Snickers Cake

I went to a cake auction fundraiser this past Friday and I signed up to bring a cake. Last year I went to this fundraiser and I brought a cake but I went for looks. I brought a beach themed cake with what looked like water and sand on top. Then I had teddy grahams lying out on fruit by the foot and teddy grahams in inner tubes (watermelon rings.) Then I had palm trees and little drink umbrellas on the side. It turned out pretty awesome.

This year I wanted to make more of an adult cake. I decided to make a snickers cake. I used the recipe from Brown Eyed Baker to make this cake. The only thing I changed was the chocolate cake recipe. I used a simple chocolate cake recipe from Nellie Bellie.

Ingredients for the chocolate cake:

1. 3/4 cup soft butter
2. 3 eggs at room temperature
3. 2 c. all-purpose flour
4. 3/4 cup cocoa
5. 1 tsp baking soda
6. 3/4 tsp baking powder
7. 1/2 tsp salt
8. 2 cup sugar
9. 2 tsp vanilla
10. 1 1/2 cup milk

 

Directions:

1. Using three 8 inch pans, grease bottom of pans. preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Beat butter for 30 seconds or so. slowly add sugar.
3. Add eggs 1 at a time beating after each one. Beat in vanilla.
4. Add dry ingredients beating after each addition.
5. Add 1/2 of the milk, beat. Then add the other 1/2. Beat just until everything is combined nicely.
6. Spread batter evenly into pans.
7. Bake for 30-35 minutes for round pans. Watch it though! a knife coming out clean from the center means it is done.

 

Now the snickers part of the cake:

 

There are four main parts

 

First,

The Nougat Filling

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
¼ cup evaporated milk
1½ cups marshmallow fluff
¼ cup creamy peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ cups salted peanuts, roughly chopped

 

Directions:

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the sugar and evaporated milk, stirring until dissolved, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the pan from heat and add the marshmallow fluff, peanut butter, and vanilla extract, stirring until completely smooth. Fold in the peanuts. Let the nougat mixture cool to room temperature before using it in the cake. You can do this leaving it at room temperature or you can pop it into the refrigerator to speed up the process. Be sure to give a stir occasionally as it cools.

 I think this nougat filling is what makes this cake taste so good. I ate a couple spoonfuls out of the pan.

 

Second,

Salted Caramel Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
¼ cup salted caramel sauce
2 cups powdered sugar

 

Directions:

Beat together the butter and cream cheese on medium-high speed for 5 minutes. Pour in the salted caramel and beat until combined. Reduce the speed to medium-low and slowly add the powdered sugar, a little at a time, until it has all been incorporated. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat for an additional two to three minutes, until light and fluffy.

 

Third,

Assemble the Cake

 If your cakes baked up uneven or have domed on top, level off the tops. Place one cake layer on a serving plate. Cover with half of the nougat filling and then spread a couple spoonfuls of the salted caramel sauce over top to evenly cover the nougat filling. (When I spread the nougat filling on, I pushed it all the way out to the sides of the cake, but when I put the next layer on, it pushed the nougat filling out and down to the bottom. I would recommend not pushing the nougat filling all the way out to the side. The weight of the layers will push it out to the side.)Top with a second cake layer and cover with the remaining nougat filling and top with caramel sauce. Place the final cake layer on top face-down. Frost the cake with the salted caramel frosting, finishing it as smoothly as possible. Refrigerate the cake for at least 1 hour, until the frosting is set.

 

Fourth,

Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients:

8 ounces milk chocolate, finely chopped
4 ounces (½ cup) heavy cream

 

Directions:

While the cake chills, make the chocolate ganache. Place the chocolate in a medium bowl; set aside. Place the cream in a small saucepan over medium heat and warm until it just comes to a boil. Pour the cream over the chopped chocolate and let sit for 2 minutes. Begin whisking the mixture in the center, gradually working your way outward until the ganache is completely smooth. Set aside to cool, whisking occasionally, until it has thickened slightly, yet still a pourable consistency.

 

Transfer the ganache to a 2-cup measuring cup. Slowly pour the chocolate ganache into the center of the cake, letting it push itself outward and flow over the sides of the cake. Refrigerate the cake for at least 30 minutes, giving the ganache a chance to set up. To finish garnishing, drizzle some additional salted caramel sauce over the top and side of the cake, and top with chopped peanuts. Keep the cake refrigerated, removing it from the refrigerator about 20 minutes prior to serving.

 

 

 

Jackson's First Birthday

My baby turned one! I can hardly believe it. He is getting so big! Actually he's not that big according to the charts, but he sure is big to  me! Our wedding anniversary happens to be on the same day as our little guys birthday and for the second year in a row, we haven't done much to celebrate. But, we did have a big party for Jackson so I guess that's celebration enough. We had lots of friends come and support. It was perfect. Luckily the weather cooled off just in time because we had been having 97 degree days here with no air conditioning. Let me tell you, our apartment was hot! It ended up being a little bit overcast for the party so we were able to leave the back door open so that people could sit out on the deck.

