Cake Attempt #1

Ok, a few things went very wrong with this cake. And they are all due to one thing: not having shortening on hand. I was very upset to find I did not have shortening because I just did a grocery run last night. I am a big fan of greasing and flouring a cake pan, but had to settle for Pam. Yeah, not the greatest result.

My immediate reaction was anger, mostly at myself for not checking my staples before starting to make a cake. After a few choice words said under my breath so nearby tiny ears did not hear, I decided to take a deep breath and resolve that it was ok. I was not, after all, making this cake for anyone but me. It was my very first cake to practice with and practice is the only way I am going to get better. I concluded that it was ok to start from the bottom because hopefully the only way I could go was up.

I got this new cake leveler and it is AWESOME. You can adjust the height by 2 inches and the little rubber feet slide on your counter while you "saw" your cake right in half. I hope in the future to use it mostly to create tiers in my cake and to add filling in between layers, but this time I actually had 2 cakes where one side was twice as tall as the other. So I actually used it for leveling. It worked like magic.The cakes were so thin to begin with, I only leveled one side, so the end product did turn out a little lopsided and not the smoothest cake I've ever seen. But not too bad for my first attempt.

It was time to try something brand new for me. Filling. For some reason, I had never thought to put a filling in my cake, even though that is my favorite part of store-bought cakes. I went to Wilton.com and pulled up a raspberry filling recipe. This I actually had all of the ingredients for, so that was a good sign to begin with. It was super easy to make and delicious, divine, tasty, yummy, mouth watering good, etc. Given, raspberries are one of my favorite foods, but trust me, it was good.

So I places a small amount of icing on my foil-covered cake board and placed my first cake on top, the icing helped hold it in place. Then I placed my cake board and cake onto my new best friend, the raised turntable. Super handy. I made a sort of outline or moat of frosting to hold the raspberry filling inside and then spread my filling in the middle. I proceeded to place the second cake on top and ice the entire cake together. I then practiced a few flowers on wax paper and then did more than a few on the top of the cake. Not great, but not too bad, either. I was too lazy to tint my icing any color or it might have looked better. Next time. The end product was both delicious and not too bad to look at. All in all, I am pleased with myself.