I made a baby shower cake this weekend for my sister-in-law, Portia.
Portia and my brother are having a girl, and naming her Gracie Lyn. This is their first child.
I have been SO excited about doing the cake for her baby shower ever since I found out she was expecting. I can't wait to teach Gracie how to bake.
I couldn't wait for this weekend to arrive! Although by the time it did, I wasn't loving life so much... you'll see why later on.
The color of Gracie's room is going to be brown and pink, and the invitations I ordered for the shower were these adorable little pink and brown polka-dot cards from Etsy. We are also ordering matching birth announcements from the same place once little Gracie decides to come into this world.
So I decided to keep the brown and pink theme alive by doing, what else, a brown and pink cake with some sparkles, some ribbon and flowers...
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For those interested; here's the link to the Etsy store where I purchased the invitations. Cutest little store ever! I just love her stuff!!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/birdiescustomcards
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Portia's favorite type of cake is red velvet, so I attempted to make it...... three times (this is the part I was talking about earlier) the first batch I made looked O.K, the texture was fine, and they rose nicely... but it tasted terrible. I mean BAD, not something I would ever even serve to my cat... if I had one.
I should have known from the second I started mixing the sugar and butter.... the texture was off. Something was wrong. But I kept on adding ingredients anyway and it turned out bad. My own fault. I know better.
The second batch was worse and I'm not sure how or why but it was, the cake tasted like.... shit. Really. That's the best way to explain it. Enough said.
On the third batch I grew some smarts and tried a different recipe.
This one looked gorgeous and tasted good.... the only problem was that for some reason it formed this hard crust on the outside... kind of like bread dough does. It was strange.
So the cake was edible I just had to shave off the sides, top and bottom a little. Which of course made it smaller than I wanted.
As you can see I was running out of time so rather than making another red velvet batch (and have it turn out badly) I decided to do this amazing dark chocolate coffee flavored cake I've made several times before and it always turns out tasty and moist. And luckily it worked. Because if it didn't I was ready to go to the local baker and get a pre-made cake and just decorate it myself... I was so frustrated.
So I took the small sliver of red velvet I had left and put it in the middle of the two chocolate layers on the bottom tier. The top tier ended up just being chocolate. And I still made the cream cheese frosting which was really good, by the way.
I knew while I was having all this trouble that I would learn something from the whole experience, and at the time I didn't know what, but now I know.
First I learned to take my time, baking is a real science and you can't rush it (not that I don't know that already) also baking at this high of an elevation changes things a lot and sometimes I forget to take that into consideration.
Second, I learned that red velvet cake is a real pain in the ass to make and it'll be awhile before I attempt it again. I WILL attempt it again, and I WILL DEFEAT it... but it'll just be awhile.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I made all the flowers, except the little white ones... you know that ones that look professional.... again my first time attempting something, I think I did alright.
Enjoy!
I made the little pink flowers and the big pink one in the middle, the white ones I bought at the cake supply store.
I found the cutest ribbon that said "It's A Girl" with little foot prints, I had to use it!
Myself, The Mommy-to-be Portia, and my Mom.
Mmmmm...... Red Velvet & Dark Chocolate Coffee Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting.
