Success!

Here's a pic of the final product. My efforts in icing the cake were not that fantastic today. I think I was really over it by the time I got around to icing it, and tiredness was kicking in.

Despite the substandard icing my mum loved it (but I guess as a mum it's a requisite for her to love everything I make for her) and it was pretty tasty!

The Cake.

Okay so here it is, my version of Magnolia Bakery's popular three-layer Red Velvet cake. It tastes delicious (even if I do say so myself :P) and my dad was suitably surprised :) He didn't expect a cake this year with my injured hand and all, so it definitely made all the time and effort worth it.

I must say it's definitely not an everyday cake. It has so much sugar and butter that I can still feel my arteries reeling in shock.

The frosting is by far my favourite part of the cake (aside from the beautiful red colour). It's a butter roux frosting, where you cook flour in milk and then add it to an incredibly large amount of butter. Was a bit hesitant to try it as I always go with a standard butter cream icing but I will definitely be icing more of my cakes with this. Love it!

Let Them Eat Cake.

Today, as "Birthday Week" continues, my family is celebrating my dad's birthday. Being that I haven't worked for the past month and am strapped for cash, I've decided to take charge of organising a cake.

Since I absolutely love baking I'm thinking this will be fun (even though my right hand is still out of action for the most part). So after consulting my extensive library of cookbooks I've settled on a classic all-American recipe from Magnolia Bakery.

Magnolia Bakery is somewhat of an institution in NYC. They make the most divine Vanilla Cupcakes and Breakfast Buns!

The recipe I've chosen to recreate is a classic Red Velvet Cake with a Creamy Vanilla Icing, and can be found in The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook by Jennifer Appel and Allysa Torey.

Hopefully it will taste good and look like this:

Wish me luck!