Take that Cupcake

I am not sure why, but for Jelly's first Birthday, I decided to make the cake. My mom always made ours and I thought, why can't I? Store bought ones are nice. They generally taste decent, and let's face it, it is easy to just order one and pick it up. Not to mention that the stores have made them pretty economical.

I have been experimenting with my own cake recipe from scratch. None of that box mix stuff for me. (insert snooty stuck up face here). Really it wasn't a matter of being too stuck up, or I have to be the best Suzie Homemaker, it came down to a challenge for myself. As a SAHM, there really is not a whole lot of goal setting other than to make it through a day with out loosing my mind, I gave up on the clean house a long time ago.

I wanted to see if I could make a beautiful and fun cake for my daughter. Not to mention there was some guilt that I was not having the rip roaring first birthday party for Jelly that we had for Cookie. I wanted to make the day extra special...maybe a little bit just for myself. As we have no intentions of having more kids....this is my last (hopefully) planning of a first birthday party. I am saying goodbye to having a baby and hello to toddler years....and heaven help us, ages two and three and then the teenage years.



My first challenge was not the actual cake recipe, as I had mastered that a couple months before, it was the icing and the actual putting together the cake. A couple weeks before Jelly's birthday, I decided to have a dry run so to speak. I have a wonderful cream cheese icing recipe, that I wanted to try on the cake......let's just say, it is great for cupcakes and regular cakes, bad for "designer" cakes, as the icing kinda just melted right off. But my buttercream icing that I made for the filling was wonderful. While the first try was pretty bad, the final, I must say was great.



While the idea for a fish bowl cake was not original, I made it my own. Below I have included my cake recipe. It is perfect for anyone who wants to make a cake they need to cut and mold into a shape.

Yellow Cake Recipe

Ingredients
2 1/3 cups of all purpose flour/shifted
1 tbsp baking powder
dash of salt
1 cup of white sugar
1/2 cup applesauce
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Mix in applesauce until fine crumbs are formed. Add eggs, milk, and vanilla. Beat at a low speed for 1 minute, then high for 2 minutes, scraping the bowl frequently.

2. Pour batter into greased and floured cake pans. Bake ina preheated 350 degree oven for 25-30 minutes.