If you were at my house..we would defeat this pan together. Remember my caketastrophe?
Pan = 1
Trisha = 1
Like I said…if you were at my house, we could be sharing this right now!
Btw, that’s my only slice…I cut up the entire thing and took to three of my neighbors houses.
~trisha
I had really good intentions.
I bought this:
And this….
I read the directions.
Twice.
They said to do this:
Three times.
And bake.
OOh.
I got this!
Promising.
So I let them cool.
All the way this time.
I even asked for advice on facebook how to level them nicely for frosting.
I put on my serious baking hat.
Then I frosted them.
Cherry.
Lemon.
Cherry.
Then I cut a piece.
And this is what happened.
Then I walked out of the kitchen and came back to more of this….
Cry.
Remember this?
Don’t use the moist kind.
It falls.
You’re welcome.
~Trisha
I can’t bake. I can’t bake. I can’t bake.
Ok, I take that back just a tiny bit. I can bake a very ugly cake that tastes divine. This is an original recipe, so if you try it and your mouth waters, come back and tell me. I should also disclose that I was not having a good camera day and everything was off for me, and so these pictures pretty much represent how messy and disorganized this cake really was. Do not, under any circumstances, let it persuade you from the yummy sugary goodness.
I am going to name this my:
(aka Strawberries and Cream Cake)
Growing up, my mom would always ask me what kind of cake I wanted for my birthday and I almost always picked strawberry. I mean, everyone would go for chocolate or vanilla with sprinkles, so I had to be different. This was the one time of the year we all got some strawberry. So around my birthday earlier this week, considering I am the only one who will actually make me a cake, I decided to bring it back to old school strawberry with a little twist…more of a strawberries and cream.
Cake
Cream Frosting
optional: Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips/Chilled
Step 1: Make your cake as directed on the box and let it cool COMPLETELY. I know it’s tempting to right now pull it out in 15 minutes and slather it with frosting, but don’t. It will melt and be even uglier then the job I did. Plus, it will all drip to the pan instead of on the cake where it should be.
Now since this is a layered cake, if you are a fancy cook you probably already have several round or baking pans. Feel free to either make some even layers in 3 separate pans (remember, only one box, divide by 3) and round probably works best. I only have one baking pan, so I made it and cut it into 3rds, which also works, but becomes extremely messy; especially with a moist cake. I had to slice the top off of my cake to help it lay more flat. Or flat enough.
Step 2 : Cup up strawberries in little bite sized pieces..maybe a cup or so would be fine. I also sliced some for the outside so I could lay them flat on the cake all around it. This helps cover all the insane looking frosting with crumbs everywhere.
I also suppose this part depends on how much strawberry you enjoy, but I say kill a carton or two on it. Go hard or go home!
Step 3: Once the cake is completely cool and you have either pulled them out of your 3 pans and put them on wax paper or cut your 1 cake into 3 pieces and laid on wax paper, you can start assembling frosting.
Step 4: Frosting Directions: Put butter into the bowl and whip on high speed for a few minutes. Then add two cups powdered sugar and blend in..once that is done, add the remaining cups. Next, add your milk and vanilla and run for 2-3 minutes so its all fluffy.
Step 5: Assembly of cake. This part is where I totally #Fail. Put your bottom layer on a cake pan, frost generously, and cover with your bite sized strawberries. Layer cake, frost, strawberries. Last layer on top, frost the entire cake and then use strawberry slices around it. If you like chocolate with your strawberries, feel free to make the top layer with some cut up semi-sweet chips or chunks (i prefer chunks) but they need to be COLD. Chill them first.
(PS the last shot of the cake finished I took today…its now like 8 days old…I guess I got so excited I put it right in the fridge and forgot, so thats why its all smashed. My cake lid was too small. HA!)
Step 6: You MUST put this cake inside the fridge. I know you want a piece, but this frosting is best served COLD and wont have the same affect otherwise. It hardens to a very sweet and breakable chunk that really makes the cake different from a regular frosted out of the jar cake. I put mine in for about 2-4 hours before we tried it. It was AWESOME.
There you have it…Ugly Cake, Perfected Goodness.
I hope one of my baking friends can redo this cake in all its glory.
~Trisha
This season with a bundle of new toys hitting the market, you will no doubt be checking out the best ones to purchase and put under your tree (or however you celebrate) this holiday season.
