Cakes, Cakes, Cakes

  Prepare to be inundated with cakes! Delicious cakes!

  That should have been my mantra for the month of January. My birthday was on the 14th, and I had a hankerin' (yes, an actual hankerin') for a cake with lime flavors. I have no idea why, but that's what I wanted. The cake pictured above is the one I made.
  I had heard about using soda with cake mixes instead of water, and how you could add subtle flavors that way. My original intention was to try making my lemon cake with a lemon-lime soda, and then using lemon frosting. Well, as it turns out, the supermarket didn't have any lemon cake. Now, before you vilify me for using a boxed cake mix, you should know that I do cut corners from time to time. If you're interested in making your own cake from scratch, more power to you.
  The only cake they had that I could use for the flavor I wanted was plain white. I had looked at a recipe that talked about using Jell-o to flavor cake batter, so I grabbed some lime Jell-o mix and went to work.
  The fantastic recipe I used came from Sugar Baby Aprons and was, in fact, a key-lime cake. I went a little bit of a different way with my version, using their frosting only as a filler between my two cake tiers. For the outside frosting, I made a simple classic buttercream, the recipe for which can be found at Savory Sweet Life.
  As you can see in the picture below, I also added a bit of green food coloring to the batter to really prepare people for the lime taste.

  I have to say, this recipe was fantastic, and I would definitely make it again. It's more of a summer cake, but here in southern California, it never really feels like winter.

"But you said cakes. CAKES- as in plural." Yes, I did. Unbeknownst to me, my sweet girlfriend had picked up a birthday cake for me as well:

  This chocolatey deliciousness came from Gelson's Supermarket- a place where I often admire the artistry on display in the bakery. The frosting was a light whipped-cream variety, and the cake was moist and very flavorful.
  Then came a baby shower for a friend of ours on the weekend. They bought two sheet cakes, which was one too many, so I "took one for the team" and volunteered to bring about 3/4 of THIS cake home:

  It was tasty, but certainly nothing special. If you've had one store-bought sheet cake, you've had them all.

  Lastly, just because this post is all about cakes, I'll leave you with this crazy experiment with fondant that I did back in 2010:

  That was my first and only time working with fondant, building edible flowers, and all that jazz. Everything came out fine, but it was a LOT of work. That's the only reason I haven't attempted something like that again. Well, that, and there's typically nobody to eat such a creation except me, and I'm really trying to be a bit healthier (this cakey month notwithstanding). You can see a step-by-step article about how I made that cake at my old blog here.

  Until next time, fellow diners!