Good Morning,

I am planning on doing a "fall" theme 1st birthday for my son in a few weeks. I bought both the Wilton Giant 3-D pumpkin pan and the mini pans.

I plan to make a few large cakes (1 for us and a couple for doctors) and some mini ones including a smash cake. I was thinking of doing more of a glaze than frosting all the cakes and maybe adding some sprinkles?

Does anyone have any ideas recipes etc? (I am really new to cake decorating) I truly appreciate any help.

Thanks so much!

~Erin

if you want to do a glaze you could try petit for glaze. it's really sweet though

Here's a recipe for a poured fondant that really easy.

2lbs sifted powdered sugar
2/3 cup water
3 Tbl. light corn syrup
2 t. flavouring


Put in a saucepan and warm everything until the sugar dissolves. Try and keep it warm but don't let it get above 99-100 degrees.

P.S. I love your "cheekymonkey" name. I actually have a wine( I own a couple of wineries) called "cheeky monkey".

I found a great recipe in Food and Family magazine. It really simple: I yellow or white cake mix ( including wet ingredients called for on box), i box instant vanilla pudding, 1 can of pumpkin puree, 2 tsp pumkin spice. bake as directed. My family says this tastes more like pumpkin pie than the pumkin pie they make!!! don't care for pumpkin, but i love this cake!!! also goes great with cream cheeses frosting!!!

Hi Erin,
No help on your pumpkin cake question, but I wanted to welcome you to CakeCentral.
See the little warning at the top left corner of the home page? Please take it seriously !

Thank you all so much! I might have to bake that cake tonight, just to test it

Both the fondant glaze recipe sounds great and the cream cheese. If I used the fondant glaze what flavoring would work for the pumpkin cake and if I used cream cheese could I tint it orange and make it a bit "thinner" to drizzle on top?

Thanks again from such a "newbie"! But, yes I agree with the warning.

I'm sure you could add extra milk to make it thinner. I see no problems on the coloring. The cake does come out a brownish orange color. And the contrast of the white icing is just beautiful. But you do it anycolor you would like. THere is no law against that.

So I made the pumpkin cake this morning and it was yummy! (I just tasted the trimmings, but still good!) My 2 year old enjoyed it too!

I am going to use plain cream cheese frosting to attach the layers and frost the top a bit this afternoon. (The white frosting looks very pretty with the cake color)

My question is: The cake seemed completely cooked but when trimming it I noticed it a bit "mushy" in the middle. I covered the whole cake with saran wrap, will that help it firm up a bit? It doesn't seem raw (or I hope not at least)

Oh, I bought the canned cream cheese frosting...any recipes on a good homemade one or do you think the canned will be OK?

Thanks so much for everything!

. . . so this is just your "test cake" right . . . go a head and use the store bought icing . . . but why not try http://www.earlenescakes.com/icings.htm for the "real cake" . . . if the cake is alittle underdone you may need to reduce the temperature and cook for longer (depending on what you baked the first one at - it may need more time in the oven - but in order to not have the outside edges overdone you might have to reduce your oven temperature) . . . HTH

Yes, this was a "test cake" so thanks for the homemade cream cheese recipe. (I will use that for the "real" cakes)

I put frosting between the layers and also some on top. It was great, but I think I will use the cream cheese in the middle and just decorate the leaves (the design of the pan) with cream cheese. I think I used to much on the top and the cake was good with out it.

Also, I think it was a bit "underdone" I baked it at 350 as indicated on the wilton pan (but not the box recipe) and cooked it for 50/55 minutes. The pan said 43 minutes.

SO thanks again for everything!