happy birthday 2

After the last birthday cake was such a success, I decided to make another birthday cake for a surprise cookout we were having for a friend.  Making a cake for a 28 year old man turned out to be quite different from making a cake for a 21 year old girl, so I had to do some serious research.  You can't put roses or brush embroidery on a man's cake.  I looked at lots of grooms cakes and men's birthday cakes and settled on a jersey.  Luckily football season is kicking off as we speak!!!  


I ended up with this...

I felt like this cake was maybe my best yet.  I made two 1'' high sheet cakes because it was the only think big enough to make the shirt and I finally realized that if you do a 1'' sheet you do not have to cut to make different layers.  I used a pretty cool recipe for doing a swirly cake...


I really like allrecipes.com, maybe I should add them to my "inspiration" tab:

Marble Cake

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9 inch round pan.
2. Place flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, butter or margarine, eggs, vanilla, and milk into mixing bowl. Beat slowly to moisten, then beat with an electric mixer at medium speed for about 2 minutes until smooth. Reserve 3/4 cup batter; pour the remainder into pan.
3. Stir cocoa into the 3/4 cup reserved batter. Drop by spoonfuls over top of white batter. Using a knife, swirl the cocoa batter into the white batter to incorporate it in a marble effect.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, until an inserted wooden pick comes out clean.

This cake recipe turned out a little too spongy.  It was hard to get it from the pan to the cake board without lot of crumbling and such, but that might also just be me.  I would suggest using this recipe more for cake that you are not going to be cutting up until you serve them.  It did taste pretty good though, and it was easier than a lot of recipes I looked up.  


To cut the cake and make it this shape I followed this little pattern:

I used a can  of raspberry pie filling to fill this cake.  It was SO GOOD!!!!  There is something about tangy fruit filling between layers of spongy cake and creamy frosting that just makes me come back for more.  Don't forget to pipe a frosting dam to keep it from spilling out and looking like blood.
  
On this cake I also had to "dirty ice" it.  This just means thinning out some butter cream and frosting the cake quickly after you get the layers all together.  You stick this in the fridge and then when you really frost it, none of the crumbs get into the nice frosting.  This is TOTALLY necessary if you are making a cake that is cut up and shaped.  I did this about 2 days before I nicely iced it to be served.  I am very crunched on time and I was a little worried about it drying out, but with the dirty ice, it did not dry out the cake at all.


I used just #5 round tips to do the piping.  It was mostly straight lines so I just looked at pictures to do it.  I did cut out a star shape and traced it into the white frosting before I made those.  


I love the way this cake turned out and it was a big hit at the party.  These jersey cakes are also fun because you can personalize them with the name and number of the person you are making it for.