cake.bake.day.

Here is the full documentation of the cake making day.  My apologies for no post yesterday!  We had out of town guests, spent all day at the mountain, went out to a late/long dinner + exhaustion set in.  I had over 200 photos to go through for this!

Natalie bought me this tea mug for my bday last year.  I luuurve it.  So pretty!  However, there was coffee inside.

I am loving the Bob’s Red Mill Coconut Granola they sent me!! Slightly sweet + lots of crunch!

I love the texture of fresh ground PB.

Thanks for the granola BRM!!  I don’t even think I’ve tried a Bob’s product that hasn’t met or exceeded my expectations.  I use a lot of their stuff!!

I cannot wait to try this flavor!!

Are you scared to see banana in the mix here??  Don’t be…trust me

Bought these for the first time the other day.  They are pretty tasty!  I would give them a 7-8/10. 

• 3” diameter
• chewy
• good texture from oats + chocolate
• not too sweet
• about 130cals, 2g protein, 2g fiber [appx, don’t have the box in front of me]

A good little snack to hold me over til lunch.  I keep cookies out of the house 95% of the time.  Chris won’t really eat them and I don’t like temptation.  I’m usually good just breaking a little square off a dk. chocolate bar once or twice a day.

I looked over recipes all morning try to decide what to make.  I wanted it to be something fun!  For some reason “banana cake” popped into my head.  But then what to pair with it?  Well, I decided cinnamon + honey go well with banana, so I would try to create a cinn/honey buttercream.  I couldn’t decide if I wanted the other layers to be vanilla or dk. chocolate.  I decided on vanilla, thinking the chocolate might overpower the other flavors.

I really wanted the banana flavor to come through so I pan roasted them with about 1tsp of sugar. 

I mashed them up bit but was planning on pureeing them for a smooth consistency.  If I was making banana bread, I would leave them in the chunky form below.

This hand blender is one of my FAVortie new kitchen appliances.  I use it all of the time and it works perfectly.  It’s a Cuisinart and was only $24 with a coupon for Bed Bath + Beyond.  I use it for salad dressing and soups the most.  It’s great for smoothies or pureeing anything else as well.

hmmmm, WHY do I have this?

Cuisinart is my favorite!  This was the first time using my stand mixer and I loved it.  It was so easy to use!

greased + floured cake pans

Banana cake

Time for lunch!  Stonyfield sent me a bunch of coupons to stock up on Oikos!  These little guys come in a 4pak and are a new flavor along with Caramel I have talked about before.  Both are really really tasty and not too sweet.  The chocolate + caramel flavors don’t have a fake taste at all. 

Topped with BRM coconut granola!  You can tell by the color that the chocolate isn’t too intense.

Lunch: apple + AB, oikos chocolate + granola, sunshine burg + ketchup + cheese

thick.

Time for the vanilla cake!

Both batters tasted EXcellent!     

Buttercream frosting time.  I like the recipe I use because it doesn’t call for 8c of powdered sugar.  The sweetness is not overwhelming at all.  It is a creamy buttery frosting with cane sugar, not powd. sugar.  I subbed out half the sugar for honey.  You could definitely taste the honey when it was done.  I also added cinnamon.  It was my favorite frosting that I have ever made!

va va vanillllaaaa [my fav…i know, boring right?]

frosting.yum.

Carving away at the cake.  I ate half of what I carved away it was so so good!  I really like both recipes that I settled on.  You could definitely taste the vanilla cake which I liked.  The banana flavor didn’t overpower the vanilla.  The banana cake had a great texture.  The vanilla was a little more dense, but I think I ran into an altitude baking issue with it.  I will definitely be playing with the vanilla recipe more, to get the texture right, because the flavor was spot on!

Hmmm…why did I carve some of the cake away?

I dyed some of the frosting orange + green and filled up 2 sandwich bags with it.  I cut a tiny corner from each bag and easily piped on the letters.

I ground walnuts and pressed them into the part of the cake that I carved away.  Then, I pushed in chocolate chunks.

I planned to have her name wrapping down the side.  But what is the chocolate chunk part about?

It’s a rock climbing wall with an overhang of course!!!!  Laura is really into climbing right now, so I wanted to do something fun with that idea and the cake.  Aaaand that is what the Polly Pocket was for.  Although, it was a “beach” themed Polly, so I have to use a sharpie marker to draw pants on her!  hehehe

polka dots around the sides

The chocolate chunks are supposed to be the climbing holds.

Laura gave a BIG “ohhhh my goshhhhh” face when she saw the cake

so.purdy.

chug.a.lug.

Laura stole my camera.

Trav made Laura a super creative card on a Mary Poppins record sleeve.  It was adorable.

We ate at BJ’s on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder.  They have delicious deep dish pizza.  I had a small cheese and was stuffed after 2 pieces…and also knew the cake was coming!  Leftovers will be eaten today

Attack!!!!! 

I was so glad the cake made it in one piece!  It slid a little but didn’t do any damage!

Travis thought this would be fun, haha.

Laura got them all!

As Travis had to spin the cake around for her….

Her friends sang a super cute + hilarious rendition of “Muskrat Love,” personalized just for Laura!

nom nom nom

The recipes will be on the next post!  Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday…it’s snowing in Denver!  Tomorrow I’m making ota.bars for the 2 winning bidders from the Haiti Relief bake sale that went on a week or so ago.  FUN!

Byeeee

~Ashley