Amanda's Birthday Cake

We helped celebrate our Future Daughter-in-Laws birthday yesterday.  As part of Cally's birthday gift to Amanda she made her this lovely birthday cake.  Just wait until you see the inside :)

We gathered at the Hofbrauhaus in Newport Kentucky with Amanda's family to celebrate her 25th Birthday.  We had a wonderful evening getting to know Amanda's family!

Here is Amanda and Cally together with the Birthday Cake.  Cally did a wonderful job!

Ok, I will quit making you wait to see the inside :)  Cally had noticed a Pink Ombre Cake that Amanda had pinned on Pinterest so decided to try her hand at that cake.  It turned out almost identical to the cake she saw on Pinterest.  

Cally made the cake as a 4 layer 8 inch round cake.  She used boxed cake mix and food coloring to make her different colored layers.  The icing is adapted from my Aunt Teresa's cake decorating icing. We usually like to use butter in our buttercream icing but since we were traveling with the cake and Cally would be the one holding it the whole way to Newport we decided to use a different cake decorating icing without butter.

I think this might just be Cally's go to icing from now on.  She really liked the texture and flavor of her icing minus the butter.

Happy Birthday Amanda and we look forward to celebrating many more with you!!

Amanda's Birthday Cake

made by Cally

2 boxes french vanilla cake mix

6 eggs

2 cups water

2/3 cup oil

pink food coloring

Mix 1 box cake mix together with 3 eggs, 1 cup water and 1/3 cup oil until combined and then turn mixer up to medium and mix for 2 minutes.

Put half of the batter into a greased and floured 8 inch round baking pan.  The the remaining half of the batter put in a little pink food coloring to tint just a very light pink.

Mix the last box of cake mix with 3 eggs, 1 cup water and 1/3 cup oil until combined and then turn mixer up to medium and mix for 2 minutes. 

Pour half of the batter into a new bowl.  To these 2 bowls you are going to add the pink food coloring.  In the first bowl, make the color a little darker than the light pink layer you already tinted.  

Put more food coloring in the last bowl, tinting this layer the darkest.

So you will end up with a white layer, light pink layer, medium pink layer and a dark pink layer.

Bake cakes at 350 degrees for 26 to 29 minutes.  When done remove cakes from pan and cool on a cooling rack.

Decorated Cake Icing

adapted from Aunt Teresa and Grandma Sweeney

3 cups crisco

1 cup whipping cream

4 pounds powdered sugar

2 teaspoons almond extract

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Mix together crisco and whipping cream.  Add almond and vanilla extracts.  Mix in powdered sugar gradually.  After all powdered sugar has been added mix for 2 to 3 minutes until nice and fluffy.

*** These are ingredients for a double batch of icing.  If you wish you could mix the icing in 2 batches if your mixer can not handle this much powdered sugar at one time.... Cally mixed hers in 2 batches for this reason or she and my kitchen would have been covered with powdered sugar :)

To assemble the cake... Place the darkest pink layer on the serving plate and spread a thin layer of icing on top of the cake.  Next layer, place the medium pink layer on top of the bottom layer and spread another thin layer of icing.  Next place the light pink layer again with a thin layer of icing spread on top and lastly place the white layer on top.  Ice the cake all over and finish your cake however you choose.

Cally chose to rough ice the sides of her cake and then pipe rosettes on top.  To rough ice she placed her cake on a spinning cake stand.  She completely iced the sides of the cake, next as she spun the cake around she dragged her off set icing spatula around the sides of the cake making the spiral all the way down the side.

For the rosettes she used Wilton icing tip 1M.  She used celebration pearls to decorate the bottom and add color to the top.