When I first was approached by the rep for the Girl Gourmet Cake Bakery, I have to tell you I was excited. I had seen this on a commercial and it WAS on my list of potential purchases. Charlotte and I love both crafts and baking and this seemed liked a perfect rendition of them both as one.
Plus, as a massive fan of Ace of Cakes and reading that he said “ I told them that you are not putting my face until I play with it and it has to be quality and good and exciting for the kids… You have to understand your craft, and little kids are going to understand that you have to get Craft right before Art” I felt like it was a product that would certainly live up to its advertising.
Right?
After it arrived, we took 20 minutes to get it unscrewed, untaped, and the batteries put in. Then we were ready to go. Charlotte was sitting there pretty patient the whole time just waiting.
Any kid will wait long enough if cake is involved, right?
This is what the company says about it:
Want to create fondant cakes like Duff Goldman from Ace of Cakes? With the Girl Gourmet Cake Bakery you will spend hours in the kitchen making and eating your own mini fondant cakes. Its fast, easy and tastes great…Simply make your choice of Lemon, Confetti, Chocolate or Vanilla Mini cakes in your microwave, then decorate it with the fondant frosting for a yummy treat.
Product Description
A special limited edition box autographed by Duff Goldman of Ace of Cakes. Duff Goldman, of Charm City Cakes and Ace of Cakes, has teamed up with Girl Gourmet to create the Girl Gourmet Cake Bakery. The Girl Gourmet Cake Bakery will let your kids whip up a delicious 2-tiered mini fondant cake just like Duff himself. No hot oven necessary! cakes are baked in the microwave in 30 seconds. It will take no time for kids to be on their way to creating edible art. The package insert showcases some of the famous cakes featured on the hit Food Network show Ace of CakesThe Girl Gourmet Cake Bakery ingredients are gluten and wheat-free, trans-fat free, and are produced in a nut-free facility in the U.S.
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I am sitting here drinking a Dr. Pepper and eating a piece of chocolate cake.
My Dh said I must confess that I dug this cake out of the trash or he will blog about it. It should have never been IN the trash. Every few days he goes nut-so on the fridge and throws things away he determines we are not going to eat.
He threw away this perfectly good piece of cake, still in the plastic container, because it was a “week” old.
Does chocolate frosting go bad? I think not.
I prefer to think of it as not wasting food rather than digging it out of the trash. There are starving kids in other parts of the world that would kill a boar for this cake. Somebody slaved for a wage of probably $8 an hour for this cake.
Besides, my butt will thank me later.
~Trisha
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I’m no Betty Crocker. It’s no secret to my family and friends that I just do NOT bake. My mother (I love her dearly) was not so great in the kitchen either, so growing up, I really didn’t have anyone to teach me. Fortunately, my hubby knows how to cook and he prepares our dinner just about every night so we don’t starve.
However, last Friday was my friend’s birthday and every year she ALWAYS makes me these to-die-for cakes. Seriously, if I could find a way to smuggle a cake under my shirt and leave the office without sharing one single morsel, I would, but that’s besides the point.
For her birthday, she requested that I make her favorite: yellow cake with chocolate icing. Easy, right? She just wanted the simple Betty Crocker even-a-monkey-could-make-it kind of cake. Thursday night, I made the cake and all went well……..until I tried to get the cake out of the pan. I should have known better than to try and make a double decker cake (what was I thinking?!?). Do you have to be Houdini to get cake out of a pan in one piece? Is there some secret magic spell I am supposed to say?!? These cakes sealed themselves to the pan like white on rice (and before you say it, yes, I did grease the pan).
I tried EVERYTHING to get these cakes out of their 9×9 pans; I even prayed. Finally, one sheet come out perfectly. I exhaled. The second cake…..well, was not so lucky. Dang it. My only option was to piece it together like a puzzle and try and use the icing like superglue.
The final product was not pretty. I was so happy that I bought those little sugar flowers that could cover up some of the holes created by my ineptitude!
I was actually quite embarrassed to bring the cake to work, but my coworkers will flock to cake no matter what it looks like! LOL! As I unveiled the cake, I noticed that the icing had started to slide off the cake like lava on a volcano! I guess using gobs of extra icing as glue was not such a smart idea after all.
In the end, my friend was very appreciative and insisted that it tasted good (she’s so nice). The birthday girl was happy and that is all that mattered to me. She is such a great person, mentor, and friend that I wanted to do something nice for her…..even if it was a gooey cracking mess!
So, how exactly DO I get cake out of the pan??
~Bridgette
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