I have been a cake making machine lately! Several years I took a cake decorating class as a birthday gift (everyone got cakes that year). I kind of fell out of it a little. The restaurant I work at sort-of-kind-of got me back into it icing carrot cakes and piping carrots on top, with the occasional special request for different pipe work (our true specialty is pies though, which I don’t think I’ve ever posted a pie on here- whoops I’ll have to get on that). A month ago I found myself with a request to make a 6 layer rainbow gluten-free cake with piped ballet slippers. Then a request for red velvet. Then I stumbled upon a tomato soup cake, perfect to try my mustache cake. Then a bacon rose cupcake bouquet. Then cakes and cake pops for the twins birthday party. And I’ve volunteered to make a Ninja Turtle cake for my nephew Trenton’s birthday next week. I think you get the hint that I have gradually been getting back into cake decorating.
Summers are such a social time, at least with my family and friends, it is. We have a huge family. That correlates to lots of birthdays. Lots of graduations. Lots of things to celebrate in general. Recently my cousin Jacki and her man Chris got engaged. Since she’s home this week from California we threw her an engagement party for us to all celebrate together. My contribution was of course a cake. I rarely do chocolate cakes (I was actually thinking of doing some kind of fruit filled cake), but my sister-the creative party planner- said we needed something chocolatey. Boom, I knew right away I wanted to make a German chocolate cake! My grandpa loved the German Chocolate Cookies my cousin Melinda made at Christmas, so I figured a cake would be a hit. And it was! They said it didn’t even taste gluten-free, which I think is always a compliment because I’ve had people tell me, “I’m glad I don’t have to eat gluten-free (like it tastes bad).” I liked that the frosting on a German chocolate is easy to work with. With regular icing I will dick with a cake forever to try and get it as smooth as possible. Continue reading “German Chocolate Cake”