cake week: 4 layers of goodness...

The challenge: Red. The solution: lots and lots of red (no taste) gel coloring.

Fondant stars (the birthday girls favorite) in red, black, and white (with crushed candy canes), and red-colored white-chocolate cream-cheese butter cream frosting. Working fast because of the heat, and thanking my lucky stars for the fridge in the garage, it was a lot of fun to make this tower of 4 delicious layers!

Alternating layers of black & white and black & red cakes, I used 4 dowels to brace the cake. I also had some fresh strawberries, and since the girls like anything sweet and like-store-bought, I cooked the strawberries down with a dash of honey into a jelly that worked beautifully between the cake layers!

It was a huge success and seriously one of the best cakes ever, taste wise! I think that cooking with love has such a huge impact on the flavor, and this is a perfect example of that! It may look funky and fun, but the taste was pure heaven!

A quick note to clarify the cake release from my last post: In using the oil/flour mixture, you simply "grease" the pan as you normally would, no need for parchment paper. Just cool the cakes for about ten minutes, flip the pan over and they will pop right out. It's like greasing and flouring the pan, but all in one step. My second and third sets of cakes worked beautifully, popped right out with no tugging, and no need to run a knife around the edge.

Enjoy!