Cakes for a Good Cause

Every Father's Day weekend, my church holds its annual summer bazaar (or Festivale Italiano, if you will), and for the past couple years I've done my part by making cakes for the cake booth.

I love our summer festival, because aside from getting to see people and eat really good chicken barbeque, it's for a good cause - the proceeds go towards our town's Catholic school, which serves kids from all over the county (as it's the only Catholic school in the county).

This year, I made a lemon Bundt cake with lemon icing, a dark chocolate fudge Bundt cake with chocolate frosting, and devil's food chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and caramel frosting with chocolate sprinkles.

I apologize for the beyond bizarre way these cakes seem to have anti-gravity properties in this picture.  Their only superpower is deliciousness.

I actually bought five cake mixes (Walmart was having a big sale) but only ended up using three of them.  It was a very busy week.  I prefer Duncan Hines cake mixes - I find it moist and makes the least amount of crumbs.  Of course, I also have certain tools that I used when making these cakes.  Among them are my KitchenAid mixer, my Wilton brand Bundt pan, my Wilton muffin tin, and Wilton Cake Release.

First up was the lemon Bundt.  Very basic, really.  I whipped up the batter, baked it according to package directions.  It smelled so summery and refreshing!  I had some lemon flavored icing I'd made for my grandmother's birthday cake a couple weeks before - not enough to cover the cake completely, but I kind of liked the semi-covered look.  Then I sprinkled the top with yellow Wilton colored sugar.

Now, the chocolate Bundt started off the same way - mix the batter, bake in the Wilton Bundt pan.  But then I started thinking....  how can I make this cake awesome?

Well, I still had some of that chocolate buttercream frosting leftover from the 12-layer cake I made the week before.  While I'd certainly snuck a spoonful of that buttercream here and there over the past week, I didn't really have any reason to use it up and I didn't want it to go to waste.  So I filled up a decorating bag fitted with a Bismarck tip with the leftover buttercream and decided to fill my chocolate Bundt.

Pretty cool, huh?  Plus, once it was frosted, nobody could tell that there was a surprise waiting inside.

And speaking of decorating.... I just bought a can of chocolate frosting, because really who has time to make frosting for multiple cakes in one day?  And then once I'd frosted the cake, I thought it needed something.

I was in a big "Let's use up some leftover stuff" mood.  I had about half a container of candied cherries leftover from when I made almond paste cookies at Christmas time, and even though they were candied, I wanted to use them up.  So I made the chocolate Bundt a little "prettier" than normal.

I had just enough cherries to ring the bottom and dot the top.  In hindsight, imagine how cool it would've looked with red AND green candied cherries....  And maybe white chocolate drizzle.... It would look so Italian!




Then it was time to move on to the cupcakes.  Baking cupcakes is simple, especially if you line the cups.  But I wanted the cupcakes to be special too.  So I filled them with chocolate buttercream as well.

Then I went to ice them.  I didn't have enough chocolate frosting to do all 24 cupcakes, so I broke open the can of caramel frosting.

Interesting.

The caramel frosting needed something more, though, so I decorated those cupcakes with chocolate sprinkles.

I didn't have enough room in my round cake tins (which I used for easier transport) for all the cupcakes.  They each only fit 7 cupcakes.

My husband and I were forced to eat the remaining three cupcakes.

Oh the humanity!