Cake Madness - Day 18

Cake of the Day: Chocolate Raspberry Birthday Cake

As it is a good friend's birthday tomorrow, I was honored to be asked to make his birthday cake. I was planning something multi-layered, but was waiting to hear back from his wife as to which kind of cake he would want. She requested something chocolate and raspberry, so I turned to "Chocolate Cake" by Michele Urvater. I found a recipe for raspberry mousse filling, Sweet Devil's Food cake, and of course with Devil's Food cake, I had to use the recipe for "Wicked Chocolate Frosting" . . .yum. 

My adaptation of an ice bath since I didn't have any ice. I used this to cool the raspberry mousse. 

Assembling the layers

Putting it all together

The Devil's Food cake wasn't as cake-y or chocolate-y as I would have hoped (it turned out a little flat), but it was still tasty and worked well with the frosting and filling. The layers split easily which aided in a nicer presentation. The decorating took a long time to finish and we were a little late to the party (everyone thought we had a "cake emergency") but I'm just too picky when it comes to the appearance of my cakes I guess. 

My husband tried to fashion a tool out of a ruler and some plastic to get the ridged edges, but the zig-zag scissors we have made too shallow of zig-zags, so I ended up using an old Pampered Chef  "Slice 'n Serve" which had deeper grooves on the edges (meant for cutting pies, etc.). It isn't perfect, but I think it worked out okay. 

In the end I thought the presentation looked pretty professional, the cake tasted good, and everyone at the party (including the birthday boy) liked the cake. My best comment (from a sweet little 4 year old) was: "Can we borrow one of your cakes?" Cute :)

Happy Birthday Bill

Cake Madness - Day 17

Cake of the Day: Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

When doing research for this cake, I found that the most accepted way to make it was in cast-iron skillet. Well, I don't have one of those, but luckily a coworker was kind enough to lend me one, even though this was a weekend cake (don't worry, I saved a piece to take in on Monday to show my gratitude). The first thing I realized was that the skillet is really heavy! (Side note about that . . .for those of you who have seen the Disney movie "Tangled", there is a clip where she twirls the skillet around her dainty little finger . . .yeah, not possible. But anyways, "frying pans, who knew?" :)) Next, I set about figuring out exactly how to use it without ruining it. There are so many dos and don'ts out there for using, washing, and seasoning cast-iron that I was sure I was going to either wreck it or wreck my cake, but luckily, neither of those things happened. 

I made this cake for a friend who invited us over to see the new house he is living in and he also got a new 3-D TV (which we watched "The Lion King" on . . .good times). He was excited about Pineapple Upside-Down cake, so I decided to give it a try. I had forgotten to buy a pineapple and cherries on my most recent grocery trip, so I literally ran to the grocery store closest to our house (and ran back no less . . .it's difficult to run with cans/jars of liquid things in your hands) to pick those items up. Once I had all my supplies, I started on the cake. Here is the recipe I used: Old-Fashioned Pineapple Upside-Down Cake. 

Sauce and fruit in the pan . . .I left the cherries whole, I think they look prettier that way

Right after it came out of the oven

Although I was really not in the mood to make a cake today (perhaps because it's Friday?), I'm still glad I made this one as it was another first for me. It ended up being pretty tasty, and everyone liked it

 :)

Finished product

Cake Madness - Day 16

Cake of the Day: Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cake

I will admit I've made this cake before, but not this exact cake, so it was still sort of a new experience. As you may have guessed by now, I like to bake, so when my husband asked for a boxed cake mix as his birthday cake last year, I was a little disappointed. I thought, "Does he really like boxed cake better than any other dessert I make?". I was determined to make it a little bit more special than that, so I made his requested "Funfetti" cake but topped it with homemade frosting and put a surprise inside . . . ice cream! I found the cool idea here: Ice Cream Tunnel Cake. Needless to say, he was very surprised when he cut into his cake (and very confused about where it was (hiding in the freezer) when he couldn't find his birthday dessert anywhere) :) 

For the ice cream cake this time, I decided on a boxed marble cake mix (since I love marble cake with ice cream) and filled it with mint chocolate chip ice cream (as requested by my cake sponsor). I wish I would have gotten mint chocolate chip ice cream that was actually green, because I think the white confused people and didn't contrast as much with the marble cake, but it still tasted good. Here are some pictures of this cake's progress:

Hollowed out cake

Topped with ganache, notice the seam where I cut the cake?

