There it is: my towering monstrosity of a tiered white birthday cake. I'm in love with it. Which is good, because it's going to be around for a long, long time--it makes about twenty-four servings!
But wait! That's not all I made!
Ta da! Two cakes for the price of one!
Okay, so here's what happened. I decided to make a really delicious tiered cake for my birthday. The Magnolia Bakery's recipe for Vanilla Cake from RecipeZaar sounded just perfect. However, the recipe said it would make three 9" cake rounds. I didn't know if this would be enough to make three tiers using different sized pans, so I decided to make a double batch of cake, just to be on the safe side.
This called for a whole lot of--well, a whole lot of everything . . .
Flour, sugar, butter, milk and vanilla, and eggs.
. . . and it made a whole lot of delicious, fluffy batter.
The cakes turned out beautifully, evenly browned and with very little doming. They had a dense, fine crumb and were very, very vanilla-y.
The doubled recipe made one 10" round, two 8" rounds, and two 6" rounds.
Next, I went out and bought cake decorating supplies with my birthday money.
I got a cake leveler, a set of frosting tips and a set of tip connectors, a package of frosting bags, a Lazy Susan, and a piece of cheap cardboard for cutting into cake rounds. The cake leveler was the real hero of the day, however. It was a cheap little thing but it worked perfectly, cleanly snipping the tops of my cakes and torting them neatly.
Leveling the cakes.
Torting the cakes into layers.
Next, I made the frosting. This was the first buttercream I had ever attempted. I didn't really know what it would taste like. I imagined it would be rich and thick and sort of stiff, but it turned out fabulously fluffy and light. But don't get me wrong, it's still the richest thing I've ever put in my mouth.
And that's not even all of it--I had to make a second batch after frosting my practice cake!
The turntable was a great help, as were the frosting bags.
Still, the frosting process was harder than I thought it would be, and I was glad that I had the small cake to practice on.
The practice cake.
I learned a lot from the little cake:
- A layer of dirty frosting is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, the frosting will be studded with cake crumbs as numerous as brown stars in a lavender sky.
- You can't just glob frosting onto a cake with a spatula; it pulls up bits of cake and the frosting won't stick well. It's best to squirt tubes of frosting all over the cake before smoothing them out with the frosting spatula.
- When your frosting spatula fails, card stock is great for smoothing out gloppy-looking buttercream.
- It is entirely possible to make your piping frosting too stiff. Mine came out like Play-Doh, but I rubbed the frosting bag between my hands for a minute, and the frosting warmed up and flowed much more smoothly.
- Piping a solid circle of stars along an edge takes much, much, much longer than you would expect, and I wouldn't recommend it. My hand is still a little sore!
But the big cake was much easier. I torted the top two layers and used cardboard circles between each individual cake.
A little piped frosting to cement the layers together.
The unfrosted layers.
The cake with its layer of dirty icing.
Squidging tubes of frosting to the top of the cake. I smoothed this out with my spatula, smoothed it further with some card stock, and voila!
Finally frosted!
Since I couldn't fit a real greeting up there, I decided to pipe my initials on the top layer.
My practice letters turned out neater than the cake version, but it's still pretty!
The finished product!
Baking and decorating this thing was fun, but I realized something very important afterward:
Gahhhhhhhh!
Eeeeeeeeeeeek!
Noooooo!
Powdered sugar carnage!
Decorating cakes is really, really messy. Which must be why most people leave this to the professionals.
But after I cleaned up, it was all worth it. I went to dinner with my mom, my dad, and Charlie, and then we enjoyed some very, very yummy cake!
A tiny top slice.
The first cut.
I had a great birthday, and I was so happy to share my cake with such lovely people! I also sent chunks of cake to my grandparents and to Charlie's parents.
So what do you think, folks: Did I earn the awesome embroidered apron Charlie's mom Anne made me?
My wonderful apron with Willa (kitty at left), Beanie (kitty at right), and me as a saucy blonde baker! So sweet!
The happy birthday baker!
3 comments:
Since it WAS your birthday I think your Mamma should have cleaned up for you!
Your cake looks GREAT and I LOVE the apron (minus the cats ya know!)
Lesley you did GOOD! Grandpa Bill and I just had a slice of it with our morning coffee and it was delicious! Way to go girl!
OMG! It looks like a wedding cake! You took a genuine soul-searching adventure for your birthday, which was probably the best gift by far you will ever get. Your inspiration and courage is admirable - I am left with one question to ask: "Would you do it again given the chance?"
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