Whirly-gig swirly cake

The great thing about being at home, at least for me, is the huge and completely stocked kitchen my mom has. Even better -- she'll usually pick up just about any additional ingredients I need to try something new. I found a picture of a cake that looked sort of like this one if you squint and tilt your head a little, and it was on! Frostinnngg!

Rosy, swirly, whirly cake. This is just a typical chocolate cake. Two layers. Nothing fancy. But the frosting was ahhhmazing for a couple of reasons: 1. Almond extract. I love the stuff, but I can't usually have it because Lito (my better half) is allergic. Meh. 2. Cream cheese. I can't name a single thing that isn't improved by the addition of cream cheese. Think about it: Brownies? Check. Bean dip? Check. Cheesecake? You can see where this is going.

The thing about this cake though, is that you need to make about 2.5 times the normal amount of frosting it would take to frost the TransAmerica building. So if you're going to give this a try, whip up a whole lot more frosting than you normally would. I started out by frosting the cake like this:

And then, using a large star frosting tip (I didn't use a 1M, but I would highly recommend one -- I think it would look more romantic and less geometrical swirly) begin swirling from the inside, clockwise, outward. Make sense? So you start in the middle of the swirl and work your way out. Then overlap any bald spots with more swirls. At the end you'll have more frosting than cake, but it looks AWESOME, and it tastes amazing too.

 Ta Da!