Dog Days of Summer

It's August already? What happened to summer? Where have all my baked goods gone?

I love white cake and I've been working on some variations. The moist and tender crumb of Linnea's strawberry layered cake was just about perfect, even if it was a bit lopsided.

Casey's 4 layer lemon blueberry cake was practically perfectly stacked and the flavor was sophisticated, but the crumb a bit dry.

Now, you're probably thinking, next she'll say, "Third time's a charm!" But no, it's still too hot. I skipped the stuffy kitchen and tedious layer slicing to make Jason a cool and creamy cheesecake that had a hard time coming out of its pan.

So all in all, I am not yet ready to give you the recipes. They still need some work and my kitchen is still too hot...

Continued yoga and hiking has granted me the ability to eat extra, guilt free baked goods this summer so I have been sampling as many as possible! Thus far the standout has been an almond croissant from the Butterhorn Bakery in Frisco. I was also pleasantly surprised to find a few baked good booths at the South Pearl Street Farmers Market, and MANY samples.

I would never say I could compete with Watercourse but think it would be possible to outdo the cookie and giant cupcake ladies...

My summer has not been filled with long, lazy days. I'm a grownup. But it has been exTREMEly fun. On the counter is homemade pancake mix, made especially for camping, and vegan vanilla cupcakes. Stay cool and stay tuned :)

Baking Layer Cakes

Layer cakes are hard. More than anything, well only baking wise of course, I want to be able to produce a perfectly shaped, flat toped and smoothly iced layer cake. Three layers is my favorite. I once made a carrot cake that seriously took forever but I learned a few things that day and hope to not repeat 8-hours-standing-barefoot-in-the-kitchen again. Ouchie. Unless someone is paying me because it’s five years later and I’m the best at-home cake baker in Denver ;)

The occasion was Matt and Rebecca’s wedding celebration at work. We got them a waffle iron and served this cake.


Here are some things I have learned thus far about layer cake baking:
1. Have enough pans to bake all of your layers at once. Not doing so takes twice as long and produces layers with slightly different textures.
2. Be overly generous when greasing your pans. I always thought, “A little is all I need – more cost effective and a tad bit healthier.” I was wrong and HAVE cried when large chunks of cake are still in the pan after flipping the rest out.
3. Use a measuring cup or scale when diving batter between pans for evenly sized layers.
4. Drop each pan on a hard surface (only from a few inches above) a few times after the batter is in and before you put them in the oven. This levels the batter and helps eliminate any large air pockets.
5. Take the cake out of the oven within the cook time suggested. I left the cake above in a bit too long after forgetting that it will have time to fully set while cooling afterwards. It was a good recipe but ended up being too dry.
6. Run a butter knife or small frosting spatula between the cake and pan after removing from the oven to make sure there aren’t any tiny snags on your edges.
7. Let your cakes cool completely before trying to remove them from their pans or you may encounter the problem described in tip #2.
8. Level your cake layers by cutting the tops off with a long, freshly sharpened serrated knife, or one of these handy wires I bought at Cake Crafts in Englewood.


And for many, MANY more tips on cake baking, read America’s Test Kitchen baking book for THE overall best baking tips I have found. Supplement those with high altitude adjustments found in Susan G. Purdy’s Pie in the Sky.

Maybe someday my layer cakes will look more like this!


Congratulations to Lisa and Brandon in Texas, whose wedding I just returned from this morning. Their amaretto cake above was delish!

Tips on frosting layer cakes to come and please, please let me know if anything I post ever works (or doesn't!) for you.

Melted Cake

I made a theme cake recently, my first one! It was for The Mighty Acorns 2010 awards banquet. I was pretty proud of myself after buying a special sphere shaped pan and professional cake box, and trying out icing bags and tips for the 3rd time ever. It ended up looking pretty good but I left the cake in my car on an 80 degree day for a quick meeting in Boulder, pre-banquet. What was I thinking? My grass wilted and the softball almost balded. But it still tasted pretty good.

P.S. I have my first non-friend follower, woo hoo!