I absolutely love making cake from scratch, and I don’t mean pull out a cake mix and add water, eggs, and oil. I’m talking about beating butter and sugar until it’s fluffy and white, or using special cocoa powder and fine vanilla. That, my friends, is from scratch. There is just something about watching my kids lick cake batter off of beaters just like I did as a child that makes our crazy, digitized world slow down a bit. If your world is too frantic, clear your schedule and bake a cake…it’s cheaper and yummier than therapy :) Around here we also love eating homemade cake, so, a few weeks ago, when the kids and I were planning my husband’s birthday party, a large portion of our conversation revolved around what cake we were going to bake for Daddy. True to our personalities, my youngest was voting chocolate peanut butter, my oldest wanted some sort of “super fancy lots of layers with every flavor” cake, and I was trying to convince everyone that what Daddy really wanted was an ooey-gooey chocolate snickers cake. They didn’t buy it. And go figure it was the 5 year old (as opposed to the mature adult) who suggested we actually call Daddy and ask him what he wanted for his birthday cake…ahem *cough…great idea girl! And that’s how this… was born. Once I knew what flavors, I started brainstorming decorating ideas and settled on the naked cake with fresh raspberries and sticky raspberry drizzle. In my mind I could just see how those fun ruffles of icing would look in between each layer, and how luscious fresh raspberries with raspberry sauce would be. I was sold, but when I ran it by the Birthday Guy, he was in doubt. He couldn’t see it. So I did what any good wife would do and pretended I didn’t hear any of his concerns and did it my way anyway…Kidding! Sort of. But, in my defense, we’ve been together 9 years and I knew he would love it, even if he couldn’t catch the vision. And he did. And so did all of you! My inbox and social media were FLOODED with requests on how to get this cake, and while I’m not a great enough photographer to create some amazing tutorial (wish I was…maybe someday!), I whipped up this blog post and decided to share all the recipes I used so that you can put together your own version of this cake. Hands down, my favorite, go-to chocolate layer cake is the Old Fashioned Chocolate Layer Cake by the gals over at Our Best Bites. Click Here to get the recipe from their website. Although, I will mention that the cook time on the recipe is reeeeeaaaalllly too long (in my oven anyway) and needs to be reduced by at least 7 minutes or you will get a seriously dry cake. The best chocolate buttercream frosting is the Perfectly Chocolate chocolate frosting recipe by Hershey’s. You can Click Here for the recipe. It’s what I used to create the frilly moat in between each layer that held the raspberry filling and those perfect swirls for the top underneath the fresh raspberries. For the raspberry sauce, I used a recipe from this white chocolate raspberry cheesecake that I have and love. Unfortunately, that recipe isn’t available for free online, and in order to respect other people’s work, I don’t feel like I can just throw it out there. It is available in the cookbook Savoring the Seasons with Our Best Bites. It’s available for purchase on Amazon and is worth every penny! Otherwise, just google a raspberry cake filling like this one.
Bake, fill, decorate, eat! Easy-peasy right?! Or pin for 'later' :) Except for one minor problem. This cake needs a name, and while Man Cake was the first thing that popped into my head, I really don’t want to find out what is going to show up on the computer screen if I type the words ‘man cake’ into Google. But doesn’t this cake just scream manly?! It’s not some chickified (that’s also a word) vanilla cake with pink rosettes, and it’s not some hyper-masculine, fondant camo creation. It’s rich, gooey, luscious, romantic, and a little mysterious – just like men, or at least just like my guy. Maybe your guy is more of a caramelized banana cake kind of guy. That's cool too. But, I can totally see this at a wedding reception as a groom’s cake, or in a cake bar, or as a grown-up guy’s birthday cake. Be sure and comment below with good name suggestions! On a total side note – it’s also perfect for PMS, but I already have several recipes for that: PMS Cookie Pie, PMS Cake, PMS-chip Cookies. Hey, I have three girls and my motto is Be Prepared! Enjoy!
1 Comment
Ethel Hawkes
1/22/2016 07:06:28 am
Thank you! 😋😃😘
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Details
Categories |