Unfortunately, I got a migraine at work today, so I was very thankful that I'd gotten up early and baked the cake in the morning (and that my husband was a dear and took it out of the oven for me after I had to leave for work). So when I got home, I just had to tunnel out the cake and throw it in the freezer and then go try and sleep off the migraine. It was one of the weirdest migraines I've ever had...I've never seen an aura before and it was a little trippy . . .I thought I was going blind. Luckily, I felt better after my nap and was able to finish the cake. I topped it with the remaining ganache from the Boston Cream Pie Cake (oh so yummy) and it was complete. I think it looks a little better covered in frosting so the seam is hidden, but I wanted ganache with the mint ice cream . . .it still worked.

Ice cream center

Here are some of the comments for this cake:

• Va-Va-Vooom
• I finally got a piece :) Good, I normally don't like mint.
• Very good. Nice flavor with the mint chocolate chip ice cream - not overwhelming. Yum
• HOW DID YOU DO IT?!

So, although it was a little melted by the time I got it to work, it was still well received and I think I'm starting to get into a cake making routine :)

Cake Madness - Day 15

Cake of the Day: Cranberry Almond Coffee Cake

This is the first day of this challenge that I felt like my cakes were black market items. There is no doubt that they are tasty and draw many people to them, but when I made an ingredient exchange out in the parking lot (the frozen cranberries were delivered to me by the cake sponsor in a cooler like some black market organs), and people have frequently been giving me cash, so it's been kind of weird :) 

The recipe and the frozen chopped cranberries were provided by the cake sponsor, so this was a pretty easy cake for me to make. Also, I've never made a coffee cake in a springform pan before which made this an interesting experiment. The cake came together pretty easily, but unfortunately I baked it a little too long and the edges got a little over-done. It came out very dense, but still moist, and the decorations of fresh whipped cream helped lighten it up a little bit and made a pretty tasty cake. 

Here are the comments for today's cake: 

• Moist, dense, awesome. Perfect sweet to tart ratio. Excellent :) 
• Excellent: I will be asking for the recipe. 
• Good cake . . .adding the raisins was a great idea, way to go. (Hmm, there were no raisins . . .)
• I've always been a big fan of coffee cakes so I really enjoyed this one. Loved the cranberry/almond combination. Yum. 
• Very good!!
• MMM very tasty. Need more coffee now . . . :)

The finished product:

Cake Madness - Day 14

Cake of the Day: Peanut Butter Cup Cake

This cake was inspired by a picture a friend found online. She posted it on Facebook and suggested that I make it as one of my Cake Challenge cakes. I thought I had all of my cakes planned out, but it looked way too good not to try, and one of our other coworkers decided to sponsor it, so it worked out great. 

While doing my research for the cake (since my coworker just had a picture, not a recipe), I found two options: Dulce Dough Peanut Butter Cup Cake or Annie's Eats Peanut Butter Cup Cake. While I liked the looks of Annie's Eats cake better, I've been using her recipes a lot and wanted to branch out a bit. Also, the Dulce Dough recipe was all on one page, where Annie's was separated into cake page and frosting page, so I went for simplicity and decided on the recipe from Dulce Dough with Annie's decorating scheme . . .bad idea. 

I really should have known better. When I started making this cake I thought, "this isn't how you make a cake . . .I think I should know by now". I thought that the way it was put together was a little off and when it came time to add the chocolate (only 2 oz. compared to the Annie's Eats recipe with 4 oz. plus 1/2 C. cocoa powder) I was scouring the recipe for the cocoa powder, but there was none. I decided to just trust the recipe and hope for the best. Let's just say it came out more of a chocolate chip cake than a chocolate cake, very bland and dry in my opinion, I will not use that recipe in the future. 

The frosting couldn't make up for my disappointment in the cake, but it really tried. Come on, can a combination of peanut butter, butter, and sugar really be bad? ;) Overall, the presentation was nice (although I have my husband to thank for that as he handled the unruly frosting and chopped up the Reese's for me), but the cake was not all that I was hoping for. 

Here are some of the comments from this cake: 

• Can you fit any more peanut butter flavor into a cake? p.s. I love peanut butter
• I like the base cake but it was a little bland. I've found that ginger works well with peanuts. It would be fun to try.
• Great presentation, next to the dragon this was the best yet. 
• Delicious
• This is another one of my favorites
• Amazing! Need a glass of milk now. Thanks.
• It's Delicious! I'm a sucker for Peanut Butter Cup
• A little rich for my taste, but very good and presented well.
• Yummy YUMMY YUMMY!!!!
• The frosting is absolutely amazing, wow. You're right about the cake . . .but maybe it balances out the richness of the frosting? I think it works. Yum. 

