Sunday, March 02, 2008

The 'Mother' of All Cakes

In every person's life, there is the 'It Girl' when it comes to desserts... Of course it changes. One day we are obsessed with making chocolate chip cookies... and then the next, coconut cake is our thing.

My 'It Girl' at the moment is Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake. You may remember that I made this cake recently when I had leftover Guinness from making a Guinness beef stew -- which, by the way, is my 'It Girl' of comforting suppers. My sister had come around for the cake and loved it. It has become my idea, as well, of the ultimate chocolate cake. My sister's friend had seen that blog post, and a couple of weeks later, asked that I bake a cake for the baby shower she was throwing for my sister.

There's no use faffing about with something new, especially when the cake was going to feed about 14, so I went to my ultimate chocolate cake, and one that I knew that at least two people would love. :)

But this time, since it was a party after all, I couldn't leave it unadorned. I am incapable of making decorations, so I knew I would have to buy those. I admit, I could have gone the kitsch route with getting some baby blocks in pink or something, but I wanted to keep it simple. I love flowers, and since this will be a Spring baby, I got some lovely daffodil sugar flowers. I also got peach colored sugar roses, not sure if I would use those instead. In the end, I decided to dot the middle of the cake with the rose with the daffodils forming the gorgeous crown around. The icing, of course, was the cream cheese icing in the same recipe for the cake.


All the girls loved it! I was really happy it turned out well and that it survived the almost two hour trip to Long Island. Which really is the reason it is the 'It Girl' of cakes. Delicious, can be made in advance, and portable. That's a triple threat, methinks.

12 comments:

Sarah Nicole said...

So Ilana, I assume your sister is having a girl? :)

The cake looks great by the way.

xx
Sarah

Anonymous said...

Wow Ilana! What a great shot! I must make that cake again soon...

Maria♥ said...

Ilana love the decoration. I am planning on making this cake for St Patricks Day, I make it every year.

Maria
x

Anonymous said...

Wow Ilana,
Those flowers are so cute, This cake really is wonderful isn't it.

Anonymous said...

Ilana, it was also your birthday cake last year if you remember (even if you did have to ice it yourself).

Francesca xxx's

Lady M said...

I do remember that, F! :)) And very delicious it was. Don't worry. Icing the cake was definitely good practice for this time around. Wish you were here to enjoy it!

xoxo
Ilana

p.s. Thank you all, for your nice comments. :) I definitely the decorations made it more glam. Too bad I didn't make them myself! :S

hungryandfrozen said...

Gorgeous photo - love those sugar roses. The chocolate guinness cake is one of my favourites - it's amazing!

Kelly-Jane said...

Very pretty cake, well done you! =)

Anna's kitchen table said...

Gorgeous cake Ilana, really stunning!!
xx

Lisa said...

Yes, I was wondering the same thing: if you are expecting a niece!?
The cake is so pretty!

Rhyleysgranny said...

You decorations are gorgeous and so is the cake.

Lady M said...

Thank you all again for your lovely comments.

xoxo
Ilana