Midweek Roundup: "Wonderfully Tall and Festive"

Photo by Jen

Evil Cake Lady

I think that Jen was the only one who made this cake exactly as written, with peppermint extract, candy canes, buttercream frosting, and four layers.  All the rest of us made some variation thereof.  But Jen's beautiful cake shows why Rose must have decided to do the whole peppermint schtick. t Except for the buttercream taking "ALL MORNING" [caps in original], Jen was pretty enamored of this cake, and so were the rest of the people at her office party.

Actually, once I read Kristina's blog more closely, I saw that she also made the cake just as written, but she didn't post a picture of the cut cake, so I didn't see all four layers.  Also, I decided I wasn't going to rewrite this roundup just because of a few inaccuracies.  Even though she didn't take many pictures, she loved this "delicious" cake but realized it was pretty big for two people to share, so she sent out a message at large, inviting anyone in the neighborhood to stop by for a piece of peppermint cake.  I hope you didn't have too many people knocking at your door.  

Rachel, like me, decided that two layers were plenty, and she declined to split the two high, lovely layers in half.  Rachel names her cake a "cakefail," but I think that's a little harsh.  True, she did discover that if you take a cake out of the oven before it's done in the middle, the cake doesn't behave nicely.  Chalk it up to the "Christmas gremlins."  She also discovered that "once sliced it looked, if not impressive, decidedly good enough to eat."  Finally, she discovered that good friends don't complain if you bring a delicious cake to their house.  

Catherine not only made half a cake, but she also omitted the peppermint--"no peppermint was harmed in the making of this cake," in her words.  The half cake was because her current cake audience consists of her "two parents, a cat, and two chickens," although even if Catherine and her parents are dainty eaters, it looks like the chickens would have no trouble gobbling up the cake.  (But if they ate a whole bunch of candy canes, would the eggs taste like peppermint?  Inquiring minds want to know).  At any rate, the single layer was sliced in half, filled with buttercream, and dusted with powdered sugar.  Her mother took it to tea, and everyone was happy except the chickens.  

Vicki made a four-layer cake too, but she, like Catherine, omitted the peppermint.  Instead, she decided to see if she could recreate her wedding cake--a very worthy endeavor, and I'm certainly impressed that she remembers what her wedding cake was.  The only thing I remember about mine is that we saved the top layer to eat on our first anniversary, and it tasted pretty bad.  Vicki's cake looks quite lovely, even though it ended up being filled with strawberry jam instead of the raspberry jam of the original.  It was also flavored with almond extract instead of peppermint.  Vicki's own version of her wedding cake turned out to be "even better" than the original, which is reason enough to celebrate.

Katya was a very good sport to make the cake at all, since she doesn't like peppermint "except in breath mints."  She made a half-recipe of cake, and intended to make a half recipe of buttercream except that it turns out that aerated white chocolate, which she happened to have received as a gift, is much lighter than regular white chocolate, so she ran a little short in the icing department.  What and why is aerated white chocolate?  Easily distractible minds want to know.  She decorated it with red and green, and took it to work, where presumably a group of people who don't associate peppermint with breath mints or toothpaste happily gobbled it up.  

This is all the cakes that were finished and blogged about at 5:24 CDT, although both Joan and Tony have baked the cake but not yet blogged about it.  Check their blogs in 2016 to see if the posts are up!

Next week's Lemon and Cranberry Tart Tart is a great way to start off the new year, so I hope you have time to make it.  Even more, I hope you have a lovely evening tonight and that 2016 brings you whatever you hope for--especially if what you hope for is a dessert a week through the rest of the new year!