I did it... (and yes, I cheated)

it's not even my birthdayyy

I have finally made a decent cake. It was delicious. Yes, my goal this year was to make a cake and be able to frost it in at least a presentable way. I was obsessed with Ombre Cakes because they just look so awesome, so hence that's what I made. And it came out pretty decent.

Yet, I cheated. Haha. I made the Chocolate cake from scratch, but I cheated on the Vanilla cake. Yes, I used a box mix. But at least it was an all natural box mix from Fresh & Easy. I did compare their mix with like Betty Crocker's, and they don't have any weird chemicals in their mix. Super. My goal was to get the hang of frosting the cake, plus I was suppressed on time, I had to make one of the cake layers from a box. 

6 hours in the kitchen = tired.

So for the chocolate cake, I used the recipe from Sprinkle Bakes' book and it came out excellent. The cake was super moist. It really tasted like Devil's Food Cake from a box without being from a box. Super impressed. I, of course, did some tweaked to the recipe, instead of using buttercream liquid, I used the powdered version and substituted the fluid with, wait for it, Chocolate Lovers Creme de Coco Wine. It came out divine.

The original recipe makes 2 9" round cakes, but I only made one, so the rest of the batter was divided in the cupcakes. And that even made 18 cupcakes... so pretty much I recipe of the cake makes 36 cupcakes. Dank! As for the Vanilla cake mix, I split the batter in half and colored one half with chocolate paste to create a mocha like color. 

As for frosting, since my friends who came over requested chocolate cake, I decided to make Whipped Chocolate Ganache, also from Sprinkle Bakes's book. It's soo rich, it's awesome

Another cheat that I did was I had some frostings left from the graduation cupcakes, I decided to use them for the chocolate cupcakes from the cake batter. It came out pretty darn good.

Whipped Cream Cheese, Strawberry Lambrusco Buttercream & Whipped Chocolate Ganache

Hard work paid off because both friends & my brother loved the cake. There's a lot of learning to do regarding frosting technique & how to move the cake from the turning stand to the cake stand (I damaged some parts of the cake haha), but other than that, the cake was delish.

On the other hand, my friends and I were talking over cake about New York City, and we did a secret handshake and devoted ourselves to live in NYC one day all together. Haha... We're crazy. Heather will be in NYC in July and begged to make a trip there with her. Gabz & I started dreaming and planning and got excited and decided to join too. Unfortunately my schedule didn't fit with Heather's trip, but we both booked an NYC trip (just like seconds ago) a couple of days after Heather goes back to Cali (SORRY MY LOVE!!!). I love that city so much, I wanna marry it. Kidding.

This is one spontaneous purchase/trip, but I'm so excited. I can't wait to explore New York again. Haha, 3 times the charm (this will be 3 years in a row!!)

My goal in NYC is to explore more, especially West Village, East Village, SoHo & Chelsea/Meatpacking District, and also Brooklyn (where we'll be staying). And try as much as possible foods from this list. Aaaaa, forget dieting. 

moonbeams & exciting bunny kisses,