So, I guess it went over well, even if it wasn't exactly what I was planning on :)

Mmm, peanut butter cups :) 

Cake Madness - Day 13

Cake of the Day: Strawberries and Cream Victorian Sponge Cake

As it is the day before Valentine's Day, I wanted to make a cute Valentine's cake to take in to work tomorrow. One of my coworkers is British, and she shared with me her mother and grandmother's recipe for Victorian Sponge Cake. I figured I could do something cutsie with it, thus my choice for today.

Two layers of strawberry jam sandwich a thick layer of whipped cream 

For those of you who don't know, a traditional Victorian sponge cake is filled with jam and fresh whipped cream, so that's what I did. Here is how I made the whipped cream: Whipped Cream from Scratch, it's so tasty (and so easy with my KitchenAid mixer). I must say, this is one of my prettiest cakes to date:

Here are some of the comments this cake received:

• Good stuff
• Loved the filling and the strawberry flavor. Frosting was great.

And my British friend and cake sponsor said:

• Oh my goodness!! It is exactly how my mom makes it. You did a great job. It is soooo good :) :) :) :) 

I think that means it was a success :)

Cake Madness - Day 12

Cake of the Day: Boston Cream Pie "Cake"

So, I had to stretch the rules a little bit to be able to make this cake. I originally thought I would only make things with "cake" in the title, but as I did a little bit of research into Boston Cream Pie, I found out that although it is called a pie, it is truly a cake. It was called a pie because the original cakes were baked in the far more common pie pans as cake pans were more scarce...interesting huh? Also, I'm a big fan of Boston Cream Pie, so I thought it was justified :) 

Mmm

Here is the recipe I used: Boston Cream Pie. I've used multiple recipes from that site and I've been pretty happy with them. The best part of this cake though had to be the pastry cream filling. I LOVE custard, so I was excited to make this, and as soon as it was done, I tried it immediately. My husband was on the phone, but I ran over to him and said "I think I just made heaven in a bowl"! It is so good, and it made for a very tasty cake. 

Amazing cream

This ganache also turned out much better than my previous attempt and poured over the cake beautifully. There was even some left over that I can save to use on a future cake. I let it cool, then cut around the bottom, piped a few cute cream dots on top, and voila, Boston Cream Pie. 

This cake was one of the fastest disappearing yet . . .it was gone in under one hour, I guess people liked it :) 

Here are some of the comments it received: 

• Amazing! The custard middle and chocolate frosting were just perfect. Yummy.
• Delicious
• This was tough to cut :) But uber good.
• Mo sloppy, mo better!

And my favorite comment (left by someone who showed up too late):

• Gone :( 

On a side note, remember that rock climbing lady from Day 28 of January who was filing her hands? Yeah, I understand that now . . .my calluses are starting to peel off and are really sharp . . .ouchies. 

Cake Madness - Day 11

Cake of the Day: Angel Food Cake

What better cake to take to a Bible study group than Angel Food cake, or at least that was my idea when choosing today's cake. My dad is going to be sad he missed this one . . .Angel Food cake is his favorite. This is actually the same cake I made for his birthday last year, but with differently flavored frosting. I wasn't feeling ambitious enough to make the cake from scratch, so it was another boxed mix, but it always turns out so well, I feel it was justified. To compensate for my lazy cake making skills, I did make homemade frosting using this recipe: Fluffy Seven-Minute Frosting. I think it kind of tastes like marshmallow fluff . . .yummy :) 

The set up

The interesting part of today's cake was not the cake however, it was how it was decorated. I feel that tons of fluffy frosting covered with colored nonpareils is just the perfect topping for Angel Food cake, but I always run into the problem of how to get the nonpareils on the side of the cake. I'm guessing many of you have encountered this same problem? My usual method is to take the container and shake it really hard and hope that some of them stick while most of them go flying around my kitchen. As I had just cleaned the floor, I wasn't keen to have it covered with little colored balls, so I enlisted my husband to help me again . . .he's an engineer. 

The plan was this: place the cake at an angle and then bounce the nonpareils off of a hard surface (we used our marble cheese board) onto the sides of the cake. He did the angling and the sprinkling while I "drove" the cake by turning it on my cake stand set at an incline (we used a photo album). Sheer brilliance I tell you . . .it worked great, and with hardly any mess! Everyone at Bible study loved the cake...another success story.

