Cake of the Month - Peaches and Cream

I made a new goal for myself this year: to conquer cake!

If you've read my blog for any length of time, you know that I have problems with cake. Not that I don't like cake - I do. And I don't have a problem making a really good tasting cake. (No, really!) The problem, my friends, is that I simply can't make that yummy cake actually looks good. See here for an example. (But not here - my monkey cake rocked!)

Cookies I can do. Brownies - definitely. Cupcakes, yes. In fact, I think it's pretty safe to say that I can make most desserts look pretty delectable.

So I have decided that I'm going to make one cake a month for 2008, in the hopes that I will some day be able to make a decent looking cake! Lance has pledged his full and undying support in this endeavor as long as he gets to sample (read: devour) the results.

I decided to use the new cookbook I got for Christmas.


This book rocks! I love it. So does Heidi F., and everyone knows she's the queen of cake making, so I knew this was a good starting point.

I decided to make the Peaches and Cream Cake because it sounded really good.

Now, I had plans for blogging a play-by-play account of my cake making. But when it comes down to it, do you really want to read something like that? (And, more importantly, do I really want to write all of that?)

No. And no.

So here's a pretty mosaic I made of the pictures I took while making the cake. (I even took a self-timed one of me in my Etsy apron Lance got me for Christmas. Yes, I realize I look stupid in aprons. Oh well.)


The pictures aren't in any sort of order because I couldn't figure out how to do that. Okay, I didn't even try to figure out how to do that. But you ladies are all pretty smart, so I'm assuming you probably know what order they should be in. (And if you can't, get off the computer and pick up a cookbook, for cryin' out loud!)

Now I will show you separate pictures of two major challenges I faced while making the cake:

A supremely cranky 16 month old who refuses to wear pants and wants to play in the garbage, and

the dang top to one of the layers stuck to the dang plate I used to flip the dang layer right side up onto the dang cooling rack. Dang. (I know, it was dumb to use a plate. But I did. But only on that layer.) Anyways, it kinda got this crater but I figured it was okay because I could just use it as my bottom layer. In fact, it turned out even more okay because it was a bit uneven (which isn't okay) and so I just trimmed most of the crater off while making it flat.

Anywho, the cake had a whipped cream frosting, which made it pretty easy to put on. (Sticky frosting and I have a sordid decorating history that we will not dwell on at this point.) So, voila! My cake!


Okay, it's a bit lopsided. I think some of that is cake deformity and some of that is poor frosting on my part. Who cares. It's still the best-looking layer cake I can remember making. (Sad, I know!)

And, more importantly (at least to the boys), it tasted great!