Happy 4th of July Cake

I originally saw this cake over at Crafty Mama, I love the look of it but did not love the recipe.  I am all for baking from scratch, but I really felt a cake mix would do in this case.  This cake was more about the look for me at least.

I used two cake mixes for all the layers.  In each of the two 8 inch cake pans I would pour 1 cup of cake batter in, and bake them two at a time as all I own is two 8 inch pans.  The layers still came out a little thicker than I had planned.

The blue layer was made with 2 cups of batter as it had to be the thickness of 2 red layers.  If you follow the directions from Crafty Mama, you will cut a circle out of a piece of parchment or wax paper for the top layer.  Well I guess you can say I cheated, or made this step a little easier.  I used a large biscuit cutter to cut the center out of the blue layer, and then cut the center of a red layer to fill in the blue layer.  Okay did I confuse you yet?

Well the cake was a really tall layer cake and I really didn't think it would survive the icing part, it tilted from side to side and I did panic a little bit.  The cake at least made it to the table and I was able to cut a few slices before it took a mysterious nose dive off the plate when I turned my back.

Heart Cake Throwdown

I felt like I was on an episode of the Throwdown! with Bobby Flay, but mine was a Donna Buckley challenge. She threw it out there and I knew I had to give it my best attempt. The directions came from this webpage, http://iammommy.typepad.com/i_am_baker/2010/02/heart-cake-tutorial.html, and they gave a blow by blow direction. (P.S. I still have not figured out how to post a link on a blog, may make that a goal for 2011)

I didn't use the cake recipe provided on that blog, only because I had a bunch of cake mixes on hand I would have had to gone to the supermarket for alot of the required ingredients. This cake was more about the design than the cake to me. This cake actually required three different cakes, a red one for the heart and four white layers. They all needed to be baked and cooled completely. That is when the real fun began.

I read the directions step by step, as I sometimes miss a step here and there on regular occassions, but this one was a challenge and I needed to do my best. Plus it was so time consuming I may have smashed the cake if it didn't look good when I was done.



I had to make two 2-layered cakes. Each layer got cut at an angle, as if you were cutting a cone from each layer. One "cone" got filled with the mashed red cake, and the other "cone" got refilled slightly with an inverted cone and filled.



I was nervous about flipping one of the layers upside down to top the cake but that went better than expected. Then the cake got frosted and went into the fridge for the night. I was anxious to cut it, so we cut it after breakfast and ate it in our pajamas.



This was my official taste tester, and he approved.

Cake Bites

This recipe came from Bakerella. It seems that these cake bites are all the rage, so much so that a book is being published solely on the topic of cake pops (aka cake bites on a stick). I didn't want to make them just for the sake of making them, I wanted there to be a special occasion. With our mom's group we have a meal support for mom's who have just had babies. My good friend Donna just had a beautiful baby girl and what better occasion than that.



The "recipe" begins with a boxed cake mix prepared as directed. You bake and cool. Then crumble. Basically you are making a cake and trashing it to rubble, kind of fun.



Next you take a can of cream cheese frosting and work it into the cake crumbs. Chill briefly to to firm up the cake mix, you want it workable. Roll them into balls and put on a baking sheet covered in waxed paper. Place into freeze for a few hours, you will want them firm.



You are going to dip them into melted chocolate, and place them in the fridge. This was the first time I ever worked at coating something in chocolate, it took a little getting used to. Not bad for a first try.



http://www.bakerella.com/red-velvet-cake-balls/