Archive for the ‘Cooking and Baking’ Category

Calculator Cake

Wednesday, October 26th, 2016

calculator-cake

This calculator cake is super easy to make and is perfect for a nerd, a math teacher, or anyone who enjoys math. All you do is bake a rectangular cake in whatever flavor you want. We placed the cake on a piece of cardboard lined with foil and taped at the back. Then we frosted the cake with chocolate frosting.

We used white icing for the top rectangle, which is where numbers show up on the screen of the calculator. If you’re clever, you can put some numbers into that rectangle. (For example, 4+4 or something along those lines.) You can find candy numbers in the baking aisle of a grocery store or in the cake supply aisle of a craft store.

I left the screen blank because the calculator is off. We used Sweet Tarts for the buttons of the calculator, but you could use any round candy that is about the same size.

Now your calculator cake is complete. Give it so someone you love and stand back and watch the amazement in their eyes as you present them with an edible calculator!

math-cake

If you enjoyed making this calculator cake, you will probably also like these hands-on math activities:

Bookshelf Cake

Friday, October 14th, 2016

bookshelf-cake

This bookshelf cake is perfect for book lovers and librarians. Anyone who enjoys reading books would appreciate this themed cake for his or her birthday.

First you will want to bake a rectangular cake, preferably chocolate. Next you will want to frost the cake with chocolate frosting. Most bookshelves are wooden, so brown is the perfect color for the background of your bookshelf.

Now comes the fun part. Buy candy to represent the shelving and the books on the shelves. I spent a full week trying to find candy that would look like books. I finally settled on sour worms. We cut off the rounded tops and bottoms of each sour worm to make the books look more realistic, since the tops and bottoms of books are squared off. I used Twix chocolate for the brown shelving, and I created four shelves on which to place the sour worm books.

I obviously placed the Twix down first, and then I placed the books on each shelf. I tilted a couple of books to make the bookshelf look more realistic. I also slanted two Twix at the bottom of the shelf to represent the feet of the bookshelf.

Didn’t it come out great?

library-cake

British Teacup Cake

Wednesday, October 12th, 2016

british-teacup-cake

To make this fashionable British teacup cake, you will need one cake mix, two containers of cherry frosting, one container of chocolate frosting, and a strip of licorice. You will also need a round cake pan and a glass oven-safe deep bowl.

You can see in the picture below that I placed half the cake batter in a regular round cake pan. I put the other half in a deep bowl that was the perfect size and shape for the cup. It was a pyrex glass oven-safe dish. It was rounded and almost pointy on the bottom.

I dug out some cake from the “saucer” part, so that the teacup could rest inside the “saucer.”

cake

I smoothed the top of the “cup” by leveling it with a knife. I suppose if you want the cup to be hollow, you could dig out some of the cake in the “cup.” I wanted it to be full of tea, so I just left it.

cake-of-a-teacup

I removed the cup part and frosted the saucer part first. I used cherry frosting.

frosted-cake

You will need two containers of frosting because it would be nearly impossible to cover the cup after having covered the saucer with frosting so thoroughly. You can decorate further by adding flowers. You can even buy candy flowers to make it look more professional than mine. In this case I used a spray icing that created the flowers, but if you bought vanilla frosting and tinted it pink, you could create a lighter pink for the flowers without spending money on the spray can.

cup-of-tea-cake

For the finishing touches, frost the top of the cup with chocolate frosting to fill the cup with tea. Then add a handle to the teacup with a strip of licorice.

teacup-cake

There you have it: your finished British teacup cake! If you liked making this cake, you will love my England Unit Study.

31 Days of Themed Cakes

Friday, September 30th, 2016

31-days-of-themed-cakes

Here are 31 days of themed cakes to enhance your history, science, geography, and Bible lessons! Talk about having your cake and eating it, too! The history cakes include iconic symbols from specific time periods, like a jukebox for the 1950’s and a gramophone for the 1920’s. Geography cakes feature maps, and Bible cakes bring to life stories and concepts from the Bible. The science cakes help to teach the anatomy of an amoeba, a skin model, or the solar system.

During the month of October, I will be posting each of the remaining cakes on this fun list, categorizing the cakes into the different academic subjects.

Cakes can be a great way to culminate a unit study, celebrating the completion of a topic in science or history. You can even go all out and have a themed party with decorations and invitations, all centered around the topic of study!

31 Days of Themed Cakes

History Cakes

Geography Cakes

Science Cakes

Language Arts Cakes

Math Cakes

Bible Cakes

Fun Cakes