Cake #13 Ice Cream Cone Cake

I love this cake.  This is a HAPPY cake.  It is happy to make.  It is happy to see.  It is happy happy fun fun.    Who cares how it tastes (good, excessive, rich, too much!) - it is just plain fun.  Especially fun since it was made for Samantha's 2nd birthday.

You make cupcakes in ice cream cones!
The middle layer of frosting is cookies and cream!
There is chocolate AND vanilla!

Again, I am writing about this a month after the fact.  Here are the notes I wanted to share with Mindy before she made hers:

I read all the comments of the other bakers and increased the amount of frosting to a batch that is 1.5 times bigger:

THIS FROSTING ALONE HAD 12 EGG YOLKS AND 8 STICKS OF BUTTER.  And, Ben said it was the best buttercream he's ever had.   I don't think I have ever said this before:   it was too much butter for me.

But that middle layer, where I crushed chocolate wafers into it was AWESOME.  I would definitely do this trick again.  Made for a very interesting texture bites.

You fill the ice cream cones with the cake batter & bake in muffin tins.  Totally fun trick.  Would definitely do this again even with a box cake mix just for the fun of sending these to school for my girls.

Here the cone cakes are cooling - before they totally collapsed.  Those chocolate wafers must be made specifically for recipes that call for "chocolate wafers" - sold near the 'Nilla Wafers.  I thought it would be hard to slice the cones in half, but it was a breeze with the serrated knife.  The cones lost their crispness while baking and were kind of stale/soggy/chewy and easy to cut.  I won't lie, their only function was visual, bc they did not add much in the flavor department.

This cake is 2 measley layers that you have to slice in half to frost between, so it comes out to 4 layers.  But, even at 4 layers, it was not very tall.  In fact, I would not agree that this serves 20 people as the recipe suggests.  I do think there are enough calories in there for 40 people, but to cut an 8 inch round cake into 20 slices would test even the best Cutco gear.

Yay for only 2 cake pans!  This was a very delicate /crumbly hard-for-me-to-handle cake.  I almost did not cut it in half.  I did make them the night before and put them in the fridge, so that likely helped.

OH!  But it was taller than the ice cream cones that you have to stick to the sides.  This poses a challenge:  to align the cones with the bottom of the cake plate or to align them with the top of the cake and not have them touch the bottom.  I chose the latter and piped icing around the bottom to not look like they were just floating there - mostly b.c I couldn't imagine how I would frost "ice cream cones" if the cones were not on the top of the cake.

My cones, hovering above the plate, stuck to the side of the frosting on the cake.

Ahhh, the frostings.  There are 3 of them, made from the same base.  Vanilla butter cream on the left.  Then you add chocolate for the chocolate frosting.  You add chocolate wafers for the middle layers.   Oh!  what is the 4th bowl peeking on the right?  Not frosting.  It's matzoh ball mix.   Ben whipped up a homemade matzoh ball soup while we were caking.  

Chocolate on - there were an odd # of cones, so I had to double up and not go every other cone with vanilla and chocolate.  In retrospect, I might do the entire cone part in chocolate - all the kids and adults wanted the chocolate cones when I was cutting - plus there is enough vanilla frosting in/on the cake, that you'd still get to taste it if you had a chocolate cone.

My 2 year old "helper" in her jammies on her birthday.

Mmmmm, cake.  We cut each cone into 2 pieces of cake.  It was pretty easy to do. 

Is the cake a hit if half the room is in awe and the other half (who asked what is in it) was kind of grossed out by gluttony?  I think so.  We'll be seeing versions of this cake again.

Cake #12 Fresh Coconut Layer Cake

Fresh Coconut!  Oh fun!  I picked this cake.  For my birthday.  This will be the only year I volunteer to make my own birthday cake - okay, maybe it won't be, I do like to bake cakes.  This cake looks fresh and white and elegantly festive.  Plus, we got to buy fresh coconuts and learn how to crack them open.

I scoffed at Mindy when she said she was sick of 3 layer cakes.  Well, truth is, she was just 2 cakes ahead of me in coming to this realization.  None of my tupperware supports 3 layer cake pieces so the leftover pieces I transport are big globs of mush.

So many lessons from this cake.  #1, If I make it again, I do not need to use fresh coconut.  Grating it is cumbersome - even though I cheated and used the Cuisinart - I like fresh bagged store bought coconut and I think the consistency would be better.  If I had hand grated it, it might have been finer, but it would have also contained nicks and knuckle parts.

#2 the frosting was glop - too gooey.  Very marshmallowy, but did not hold shape.  Could be fun to use again.

#3 the cake was the whitest I have ever made.  That seemed cool.  It looked like a wedding cake.  That could be worth making again.

#4 I should not try to write about cakes a month after I made them.

This smashed mess below is why I chose to use the Cuisinart to shred the coconut.  I did skip the step about baking the coconuts first...I wonder if that would have had an impact...

Oh right, my middle layer is 8" and the upper and lower are 9".  I thought I would just make up for it with frosting, and I did.   The cake was heavier than the frosting, so the middle layers basically just absorbed the frosting after this first piece was cut.