My oldest daughter loves puppies, it is her favorite animal. When we are out and about she has to pet every single puppy we see. To be more specific she loves bulldogs. She wants a real bulldog more than anything. She has a stuffed bulldog and bulldog slippers, but still wants a real one.
When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday cake, she of course said a bulldog cake. Well, I spent way too many hours scouring the Internet for any sort of directions to make a bulldog cake with no luck. But I did find directions for a puppy cake and made that for her.
When I made this cake I used both yellow and chocolate cake, because when I had asked my daughter what flavor cake she wanted, she had said I guess chocolate that makes sense for a puppy cake, but then said " If you could do both yellow and chocolate that would be amazing!".
The frosting I used for this cake was so delicious and easy to work with. The combination of cream cheese and whipped cream created a lighter cream cheese frosting with a more subtle cream cheese flavor. I used chocolate candy melts to make the frosting chocolate flavored and it was fantastic. It created a very subtle chocolate flavor that was perfect.
My daughter absolutely loved her puppy birthday cake and even said it looked like a real puppy!
Puppy Cake with Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:
2 batches of cake batter, flavor of choice
1- 9 inch round cake pan
2- 8 inch round cake pans
1 9x4 loaf pan
frosting, I used a whipped cream cheese frosting, see recipe below
fondant, I used a homemade marshmallow fondant
gel food colors of you choice
Directions:
Grease and flour all four pans well or spray with cooking spray, line with parchment paper and spray parchment paper with cooking spray.
Pour cake batters into prepared pans evenly, you want the pans to be about 1/2 of the way full. Bake according to cake directions, pans may bake for varying times due to the different sizes. Cool cakes in pans for 5-10 minutes. Remove cakes and cool completely on a cooling rack.
Take the 9 inch cake and cut it in half, creating two half circles. Spread a thin layer of frosting onto the bottom side of one of the half circles and place the bottom side of the other half circle on top of the frosting. Stand up the half circle on the cut edge, this will be the puppy's body.
Take one of the 8 inch cakes and cut in half, creating two half circles. Spread a thin layer of frosting onto the bottom side of one of the half circles and place the bottom side of the other half circle on top of the frosting. Stand up the half circle on the cut edge and place in front of the other half circle, this will be the puppy's head.
Take the loaf pan and cut it according to the picture at the right. The vertical rectangles in the front are the front paws and the horizontal rectangles in the back are the back paws. Place the front paws next to the puppy's body towards the front of the body and place the back paws next to the puppy's body towards the back of the body.Cut a slope off of the front of each paw and a half circle out of the head, to create a more realistic look.
Take the remaining 8 inch cake and cut out two ears and one tail. To make the tail, I started at the top of the circle and cut straight down about 1/2 inch to 1 inch and then cut following the curve of the cake until I got to the bottom directly below where I started and cut straight towards the outside of the cake to separate from the rest of the cake. Use the remaining piece of cake to create two ears. Place the tail at the back of the puppy's body and cut the end of the tail into a curve to create a more realistic look. Do not place the ears yet.
Frost the entire cake. Add the ears to the head of the puppy and then frost the ears. Place remaining frosting into a piping bag fitted with a small straight tip, and pipe "hair" all over the puppy.
Use fondant to create puppy's features, like eyes, nose, tongue and collar.
Enjoy!!!
Notes:
Instead of using fondant for dogs features you could use fruit by the foot or fruit roll-up for collar and tongue and peanut m&m's for eyes and nose.
*Adapted from 123 Homeschool 4 Me.
Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:
8 ounces reduced fat cream cheese, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
Directions:
In a large bowl beat together the softened cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth.
Meanwhile in another large bowl beat the whipping cream until stiff peaks form.
Once cream cheese mixture is smooth, gently fold in 1/3 of the whipped cream with a spatula. Gently fold in the remaining whipped cream.
Enjoy!!!
Notes:
To create a chocolate frosting I melted 1/2 cup chocolate candy melts and mix in after beating the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla. If you do not have or do not want to buy candy melts you can substitute 1/4-1/2 cup of melted chocolate chips or cocoa powder, depending on how chocolaty you want the frosting to be.
To make enough frosting for the puppy cake I made 1 1/2 batches of this frosting recipe.
*Adapted from Food.com.
