out your chocolate butter cream. Start a new freezer bag of chocolate butter cream. Pipe and / or spread chocolate butter cream onto the head of the small and large ladybug. 

5. Let frosting firm up a bit by putting the cakes in the fridge 30 mins is sufficient.  Get cakes back out and work on dots.  Using a pointy tip of a skewer or knife free hand draw your ladybug wings and dots.  Once happy with placement and amount of dots, using a small spoon gently remove some of the frosting inside of the dots. Fill in each dot with chocolate butter cream.

 Presto! A big and a mini ladybug cake!

I also made a standard 2 layer round cake out of this AMAZING chocolate sheet cake recipe from Pioneer Woman, and by AMAZING I really mean the best chocolate cake I have ever made BY FAR! I frosted the cake with the chocolate frosting recipe above.

Have any of you made fun birthday cakes?  What have you come up with? Have you found a favorite cake or frosting recipe? It seems that I am always on the hunt! I'm definitely still searching for the perfect buttercream frosting, if you've found one that you love PLEASE share your secrets!

That's my Shiny -

J