wouldn't you love to have another cake?

Blue cake was for the family dinner for Stepdaughters 18th birthday. So what do you do for the friends-party? You make it orange! Actually the intention here was to make a red cake. Unfortunately, as you may know, red is a tough color to achieve in a cake. It takes a lot of red food coloring. A LOT! Since Stepdaughter does NOT like the color pink we had to come up with another option. Yellow was at hand so she said "Orange" and orange it was!

The cake was definitely orange, the frosting was another fabulous White Chocolate Cream Cheese Buttercream creation (pardon me while I drool!) and the stars were the surprise. She was not allowed to see any part of them or the finished cake until the party. I made the stars from red and yellow fondant, mixed some of it together to get orange and then added in various amounts of red and yellow to get a marbling effect. I also dusted the stars with silver and gold dusting powder. It was really pretty close-up but next time I'd like to try a dusting glitter since the powder was very fine, and you really had to look for it. I piped peachy-orange frosting around the bottom. The intent was to have red and yellow streaks through it but I didn't put enough coloring in and it stuck to the top of the piping bag. There's always next time! I also sprinkled the top with yellowy-orange sugar crystals.

The young crowd loved the color effects and I have orders for 4 more cakes! How funny is that? My (new) rule is that they may request one color, and I get to create the rest! We are having the family February birthdays this weekend so yes, there will be another cake for that as well. Any shape suggestions?

For the frosting, I am still working on the perfect combination. I have perused more than a dozen recipes, many of which were too much or too little of any given ingredient so this is what I've come up with so far:

• 1 cup butter (2 sticks, softened)
• 8 to 16 oz cream cheese, softened (cake 1 was 16 oz, cake 2 (this one) was 8 oz, next will be 12 to try)
• 6 to 10 oz white chocolate (cake 1 was 6, cake 2 was 10 to 11, I was hungry!)
• 1 + tsp. vanilla extract
• Powder sugar: 4 to 6 cups. Cake 1 was about 6, cake 2 was about 4.5 to 5
  

THIS RECIPE HAS BEEN UPDATED: Printable Version

The first (blue) cake I was interrupted in the middle of making the frosting. I had just added the white chocolate and the doorbell rang. So after my uncle left I kept having to put the bowl into the fridge to firm it back up. The second (orange) round I had issues with the white chocolate (different brand used), it melted then resolidified, and 8 oz. of cream cheese was not enough to get that cheesecake flavor. Round 3 will be no interruptions, new chocolate, a few adjustments, and I will let you know how it turns out next week! I used a mix for this cake as well, used applesauce instead of oil, and let's just say that when I need to use cake mixes, I will stick with Duncan Hines.

I will be frosting the next cake on Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning. If you have any suggestions please feel free to leave a comment! If I could send you all a piece of cake I would! Enjoy!