Cake Baking - Part Two

I've done it! I have made the best darn cake I have every had! I'm not a huge cake fan, so it's not like I really know my cakes, but i've done it. I am so excited to make Sophie's birthday cake now! SO EXCITED!

Cake Option #2 - And the winner - Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting.

I went ahead and stuck with the boxed cake mix. Replacing the water with milk and adding an extra egg. For this cake I used Betty Crocker Triple Chocolate Fudge cake mix. Again, splitting the batter into two round cake pans.

Once the cakes were out of the oven and cooling, it was time to whip up some peanut butter frosting. Unsalted butter (the kind of butter you always want to use for baking), cream cheese, a hole lotta powdered sugar and of course, peanut butter made up the best darn frosting I have ever had. EVER HAD!

The plan was to layer this frosting between the cake and then add a light layer covering the cake as my crumb coat (or also known as "dirty icing" which is what Buddy Valastro from Cake Boss calls it. Yes, I've been watching this show...a lot). A co-worker had found a promising marshmallow butter cream frosting recipe that I was gonna use to make the cake all pretty like, but the pb frosting was so good, I just kept spreading it on the cake. 

Oh my...

I thought I was layering that middle layer with way too much frosting, but looking at it now, it could use some more. But look at that amazing piece of cake...

It wasn't until I had the cake about 75% frosted when I realized that since the frosting was a light tan color that I could use my new cake frosting color dye and make colorful pb frosting for Sophie's real cake. So I had frosting left over and decided to experiment. And it was a success. These are the four colors Sophie picked out: Pink, Blue, Purple and Yellow. 

Sophie wasn't home when I made the cake, but I wanted to show her the colors I had made. She of course loved them. We were in the living room when we heard a little voice coming from the kitchen saying "Yummy" and as we looked up she came walking in with her finger in the pink frosting. She took a seat and kept saying "mmmmm" and "mommy, I like this". haha I think I'm gonna have one happy birthday girl! 

My last challenge is figuring out what to do with the frosting, what's the cake gonna look like? I still want to do my original idea, but I'm not sure the pb frosting will work. I'll have to do some more pinning, I mean researching! 

- Lauren