Cake Week 10(2):
Big Eyes Energy
Turns out, I don’t know how to count, so this is the actual Cake Week Ten.
As a special surprise, my friend Sara from Cake Week One came to visit and see the intensity that Cake Week has become in the last decade.
I was feeling pretty cocky after another year of baking and decided I’d really push myself to do new things. Were my eyes too big for my cakes? Maybe, but although much of Cake Week 10(2) became a lesson in humility, when my experiments worked, holy balls did they work. The Chocolate Pudding Cake is maybe the best chocolate cake I’ve ever had. The Strawberry Mirror Glaze cake was incredible. Even the collapsed Sicilian Mousses were delicious. I had planned to eat them as a sliced dessert, but they were just as good off a serving spoon scraped from the bottom of a baking sheet.
I’m excited to try some of these recipes again after I’ve leveled up a little, which itself feels like a more mature way to approach failure.
Cake One: Blackout
Devil’s Food Layers (Zoe Bakes) + Chocolate Sea Salt Pudding Buttercream (Ovenly) + Chocolate Crumbles (All About Cake) = the most balanced, rich but not too rich chocolate cake I’ve ever tasted
Cake Two: Strawberry Dream
Strawberry Dream Cake (Perfect Cake) + White Chocolate Mirror Glaze (Wilton.com) = Fluffy, fresh cake the perfect flavor of PINK
Cake Three: Sicilian Mousses
Bavarian Formula (Professional Baking) + Nantois Cake (Tasting Paris) + Sun-drenched memories of Sicilian Gelato = A collapsed, delicious pile of violet, prickly pear, and white chocolate goop
Cake Four: Bleu Cheese Apple Pie and Lemon Meringue Pie
Cake Five: Burnt Miso Pound Cake
Burnt Miso Pound Cake (All About Cake) = Easy cake for the home stretch
Cake Six: Watermelon Hill
Watermelon Ice Cream Cake with Lime Buttercream (Perfect Cake) + Watermelon Sorbet (The Perfect Scoop) = Shockingly dissapointing cake. The sorbet was too icy and its juice got sucked up by the cake sponges. The lime buttercream was incredible and the cake should work. I blame my own sub-par sorbet making skills. I will make it again with store bought ice cream!
Cake Seven: Eldritch Eye
Blueberry Jam Cake (Perfect Cake) + Instagram = Lofty ambitions
This cake would have been quite the finale, and even without a thick layer of briny water atop the cake, it was still delicious. I’m excited for the day when I can accomplish this vision.