Here is a cute cake I made for a doctor’s birthday. I like how realistic the cake looks even though it’s made from a rectangle shaped cake. The buttons are made using a silicone mold. The stethoscope was sculpted by hand. The tie was easier to make than tying a real tie. I used an old men’s dress shirt collar as a template and dried it around a small bucket so it would have that nice 3D standing collar effect.
I wrote a little prescription for Michael to have a happy birthday and stuffed it into the pocket. Hope he enjoyed his birthday cake!
Check out version 2.0!
This first birthday cake was made to celebrate a little girl named Stella. Her mom called the whole party a “Stellabration” which I thought was super cute! The cake was decorated with different shades of pink. The pop of color came from the rainbow and unicorn cake topper.
I made the rainbow in advance to give it time to dry. Each color rope was formed using my clay extruder so I could get them looking uniform. The rainbow was glued together with sugar glue and allowed to dry flat for a few days. Then I attached paper lollipop sticks to each side using royal icing and propped the rainbow up on the cake. The unicorn was made out of gum paste and was shaped by hand. My favorite part is the rainbow mane!
It’s time for the second biggest food holiday of the year; Superbowl Sunday! I love coming up with fun desserts to celebrate the big game. Last year I piped my regular whoopie pie batter into fun football shapes and made football whoopie pies. This year I wanted to make a crispy chocolate sandwich cookie. I used this recipe from Sweetapolita as my starting point at tweaked it to my version dairy-free. The cookie has a rich, intense dark chocolate flavor with just the right amount of sweetness. The dough is really easy to work with, it rolls out really nicely, cuts like a dream, and doesn’t spread at all in the oven. This was exactly the cookie I was looking for. Once the cookies were baked, they were just begging for a filling. I thought about going with a simple vanilla cream filling reminiscent of an Oreo, but that was a little too similar to my whoopie pies so I went in the opposite direction. I added to the chocolate decadence by making a non-dairy chocolate ganache filling. To make the ganache dairy-free I used coconut milk in the place of heavy cream (similar to my salted caramel sauce) and it worked wonderfully. The coconut flavor is not detectable, it just gives the ganache the perfect smooth and creamy texture. The chocolate was delicious but needed a little something to cut through the intensity so I added a hint of mint extract and created a perfect dessert for any Superbowl party!
Here’s how I piped the laces onto the cookies to create the cute footballs, enjoy!
Chocolate Sandwich Cookies With Mint Chocolate Ganache
Author: Lil' Miss Cakes
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 30
Ingredients
Chocolate Roll-Out Cookies
1 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups flour
½+2 Tbs. dutch process cocoa powder
1 tsp. salt
Mint Chocolate Ganache
¾ cup full-fat coconut milk
12 oz. (2 cups) semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tsp. corn syrup
½ tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp, peppermint extract
Instructions
Chocolate Roll-Out Cookies
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat shortening and sugars until light and fluffy. Add in eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.
Add in flour, cocoa, and salt, and mix on low speed until the dough comes together.
Roll the dough out on parchment paper, cut out shapes, and remove excess dough.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 8-10 minutes. Allow to cool before filling.
Mint Chocolate Ganache
Prepare a double boiler: heat about 2 inches of water in a medium saucepan over low heat. Once the water is simmering, place a heatproof bowl over the pan. Make sure the bottom of the bowl is not touching the water.
Place the coconut milk, chocolate, and corn syrup into the bowl and stir until melted, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and mint extracts.
Allow the ganache to cool for several hours until thickened and ready to spread. Once the ganache is thick, spread or pipe onto the bottom of one cookie and sandwich together with a second cookie.
