Dani's Birthday Cake

My caffeinated partner in crime celebrated a birthday recently, and I promised I'd bring her a cake that would celebrate our love for coffee.  I had read the Pioneer Woman's post on a coffee cake (or, to be more specific, a coffee-flavored cake) and thought this was the perfect excuse to bake one.  The original recipe can be found here.

I made a few modifications.  Here are the ingredients I chose:

2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar (couldn't bring myself to adding more)
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick butter
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (2 sticks of butter were out of the question; this was my substitute for the second stick)
4 tbsp instant coffee (more is better, in my book)
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup skim milk (instead of buttermilk)
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda

1.  Mix flour, sugar, salt.  Set aside.

2.  Make 1 cup of super strong coffee by adding 4 tbsp instant coffee into 1 cup hot water.

3.  Melt some butter, add the coffee to it.

4.  Add the melted butter + coffee mixture to the flour mixture.

5.  Add the applesauce.

6.  Combine milk, egg, vanilla, and baking soda in a separate bowl.  Add that to the flour mixture too.

7.  Pour into a 9" baking pan and bake 350F for about 40 minutes (or until inserted chopstick comes out clean).

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The frosting and decorating part is the more fun part of this recipe, so here is where the pictures begin :)

Omg the cake smelled so delicious coming out of the oven, i cannot even tell you.  It's an addict's dream come true.  Think of something you're obsessed with, then multiply that by like 1000, and that's how it smelled.  You're thinking, hmm...what does Rock Band times 1000 even smell like?

Anyways.  So I cooled the cake, then I used storebought icing and whipped it all up with 1-2 tbsp of coffee crystals.  

I also used my handy-dandy cake leveler to cut this baby into 2 even layers.  

I got to eat some of the top, and boy was I a happy little lady.  Here's one of the layers.

Oh, and i finally got to use my cake icing spatula.  This makes things so much easier.

So I frosted the first layer.  

Plopped the second layer on top.

And then frosted the outside.  Yum!

Then, I made the fondant.  For a quick tutorial, see the post on the fondant lesson and fondant covered cupcakes.


I decided to go with a brown and tan theme, since it is a coffee-flavored cake.  I first made the light brown fondant to cover the cake.  Make sure you have corn starch on the counter and the rolling pin when you roll it out.  Here's the dye i used.

Then i placed the fondant on the cake.

I pressed in the edges nice and flat against the bottom.

And cut off the excess fondant with my pizza cutter.  I use my pizza cutter for pizza only about once a year, but it is an excellent fondant cutter.  Also great for cutting pita into wedges.  Anyways.

I am very tangent-y today.  Sorry.  Here's the cake so far.

So then I rolled out some dark brown fondant for the band that was to go around the bottom edge.  I made kind of a thin rope of fondant.  Don't tell me what you think this looks like.

Then I pressed it flat!

I evened it out with....the pizza cutter!!

 

And I stuck the band around the bottom edge using a tiny bit of Crisco.

For the final decorations, I decided to use 2 cookie cutters which are the same shape but different sizes.  


The first few I made whole, then i started playing puzzle time!  First, I'd cut a normal shape.  Then i'd cut into it again with the same cookie cutter.  

Then I'd fit that partial shape into the previous whole shape.  

Oh, the cleverness.  I chortled in my joy.  

I continued this process throughout the whole cake, alternating between the dark brown and white fondant, and the big and small cookie cutters.

 

The ones up against the band on the lower edge were, once again, cut with the pizza cutter.

Here is the finished product!

 

Thanks to Kata and Corrie again for the fondant lesson! :D

Dani loved her cake, and everyone who partook of the cake really enjoyed it.  Woot!

 

Happy Birthday to my study buddy, my crafting partner, and fellow linguistic nerd!

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here.