Yellow Cake

My friend jokingly said she'd trade puppy-sitting over the weekend for cupcakes. I agreed before she'd even finished her sentence because 1) I love making cupcakes; and 2) Brownie needs a play date this weekend while Lito and I are in Napa.  She requested Yellow and Vanilla Cake with Vanilla Buttercream. Done and done.

Meanwhile on the other side of the universe, a friend asked me for a recipe for Yellow Cake. Sort of. So I'm stretching this into an opportunity to share an awesome recipe for Yellow Cake and to show off pictures of hot pink butter cream. Yum!

Yellow Cake 
Recipe Adapted from Smitten Kitchen (Her blog is 100% better/fancier/cooler than mine)

Here's What You Need:

4 cups cake flour (I use the kind in the pink box, because it comes in a pink box)
2 rounded teaspoons of baking powder
1.5 teaspoons of baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks of butter
2 cups of sugar!! [sorry I left this out! how could I forget!]
1 tablespoon vanilla
4 eggs
2 cups buttermilk

Here's What You Do:


1. Set the oven at 350 & get your pans ready. (I pretty much always use the foil, paper-lined cupcake cups)
2. Sift all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
3. In your stand mixer, whip up the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add the vanilla. Then add the eggs. Then add the buttermilk. Do not freak out. The batter will look...curdled is the best word for it.

4. Add the flour mixture in small batches to the liquid mixture until everything is mixed together.
5. Scoop the batter into your cupcake pans (I use a spring-loaded ice cream scooper). Bake for 17 minutes.

 6. Nom.

Snowflake Carrot Cake

So lately I've had several requests for carrot cake, which I've never tried before because I don't really like it. I think it's a texture thing -- the cake is full of stringy carrots and nuts. I really dislike nuts in cookies, cakes, brownies, etc. We should talk about nuts some time. There are great uses for nuts. Chopped and thrown haphazardly into desserts is not one of them. But I digress. Carrot cake!

This carrot cake turned out amazingly moist and perfectly warm with more than a hint of cinnamon and clove. Here's a  peek at the final cake: Snowy and cool on the outside (January needs more appropriately wintery desserts) and warm deliciousness on the inside.

Did I mention that the kicker here, that actually forced me to go for a carrot cake recipe, was that it was our friend Crispy's birthday. Crisp absolutely adores winter/snow/christmas at all times and in all things and in all places. So we went for it!

Here's a shot of one of the six-inch rounds that I stacked  and later layered with the icy blue cream cheese frosting.

Since I had never even attempted a carrot cake, I searched the internet for "best" carrot cakes, and finally landed on Paula Deen's recipe for the best carrot cake cupcakes. The recipe was really easy to follow and (surprise to me) called for crushed pineapple, which I thought sounded absolutely delish. I made a few very slight modifications to the recipe, but overall, I think it's great.

[Below] Process: frosting an orange crumby cake with wintery cream cheese frosting. 

Rose Cake

I know you've seen this before, but...

maybe you haven't seen it quite like this: Rose Cake

In honor of having some really beautiful women over to my house this evening, I made a rose cake (like the whirly-gig cake, only better I think). This is strawberry with strawberry filling (homemade) and bourbon vanilla buttercream frosting. What do you think? 

Chomp.

Cake Decorating Part I

Show and Tell!

I enrolled in Wilton Cake Decorating 1 at my local craft store. Nothing fancy, but I am kind of having a blast learning how to decorate something larger than a cupcake. This is my first cake. Tada! This is a cream cheese pound cake with vanilla frosting. Numnums.

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.