Finished product

Sprinkles are fun

One thing I learned from today . . .it is good to be married to an engineer :) 

Cake Madness - Day 10

Cake of the Day: Basketball Cupcakes

I have to give a huge shout out to my husband for helping me with these cute little cupcakes. These were for a basketball tournament at my church's grade school. I needed an "outlet" for one of my weekend cakes, and when we were handed a flyer after church promoting the tournament, it included a section titled "Bakers Wanted" . . .I found my calling :) Since the tournament ran Friday evening through Sunday afternoon, I wanted to get these to the concession stand as soon as possible (I also didn't want them to have to compete with the yummy breakfast foods they were serving Saturday morning). That being said, I had to make them after work on Friday and deliver them the same night, so I was a little rushed, hence why my husband's help was needed.

I found the idea for these cupcakes from this picture: Basketball Cupcakes. I used a chocolate cake mix and this frosting recipe: Buttercream Icing. Usually allrecipes.com doesn't fail me, but I was quite disappointed with this recipe. It took a TON of powdered sugar and was a mix of shortening and butter. There were some buttercream recipes on there that didn't even include any butter, but I didn't think it could be buttercream without the butter, so I went for a half and half recipe. Perhaps if I had used butter flavored shortening it would have tasted better, but it was overpoweringly sweet, slightly grainy, and left a strange aftertaste in my mouth. Maybe I'm just being picky since most of my other cakes have turned out so well, but I wasn't a fan of the frosting . . .it wasn't bad, but it wasn't that good either. 

For the little basketballs, I couldn't find the orange wafer things used in the source picture, but I did find some mini Nilla wafers that I think worked just as well. My friend (the ganache queen) let me borrow her piping bag to make the pretty frosting swirls. I had my husband pipe the chocolate frosting (with a little black food coloring in it) into basketball designs on the cookies while I made the cupcakes. After they were cool, he also did the piping of the buttercream and I added the decorations because his fingers are too big to pick up the wafers and put them on the cupcakes without smearing the design. It worked out well, and I delivered them as soon as they were done. There were lots of people at the basketball tournament and I got quite a few "oohs" and "aahs" as I carried them to the concession stand. All in all, I think they were a success, but definitely not my favorite thing I've made so far. I guess they made the grade though, because one sold before I even had them all out on the table :) 

Cake Madness - Day 9

Cake of the Day: Orange Chocolate Chunk Cake

I was a little desperate when I picked this cake. I've tried (in vain) to get all of my cakes planned out ahead of time so I know I always have all the ingredients I need, and have a sponsor for the cake so I'm not completely broke at the end of this month (I did eat a Fruit Roll-Up for dinner tonight, but that was more out of laziness than lack of food to be eaten). So when I realized at 3:30 that my cake sponsor for the cake I was planning on making was going to be on vacation the next day, I kind of panicked. I scoured my list of potential sponsors and cake ideas, but nothing seemed to be coming together. When I got home, I searched a few handy baking blogs, and this is the one that captured my fancy (and fit the criteria that I had everything I needed to make it (or at least close substitutions) and it wasn't crazily time-consuming). Unfortunately, I don't have those adorable little Bundt pans like Annie of Annie's Eats used: Orange Chocolate Chunk Cake. I do however have a large Bundt pan, so that had to do. The cake turned out rather short, so I guess it wasn't enough batter, but now I know. 

In other news, ganache is the bane of my existance. I could live with the cake being short and not that appealing, but the ganache was supposed to be the crowning glory of this cake, and that was not happening. How my friend made ganache in five minutes while I was struggling for two hours was beyond me (see Just A Cake, Cake Madness - Day 4). I think a lot of it had to do with my substitution for heavy cream. I had some evaporated milk I wanted to use up, and since I only have skim milk in the house, I figured this would be better in my heavy cream substitution anyways. So it was evaporated milk, water, and butter mixed with the chocolate over a double boiler to make the ganache. Well, I could see something weird happening to it, and sure enough, I "broke" the ganache. That's what it's really called. Broken. I found a fix online that told me to divide it in half, cool one half to 60 F and warm the other half to 130 F and then mix them together and that should fix it. I pulled out my trusty electronic thermometer and got to work warming and chilling and stirring until they were close to those temperatures and dumped them together. I mixed vigorously, but nothing happened . . .still broken. So I tried again, and this time got them to exactly 60 and 130 before combining . . .still broken-ish. There was just a little oil remaining on the surface, but it was bedtime, so I decided that was good enough and called it a night. In the morning, after it cooled, there were tons of white spots on my cake from the uncombined ganache . . .how frustrating. 

