Cake or Death – Cake 1

Since starting my cake challenge in June, after making a delicious but freaking ugly cake for my friend’s baby shower, I have made 6 cakes.

I think they have been getting progressively better – both in flavor and in attractiveness.

My first cake – the June cake – was a Father’s Day cake I made for the architect and his dad. Since I know the architect’s dad has a bit of a sweet tooth, I was sure I could come up with something he enjoyed. The architect requested key lime flavor.

I did some googling, and found a recipe for a pretty key lime cake on a blog called Alaska From Scratch.

I always like to follow a recipe exactly the first time I try it when baking, so I made it just as listed.

I didn’t take any pictures of the process, but I took quite a few of the results.

 

This cake was terribly dry. (The architect and his family disagreed with that assessment, but it is very difficult to find a moist white cake if you’re not using a box mix – and this was drier than cakes I’m used to making.)

It also was a great lesson in what tools are essential for my cake making adventures.

Essential tool #1 – a spinning cake stand for the icing. Check out my uneven swirly patterns…

Also, the green sides were not an ombre like in my inspiration, but rather a leafy green mess.

You can see that the two layers are decidedly different sizes here…that was somewhat of a problem! I didn’t realize until then that my cake pans were not the same depth!

Another view of the different layer sizes.

Other than the slight dryness, though, the flavor was good. I wouldn’t bother with key limes next time, though, and would just go for the much, much bigger limes. All those tiny limes were a pain in the ass.

The frosting was amazing – but when is cream cheese frosting not good?

So – overall ratings:

Cake flavor: B- (too dry!)

Frosting flavor: A

Cake structure/appearance: C

Cake aesthetic qualities: C

Final Grade: B-

 

Attitude of Gratitude

October 5: I am grateful for generous people in my life who will watch the Bean for a couple of hours for me!

 

 

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