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| Birthday Cake! Squee! |
Week 23 is hands down one of my favorite weeks of the GBBS baking project so far. Because I got to make BIRTHDAY CAKES!!! I love making birthday cakes. Much as the great Julia Child once said, "a party without cake is really just a meeting," I also believe that a celebration is not complete without some sort of tiered and frosted cake creation. This particular occasion was for a 1 year-old birthday party, and I got the chance to make some super fun cakes.
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| Wintermint cake, pre-candles |
First up, the delightful Wintermint cake from the wizards at Baked. I've had my eye on this recipe for some time, however had a limiting factor of not particularly liking the combination of chocolate and mint myself. Good thing the party hosts (aka the 1 year-old's parents) do like this combination, and were happy to let me bring over this creation. The peppermint buttercream was a little touch and go with the warm weather, but came together pretty well in the end. I also went for a blue ombré effect that came together rather nicely. I need to remember my geometry, however, and make sure to increase the volume of buttercream if I bake the cake layers in 9" pans (rather than 8" pans). I nearly ran out of frosting and was literally scraping the last bits out of the mixing bowl. The cake itself was terrifically moist and tender, very reminiscent of a chocolate sour cream layer cake that I'm fond of. It might be a nice effect to color the inside layers of frosting to match the outside layers rather than white. Definitely a celebration cake and definitely a keeper. How amazing does it look with the candles?!
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| Me want cookies! |
Next things, I also took this opportunity to put together some adorable cookie monster cupcakes. Ever since I stumbled across this idea on a PBS blog post, I've been biding my time for a chance to make these things! I opted for the vanilla cupcake recipe from Cook's Illustrated and then a coconut buttercream frosting. This is the reason why I have so many extracts and flavorings stocked in the cupboard. I also took a chance at coloring the shredded coconut "fur" with blue gel food coloring diluted with a touch of water, and it worked just fine. The googley eyes were so much fun to do and the end results were just as cute as I'd hoped! (I will admit to some nightmares about this turning into a Pinterest fail...the internet is a dangerous place.)
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