I was asked to teach a fondant class and since it's so close to Valentine's Day, I decided with this cake. I am always making chocolate cakes and figured I would branch out and try a homemade red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.
Day #1: cake prep
I had to babysit yesterday (in addition to taking care of my 2 year old) and the only time I had to bake this cake was during naptime. Rush, rush, rush....
I mixed all the ingredients and while I was doing so heard one of the little ones starting to wake up. I quickly finished, threw it into the oven and by that time all was quiet again so I started washing dishes. All of a sudden, I realized that I had left out the cocoa! Ahhhhh!!! I ripped the cakes out of the oven (8 minutes into cooking), hoping that I could somehow salvage the cake. Luckily, not much had cooked except for the very bottom. I poured the batter back into the now clean mixing bowl, added the cocoa and had to prepare the cake pans all over again. Save number one...
Day #2: cake class
We had a really nice class and this was a good chance for me to try out placing fondant over a heart shaped cake. It was a lot easier than I was expecting...a nice change to the day before!
This was my second bow like this and I'm starting to get much faster with it. This picture shows how I put the bits of paper towel in the bow loops to hold them in place for drying. The flowers were really quite simple. I used a flower cutout and then carved grooves into the petals.
I wasn't sure how I wanted to finish the bottom and I didn't have much room to play with, so I just used a very thin rope around it. Tomorrows the day we find out if it tastes as yummy as it looks!!
Day #3: Taste test!
Today we finally got to taste the cake! I can't say I would trade in my chocolate cake for this, but it was definitely yummy! It looked really pretty too!
I even decided to try making some cake pops with the leftover cake tops that were cut off the cake. Check them out here, http://cakesbynicola.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-first-cake-pops.html
I can relate to the cake being a disaster in the beginning, but I'm sure that anyone who doesn't know what gave you trouble, would never notice. It turned out great and is so cute!
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