A cake made for a friend's 30th pirate-themed surprise birthday party. Her 30th birthday party, I mean, not the 30th party she had that was pirate-themed and a surprise. That I know of. *sigh* Anyway, the cake turned out better than I expected, what with the bottom layer breaking in half while I was putting it together and refusing to go back into a square and all. I also had some issues with the frosting and making it the right temperature so that I could actually decorate with it - the first bag was waay too soft and so some of the stars don't have definition at all. So I put it in the freezer and the second bag was perfect, but then I left it in so the third bag was too stiff. The skull and crossbones was pretty much the crowning achievement of the cake, considering I wasn't really expecting it to look like anything even approaching a skull and crossbones. Overall, it was very yummy.
This was my first cake using my brand new Kitchen-aid 9 speed mixer courtesy of my parents!! Yay. I used
this recipe, with
this frosting recipe. The frosting was AMAZING. It was cream cheese, but also buttercream. Highly recommended. The vanilla (it was supposed to be lemon but I made it vanilla, using 1 1/2 Tbsp vanilla instead of the 3 of lemon) was more cream cheesey than the chocolate, so it helped to balance out the cocoaness of the chocolate. I also made the
cappuccino-fudge cheesecake. I made the ganache without Kahlua this time, because Kahlua is expensive and because there were little kids at the party. I did, however, attempt the lattice on top, which I usually don't.
