interfaith baking contest - round two

So just for kicks, I've submitted a second cake (see first)to John Mayer's baking celebration. I love the premise behind the contest, and I love what sweet treats do for the soul. It also didn't hurt to have two complete different cake pans in the pantry.

With the cake one, I knew right away what I wanted to do. But this, a football helmet, was a little tougher. Do I try and match a colour to something...John's high school team? Or better yet, how do I applying the icing to this very shaped cake? What about the base? I'd just eaten one style, so I knew it required something more.

The cake did stick, and doesn't look good at all here. That's what icing is for!

The icing I decided would again be green and red for the season, with 'peach' for the skin. The icing, was created from the Wilton site and whipped together amazingly. Seriously, it piped like money. The cake, well, I owe that to the Fresh Loaf, where I first discovered this Guinness chocolate cake. The most amazing chocolate cake ever.

This cake, as long as you make it as Qahtan says, is always a hit. Rich and full of cocoa, feel free to add some extra chocolate (I grated in a few ounces of high quality chocolate) and the cake didn't disappoint. The icing, while a little sweeter than I like, tasted smooth. The worst part of this experience was the piping. I'd never attempted the individual rosettes (or whatever you call them), and it took forever. My thumb, and the area around it, ached after a few hours. Yes hours. From the initial mixing of ingredients to a complete finished product took 5 hours. After which I dropped it off at Sarah's work and it was devoured in 5 minutes. Funny how things like that work.

*Seriously don't even bother covering the cake with icing if you make it. Just slice a piece, and either top with a scoop of cream (or ice cream). Fantastic.

**the second photo is care of Sean at Statusfirm, who used the picture on his 365 day photo blog.