Romy's Baking and Cake Decorating

Yesterday was my birthday and I knew exactly what kind of cake I wanted to make for myself: a small chocolate cake, with a whipped cream and strawberry filling, and a chocolate cake collar.  This technique is also called a "chocolate cage" and I had been wanting to try it. Most of the cakes I made are transported somewhere else, so I had to wait for an opportunity to make a cake for home. For the cake layers, I went with  this recipe  for Chocolate Malt Cupc akes  from the Browned Butter Blondie website. Instead of cupcakes I baked it in two 6-inch cake layers. Upon closer inspection it turns out the malt in this recipe is only in the frosting. This was misleading!  I ended up adding three tablespoons of malt powder. The recipe calls for coffee, and I swapped this for 1/2 teaspoon of espresso powder.  Next time I would actually use a whole teaspoon. The batter is very liquid. The layers baked up great in about 26 minutes. For the frosting, I used  this...

When a friend from my book club announced that she was having her second baby, the rest of us immediately started planning the baby shower. I knew I wanted to knit a gift for the new little one, as I've done for all the "book club babies".  I ended up knitting a vest with a whale motif  and that turned into the inspiration for the cake too! I decided to try an Oreo Cookie Cake because I've never done one before and I knew it would be a crowd pleaser.  I used  this recipe  from the Life Love and Sugar blog.  I made some changes to the recipe: taking out the Oreo fillings, using larger broken off pieces instead of crushed Oreos, and baking it for longer than 18-23 minutes.  My cakes were in the oven for about 27 minutes.  And actually, I didn't use Oreos, but instead went with Whole Foods' 365 brand chocolate sandwich cookies. They may not be a health food, but they do have better ingredients than Oreo brand. The cake layers were delicious but, dis...