eat your words, err....letters?

The event: family dinner for all the February birthday people.


The meal: potluck.


My contribution: the cake.

First the challenges:

• I tried a new, and highly recommended recipe for the cake. It called for 2 8-inch round cake pans. I made squares and they were rather flat. So I had to make a second batch. That part was nice because I got to layer the white and purple. The cake itself was very dry and not very soft.
  
• I already had fondant in primary colors so I combined the red and blue to get purple. It did not match the violet food coloring gel I used for the frosting. :)
  
• I thought the squares would be fun, but the larger squares were not what I envisioned.
• Several family members are diabetic, or close to it, but will eat full sugar at these type of celebrations. I decided to try and cut back on the sugar and made one cake with xylitol, and it just came out a bit flatter than the cake with full sugar.
  
• I also used less powder sugar in the frosting and added in some powdered xylitol, which unfortunately still tasted grainy, very sweet, and masked the white chocolate cream cheese flavor. If you bake with xylitol, I'm all ears. Plus in using less sugar, the frosting was much less firm and took a lot of work to smooth it on.
  

Next, the cake:

• I love the ribbony effect on top, and the small square chips. I should have done the small squares all over. Next time I would also do the ribbony effect along the bottom.
  
• Now that I am out of primary colors, if I buy or make fondant again I will get white and splurge on more color gels.
• The letters were fun once I got the hang of it. One T is cool and the other not so much. The poor S and I are not friends (the letter, not the person, I love her!)
• The marbling effect on the N gave it a funny look, not my intention.
• I dusted the top with finely grated white chocolate, it's visible in the center left picture in the cake collage above. You can click on the images for a larger view.
  

So this was the final February cake. I have another one on the calendar for later in March. Until then, if you have a white cake recipe that is to die for please leave a comment or contact me. I would like to make the cake from scratch but I have tried several recipes with little success.

The full fledged white chocolate cream cheese buttercream frosting is great:

2 sticks (1 cup) butter, softened
12 oz. cream cheese, softened
10 oz. white chocolate, melted
1 tsp. vanilla (optional)
2 TB milk or cream
4-6 cups powder sugar

Cream butter and cream cheese together well, add in melted white chocolate and (if desired) 1 tsp vanilla. When well combined add in the powdered sugar and milk, alternating, until you have the desired consistancy. I usually use about 5 to 6 cups of sugar.

So that is my contribution to Eat Your Words. My great thanks for Tangled Noodle and Savor the Thyme for this fun event. Words are challenging!! Don't forget to check out everyone else's fantastic results too:

• Tangled Noodle's Words are Yummy
• The Behind the Wheel Chef has an SOS
  
• I'll try to keep this list updated with other entries!
  

Enjoy!