Rolo Cake!

Have you all seen new Rolo minis? I came across them purely by accident in the store a few weeks ago and I HAD to get them. I love Rolos. Anything with caramel and chocolate is my friend. Rolos and me, we're really good friends.

Don't they look good?

Rather than just eat my new minis, I decided to incorporate them into a new cake. Chocolate. Caramel, Cake. How could it miss?

First I made a chocolate sheet cake.

Someone snuck into my picture! Actually made the picture better, in my opinion! :)

For the cake, I used The Pioneer Woman's recipe, which you can find here. Just the cake, not the icing. (Though I've made the icing before and it is really good!) This time, I had something else in mind.

After the cake was completely cool, I topped it with Caramel Buttercream. You can find a good recipe for that in this post. You could also just take your favorite vanilla buttercream and add some homemade or store bought caramel sauce.

Next, I chopped up some of those Rolo minis.

I cut them in half, but you could also leave them whole or chop them more. Whatever you like! I used all the Rolos in one of those bags above.

Nevermind what happened to the other bag! A mom has to have her secrets, right?

Finally, the Rolos got sprinkled all over the top of the cake.

Oh man, does that look good!

I meant to get a nice styled picture of a piece of this cake on a nice little plate, but the cake got eaten too quickly. This is a good one! Super easy. Super tasty. Just plain super. I hope you try it too!

Enjoy!

Sugar Flowers

A few weeks ago, I made a bouquet of sugar flowers for a birthday cake. The cake was for a friend of my sister, who was celebrating a milestone birthday. My sister was making and decorating the cake and asked me to do the topper.

At first I was nervous because I don't have a lot of experience making sugar flowers. So, a few of these aren't really true to life but I think overall they turned out really nice.

The hydrangeas are the only ones I had been working on before doing the topper. I took a class on Craftsy about making sugar flowers. It is taught by Jacqueline Butler, who is an absolutely amazing sugar artist. Her class was wonderful and I learned a lot. If you are interested in sugar flowers at all, I highly recommend it!

I added in some white filler flowers and buds, some leaves, a sprig of berries and a couple of coral-colored flowers.

I'm not sure what to call the big coral-colored flower in the center. I was copying something I saw online and I confess I have no idea if it's a real flower or just a fantasy flower. I like how it looks in this bouquet, though!

I did a version of a small peony and a small rose, too.

I planned to include more leaves, but they kept breaking on me. *sigh*

I think my favorite element was the berries. I love the way these turned out and wish I had made more. Again, it was supposed to have a couple more leaves, but they kept breaking. I definitely need to work on my technique for those and give them plenty of drying time next time.

Sugar flowers are strangely addicting. While I was working on these, I kept getting frustrated and asking myself why in the world I had agreed to do them. But as soon as they were finished, I just kept thinking about making more!

There are definitely a lot of things about flower-making that I need to practice, improve, and learn. Even though these aren't perfect, it was so satisfying to see it all come together. And I was soooo glad when the 3+ hour ride with them to my sister's house was over!

I hope you enjoyed my sugar flowers! Come back soon for some fantastic treats and recipes! Cherry Cordial Cupcakes and more!