Comunidad Health Foods

Two days ago was C's birthday - you know, C, L's brother - the one who brought infamy to an otherwise innocuous (if not deliciously addicting) cranberry upside down cake. We aren't quite into the gift-giving realm of not-quite-inlaw-hood, so I usually just bake him something. Last year, for instance, was a batch of cupcakes designed to look like sushi. Kind of. This year, I baked him an upside down UPS box - so that he could have his very own, genuine upside-down cake.

Even if you have no desire to replicate the design I made, you should try both the cake and the icing, because they're fabulous. The cake is a yellow cake, very reminiscent of the flavors we've all come to love in that hate-to-love-it box mix. It stays moist and tasty, even after being kept in a trunk in just above freezing temperatures (though I would've preferred it, to be perfectly honest, had we had time to warm it to room temperature). The only "complaint" I really have is that it seems to be a little bit heavy on the sugar. The recipe says to line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper, and the top of that cake when I tried to peel off the parchment was downright gooey. There was a puddle of liquid under my cooling rack by the time the cake was ready to be constructed and frosted. I don't know that this is a bad thing - it's certainly not the worst title a cake has ever beared (born? bore? huh.) - but it is something to consider.

As for the frosting, I needed something more tan than chocolate brown if I wanted it to really look like a cardboard box. Plus, if I used a traditional chocolate frosting, then I would have had a much more difficult time finding something to use as a writing medium. So, with this brown sugar frosting, which I think is much more aptly named a chocolate whipped cream frosting, I was able to better approximate the color of cardboard as well as use a simple melted chocolate for the writing. The actual frosting was night - very light, not too decadent or rich or overpowering. I'm not a fan of the gobs of confectioner's sugar + shortening that bakeries tend to use, and I could also do without the really rich buttercreams more often than not. I like the cake to dominate, and the frosting to accent. This definitely does this. There's just this little bitsy after taste that I noticed and wasn't thrilled with. Right now I'm chalking it up to being a little heavy on the cocoa, so you might want to decrease that. No one else commented on it (negatively, that is - there were plenty of compliments), though, so again, this might just be my weird palate trying to sabotage an otherwise enjoyable cake for me.



As you can see, I forgot to take a picture of it until I was staring down at it, half eaten already. So, you won't see a full shot of it, but I did manage to get a few out of the cake the next morning. This way you can also see the inside, which might give you a better idea of how it was constructed (that word you are searching for would be sloppily, I believe). The dimensions weren't as amenable to cutting as I had anticipated, but in the end I don't think that matters so much as long as you can cover it up. And cover it up, I did. By the way, that part of the cake that looks like a chocolate cake layer is not at all a chocolate cake layer. It is a strip of solid chocolate. More on that later.

I would consider using the yellow cake as my go-to birthday cake (although I have too many variations to quite my search just yet), and I'll definitely keep the frosting in my back pocket. Because I didn't alter the recipes at all except to halve the cake, you can follow the links below. The rest of this post will cover how to make the UPS cake specifically, for all of those times that you find yourself in need of one. You're welcome.

So, I asked my sister if I could bake her graduation party cake. She agreed, and we sat down to find the right recipe. Unfortunately, there wasn't one single recipe that caught her eye! You see...there were two. Two cakes. For one day.

Cake Number One is William Sonoma's Black Forest Cake, which will be converted to cupcakes and tweaked to hollow out part of the centers for extra frosting and cherries. That one, I'm barely thinking about.

Cake Number Two, however, is this masterpiece, a recipe that I fell in love with upon first sight and have been itching for an excuse to bake it. However, for her graduation? A week after school ending? Two days before summer classes start? I'm only just starting to realize that, no matter how exciting, this is going to be quite a feat. And so I have started research!

Today was my day to practice coloring and decorating with buttercream icing. I had a little leftover from my recent foray into Sugar Cookies, so I softened it from the fridge, added 30 drops of red food dye (to roughly 1/4 C icing), and stuck it into a ziplock bag.

Here are a few things I discovered, either through research or through today's practice session:

1. Buttercream darkens food dye over time, which is why the icing in that picture is a pink. It will (hopefully) be a deep red or even burgundy on the actual cake (taking place of the white squigglies on the original cake photo), but I needed to see just how much it will darken over time. I'll get back to you on that one.

2. Consistency is beyond important - Mine was a little thin today, probably as a result of the flood of red food dye I added.

3. Decorating really isn't so difficult! Writing, on the other hand...well, there's a reason I only posted pictures of the squiggled design, and not the various attempts of "Congrats!" That will require much more practice, I fear...and I may have to abandon writing this time altogether.

4. Although irrelevant to buttercream or cake decorating, I have a sneaking suspicion that my photographs are to blame for my (presumable) rejection from Food Blogs. Look, I know they're nothing spectacular. The lighting in my kitchen is abysmal, and often times I'm either dealing with people who want to eat (and, let's face it, my own phobia of serving cold food), or a quick trip back to my less-than-ideal-for-photographing-food (former) dorm room. I tried adding some pretty props this time, though the lighting is admittedly sub-par. I will continue trying to improve and hopefully resubmit to Food Blogs. I see so many gorgeous photographs on blogs and I would love to be able to present my food so artistically; however, much like my icing writing, I think that this will take much practice.

But bear with me! If you do, you have a lot to expect from me within the next week: the cake and cupcakes (and all of the preparation that goes with those!), and - if I can handle it - a spring vegetable pizza that I'm dying to make almost as much as this cake. Almost.