 I made Jackson's "Birthday Suit" onesie. It was pretty simple. I ironed on the words "Birthday Suit." Then I sewed a little bow tie with Velcro on the back and stuck it on.

I have been wanting to make a tiered cake for a while. Mostly because I just wanted to see if I could do it. So, I decided Jackson's birthday would be the perfect time. My cake does look like a Charlie Brown cake. I am well aware of that. I am almost embarrassed to put up a picture of it, but we all have to start somewhere right? I did it, it may be leaning sideways, but I did it. The cake itself tasted yummy though so don't judge it by its looks.

 Here is Jackson's little smash cake. I put some white star sprinkles on it to give it a little decoration.

The smash cake part was so much fun, even though it was a pain to clean up. He somehow flung frosting all over the kitchen. But he sure did look cute!

Here is our family picture. Jackson was trying to touch me with his frosting fingers and he succeeded.
I had blue frosting all over the side of my shirt.

 Here is Jackson getting cleaned up by dad in the kitchen sink.

Yes, he's trying to grab my camera lens cap with his frosting fingers.

Jackson also officially started walking on his actual birthday. He is a rock star!



I used a recipe from Baking Vintage. I knew I wanted a white cake with cream cheese frosting and when I came across this buttermilk recipe, I thought I would try it. Don't let "folding in the egg whites" instruction scare you. It was really simple.

Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
3 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 egg whites

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350˚F. Line two 8-inch cake pans with parchment paper, then grease with unsalted butter.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. In a medium bowl, whisk together cake flour, baking soda, salt and cream of tartar to remove any lumps. In a liquid measuring cup, combine buttermilk and vanilla. With the mixture on a low speed, alternate adding the flour mixture with the buttermilk. Beat the batter until smooth.

In a clean separate mixing bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Working swiftly, fold the stiff egg whites into the cake bake in three additions. Pour into the buttered cake pans.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the middle of the cakes comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pans for one hour, remove from pan and allow to cool fully before frosting with the icing of your choice.

Makes 2 8-inch round cakes

With a double batch I made,

two-8inch cakes,
two 6-inch cakes and
two-4 inch cakes

One of the 6-inch cakes I didn't use and one of the 4-inch cakes I used to make Jackson's smash cake with.

I used a cream cheese frosting recipe from Dessert Now, Dinner Later

Ingredients:
 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:
Place cream cheese in a mixing bowl, beat until smooth.
Gradually add the butter 2 tbsp at a time and continue beating until smooth and well blended
Add powdered sugar and vanilla. Using a hand mixer, mix until combined.

Beach Kit Kat cake

I have a whole board on pinterest of cakes I like. I want to try and make most of them someday but 99% of them are probably way out of my league. The boy scouts were doing  fundraiser at our church and they were having a cake auction. I decided to sign up to bring a cake. It would at least give me a good reason to try and make one of the many cakes I pinned, right? I decided to copy a cake from Lovely Party Things.

The only thing I did differently from her cake was that I used crushed graham crackers instead of brown sugar for the beach part on top. I just kept thinking that a slice of cake with brown sugar on top probably wouldn't taste all that good. Anyway, other than that, it was really easy to go off of. I made a chocolate cake from a box and then made home made vanilla frosting with blue food coloring added in.

I  made two round cakes with frosting in between and frosting on top. Then, I put Kit Kats around the outside of the cake and secured them with ribbon. I can't remember how many Kit Kats I needed, but I know that I started with 6 Kit Kat bars and it was only about half the cake. I want to say I used about 10. It's much more than you would think. I broke the Kit Kat bars into pairs before putting them on.

Then I put the crushed graham crackers on half of the cake. In the graham crackers I put two palm tree "models." I went to Michael's and got plastic palm trees in the models section. The lady at the store said I wouldn't want to use them because they will have fuzzy stuff on them that wouldn't be safe for food, but I looked at them and they were completely plastic. So, I just cleaned them with soap and water before I used them in the cake. I had to cut a little bit of the cake out and put the palm trees in a little bit of a hole because they kept tipping over. I filled the hole in with frosting and graham cracker crumbs.

The rest was pretty simple. Teddy Grahams on Fruit by the Foot and Teddy Grahams in Peach candy rings.


The kids loved the cake. It was auctioned off at $40. I'll take it. It was a fun night. We bid on a vanilla cake with butter cream frosting that was delicious. I was very impressed with how many amazing cakes were there. I better take some cake decorating classes before next year.