I baked a KAY cake.
I baked a kayke.
My sister, Kay, turns 50 this week and her sweet little family threw a surprise birthday party for her on Saturday. I wanted to doubly-surprise her with a fun cake, so I experimented with a text version of my peekaboo pumpkin pound cake.
I was semi-successful in my experiment. Everything worked perfectly until I put the cake in my car and drove 80 miles north to Salina. When I opened the trunk to get it out of the box, the cake had split into four pieces. Boo. (It was like one of those tragic episodes of Cake Boss or Ace of Cakes, where they deliver a cake and it falls apart during transport. I feel their pain. It sucks.)
I attempted to do some repair, but when you try to re-frost a previously frosted cake, it ends up looking like, well... wall spackle. Ugh. Needless to say, it wasn't my prettiest work.
The surprise element was still there though. We sliced it open to reveal the "KAY" inside and party guests were delighted. (Or at least they were kind enough to tell me they liked it.)
Here's a little step-by-step of how I baked and built it. In hindsight, I should have frosted between the stacks or used wooden skewers to keep them together.
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| Start by baking pound cakes. (I added color to mine.) After baking, freeze the cakes (Freezing keeps them from over-baking the 2nd time they go in the oven.) |
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| Trim off the tops and cut into even slices. Cut letters with cookie cutters. |
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| Stack letters flat, inside loaf pans. Laying them flat, instead of upright helps the letters keep their shape better during baking. |
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| Pour regular cake batter around the cut out cake letters. |
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| Here are my baked bakes before assembly. Trim off sides and tops to make them even. |
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| Stack the trimmed cakes upright. This is where I should have frosted between the stacks to keep them from falling. (Or inserted some wooden skewers.) Gravity and I never get along when it comes to desserts. Damn gravity. |
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| Frost and decorate. (But not like my wall-spackle, fixer-upper. Do something pretty.) |
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| Cut and surprise someone with your message inside! |
