Give me "Samoa" that Cake!

Oh birthdays...I love them! Especially when they involve my wonderful boy or my girls! This past Saturday we celebrated Rachel's birthday and I have to say, I wasn't sure I could top what I did for Gen's birthday! Rachel also wanted something very specific and I wasn't really sure I could make that happen either.

But I did...

Enter the tastiest cake I've ever made...

The (total knockoff of a Girl Scout Cookie) Samoa Cake:

Man, it looks like a hot mess in these pictures (and, honestly, it kinda was a hot mess, but there's a reason for that) and it fell apart when we were trying to cut it, but who the heck cares when it tastes just like a Samoa cookie.

If you guys don't know me very well, you might not know that every year I tell myself not to buy Girl Scout cookies from the nanner girl, but every year, she gives me that sad puppy-dog look and her big blue eyes guilt me into buying 3 or 4 boxes of Samoas and 2 boxes of Thin Mints. (As far as I'm concerned, they might as well not even make any of the other cookies. They don't exist to me.) And every year I manage to consume all of the boxes I've bought within two weeks. Sometimes even one.

That said, I knew I had to make this cake taste perfect. To be fair, Rachel didn't ask for a Samoa cake specifically, but she did ask for a chocolate coconut cake and when she said that, all I could think of was the delicious coconut and caramel mix of my favorite cookie drizzled with chocolate on top of shortbread. Sigh...when are those damn girl scouts going to take my order?

I started off by making my own version of the cookie to see if I could get it right, but I used dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate and they didn't taste quite right. I decided to call them Samo-eh's and let E take them to work. Everyone in his office (with the exception of one guy who doesn't like coconuts) liked them fine but agreed that they weren't quite the same.

I perfected my recipe and was all set to go to the grocery on Thursday, but then it started storming like crazy. Another fun fact about me: I HATE thunder. I will not go outside while it is happening and I will not do anything involving me and water. I think I was told as a kid that you shouldn't take showers or baths while it's thundering outside because I won't go near the stuff. I am also pretty sure mom made me try to take naps during storms because they ALWAYS make me sleepy if I'm at home.

So, I made a plan for Friday. I was all set to go. But then I took the nanner kids on a little excursion. On bikes. Down the road. Which was dumb. Everything was going well at first. But then nanner girl, bless her heart, stopped short in front of me and I had to swerve to miss her, causing me and nanner baby to tumble to what could have been our collective doom. Thankfully we lived and he was totally fine. I sustained some minor scrapes, some extensive bruising and a (still) very painful shoulder, elbow and wrist injury.

As it was my dominant wrist that got hurt, making this cake proved to be a challenge, not only to my baking skills, but also to my ability to push through pain. Hence why the cake is a little less clean looking than I would like.

Anyway, here's what's inside. Sorry I don't have a picture of this, but it was rather messy once we cut into it.

It's similar to Gen's cake in that it has layers and the whipped cream but I changed some stuff up a bit.

Layer of dark chocolate cake, layer of dark chocolate icing, layer of homemade shortbread, layer of coconut caramel mixture (just like the cookies...ahhhh), layer of chocolate cream cheese whipped cream. One more layer of that topped with a final layer of cake and SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS...

You've got the interior finished. Now, ice it with the chocolate frosting, cover with chocolate fondant, sprinkle it with leftover shortbread and coconut, drizzle with chocolate.

I'd recommend keeping this in the fridge until you're ready to eat it. The problem lies in the coconut mixture. I have to find a way to keep it softer, even in the fridge, because as it was, it was nearly impossible to cut.

It sure tasted good though...I even got marriage proposals from some of my friends. Although Evan didn't seem amused by this, I took it as a compliment.

Chocolate Covered Goodness!

Sometimes it seems surreal, but almost a decade ago, I met my absolute best friend. We weren't exactly friends at first, but one fateful weekend in our old sorority house, when everyone else had gone home for a break, Gen and I had no choice but to bond. Since then we've done practically everything together. (You know, except for the fact that she has a husband and a kid now, but that's besides the point.) 

Anyway, two weeks ago I got to celebrate Gen's 27th birthday with her. How better to do so than with an epic cake and some new Jessica Simpson shoes! If you don't know me, I LOVE shoes! Evan thinks I have a problem. Maybe I do, but I love the fact that Gen and I wear the same size! 

Nicole, Gen and me in our FAB shoes!
We all love shoes and share excellent taste,
if I do say so myself! :) 

While putting on our dancing shoes and hitting up our favorite places in Buckhead was fun, the cake definitely deserves a mention! I usually try to surprise people, but I pretty much run everything by Gen, so why should this time be any different? I asked her what kind of cake she wanted. She said "chocolate with strawberries. Nothing too fancy."

You really want me to do something simple? I didn't think so! I took her idea and I ran with it.

I knew I wanted to do something with strawberries in the middle and I knew I wanted to layer it a little. Kinda like a trifle, but not really. I started with the basic chocolate cake (2 of them actually) and baked them in the awesome 9x square pans my mom just bought me (thanks mom!). After they cooled, I sliced them and put a thin layer of cream cheese icing on the first layer. Then I put a layer of strawberries on top of that.

