Two years ago I began my foray into cake-decorating. It all started when a group of my classmates planned a baby shower for one of our own who was expecting a baby girl. I volunteered to bring a dessert - by this point I was proficient at homemade brownies, and thought that graduating to baking a real cake would be...a piece of cake. I searched online for ideas and was captured by the look of a classic - the baby blocks cake. The next thing I needed to to do was find an appropriate recipe. When I stumbled across the almond pound cake recipe, I knew it was the one.
The recipe claims to serve 24 with three blocks, so I doubled the recipe just in case. Since this really was my first baking experiment of this kind, I acquired at that time some of the tools I now use quite often - a hand mixer, silicone cake pans, and a set of sturdy mixing bowls. I was very hesitant to even buy a mixer, thinking that I would never use it again, and now am so glad that I did. Little did I know at the time that this would turn into a preferred pastime for me!
The construction of the baby blocks cake is similar to the aforementioned bridal shower cake. Each batch of batter fills two 8x8 cake pans. After baking and cooling, each of those layers is torted, then bisected vertically and horizontally to yield a total of sixteen thin 4x4 inch squares of cake. The squares are stacked, five per block, with raspberry jam between the layers. After overnight refrigeration, a layer of whipped cream frosting is applied to the sides and top of each block, and they are stacked and decorated as desired.
Since this was before I had learned anything about cake decorating, I used liquid food coloring to tint my frosting, which thinned it and made the concoction slightly difficult to work with. Without the appropriate tools, I spread my frosting on with rubber spatulas and smoothed it with a table knife. I stuffed some reserved white frosting in a ziploc bag with a #5 tip from a small decorating set I had found at Target, and piped on the decorations with a shaking hand. The baby's name fit well across the front of the cake, thanks to my preliminary planning sketches which directed block placement. On the top of the cake was a congratulatory message to the new parents in script.
The baby shower was planned to be at the house of a school employee who was good friends with the new mother. Unfortunately, that very morning, the hostess' son had a health emergency and she was unable to be home for the party. I had been wondering how I would transport this large, heavy, and somewhat fragile cake creation anyway, so my roommate and I offered to host the party at our place instead. My cake survived its short journey from the kitchen to the dining room table, and all was well. The guests were impressed by the three dimensional effect, and the cake was pronounced delicious by all in attendance! This is a fun cake to make for a baby shower, and I look forward to attempting it again if the occasion arises.
I feel that I've come a long way as a baker since my first cake, and hope to improve even more with additional practice!
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