LaLa Cake: How to make A little of Everything Birthday Cake!

"Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me.."

It was my birthday last week and not that I want to talk about it too much but it was a big one.. it starts with a three and ends with a zero chance I'm going to tell you or anyone how old I am again.. Okay honestly it doesn't bother me that much and I'm not that uncomfortable with the idea of going into a new decade... until someone says "So how does it feel, do you feel older?" Well no I don't feel older but now that you mention it maybe I do, and if I look closely I'm sure I look older, and I know I had three gray hairs already but I'm positive that fourth and fifth one came on my birthday (or with my second child. I'm not sure).

Although whether I like it, or accept it or not, I'm older...
but at least birthday's come with cake!

Since I'm the cake lady in my family I wanted to experiment with something new and make my own cake. Inevitably when I make cakes for clients I have leftovers; extra frosting, cake, cupcakes, ganache, fondant. I usually save all that I can but sometimes don't have the need to come back to it for awhile. With that in mind, for my birthday cake I decided to clean out my freezer and see what new cake combinations I could come up with... kinda like the mystery box challenge (for all my Master Chef friends) against myself. The cake turned into White cake soaked with espresso, layered with red velvet, raspberry mousse and chocolate ganache, a little bit of everything I love.

I wanted to design it with something girly and different than any cake I've done so far. Lately I've been obsessed with the color pink. I find myself gravitating toward it more and more in my wardrobe, my accessories, my children's clothing (mostly Abby, although at Asher's request I did paint one thumb nail of his pink, which he proudly sported for the next week) Coincidentally (or maybe not) I received a pink purse for my birthday and even though I've only ran three times this year a new pink workout outfit for my 5 mile Turkey Trot race I'm considering running on Thanksgiving this year. At home my LaLa Cake "diary" of clients and ideas is pink, pink stapler, pink pens, pink Call of Duty PS3 controller... obviously for my birthday cake.. Pink!
With all that said here's how it all came together. Hope this helps you discover your inner Master Chef with your own cake 'leftovers'

Enjoy life with cake!
Leah

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How to Make "A Little of Everything Cake!"

I started with 'cleaning' out my freezer.

I save all my savable scraps from cakes

I make for the blog or clients, usually I end up using the

saved frosting and cupcakes for a quick dessert for the family

or if I need to bring a dish to a party. My 'odds & ends' cake pieces were

stacking up though so I decided just to put it all together.

My ingredients: Whipping Cream, Raspberry puree, Mocha ganache,

white cake, red velvet cake, cream cheese & white frosting.

(Already I knew it was going to be good with all these flavors!)

I cut all the cake layers to the same size using a 8" cardboard cake round.

Since the cake was frozen anyways

I only thawed it for a minute then cut the bigger layers in 1/2.

The frozen cake was much easier to 1/2

than crumbly thawed cake would have been.

(Cake does hold up well in the freezer but because of its

soft texture needs to be wrapped heavily in plastic

and foil or a ziplock bag so it won't dry out or soak up freezer flavors)

Next I whipped up the cream cheese filling,

which was just cream cheese, butter and powdered sugar.

In goes the raspberry puree. Make sure your fillings are very whipped and extra soft before trying to incorporate something wet like raspberry puree, it'll make for much smoother more attractive cake fillings

Whipped the heavy cream and gently folded it in.

Raspberry Mousse filling! I also added about 1 tsp of strawberry jello that had been dissolved in 1 tbl of hot water to add stability.

If eating the cake right away you can skip the jello.

White cake down first, soak with instant coffee. I love instant coffee for cakes, with a little hot water and a few tablespoons of the coffee you get an instant very strong 'espresso' flavor, too strong to drink but once its soaked into the sweet cake and layered with sweet fillings the bitter coffee taste adds a nice contrast to the sweetness.