Super Cando Birthday Cake

For Candice's birthday I made a super cake. I was "off" sugar for March (one cheat a week allowed) so this weekend I went a little too crazy on the sugar. I had been itching to make something amazing all month.


I started with a chocolate pudding cake. You take a cake mix, make it according to directions then stir in a box of pudding. I used sugar free chocolate pudding. It makes a nice, rich, chocolately, moist cake.


Next I made a batch of vanilla fondant (not icing fondant, candy fondant--see my blog posting from after Thanksgiving for the recipe). I poke holes in the bottom layer with a toothpick so it would ooze in. This was tasty, but the fondant was gooey enough and the cakes were so moist that the layers moved around when I frosted and cut the cake. A difficulty worth dealing with though. Just warning you.


Next I made a frosting out of whipped cream, powdered sugar, and strawberry extract. I didn't measure. There was a pint of whipped cream but I just added the rest until I got the flavor and texture I wanted. I also added one drop of red food coloring to pink it up.


I did a search on youtube and found instructions for making strawberry roses. It's not as easy as it looks. I should have taken some pictures of the freak-show strawberries that didn't make the cut. Ugly but tasty.



My final touch was slicing strawberries into circles. I wold have liked to put them on the sides too but I was pretty sure they would slide off. They really didn't do much for the aesthetics but they were a tasty addition.


Yum. If I make this again, I'm going to do a coconut fondant filling and put coconut all over the cake. Strawberry, vanilla, chocolate was not bad. Not bad at all.