Cherry Coke Cake

A Cherry Coke cake with Vanilla Coke buttercream and maraschino cherries. The cake is two layers, 8" round filled with more cherries. I followed this recipe  except that I used less coke and added vanilla to the buttercream.

Cherry Coke Cake
1 box chocolate cake mix
1 cup Coca-Cola
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup maraschino cherry juice
3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 8" pans. Combine all ingredients in bowl of mixer. Pour into cake pans and bake for 35-40 minutes. Move to wire rack to cool.

Vanilla Coke Frosting
1/2 cup butter, room temp
3 cups powdered sugar
4 Tbsp Coca-Cola
1 Tbsp clear vanilla extract

Cream together butter and sugar. Add coke and vanilla. Beat until combined.

Happy Birthday Steph!

My sister turned 23 and my dad wanted me to make her a cake for her birthday dinner. He sent me a few ideas and this is what I came up with. Cherry Chip cake 8" round 5" high on the bottom, and 6" round 5" high top tier. The bottom is done in white buttercream with pink fondant polka dots, pink happy birthday banner, white gumpaste/fondant daisies with pink centers. The top tier is pink buttercream with white buttercream ribbons topped with a gumpaste/fondant bow. Inside each tier were 3 layers of the cherry chip and buttercream.

Cake Batter Fudge

I borrowed this recipe from here after a friend came across it online. Had to try it since it looked so good! I followed the recipe exactly except that I used Cherry Chip cake mix instead of white or yellow. It tasted great! And I used up some of the many sprinkles/sequins/edible hearts/sparkling sugars that I have.

2 cups Cherry Chip cake mix
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cups (1 stick) butter cut into fourths
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/4-1/2 cup sprinkles (and just like the recipe says, who measures sprinkles? Just to crazy!)

In a microwave safe bowl, combine cake mix and sugar. Add butter and milk. Microwave on high 2 minutes. Stir until combined. Add chocolate chips and stir again. Fold in half of sprinkles. Spread in to a greased or lined with parchment 8x8 pan. Add remaining sprinkles and press in. Refrigerate to set. Cut into 1 inch squares.

Jaiden's 3rd Princess Birthday

Princess castle themed cake!

Chocolate Cake
3-3/4 cup sugar
2-1/4 cup butter, room temp
1 tbsp vanilla
9 eggs
6 cups cake flour, sifted
1 tbsp baking soda
1-1/2 tsp salt
3 cups milk
18 oz semi sweet chocolate baking bars, melted and cooled

18 oz of chocolate. mmm. chocolate.

In mixing bowl combine sugar, butter and vanilla. Add eggs and beat for 1 minute. Add melted chocolate. Add flour, baking soda and salt. Gradually add milk. In 6x3" round and two 10x2" round baking pans,  spray with oil, coat sides with cocoa powder and line with parchment paper. Divide batter between pans and bake for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees. I rotate my pans after 20 minutes to ensure even baking. Cool to room temp on wire rack then move to fridge to chill before frosting. Cakes are leveled and torted with buttercream.

Black Cherry Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
1-1/2 cups solid vegetable shortening
1-1/2 cup butter, softened
1 tsp clear vanilla extract
1 tsp cherry Kool-aid powder
12 cups powdered sugar, sifted
6 tbsp milk

Cream together shortening and butter. Add vanilla. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time. Add milk. This makes a pretty pink frosting. I divided it in thirds, added kool-aid to make 1/3 pink, added blue and violet food coloring and more kool-aid to make the purple frosting, the remaining 1/3 was only vanilla, to make green, brown and blue detail work.

The castle turrets are a regular ice cream cone sprayed with color mist, with a waffle cone inverted set into it and attached with buttercream. The waffle cones were painted with melted white chocolate and rolled in pink  and purple sprinkles. The flags are pink fondant cut into flag shapes, rolled onto a toothpick. Allow to air dry overnight with toothpicks threaded in to give them shape.

"Lauren"

I made this cake as a birthday cake for my friend/co-worker's 22nd birthday/going away party cake. I used one box Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge cake mix, prepared as the box said, but used the cherry juice from a small jar of maraschinos and added water to it to get to the amount needed. Divided the batter into 2 parts and baked them in 8" round pans for 40 minutes. I made the whipped cream frosting from scratch. Whisk on high until stiff peaks form. I leveled the cakes, filled with whipped cream and sliced cherries, inverted the second cake on top and finished with the rest of the whipped cream. I used tip 4B to make the shells around the top and bottom, the Happy Bday and topped with the remaining cherries. I am highly impressed with the thickness and spread-ability of the frosting. I didn't need to crumb coat. Just slapped it on there and smoothed it out. I picked out what little crumbs did surface with a toothpick.

Happy Birthday Lauren!

Smooth sides and nice shell work. Proud of myself for that.

P.S. I ate the remaining 3/4 cup of frosting and boy is that stuff delish!

Whipped Cream Frosting

3 cups heavy whipping cream

5 tbsp powdered sugar

1 tsp Wilton color flow mix

2 tbsp UV Cake flavored vodka

Whisk heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar on medium speed until stiff peaks form. Add remaining ingredients and whisk until combined. The color flow mix helped to make a stiffer whipped cream that didn't melt.