birthday cake for a crowd

I took some cake decorating classes at the local craft store a few years ago, just for something to do. I found it to be fun and I seemed to have a knack for it; however, I quickly discovered that I would never want to make it a side business. Recently I was asked to make a birthday cake for my niece's girlfriend.  I, of course, said yes.

I like the process of deciding on a design (usually something simple), colors and flavors. The idea I start out with, though, typically changes based on how I'm feeling as the date approaches, what recipes I come across and want to try, how easy and/or expensive it is to get unusual ingredients, and whether I'm in the mood to make the cake. (Another reason why I could never have a cake business--people probably wouldn't get exactly what they asked for!)

My niece sent me a bunch of Pinterest pictures to give me an idea of what she and her girlfriend's family were looking for, many of which were just a little too complicated for me; all of them called for the use of fondant, which I'm not very good at.  Plus, it just doesn't taste good. We settled on a three-tiered cake that was pink, gold and white.

OK, so the colors and size were settled. Then it was on to flavors. My niece said she wanted one tier to be chocolate, one white and the third marble.  I was a little worried about making marble cake, since I'd never made it before, but I was willing to try.  I then had to decide on frosting flavors. My original plan was to use vanilla buttercream for the whole cake and just use some coloring; however, chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream didn't seem appealing to me, and neither did white cake with plain, boring buttercream.  I thought about it for a bit and then made my decision:  I ended up making the top tier chocolate with almond buttercream, the middle was white butter cake with strawberry buttercream (fresh strawberries!), and the bottom was marble cake with vanilla buttercream.

For the top two tiers I used recipes from my favorite cake book, The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum.  I really like her recipes. Although they can seem a little complicated or fussy at first, one can't argue with the results: the recipes work, I've never had one fail yet, and I always get rave reviews. For the chocolate cake I made her chocolate fudge cake recipe, which uses brown sugar instead of white sugar, and I think that makes a big difference. It was soft with a fine crumb and fudgy-tasting. When people say they made a chocolate cake, I usually feel a little disappointed and pass on it, because almost every chocolate cake I've had, whether it's from a box or the bakery, is a bit dry, bland and boring; however, this is not that bland, boring chocolate cake--it actually tastes like chocolate and it's rich! For the white cake I made her white velvet butter cake, which was very soft and buttery.  The marble cake was a recipe I found online, and it came out perfect:  very moist, a little dense, and delicious.

As for frosting, I settled on an almond buttercream for the chocolate cake. I hadn't thought of almond at all; however, as I was going through my cabinets looking (hoping) for inspiration, I noticed a bottle of almond extract. I set out to Googling and quickly found something super easy with only a few ingredients:  butter, powdered sugar, almond and vanilla extracts, a little salt, and milk. Done. For the white cake I used my tried-and-true vanilla buttercream recipe I got from my cake decorating instructor years ago and added puree made from fresh strawberries and lemon juice. (Note:  DO NOT add chilled puree to a finished buttercream frosting--the fat, which is either butter, shortening or a combo of both, will start to congeal and it will have a nasty, greasy mouth feel, and you'll have to hopefully beat it back into submission. Not that I EVER did that, of course...) Done. For the marble cake I used the vanilla buttercream mentioned above.  Done.

The top of the cake was decorated with Wilton candy sprinkles. Although I don't feel like these qualify as "sprinkles." They're more like candy discs. I tried using the Wilton Color Mist in Gold and it was a huge fail. It made the frosting a nasty apricot color and it started running. Thankfully the "sprinkled" completely covered the problem. No special decoration on the pink layer since it already had the pretty little pieces of strawberry and the seeds. The white layer was decorated with Wilton Candy Pearls on the top and sides. (You'd laugh if you knew how I achieved this look:  think "cake as dartboard.") The rim on the bottom was made with Sixlets candy, which Party City carries in many different colors. I added some artificial roses for decoration. I assembled it at home and transported it as you see it. It was a white-knuckled ride, but the cake made it in one piece.  When I got there I had several people ask me if I had a cake business. NO!!! I like doing it, but it's stressful, tedious, and takes a long time. I'm always happy to get the cake done and out of my house so I don't have to think about it again. 

It seemed to be a big hit and most of the cake was eaten. I'd heard that many people had two pieces, which was a nice compliment. But it doesn't make me want to do one again anytime soon.