Cakes Red & Green Christmas Cake Story by msbelle

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Cakes Red & Green Christmas Cake Story
Submitted by msbelle on December 08, 2008 at 8:07 pm

DESCRIPTION
Red & Green Christmas Cake Story

SUMMARY
Yield 0 File under cakes, Christmas

INGREDIENTS
See story under instructions.

INSTRUCTIONS
This weekend I attempted to make a green cake with red filling between layers and white on top and sides for DH siblings' Christmas meal at our house. It turned into a "Lucille Ball" afternoon - not moment - afternoon.

For the green cake, I made a Pistachio cake (it's pretty and very tasty). I made the Marshmallow Cream Cheese Frosting with coconut and set aside a small amount to color red for filling. Backing up a bit, the frosting wasn't thick as it was supposed to be, so I ran up to an upstairs neighbor to borrow powdered sugar to add. She gave me her brand new box. Back downstairs, I start to open the box and it said "granulated." Opened it and checked it out and sure enough it was granulated. The box looked just like a 1 lb box of confectioner's sugar. Take the box back upstairs and asked to borrow her "powdered" sugar. She didn't have any.

Back downstairs I got on the computer to find the formula for making powdered sugar out of granulated. "Just put some in the blender and give it a whirl." Well, I had given away my blender when we moved here. Not to be outdone, I put it in my Cuisinart chopper, grinder. Not much happened. DH had been asleep in his chair and "somehow" was awakened. He assured me he could find it at the store nearby. I dig in the garbage for the empty bag for him to take with him. He has more luck these days if he has a visual-aid. He did find it.

Brand new sugar was added to the frosting, both red and white, and I put the red between the green layers and it was just beautiful. I did the bottom layer completely, first and that went pretty good. Next came the all-over white frosting. From there things went down hill; or off the cake I should say. The top layer was placed on top and white frosting was gently applied to the side. After a dab or two was on, I noticed the first part had started pulling off the cake bringing with it the white from the bottom layer, as well as the red from the middle. I stopped and patched up those places. And, yes some white was now a little pink.

I decided to try working real fast to get ahead of the avalanches now occurring all around the cake. It was hysterical. Did you know that one little speck of red can taint a whole batch of white? Well, it can! By now, with so many places to be reworked, the whole thing was becoming pink ---as well as my fingers and the cake stand and the cloth underneath the stand. This 15 minute icing job had now turned into an hour and I had one huge mess.

It was now getting time for the annual Christmas Tea for the entire Village. It's a lovely affair that I did not want to miss. I took the cake layers to the garbage can and, using a case knife, raked all the red off I could, covered the layers to keep from drying out. Got dressed up and went to the tea. It was nice but I kept thinking about how I was not going to be outdone by that red food coloring.

Back to the apartment, I made a brand new batch of frosting and this time it had a wonderful consistency. Iced the cake inside and out with white and it looked beautiful. Well, when we cut the cake, there was just enough red remaining on the layers to give the suggestion of red and really looked good. It tasted delicious, and they loved it.

It probably was divine intervention that caused the whole fiasco because that hint of red had a whang to it and I shutter to think what an entire layer in between would have tasted like. It would have been ruined. Next time I try coloring any food red, I may try beet juice. Merry Christmas. Msbelle

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