Cake Numero Dos, or A Lesson on the Consistency of Frosting

Frosting is a finicky friend. We tried to get clever with this cake by creating three different frosting consistencies for:

1. The crumb layer

2. The top and sides of the cake

3.The decorative frosting

Turns out, we're just not that good at working with frosting yet. The crumb layer worked out pretty well, but when we went to ice the sides of the cake gravity overcame us. If you've ever seen the cake from "Sleeping Beauty" (the one with the broom handle holding up the cake layers and all of the frosting and candles sliding down the handle), this was a scale model of that (video below).

Eventually we just started wiping excess frosting off of the base of the cakeboard and throwing it in the sink. The recipe made a lot of frosting.

We used Colette Peter's "Colette's Cakes: The Art of Decorating" as a guide/inspirational source. (Thanks to Leigh for recommending this to us!) We used her Chocolate cake recipe and the buttercream frosting with almond extract instead of vanilla. As there was almond extract in the cake and the frosting, we decided to decorate the cake with crushed almonds. In the end the cake looked better than expected, but was still a bit too sugary.

On the plus side, we now have a tub of extra frosting in the freezer to play with whenever the mood strikes us.