A note about the strawberries: I cut them up, sprinkled them with sugar and let them sit for a while. When I say I sprinkled them, that is a lie...I actually poured sugar on them, but I suggest just sprinkling because pouring lead to a massive mess later.

After the strawberries I added a layer of homemade cream cheese-based whipped cream. This stuff was AMAZING! I can't even pretend to be humble about this. It was a total success. You blend the cream cheese and sugar together with my secret ingredient: 2 teaspoons of ALMOND EXTRACT. My Nana is probably fussing at me from Heaven because she believed religiously in vanilla extract and would NEVER have put cream cheese in her whipped cream, but let me tell you...this was a whole new ball game, Nana...you would have been proud. Whip in the heavy whipping cream until it makes a stiff peak. Layer that on top of the strawberries. Add another layer of cake, icing, strawberries and whipped cream. One more layer of cake and you're finished with the inside of the cake.

Stick it in the freezer for a minute while you mix the fondant. I set some aside once it was mixed and left it white. Then I mixed up the color for the rest of it. I was trying to make red, but unfortunately I mixed pink in there instead. Fortunately it ended up looking really pretty so I decided not to freak out about it. Later. I did freak a little at the time and my hands were stained pink for quite some time.

With the leftover white fondant, I did something that most people would call...obsessive. I rolled it all into little tiny balls to look like pearls. :) Pearls make everything classier!

Once the cake was cooled and delicious looking, I covered it with the same cream cheese icing and then rolled out the fondant and placed it over top. Then I stuck it back in the freezer. For good measure. And to solidify its perfection.

While that was going on, I decided to cover some strawberries in chocolate and drizzle with white chocolate on top. Then I did that on the cake too. Top it off with the strawberries and add the pearls at the bottom and voila! You've got a masterpiece for your mouth. Delicious!

Happy Birthday, bestie! So happy we've been friends for so long! You're the best!

Beer me, Baby!!

So. I'm pretty much the best girlfriend in the world at this point. Evan and his twin brother had their birthday this weekend and I have been planning an epic birthday cake for months now. Evan and Cam both really like beer. And I really like challenging myself. So I decided to make a "beeramid" cake.

As much as I would like to go into great detail here, I'm not feeling super hot today and I've got to work (7 days off and I've forgotten how cute these kids are!) so it's gonna be a short post with lots of pictures.

Here's the short-hand how-to...

Cut off the end of a can: 

Spray it with PAM and stuff it with rice krispie treats that you JUST made (don't let them cool down and harden!)

After you've made as many as you want (one batch of rice krispies will make about 4 cans), let them harden over night. 

Cali badly wanted to eat them. Mercedes did too, but she
was trying to be stealthy about it and was hiding
from the camera. Smart cat...

Mock-up of how they'd stack...looking good I think...

Put a ring of fondant around the top and use some fondant to fill in any weird holes or gaps in the treats. 

Then cover the whole thing with grey fondant. I also used a little darker grey to make the hole and the same light grey to make the pop top. :)

Make sure you are using cornstarch to keep the fondant from sticking to your rolling surface or itself. Please avoid getting cornstarch on your dog. She will not like it. 

Now you've got to figure out what you need to do for the labels. I talked to one of Evan and Cam's best friends, Andy, who just happens to know everything there is to know about craft beer. I asked him to send me a few pics of craft beers in cans that the twins liked. He recommended Brew Free or Die, Gordon, Dale's Pale Ale, Surly Furious and then I added in Yuengling because I know Cam likes it. 

I rolled out white fondant in the right size for a label and used edible markers to decorate. The lovely ladies at Cake Art also suggested this white edible food coloring that I used much like acrylic paint. It worked some of the time, but not all of the time. Might have been user error on that one. 

Anyway, I can't tell you how I made the labels look so awesome because I'm just talented like that...ok, I'm just really good at copying things. But I still can't help you get better at that. You have to do that for yourself. Anyway, I finished up the beer cans and decided to do some playing cards as well. Reason for this: anytime there ends up being a "beeramid" on the table, there has usually been a drinking game of some sort that involves playing cards. Simple enough. 

Anyway, the next day, Cam's girlfriend, Allie came over to help me do the grunt work. We made the cake (1/2 sheet red velvet...exciting, right?) and covered it in icing and fondant. She also had the great idea to make a playstation remote for the cake as well. Since I am lousy at sculpting on my own, I was glad she was there to do that part. She sculpted the remote and I made the buttons. Then we decided it was time to add everything to the cake. 

We used skewers to make sure the cans stayed where we wanted. That was harder than it looks.

Remote close-up

Crushed can: I carved some of the sides out and made it
look all crushed like that before I added the label.

The cake with all the candles.
There is a napkin in front of it for a reason.
Someone decided to put their finger in it. :(

Anyway, that's all she wrote. Hopefully y'all liked the cake. I sure enjoyed making it! :) Thanks for the help, Allie! Happy Birthday, boys! :) 

Chow down!!