Valentine's Baking

Since I had to stay up all night (in transition to work night shifts the next two nights) I decided to do a little baking for Valentine's Day.

My first project was to make something that I could take to work. I wanted it to be something to do with Valentines day without being all pink and having hearts all over. So... my inspiration was a chocolate covered strawberry. I started by mixing up a chocolate cake batter in one bowl, and then a strawberry cake batter in another bowl. I then used 3, 9-inch round pans and poured the batter in alternating rings so when the layers are stacked together it will look like a checkerboard pattern. It sounds confusing and I wish I would have remembered to take a picture, but really I just used a plastic separator/divider to create the circles of batter, and lifted them out once all the rings were filled. The chocolate recipe was just a basic one I have done before... I am pretty sure I have already posted at one time. The strawberry cake was a new recipe which I can say I really do like (I will post recipe later). Once I had the three layers assembled, I frosted them in chocolate frosting, and melted chocolate chips and butter to make a chocolate glaze that I poured over top (and later became a hard shell). I then made some chocolate covered strawberries, placed them on top, and sifted a touch of powdered sugar over the whole thing. Here is the end result:

The next cake that I tackled was a red velvet cake for Brandon to take to work. I have never made a red velvet cake before, so this was a new recipe too (obviously). It looked good, but I didn't try any of it, so hopefully it turned out ok. It felt a little dense, but oh well. The recipe for the frosting however, is probably my new favorite icing and I will definitely be using it again. It started with a milk and flour base that is heated and thickened on the stove top, and then combined with creamed butter, sugar, and vanilla. I have never made a frosting that way (and yes, it takes a little more time) but I think it tastes so much better than the normal powdered sugar/milk/butter combo that I knew as a kid. I will post the recipes for both of the cakes and frosting another day, but I just wanted to show off my pictures :) Hopefully I will get to take a pic of the insides of the cakes to se the layers... we shall see

I did have some leftover batter, so I made a few cupcakes. I frosted them with a little of the leftover frosting, put red tinted sugar on top, and then made piped/hardened chocolate hearts to decorate as well.