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Saturday, January 17, 2015

Spumoni Birthday Cake




A few years ago we were invited out to dinner. 
We had never visited this restaurant before 
and I have to say I was
very disappointed with my menu selections.

For the main course I ordered
Broasted Chicken.
It made sense to me that Broasted 
should be a compound word
for "oven baked-roasted".

I was wrong.
And although the server offered to bring
me something else, he seemed rather frustrated
that everyone at the table agreed
I was served deep fried chicken.
I declined the offer.
I ordered it, so I ate it.
 Eventhough something deep-fried 
was the very thing I was trying to avoid.

Turns out "Broasted" is different than deep-fried
 in, as far as I can understand, that
deep-fried foods are cooked by floating
 on top of the oils, cooking one side at a time 
and requiring turning to cook both sides.
Broasted foods, on the other hand,
are pressure cooked in the oils so that all sides
are cooked evenly at the same time.
Okay, so I learned something I didn't know before.

For the dessert course
I settled on a Spumoni Cake.
Mmm, I thought, I'm already familiar
with Spumoni ice cream...
the Italian version of Neapolitan
with flavors of Chocolate, Cherry and Pistachio.
Love it.

I could envision the cake wondering
would these three flavors be a
bundt style cake where the flavors
were swirled all around?
Or, would it be a beautiful 
three (3) layer cake?
I was excited to try it and couldn't wait
for our server to bring it.
It would be the perfect end to a not so perfect
meal.

And when the server came
he set a bowl of ice cream in front of me!

Ice Cream?!?!?!?!? 
Really?
Did the menu description
say anything about ice cream?

NO,   it said, 
plainly in black and white,
Spumoni CAKE
ice cream is not cake, folks.

Well you can see how I've overcome
my dissappointment over the years. Ha
I can tell you this, I've learned to ask my 
restaurant servers alot of questions
about menu items, their ingredients and 
how they are prepared. 

So,
this week was my husband's birthday.
I haven't forgotten the beautiful
Spumoni Cake I'd envisioned that night.

For this birthday I departed
from the usual predictable decorated
birthday cake and made a 
Spumoni Cake.


I didn't follow a recipe but used
these cake mixes.



Each mix made two layers
so, after baked, I put one layer of each flavor
in the freezer for another time.




To the chocolate cake I piped Nutella into the
cake batter.  Being rather thick, it didn't want to break off so
became these little strips instead of little dollops.



To the Cherry Chip cake I added 
chopped maraschino cherries and a couple
drops of red food coloring.
It turned out a pretty pink but looks kinda
orange here.



To the white cake I added a 1/2 teaspoon
or so of almond extract and 4 drops of
green food coloring.


I wanted a light whippy "frosting".
And discovered a product called TruWhip which is 
an alternative to Cool Whip
that claims
all natural, non gmo certified, 
has no hydrogenated oils,
no high fructose corn syrup.

I stirred together
a small box of instant pistachio pudding mix
and 1/3 - 1/2 cup of milk
and folded it together with 1 container of TruWhip.


(This wasn't quite enough to finish the job
so I ended up making a second batch
of my pistachio pudding and TruWhip
whippy frosting and used
 most, or at least more than half, of the
second batch.)




I stacked the cakes with the 
chocolate on the bottom
cherry chip in the center
 and almond flavored white cake
tinted a pale minty green  on top.

Frosted all the sides and piped rosettes on the top
to hold the candles.


There....all done.







 Pistachios sprinkled around the top
or pressed onto the sides of this cake 
would have been more impressive,
but pistachios, being a softer nut, can get soggy
and need to go on immediately before serving.
 I opted not to add any to this cake.








Delicious!!!!!!!!!!



Happy Birthday Dear




Sharing at Jan's Daily Cup


3 comments:

  1. The cake is adorable, and looks soooo good!
    I bet it was very appreciated too!
    Great Job!
    Erica :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your cake looks delicious! That is disappointing to get not only one item that is not what you expected, but two. I have never heard of the term broasted, but I would have thought the same. Thanks for sharing with SYC.
    hugs,
    Jann

    ReplyDelete

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