Partially separated, cooled ganache

Oh well, it was time to go, so a few seconds in the microwave to remelt, and tada, a beautiful, shiny, and rather good tasting ganache . . .what an experiment. Next time I will definitely have to try a different method for making ganache!

Good enough :) 

Here are the comments for today:

• Not liking this too much. OK - but chocolate was bitter (well, I did use bittersweet chocolate . . .)
• I liked the orange and chocolate flavors together. Never had a cake like that before. Really liked the chocolate frosting
• Yesterday's cake "Better than . . ." EXCELLENT (Better late than never ;))
• It was a hit. I like that you have a good variety of cake types

I think all of my work cakes are sponsored now, so that's good news. And to my surprise, a few were even sponsored by those who don't eat cake based purely on appearances, that they think this is a fun idea, or just because they are nice people . . . Thank you :) 

Cake Madness - Day 8

Cake of the Day: Better Than Almost Anything Cake

I want to start today's post with a note of thanks for all of the comments and ideas that I've been getting from my readers. I love comments, and you guys have had some really great ideas. So keep them coming...they are awesome :) 

Today's cake is by far the easiest cake I have made yet (which was a much needed break after my last two crazy cakes). This is not my favorite cake because it turns out kind of wet and mushy, but holy cow, the people at work sure seemed to like it . . .it was gone in under an hour and a half. That's a new record I think. Also, I got asked for one of my recipes for the first time. I didn't think that would take so long, but I'm glad this is the recipe I got asked for as it is so easy.

1 German Chocolate Cake mix

1 can Sweetened Condensed milk

1 jar Caramel ice cream sauce

1 8 oz. container frozen whipped topping

1 bag toffee bits

Bake cake according to box directions. Cool for 10 minutes. Poke lots of holes in it with the handle of a wooden spoon. Pour milk over and let soak in. Pour caramel over, run knife around edges. Cover and refrigerate for two hours. Spread whipped topping on top and sprinkle on toffee bits. That's it. Done. 

Here are the comments this cake received: 

• Love it
• Splendido, awesome again! :) Moist, toffee-eeish (yummy). Not overpoweringly sweet, I like it that way. 
• Heath cake . . .*Drool*, frickin' awesome
• You are amazing!
• REALLY Good! Base cake looked dense and heavy to me, but tastes light and darkly chocolatey. Crunchy topping is lovely. 
• Very good. I love the toffee bits and topping

Another success :) 

Cake Madness - Day 7

Cake of the Day: Dragon Cake

Today cannot start with lots of words, it must start with a picture:

How ADORABLE is he??? I found the idea here: Fire Breathing Cake, and just had to make him. 

The day started out with a serious feeling of gratitude to my new best friend, my KitchenAid mixer. I knew this cake was going to take forever to decorate, so being able to whip up a chocolate cake in minutes was wonderful. The cake portion was not the star of this day anyways. He really wasn't too difficult to assemble, here was my set-up:

In my own words, I got too much "gickey" (yes I made that word up) on my computer from trying to wake up the monitor after it had gone to sleep so I could see the instructions time and time again, but my computer survived and the dragon came to life. It was hard to believe I could make that whole cake out of two 8 inch round cakes, but it wasn't too bad. I made a few alterations such as making my own chocolate covered graham crackers for the spikes:

I also dipped two Hershey's "Hugs" in chocolate for the nostrils since I didn't have any "Kisses" and omitted the wings because many reviews said they sagged quickly if not stored in the freezer, and I have about a 25 minute drive to work, so I didn't think they would make it. Plus, I figured he was cute enough without them. One helpful tip was to freeze the dragon after putting a crumb coat on, otherwise I never would have been able to cover him so well with frosting because the cake crumbled quite a bit. 

Needless to say, he created quite the stir when I brought him in to work. There were two pictures of him up on Facebook within five minutes of walking in the door. A little crowd gathered to look at him, and the sponsor of the cake (who I made cut into him because I didn't have the heart) took his sweet time getting around to cutting him. This cake has definitely made me believe that I am capable of more than I thought I was! 

Here are some of the many comments the Dragon Cake received:

• He was ADORABLE, and very tasty :) Awesome job on putting him together (yes, of course, it was a him, haha)
• Dinomite
• Very delicious cake (written in Chinese, perhaps they thought the Dragon was in celebration of the Chinese New Year, as it is the Year of the Dragon)
• I don't know how you make the cakes wilder and wilder each day but I am so impressed.
• It is like a real life version of 'Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs' (I don't recall a dragon in there, but perhaps they are referring to the abundance of cakes?) 

