A Baby Shower

My younger sister, Alexis, is expecting a baby girl very soon.

I wanted to make a cake for her baby shower. We got together so I could show her some photos of cakes I thought were cute, and she put together a picture of exactly what she wanted. Her idea was adorable, and I couldn't wait to bring it to life.

I am thrilled with the result of this cake! I was able to match it nearly perfectly with Alexis' drawing, and she loved it. I should mention this is only the second big cake like this that I have made.

The bottom tier is a styrofoam cake dummy, used to add height to the cake without the need of extra unneccesary cake. Second tier is Strawberry Cake with a yummy Strawberry filling. Third tier is Vanilla cake with Bavarian Cream filling. The whole cake is covered with Marshmallow Fondant, and the decorations on 1 & 2 are also MMF. 3's decorations are buttercream frosting. And the whole thing is topped off with an adorable pink baby elephant sugar cookie.

Everything in and on the cake is homemade by myself, except for the fillings which were purchased at Orson Gygi here in Salt Lake just to save myself some time.




Mommy & her cake



Cutting the cake



I used the famous White Almond Sour Cream Cake recipe for the cakes. This is a doctored cake mix recipe. I usually try to avoid recipes like this, but this cake is wonderful. It tastes amazing, it's very moist, and has a great dense texture that is perfect for stacking and carving cakes.





Strawberry Cake, Strawberry Filling

Vanilla Cake, Bavarian Cream Filling

There were a lot of other yummy foods at the shower.

Chicken salad croissant sandwiches, a spicy pasta salad, buffalo chicken dip, tortilla rollups, and sugar cookies.
I thought they were all so good that I'm going to share the recipes for everything in the following weeks. :)

I had a lot of fun celebrating the new life in my family. This will be my first niece, and I can't wait 'til the day she arrives!



-Jess

White Almond Sour Cream Cake (WASC)

Slightly adapted from a Recipe found on Food.com

Normally this recipe is doubled, I cut it down for each cake that I made. You can look at Food's website for information on how much cake one recipe makes. With the recipe I'm providing I was able to make two 8-inch round 3-inch deep cakes.

1 Box white cake mix (see hints below)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
4 egg whites
1 1/3 cups water
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
½ cup sour cream
½ cup vanilla yogurt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract*

*Optional. If you don't like almond, just use 3 teaspoons of vanilla.

Preheat oven to 325°. Cut rounds out of parchment paper the same size as the cake pans you will be using. Spray cake pans with non-stick cooking spray, place parchment rounds in bottoms of pans and lightly spray again.

Mix all dry ingredients with a whisk in a very large mixing bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and beat on low speed until just combined. I beat mine until there are still little chunks left in it. Pour into prepared pans, 2/3's full.

Bake in preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. For my 8-inch cakes, this took about 45-50 minutes.

Let cool in pans on cooling rack for 20 minutes. Remove from pans to finish cooling.

Helpful Hints:

*To keep the surface of the cake even while baking, I take a metal flower nail and stick it right in the center of the cake batter in the pan before baking it. This helps distribute heat evenly throughout the cake, leaving the top nice and even. When the cake is done baking, and cooled, you can flip it over and pull the nail right out.

*You can make any flavor of this cake that you can find in cake mixes. Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, Cherry, Spice, Red Velvet, Devil's Food... Anything! For any cake other than vanilla or white, I'd recommend ommitting the almond extract.
-For strawberry & cherry cakes, you may choose to use a corresponding extract, but I just used all vanilla extract for my strawberry cake and it was wonderful. Also, replace vanilla yogurt with strawberry or cherry yogurt.

-For chocolate cake, remove 1/3 cup from flour and replace it with cocoa powder and replace vanilla yogurt with chocolate yogurt (Yoplait makes some).

*This cake freezes very well. After completely cooled, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and stick in freezer. It will hold for up to a year this way. Freezing the cake allows you to make the cake ahead of time, and also makes it very easy to cut into layers for filling.