Every time I make a cake, even a relatively small one, there are always leftovers. There are the trimmings from leveling the layers, there is extra frosting and then there is just plain leftover cake. No matter how delicious, moist and wonderful a cake is after a while it gets old. Maybe you’re just getting tired of having the same thing or maybe it is actually getting a bit stale. Either way, it is the perfect excuse to reincarnate your cake in the form of cake pops.
We are celebrating the Little Prince’s second birthday this week (or as he so charmingly states “‘Appy birfy-day now peez!”) which means a busy time of gift buying and wrapping, party planning and prepping and, of course, cake baking.
Last year I took the plunge and created my very first solo birthday cake. As I mentioned at the time, it was a whole lot of (very rewarding) work so I approached this year’s cake with a mixture of excitement, trepidation and determination. The Little Prince and I talked it over and we settled on a “bump-truck” cake. I could have chosen to go with a simple sheet cake with a picture of a dump truck on it, but I decided to get a little more ambitious…(here’s where that determination, and some of the trepidation come in).
This week we can thank Lynne of Honey Muffin for choosing Double Apple Bundt Cake (pages 184 and 185). I may have mentioned before (in fact I’m pretty certain I have) that the only fruit I really like in a dessert is apples so I was pretty excited to give this cake a try.
Since I am (as always) cutting this pretty close to the wire, let’s jump right in…
I mentioned in one of my TWD posts that I had made a special cake for “the Little Prince’s” first birthday celebration and promised pictures. It is now a couple weeks after the fact, but I am very proud of my very first birthday cake effort so I still wanted to share.
I actually had some difficulty deciding what I wanted to do for his cake, it’s not like a one year old can tell you exactly what he wants his cake to look like. After a fair amount of pondering I came up with a plan. It’s possible that I may have gone a tad bit over board, I know he won’t remember his first birthday cake, but I wanted to do something special and I will always have the pictures to show him.
This week Sabrina of Superfluous chose Cranberry Upside-Downer on page 206 of Dorie’s book. Now, I’m not entirely sure how this could have happened, but it seems that this may be my very first upside down cake. At least I can’t recall having made any variety of upside down cake before.
I still have cookies and cake and ice cream left over from “the Little Prince’s” birthday party but cranberries, pecans and a lightly spiced cake sounded like a winner to me…
This week’s TWD challenge was selected by Amy of Amy Ruth Bakes. She made the excellent choice of Dressy Chocolate Loafcake on pages 286 and 287. There are just so many things to love about this recipe; chocolate (of course), ease of preparation, and size to name a few.
I wasn’t exactly thrilled by the filling Dorie uses – raspberry jam should not be within shouting distance of my chocolate cake. But that was easy enough to fix; I went with a peanut butter mousse and bittersweet chocolate ganache, one layer of each between each of the three layers of cake.
Why don’t I just let the pictures speak for themselves…
I have a TWD double header going on this week. I really did make last week’s Dulce de Leche Duos and was all prepared to post about them on Tuesday but instead I had the pleasure of dealing with a broken refrigerator (which didn’t get fixed until the next morning anyway). After that I just never seemed to find a chance to post about the cookies until it just seemed to make more sense to combine two weeks worth of TWD into one.
And so, here we are…TWD two for one!
Welcome to this week’s installment of TWD ! This makes 3 weeks in a row for me (after my somewhat unexpected month long absence); which might just mean I’m back on track again. Of course, it is pretty easy for me to stay on track when my fellow bakers seem to be on a chocolate streak. Seriously, I am absolutely loving our current chocolate trend.
This week, Kristin of I’m Right About Everything continued that trend with Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes (pages 188 and 189)…
The final recipe for this month (for me anyway) is Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake chosen by Katya of Second Dinner. I decided to take advantage of the leniency in the TWD posting rules for this month, and this week in particular, so that I could have this beautiful cake on my Thanksgiving menu.
I very nearly did not make this cake because I was not able to find the chestnuts or chestnut paste the recipe called for and it looked like a very time consuming recipe, but the picture in the book looked gorgeous and, as I’m sure you’re all well aware by now, I find it very difficult to pass up anything chocolate.
Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of “Prince Charming’s” and my marriage. One year ago we, or rather my mother since we were off celebrating our wedding night, carefully packed the top tier of our wedding cake away in the freezer to await our first anniversary. Why did we do this? Did we really want to eat one year old cake? Well, to be perfectly honest the only answer I could have given you was because it was traditional…. Read more…