Okay, one last picture of him:

Awww

Cake Madness - Day 6

Cake of the Day: Funky Monkey Banana Cake

Okay, this project is getting a little out of hand. I was seriously so stressed today trying to get this cake done, you have no idea. I know I brought this upon myself by picking such tedious cakes, but honestly, I almost had a mental breakdown in Wal-Mart tonight. I was very close to bribing a small family to buy a "Child's Play" bag of candy so I didn't have to spend the $5 just to get the two Tootsie Rolls I needed, and I panicked a little when the check-out lady said she didn't think they made Runts anymore. Luckily a friend at work had advised me that the Dollar Tree had a good selection of candy and I made it there ten minutes before they closed. A big thank you to the Dollar Tree girl who was awesome and got me my Runts (you can't have a Funky Monkey cake without the little bananas). Then one last stop at a gas station to find some Cow Tails and finally, at 9 pm, I was ready to start my cake. You see why this challenge is more time consuming than rock climbing?

The cake wasn't too bad to make, and my husband was a dear and made the cream cheese frosting for me, which left me time to figure out how to fashion monkeys out of Tootsie Rolls. I just had to make this cake, it looked so cute here: It's A Jungle Cake, and since there were monkeys on the cake, I thought a banana cake would be fitting. This recipe worked wonderfully: Banana Cake VI. Seriously, try this cake, it was like banana bread, but better.

I got tons of comments about this cake, and have been called the Cake Lady more frequently. Here are some of the best comments:

• Cake Lady, your kids are going to be so lucky
• Funky, most interesting. Your cakes rock. Please supply the Weight Watchers points values (ha - or not)
• Good balance of flavor, lots of banana flavor without being cloying. The frosting was just the right sweetness. The only problem is that I fear you may have made it too delicious.
• Nice banana base. Frosting smooth, blends with cake well.
• Excellent!!!!!
• Yummy! I love banana flavor so I thought the cake was really good and great flavor. But the cake looked so cute that people were trying to avoid cutting into the monkeys :) 
• Very cute, tastes great. Excellent job. 
• Looks too good to eat
• A+ Tasty and very creative
• One of the best decorated cakes I have ever seen, very cool. Also it tasted awesome!

So that makes all that stressful candy hunting worth it :) 

Cow tail and Tootsie Roll trees, Milk Dud coconuts, Tootsie roll monkeys, leaves of green apple licorice and watermelon Air Heads, banana Runts and a squished lemon Dot for the sun . . . fun

Cake Madness - Day 5

Cake of the Day: Yum Yum Cake

This cake has been a favorite of mine for many years, and honestly, how could a cake called "Yum Yum Cake" be bad? That being said, it is a relatively simple cake, and the cake is not the star of the show, the frosting is. The cake, as I like to call it, is merely a frosting delivery device :) 

Since this one was brought in to work again, I could use the amount of time it took for the cake to be demolished as a sign of it's quality . . .this one was gone in two and a half hours, so not quite as popular as the first cakes, but still pretty good. Oh, and I heard a comment about my German Chocolate Cake, I guess someone was literally ripping pieces off of it to eat, although I don't know who, all I know is that they must have really been hungry!

As for me, I may be going a little crazy trying to plan and make all these cakes. Cake generally consumes most of my waking thoughts at this point, I sure hope I can learn to relax pretty soon.

Here are some of the Yum Yum Cake comments:

• You are so evil (This was written by a weight loss challenge participant)
• Very good cake . . .visually very inviting - I very much like the frosting!! The cake could be slightly more moist, slightly. Love the frosting. I could see using this frosting over and over again - Tons of applications :) 
• Delicious

And my favorite comment:

• No words can describe the splendor of the yum yum cake, A+

Yum

Yum

Cake Madness - Day 4

Cake of the Day: "Just A Cake"

For my Saturday cake, one of my good friends (who is also an excellent baker) invited me over to her house to make a cake with her for a party she was having that night. She found this amazing looking recipe: Just A Cake (if you looked at the link, be warned, ours did not end up looking quite that nice). It was really my first time making buttercream frosting, so that was a good experience, and it's always fun baking with a friend :)

Yes, I did get laughed at for how precise I am when baking

 And since pictures are excellent, there will be many in this post. Doesn't this one look great?

Mini chocolate chips were mixed into the buttercream in the middle . . . so yummy, and it looks like a giant Oreo 

 We were running a little short on time as we had to meet up with others for the party (we went bowling) so the cake actually got it's crumb coat out in the garage (on the back of her husband's car) to keep the cake and frosting cool. The buttercream in the middle kept wanting to run out, but we contained it.

