justJENN recipes

The Baby wanted a Godzilla cake for his birthday. So I thought, what if I took a Godzilla doll…but had him surrounded by a city of…cake? Genius! Well, not really, but I thought maybe all those years of building architectural models might be able to help me out. I am much more comfortable building buildings than large fire breathing monsters.

ingredients:
2 9×13 sheet cakes
buttercream frosting
chocolate fondant
white fondant
yellow gel dye
black gel dye
graham crackers (for sand if you want)
blue sprinkles (for water if you want)

First I laid out a plan. Every good designer has a plan right? Well I just thought it’d be easier to get a vision on how I wanted the height of things, and how I wanted it to look.

The Godzilla was fairly short so a three stack high cake turned out to be just what I was after. So I cut and stacked it according to the plan that I had laid out.

Once everything was cut and in place, I rolled out the fondant to the size that I could drape over the cake. Luckily my cakes were small, so it was easy to do with one package. I found chocolate fondant, which was great because it was almost as if it was pre-dyed but with flavor. I was also going for more of a ‘cartoon-y’ look for the cake, so I wanted the same color for all the buildings, knowing that they’d be detailed in different colors.

Right before I laid out the fondant, I quickly frosted the cake, not heavily, just as if I was doing a crumb coat, enough for stickage.

Then I covered the cake, smoothed it out and cut off any excess. I added little smoke stacks and turrets out of the same color fondant to give the roof a little more depth.

My goal was to just get this done quickly, so I dyed white fondant into just two colors, yellow and gray parts for the windows/details of the building.

Keep in mind, all of these buildings/cakes are not on my board yet. I am decorating them just sitting off on individual cutting boards for the moment. First I wanted to ready the site, I dyed fondant gray to lay out the paving for the street and laid that down. NOW you move your buildings onto their sites.

On the back side, I laid down some frosting, covered it with blue sprinkles for water, then a little bit of sand, which is just crushed up graham crackers. If I was feeling more ambitious I’d have built a bridge too, but let’s not get nuts.

And there you have it. A completed Godzilla cake. To which the Baby said, “YAY. WHEN DUZ HE SMASH IT ALL?” Uh…I realized that I had just built an architectural model. Not so much “Godzilla destroys the city” as “Godzilla goes out for a leisurely stroll to see the sights.” Too bad. I figured once the cake was eaten, then it’d look like there was some damage done. I just couldn’t bring myself to build a bad structural building.

In the end, the guests ate the cake and the Baby got his ’smashed’ city. I think Godzilla felt a bit of satisfaction too.

I think the reason I don’t have any feeling towards carrot cake is because it has cream cheese frosting. While that is the selling point for most, it makes me recoil in revulsion. However, the cookie itself, is alright by me. If you are anti cream cheese like me, make these for your friends. Oh and keep some of the cookies for yourself.

ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup crushed pineapple, drained
3/4 cup shredded carrots
3/4 cup raisins
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

filling ingredients:
8oz. cream cheese
1/4 cup butter
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a cookie sheet with a silpat.

Cream the butter and brown sugar. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla. Then stir in the pineapple, carrots and raisins.

In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt nutmeg and cinnamon. Slowly add to the carrot mixture. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto the prepped cookie sheets.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes just until bottoms begin to brown and cookies are set. Cool on wire racks.

While the cookies are cooling, start the filling. In your mixer, combine the butter, cream cheese and vanilla. Slowly add the sugar and scrape down the sides of the mixer. Turn to high to get it nice and fluffy.

Once the cookies have cooled, spread the frosting on the flat side of one, then stick another on top, flat side down. You’ll get a hefty little sandwich.

The cookies are quite good on their own if you don’t want to go to the trouble of putting them together.

This delicious moist cake was originally a lime cake, from a Williams Sonoma recipe. I changed it here and there. It’s a definite crowd pleaser.

Ingredients:
For the cake:
3 1/4 cups cake flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2 1/4 sticks unsalted butter
8 oz. cream cheese
3 cups granulated sugar
6 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 Tbs. fresh lemon juice (approx 1 lemon)
2 tsp. finely grated lemon zest (approx 1 lemon)

For the glaze:
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (approx 2 lemons)
3/4 cup granulated sugar

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a bundt cake pan with melted butter. Here’s a tip, don’t flour the cake pan after you’ve buttered it. You will get a grimey mess of a cake.

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese on medium speed until creamy and smooth, 30 to 40 seconds. Gradually add the granulated sugar and continue beating, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl, until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

Increase the speed to medium-high and add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl. Then beat in the vanilla and lemon juice.

Reduce the speed to low and fold in the flour mixture in three additions, blending each addition until just incorporated and stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. With the mixer on low, add the lemon zest.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, making the sides about 1 inch higher than the center. Place this thing on a baking sheet, it has a tendency to overflow and no one wants that crap all over the bottom of your ove, trust me.

Bake until the cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 1/2 hours. Transfer the cake to a wire rack and let cool upright in the pan for 10 minutes. You will find that this cake rises, so just cut off the ‘top’ i.e. the bottom once you flip it over.

Gently turn the pan over onto a wire rack, and due to all the buttering action, the cake should slip right out.

To make the glaze, in a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and granulated sugar until blended. Generously brush the surface of the cake with the glaze. Let the cake cool completely before serving.

This cake is really….realllllly good. It’s the sugar-y glaze that keeps ‘em coming back for more.
(Yeah I realize I don’t have a lot of step by step pictures. Server is screwy. I’ll have to go back and find them, sorry!)