Before I dreamed up this blog I decided to make a cake per week just to fill my time and to work on my skills. The first cake I made was this ‘alleged’ Christmas cake whose recipe I pilfered from Relish.com. Turns out it’s good any time of year. Unfortunately I only have the one bad picture from my phone, but it was my first attempt at a layer cake and my first try at icing, I really wanted to work on my icing skills, but this was not the cake to do it with. Oh well, whatchagonnado? Either way, it’s a good cake and that’s coming from someone who is not big on peppermint. Not many cakes leaving you feeling like you’ve got fresher breath after eating them. This one did. Score!
You can tell from the picture how unevenly I iced it. Rookie mistake. You can also tell that I am not a great food photographer. Part of that is me and the other part is my phone. Scratch that, it’s my phones fault. Most things come out yellow due to the flash. Not my fault. Also, I did not have round pans as they were being used by my daughter on her own cake, so I used a couple squares. Not a problem. Where you may have issues is just making a single layer in a 13×9 pan. If you have success let me know.
Here’s a tip for other rookies:
- Go ahead and cut both layers of your cake at the same time if you’re doing a flat icing, it’ll make it more uniform and keep it looking clean.
- For melting the white chocolate I just placed some water in a pot and put it to boil, I used a smaller pot to melt the chocolate by setting it in the water, you know because I don’t have a double boiler sitting around.
- I was nervous that because of the white chocolate I only had a limited amount of time to ice the cake before it hardened. Turns out that didn’t happen, so I could’ve taken my time and not had any issues. Live and learn.
I took this to work and shared with friends who enjoyed it, so that made me happy. I didn’t want to get my ego inflated, I was trying to avoid having to eat it all by myself. I’m okay with constructive criticism, I’m probably my harshest critic…besides my better half. She’s not always into what I make, so when she digs it my head puffs up like I’m allergic to something and I’m in dire need of Benadryl. Let me know what you think.
P.S. I may return to this recipe come Christmas time because I think these might make for some nice cupcakes.
Steal The Baking 