Chalk it up to a learning experience—Birthday Cake

As I posted earlier, it was my mother-in-law's 70th birthday last week. I wanted to make a cake from scratch seeing as it was a rather milestone-ish birthday and also because she's pre-diabetic and wanted to make her something she could enjoy.

I found a recipe on Splenda's website that looked promising, so I went to the store to pick up any ingredients I didn't have on hand, mainly the Splenda Sugar Blend (half sugar, half Splenda) and cake flour. Plus I needed the ingredients for the frosting. I wanted to make a whipped cream frosting recipe I stumbled upon, but I'm not in the habit of keeping 2 cups of whipping cream handy!

I mixed the ingredients as directed and the batter looked perfect and tasted great.


I carefully cut out parchment paper liners for the pans, greased and floured them as I'd read about in other recipes. Shiny Distraction post tangent: I love parchment paper. I honestly don't recall how I "discovered" it, but ever since that day, I haven't baked without it. It's the greatest thing since sliced bread and is perfect for cookies, bread, and as I've now learned, for lining cake pans.
They baked very quickly—in 20 minutes and I probably could have taken them out a few minutes before that. As you can see below, they didn't rise very much. Hm.


I took them out of the pans and let them cool on the counter until I went to bed, at which time I put them in the refrigerator. I wanted them completely cooled before icing.

The next morning, I set out the cream cheese to get to room temp while I exercised and get ready for work. I decided to whip up (literally) the icing and frost the cake before heading into work.


Making the frosting was a cinch. The only problem was that it was a bit thin for the filling especially after mixing in the preserves (I wanted the center filling to be a berry-flavored cream, similar to one a co-worker makes for her amazing cakes).


Unfortunately, mine didn't work the way I wanted. It oozed out all down the sides - crap! (Check out the first picture in this post. You can see the pink filling all along the bottom edge.) I propped up the top layer with tooth picks, slathered on the plain (and OH so delicious) whipped icing to stem the flow, and popped it back in the fridge.

I was disappointed with how the frosting behaved, but was more disappointed with how the cake tasted. More to the point, I was surprised—and disappointed—by the texture. It was very dense. Not even remotely light and fluffy. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, given how little they rose during baking. It was very similar to pound cake, really. I won't be making that one again, but am chalking this up to a learning experience. Gotta start somewhere.

The recipe for the cake can be found here. Below is the frosting recipe, which was NOT disappointing. If your heart can take it, here's the recipe:



Whipped Cream Frosting
2 cups heavy whipping cream
8 oz. cream cheese - regular NOT whipped
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Whip cream cheese, sugar and vanilla together in stand mixer or use hand mixer. Add cream in a slow stream, scraping sides of bowl as necessary. Whip until stiff peaks form. (The preserves was an alteration I made, and despite the fact that it made the frosting rather runny, it was delicious!)