Let's Build a Wedding Cake

I've got cake on the brain lately. I can't even sleep I'm thinking so much about cakes. Why, you might ask? I am serious about making an outstanding wedding cake for my littlest sister's wedding. The problem is I have never attempted something this big!
Even though Sept 10th, the big day, seems far away, I wanted to get my cake game on now. This is sort of unlike me to plan this far ahead. I'm excellent at procrastinating and becoming productive under pressure. However, I have seen what happens to my birthday cakes under pressure, and the results are all over the board: sometimes they work and sometimes they don't! Luckily I was excited enough about the project to start early, 2 weeks ago to be exact.
I broke this big project down into phases:

Phase 1: Research, research, research. Gather supplies. Finalize the plan.
Phase 2: Recipe taste testings. Make a small version of the recipes in my 6 inch pans.
Phase 3: Practice my icing decorating.
Phase 4: Wedding shower cake practice.
Phase 5: Make and freeze THE cakes.
Phase 6: Frost the cakes.
Final Phase: Put it all together and get it to the reception.

7 phases, that's a lot of work. It's a good thing I started early! Here's where we are, as of today with just less than 6 weeks to go:

Phase 1... complete!
Phase 2... complete!

After sampling Smitten Kitchen's wedding cakes and icing recipes, we have approvals all around. Well, the bride hasn't tasted it, but I'm sure she will love it since all of my other taste testers approved!
One layer will be vanilla cake with strawberry filling. Here is the sample cake we tasted:

The other layer will be chocolate cake with caramel filling. The icing is a brown sugar Swiss Butter Cream. Sample cake:

These cakes haven't had the crumb coating or turn table treatment yet since they were for tasting purposes, but they still turned out pretty beautiful!
Now it's time to practice my smoothing and piping skills!
Stay tuned...

recipes: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/07/project-wedding-cake-the-cake-is-baked/
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/07/project-wedding-cake-swiss-buttercream/

The Best Chocolate Mug Cake

This is my Baby. He doesn't like cake, he won't eat it even when I try to sneak a taste in his mouth. Tonight though, I somehow convinced him to try this Mug Cake and he loved it! He ate all of his portion and asked for more!
This is the best mug cake, ever. It's almost more like a brownie.
I have adjusted the cooking time and the amount of cocoa and sugar a little from the original recipe.
Try it!!!!

It's rich, so it makes about 4 servings (can cut in half and cook for half the time)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup flour
3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa
6 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk + 2 Tbsp milk
4 Tbsp oil
1 - 2 Tbsp chocolate hazelnut spread (optional)

Directions:

1. Spray a glass measuring cup (I use the 6 cup size) with cooking spray.
2. Dump all the dry ingredients into the cup and mix well, making sure you don't see any powders along the corners and bottom of the cup when you look through.
3. Add the milk and oil and mix well, making sure all the dry ingredients in the corners are incorporated.
4. Add hazelnut spread on top of the batter. No need to push it down.
5. Bake for 3 min.
6. Cool for a minute or so, and enjoy!

We topped ours with cool whip and berries but didn't include the hazelnut spread.

original recipe: http://www.tablefortwoblog.com/the-moistest-chocolate-mug-cake/#.Uw0RgvTqeGI