I had dreamt of this cake for days, weeks, months, YEARS... and it turned out exactly as I hoped!
From the outside, it looks like a cute, simple, boring cake with plain white frosting. I surprised my birthday picnic guests when I cut into it and rainbow-swirls of cake came out!
I used
my favourite vanilla cake recipe, and
followed these instructions to make the rainbow colors. In concentric circles, I poured the red batter first, then orange, yellow, green, blue and lastly purple. I was a bit nervous when the cake came out of the oven and all you could see was red, but the batter seems to have churned itself into its own colorful pattern.
Big thanks to Tracy for helping me bake this cake!! My boyfriend Tomas made a rum cake for my birthday picnic too, which was PHENOMENAL!! Rum cake is my favourite :)
Kate is a friend of a friend’s, and though we’ve only met a few times, she’s the kind of person that exudes energy and fun. She chose this blackberry mascarpone cake.
This is a vanilla cake with homemade berry coulis and mascarpone whipped cream in between each layer, covered in vanilla frosting. The vanilla cake recipe from the tiramisu cake has become my favourite and my standard. I ended up using the recipe for mascarpone whipped cream that came with the tiramisu cake also (minus the coffee of course), because the recipe for this cake called for gelatin, and I’m not a fan of that. I like to use whole, "normal" ingredients as much as possible, and gelatin just doesn’t interest me. (I also shy away from pudding mixes, cake mixes, sour cream, and cool whip.)
I tried my hand at some fun frosting techniques for the first time. I used food coloring to make light pink, dark pink and purple frosting, and I followed a tutorial video in an attempt to make an obmre look. It was kind of successful, but I wished I had stuck with a monochromatic color scheme of light pink, dark pink and white. For some reason I’m just not a fan of how the purple looked. Anyway, it was fun! I’ll certainly try ombre frosting again soon!
This cake is for my best friend from high school. It went in the mail!!
I was very lucky that the recipient of my first mailed cake lives around the corner from my dad. I was able to mail it to him so that he can check and make sure it arrived safely, assemble it and bring it to her... all with this being a SURPRISE for my dear friend Shemaiah!
How do you mail a cake?
(according to massive amounts of Google searches...) you freeze it! Cakes and frosting (supposedly) keep very well if frozen. To keep the cake moist, I wrapped it in parchment paper, then plastic wrap, and then shoved it in a freezer zip lock bag. It barely looked like a cake when it was wrapped and ready. Fast shipping is pretty pricey, and as I'm planning to send 10 cakes in the mail this year, it is important to find a way to keep cakes frozen for 4 days of standard slow old-school mail.
I got kinda lucky... I received a frozen item in the mail a few days before I had to send this cake out. I was able to re-use the styrofoam box and freezer bags! The gel packs were still partially frozen 4 days and 14 hours after the package had been shipped. This greatly increases my confidence in being able to send cakes in the mail. I've lived in three different US cities, and I have family across the globe, so mailing cakes allows me to involve as many loved ones in this project as possible.
I baked it in a loaf pan so that it would be small enough to fit in the styrofoam shipping box. Baking something this shape takes FOR-FREAKIN-EVER! I started this cake late at night, and because it took over an hour to bake, it was past 2am by the time I got to bed. And I get up at 6. (But don't blame that on the cake. Baking is fun for me. I turn music on, dance around, and make a mess. I could have finished it much quicker. But I was having fun!) I was seriously freaking out, this cake took so long to bake. The edges browned while the center was still soft batter, so I wrapped the edges of the cake in foil and turned the oven temperature down to 305 degrees. I think it worked! Future mailed cakes will be baked in 6" round pans (and three layers!). I can't not freak out while a cake takes an hour to bake. Plus, a round cake is a classic homemade cake, and that's what this adventure is all about - classic homemade birthday cakes!
And a treat for my dad!!