Officially, National Chocolate Cake Day is January 27, but it's always a good day to celebrate that holiday!
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What kind of birthday card do you make for a professional musician? Here is one possibility: The music dies are by Lawn Fawn and are extremely cute and very tiny. The cake is from a Sizzix Triplit layer cake set, and the embossing folder is from Spellbinders. The green tablecloth strip was embossed by hand--my scoring board came with a triangle for making envelopes, so it was easy to score at a 45-degree angle.
This apple spice cake was just what one would expect, which is definitely a good thing. Baking the batter in shaped miniature Bundt pans added an elegant touch, and gave me an excuse to walk down memory lane while admiring our collection.
I left out the walnuts, tweaked the spices a bit, and made up my own glaze instead of the ultra-sweet goo suggested by the author, who is oddly not credited on the Wholesome website. Other than all the fruit-chopping, it was a quick and simple recipe. Very conveniently, I had both cane sugar and dates in the pantry, although a more conventional sugar would have worked well, too. Another time, these would be delicious with whole-wheat flour, rebranded as muffins--they are near the middle of the muffin-cupcake continuum. . .which sounds like a possible future infographic, a close cousin of the cupcake counter. Vanilla cake, baked and decorated by Abigail (with a little assistance from her auntie and MOMO). It tasted really good! Chocolate cupcakes, baked by the author, frosted by MOMO, embellished by Caleb. These ones earned five-star reviews as well!
The paper pack of the month had four sheets of Fleur de Lys paper--two in gold and two in midnight blue--so I made four of these cards. The frame is mounted with foam tape and the cake with foam squares, so the contrasting background is recessed a little bit. I think the ones with gold frames are more visually appealing than the ones with navy, but they will all make good birthday or anniversary cards.
Inspiration is ephemeral. It is important to act quickly, before the window of opportunity has closed. So this afternoon, when I realized that our household was seriously lacking in cinnamon chip desserts, I found a recipe to deal with the situation. Here is the result: I used half whole wheat and half white flour and omitted the optional nuts (of course). The glaze in the recipe would have been very scant and thin, but it was not hard to improvise there. The fancy Bundt pan someone on facebook sent me some number of Christmases ago made it even more festive! It always seems a shame to glaze cakes baked in fancy shaped pans. . .but in our family, we always do anyway. Final verdict: this cake tastes good, and it makes the whole house smell wonderful as it bakes!
This recipe for Milk Chocolate Snack Cake was in a Very Best Baking e-mail. I used dark brown sugar in the cake (because I have a small quantity that needs to be consumed) and mixed some leftover vanilla buttercream frosting with some leftover fudge to make a fancier topping than their suggestion of melted chocolate chips. The recommended baking time was 25-30 minutes, but in our oven, 20 minutes sufficed. The final product exceeded all expectations. It was quick and easy to make, and had a lovely flavor and texture. Way to go, Nestle!
Today's recipe is Vanilla Layer Cake from Martha Stewart Cakes. It only made three cupcakes! For the purposes of the Cupcake Counter, the largest one is a cake, as it did not use a paper. In all other respects, though, it is definitely a cupcake!
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