Cake 1 and Cake 2

Birthday season has started in our family. Because Easter was so late, it seemed to begin rather suddenly. My father and Sierra have birthdays four days apart, with my father's birthday starting festivities only days after Easter. After Mothers' Day I will be baking for Marina and Chase's birthdays, which are five days apart. We eat a lot of cake in May. So far I have baked two cakes. I'll share them here.

First we have Buelo's cake. I hadn't done a carrot cake in a while. I don't why, I love carrot cake! I combined directions from a good recipe I have and suggestions from an episode of Alton Brown's Good Eats. He suggests peeling the carrots rather than grating. Carrot cakes I've made where I grated the carrots tended to be very mushy. As long as you don't mind the occasional carrot string, peeling works out much better.







Today's cake will be shared by Sierra and her friends. She asked for a cat theme, so of course I tried something new, rather than simply make another cat cake, as I did for Marina one year. Here we have my attempt at a cup cat cake. Now in my defense, I didn't have enough time to make a cake today, since Marina has classes all day and Chase has a class in the afternoon. Therefore, I wanted to use a frosting that would keep in the cake carrier overnight. I really would have preferred chocolate whipped cream, but I ended up using a fudge frosting. This was not my best idea, since I thought they meant fudge tasting, not actual fudge consistency. This is why the cats look like they've been playing in mud. Oh well. Another year, another cake decorating lesson learned. Next year I will make sure I have all the necessary ingredients on hand for a simple buttercream frosting. Stick with what you know, save the experiments for the off-birthday season!