Cake

I love to bake! Not so good for the waistline, but so fun nonetheless. Lately I've really been wanting to try my hand at making fun cakes, like THIS one I found online. I thought it was just so beautiful that I had to try and recreate it for myself. The step-by-step instructions on her blog were pretty easy to follow. I also followed her tutorial to make the inside of the cake just as pretty with vertical layers of red velvet and white cake. Here's a picture run-down of my first attempt - and forgive me as I am NOT a good food photographer!

The finished product:

First, I made two separate 9 inch round cakes and leveled the tops. The I put the two leveled tops facing each other and wrapped them in saran wrap and then foil and froze them for 6 hours.

After coming out of the freezer, I cut circles in the cake and sliced the ends so that I could make the "bullseye" effect, alternating layers of red velvet and white cake.

For the next step, I made a simple syrup (1 C. Sugar + 1 C. water, boil until sugar dissolves in water) and used a pastry brush to apply it to the cake to give it moisture and keep the cake together prior to putting it back in the freezer with the wax paper and towel ring belt around it (to keep it together). Have you ever used a towel belt for your cakes? Me either. But the tutorial said to do it, so I did. :)

Once out of the freezer, I removed the wax paper and towel belt and began frosting. As you can see in the picture below, I sort of got the vertical layered effect I was aiming for. (Remember, this is my first time attempting this...so don't look too closely! ha!

And wa-la...the final product.

I do love how the icing turned out, but the inside was not as pretty as I would have hoped. Or should I say not as perfect and symmetrical on each side as I had hoped. But over all, I had a lot of fun playing around with this and I would definitely do it again! Next time, I think I may try colored frosting...can you imagine that with pink or red icing roses? So pretty!