My First Cake Sale!

I'm so excited, guys 'n' gals! I just sold my first pre-ordered, full-sized cake! It was a delectable devil's food cake with chocolate ganache and marshmallow cream filling for a woman who enjoyed my cupcake version of this sweet treat so much, she just had to have a larger version for her birthday.

 

I am very grateful for this opportunity to showcase my baking and get a little boost into the baking business. It makes me happy to know that my cake is being used for a special occasion and that in some small way, I may have brought a bit of joy to someone. Hopefully the cake was a hit and they'll be back for more! :)

Italian Rainbow Cookies

Hello fellow bakers and cakers!

Since I was a little kid delighting in bowls of Neapolitan ice cream in front of the TV, I've carried on a love affair with multicolored, layered desserts. Whether it's a refreshing yogurt parfait, a pretty diamond-shaped Girls Day mochi, or my mom's famous fruit trifle, I've always been enamored by the dainty, whimsical presentation of layered sweets.

And that is exactly why I have been dreaming of Italian Rainbow Cookies for months. These flashy petite treats contain all the goodness of almonds, dark chocolate, and fruit preserves baked into seven adorable layers, that, when stacked together, resemble the Italian flag. This unique combination of main ingredients makes for a complex and sophisticated cookie with a distinctly European flavor. It's the type of thing you can picture your archetypal Italian-American grandmother baking with love for family get-togethers.

So how did I sink my sweet tooth into this fanciful, half-cookie, half-cake, you ask? It all started when I was talking to my mom about the different desserts we bake fresh at T.O.P.S, and she suggested creating a "signature" dessert for which our restaurant could become known. Before I could say "Jumping Jellybeans!" Mom was mailing me all manner of sweet inspiration, both from local newspaper clippings and her own recipe collection.

One recipe for Neapolitan Refrigerator Cookies, cut from Betty Shimabukuro's "By Request" column in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, stood out in particular. Although this recipe was for a tri-colored slice-and-bake cookie, the column also mentioned a more elaborate, almond-fruit preserve cookie enrobed in melted chocolate.The idea stuck in my mind.

A few weeks later, I stumbled upon the lovely Italian Rainbow Cookie Cake on one of my new favorite blogs, Always Order Dessert. I was intrigued to learn that the blog's author, Alejandra Ramos, got her foot in the door of the baking business by selling dozens of these extraordinary cakes. My curiosity was piqued; this kind of stuff just had to be good.

I finally realized Fate was bringing me together with these awe-inspiring cookies when I re-opened my May 2011 issue of Bon Appetit ("The Italy Issue") and found yet another recipe for them! You can find their recipe for Italian Rainbow Cookies, which I ultimately used, here.

To tell you the truth, I was nervous about baking Rainbow Cookies. With all of the beautiful examples that had come before me, I had a lot to live up to. In between all of the mixing, melting, freezing, stacking, pressing, and my lone 9"x13" pan, I was also looking at an all-day baking project. And most of all, Steve, my primary taste tester, isn't much of a marzipan or almond extract person, so I wasn't sure he'd go wild for them. In the end, however, the cookies baked up splendidly and I had a blast! The cookies were dense and moist, with a slightly spongy texture and nice, even layers. Although I don't see myself making these glittery little gems on a regular basis, they might reappear in my kitchen over the holidays. As they say in the cooking world, it was love at first bite.

Boozey Baking: Kahlua-Vodka Cake (Black Russian Cake)

I have been in one big baking frenzy as of late, and it all began with one of the sweetest introductions I've ever had: someone recommended that Steve and I try the delectable new UV Cake. Manufactured by Minneapolis' own Phillips Distilling Company, UV Cake is a brand new white cake-flavored vodka that is as sensational as it is "sinsational." It smells just like a sweet piece of birthday treat--and tastes even better. As soon as I took a sip, I knew I had to bake with it.

UV Cake Vodka on the left and Kahlua on the right

Now here was the problem: being neither a connoisseur of premium liquors nor a heavy drinker, I'd never before done any boozey baking! My recipe collection was bare!

After receiving encouragement from my hubby and my friend Alysha over at loVeLySh, I started searching for a good vodka cake recipe online. There were recipes for White Russian Cakes and Harvey Wallbanger Cakes; there were recipes for fruit-flavored vodkas and for mixing vodka with chocolate chips. But my baking instincts said to keep looking, to find the perfect mix of ingredients that would place the UV Cake on center stage without masking the vodka's innate yumminess. That's when I found this outstanding little number from cdkitchen.com. Bellissimo!

This cake truly made me happy while I was baking it. (And no, it's not because I was drinking and baking!) It was so easy to prepare, I had little to no interruptions, and the ingredients were all close at hand. Besides, there's something simply wonderful about a heated glaze or frosting--like a rich, silky ganache for cupcake dipping or a mudslide of molten sugar cascading over a pan of crumbly cake doughnuts--that you simply don't achieve by beating powdered sugar and butter together for cold, fluffy cake topping.

The delicious

As the contents of my icing pot cooked and caramelized, their scrumptious scent wafted into the air, conjuring fond memories of old-time candy shops in places like Stillwater and Des Moines, watching mustachioed candymakers prepare belts of taffy and knock apart slabs of peanut brittle. I closed my eyes, placed a tiny sample of the icing on my tongue, and immediately tasted a harmonius blend of buttery toffee and spiked sugar that just blew me away.

The final verdict? Outstanding! While this cake may be a little strong for children and non-drinkers, it is beautifully soft, spongy, and a nice accompaniment to coffee or tea. Just as the cake and icing go together remarkably, so do the Kahlua and UV Cake (although any good vodka should do the trick). About a week later, the cake has kept surprisingly well in the fridge, so best of all, I can continue to share it with family and friends around me.