Frosted cake

 And now, for the ganache on top. She did such a nice job making it (even though she was a little nervous about it). You really can't go wrong with pouring chocolate over a cake though.

The moment of truth

 Unfortunately, since we were running so late, we didn't have enough time to let the ganache cool either, and it was much runnier than we had hoped and quite a bit formed a moat around the cake. So, not as pretty as the Bakerella version, but still super tasty (you really can't go wrong with a recipe that includes four sticks of butter).

The Moat Cake

Um, yum :) 

Cake Madness - Day 3

Cake of the Day: Rainbow Party Cake

My first two cakes had gone over wonderfully at work, but now was the tricky weekend schedule. The cake I made today (Friday) would be served Sunday at my Bible study group, and Saturday's cake would be served at a party Saturday, and the cake I make Sunday will be for work on Monday . . .it was quite a challenge to figure all this out, but it worked.

I had made this cake twice before (once for Kenyan Independence Day since I work with a girl from Kenya, and once for a friend's birthday) but each cake has been a bit different. I knew I wanted to make this cake again because it is relatively simple to make (uses boxed cake mix and frosting) but looks really impressive. Also, when I realized that both Super Bowl teams had essentially the same team colors, making this colorful cake for a Super Bowl party I was attending made a lot of sense.

Here is where I first found the recipe: Amazing Halloween Rainbow Party Bundt Cake (the lady might be a little free with her decolletage, but she knows how to make a cool cake). I'm not really into Halloween, but I figured I could change the colors however I wanted and did so successfully (the Kenya cake was red, green, and black, and the birthday cake was black, white, and purple). To frost the cake, the frosting was put into baggies this time and used that way so it didn't leave large glops of frosting like it had when I made the Kenya cake. The finished product was not too bad, crazy looking, but good. I think many people at the party were impressed, especially the kids, and the best comment I got was: "If I were going to make a cake like that I wouldn't know where to start, oh yes I do, I'd talk to you" :)

Red, blue, white and black for the Patriots and Giants

Everyone is impressed with the surprise inside 

The cake wasn't completely eaten at the party (because a lovely couple celebrating their 7th anniversary brought in a huge cake made by the same baker who made their wedding cake; it was so good and beautiful), but one of my friend's hosting the party is a teacher and she took the leftovers in to the teacher's lounge the next day and I guess it was a hit there too. Yay :)

Cake Madness - Day 2

Cake of the day: Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese frosting. 

The recipes I found (Sam's Famous Carrot Cake & Cream Cheese Frosting) called for walnuts, coconut, pineapple and raisins in the cake, so if you are a carrot cake purist and think that is gross, please avoid this post. As my cake sponsor doesn't like raisins, they were omitted, but the rest was included, and I put a sign up about there being coconut and walnuts in the cake and I didn't get any nasty comments about coconut today, hooray.

It turns out that today (February 3rd) is National Carrot Cake Day . . .who knew? I was certainly not aware of it when I planned Carrot Cake for today, what a happy coincidence. Anyways, the cake and frosting were both easy to make and I think it turned out really tasty. Evidently my coworkers thought so too as it was gone in two hours again and landed me a few more cake sponsors :)

Not much to look at, but so moist underneath

Here are some of the comments this cake received:

• I have never had carrot cake, so this is the best that I've ever had :)
• Appearance is average as far as "all" cakes go . . .but good in terms of carrot cake. Cream cheese frosting is perfect for the cake . . .not too cheesy and not too sweet
• Moist cake. Interesting combination of flavors, nuts, fruit, don't pick up carrots. Creamy frosting.
• Very good! Plus, there is a healthy aspect: 1. carrots 2. coconut 3.nuts 4.dairy - cream cheese!
• Thanks for trying to sabotage the weight loss challenge :P (Yes, there is a weight loss challenge going on at my work right now . . .oops)
• Yummy! I like the walnuts and raisins (hmm, there are no raisins in my cake) though some feel them unorthodox. Could have done with more nutmeg IMHO (well, since I didn't have any nutmeg in there either, I agree)
• Best carrot cake that I've ever had! Thanks.
• Absolutely delicious!! The frosting was nice and creamy. Great texture. The cake itself was moist and had lots of flavor!!

Behold the yumminess

Cake Madness - Day 1

I know what you must be thinking: make a cake every day for a whole month? She is going to be so broke and so fat at the end of this challenge. Have no fear, I spent many hours before February even started trying to solve the many problems that could arise with baking every day. First of all, I knew I couldn't afford to make 29 cakes, so the idea of "cake sponsors" came up. A sponsor would give me $10 (or buy the supplies needed for their cake) and in return would get some say in what kind of cake I made and I would deliver a piece to them in the morning. This works well for the people at my work as they not only get a piece of their cake, but can partake in every other cake I bring in to work, if they so desire. It was a little bit of effort to find enough people, but that helped defray some of the costs at least, and since my coworkers will be eating the cakes, it keeps me and my husband from gaining 200 pounds this month. The other stipulation I had for my friends who came up with the Cake-A-Day challenge (and happen to work in the department I used to work in) was that they had to protect me from the people in the department I currently work in as I knew they would be irate and probably kill me if I made cakes for my old friends and not my new ones. This problem was solved by opening cake sponsorship up to everyone, and placing every cake in neutral territory . . .the lunchroom ;) So, now that most of those issues are settled, turn on the oven, it's time to bake.

My preliminary cake supply set up (yes there are some cake mixes, I can't make them all from scratch)

Thank the Lord for KitchenAid mixers (and no, I didn't put the avocado in the cake)

My friend who was the instigator of the Cake-A-Day idea kindly volunteered to sponsor the first two cakes. He has a serious coconut tooth (as some people have a sweet tooth, he just loves coconut), so German Chocolate Cake was chosen as the first day. After scouring the internet, this is the recipe I decided on: Willard Family German Chocolate Cake. I've never made that recipe before so I was a little nervous about it, but I shouldn't have been, it turned out great.

"Yolky" was not too sure about this Cake-A-Day idea

My first cakes

I made the cake in two 8" x 8" pans since I don't have 9"x"9" pans without any problems. I stayed up way too late making this cake, but it was worth it. There was quite the buzz at work in the morning with lots of people wondering about the comment cards and the "Cake-A-Day" idea. The cake must have been good too, it was gone in under 2 hours. Without further ado, here are some of the highlights from the comment cards:

• All I can say is yum
• Fabulous job!
• You crazy!
• Great job!  Moist, rich, not over powering. Thanks for sharing.
• Very visually pleasing, thank you for making!
• Pretty, pretty, pretty good
• Dieser Kuchen ist so feucht und kostlich. Dies ist die beste Deutsch Schokoladenglasur, die ich je gegessen habe (which I think means "This cake is moist and delicious. This is the best German Chocolate cake/glaze that I have ever eaten." Although, the Google translate version was much more humorous: "This cake is moist and delicious. The chocolate glaze is the best German that I have ever eaten" . . .guess I work with cannibals ;))
• The only thing that could make it better is if your German Chocolate Cake was also Bavarian cream filled (amazing idea)
• Visually pleasing so much so it was difficult to cut into. Frosting is coconut heaven!
• Holy cow - I loved my Aunt Dolores' cake as a kid (bless her since departed soul) . . .but you bake one heck of a mean German chocolate cake - not even in the same league . . ."Sorry Aunt Dolores . . ." this cake is very good!!!!

Of course I knew not everyone would like the cakes, and I did get one negative comment:

• Don't like this kind because I don't like coconut - and the frosting looks disgusting.

But I also got this comment:

• BTW if you get any nasty comments by this method (meaning the anonymous comment cards) show me the paper and we'll figure out who to punish for their bad manners.

How kind :) Well, I took the criticism constructively and will warn people from now on if there is coconut (or something else I fear people might not like) in the cake, and as for the appearance, plenty of people said they like it, so I'm okay with it. That's what German Chocolate Cake is supposed to look like :)

Finished product . . . yum

February Reveal

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for, the great February reveal. Every time someone finds out about this 12 month challenge idea they are eager to know what the future months hold for me, but I like surprises, so I try not to give too much away. :)
Now I know quite a few of you already know my February challenge as I am a little behind on updating this blog, but for those of you who don't know, the wait is finally over. I've decided I'm going to floss my teeth every day for the month of February. WAIT! Don't go! I know it is really not that interesting of a blog topic, but have no fear, my work lunch buddies saved you and told me on no uncertain terms that I was not allowed to write about flossing for a whole month. They came up with many other ideas, but only one truly stuck. The idea was brainstormed for a few days and spread around to other coworkers to generate support. Although I will be flossing every day this month, the true challenge, the crazy, ridiculous, fun beyond belief challenge is going to be: bake a cake every day for a month. February is the month of Cake Madness! Enjoy :)