The Saucy Kitchen: August 2011

Yesterday was my one year wedding anniversary. Can you believe it? One whole year. It went by so quickly I can hardly believe it myself. A new job, quitting old jobs, being unemployed, moving across the country. It's been super busy and crazy, but equally as fun. We've been truly blessed this past year and I thought it would be nice to celebrate at home - with a nice dinner, some champagne, netflix, and this Sunday Night Cake from Baked: Explorations.

I know! You are supposed to eat your wedding cake on your one year anniversary, but I couldn't eat my wedding cake on my wedding day. Well, I could eat the "groom's cake" that my lovely aunt made for us, but not the tiered one, so there's no top tier for us to eat. And really, I don't know the reason or tradition behind eating the old cake, but for me, wasting freezer space on old cake for an entire year seems pretty silly, especially when you can make fresh, yummy cake for the occasion.

This Sunday Night Cake was noted to be pretty easy and quick to make - which is why it is called Sunday Night cake and not Friday Night cake. It was painless - even for me. I was surprised by how fluffy the batter was - I had to restrain myself from just liking it right out of the bowl. I did substitute strained sheep's yogurt for the sour cream as I've done in the past, but that was my only substitution in the batter. I baked mine for 40 minutes in our toaster oven although it came out a bit too toasty. Next time I'll be sure to check on it when it's coming up on 30 minutes.

I baked my cake in a round pan (8 or 9 inch-ish) since that's what I had. It occurred to me later that I probably could have used a glass baking dish that I did have, but oh well. I think that if I had made it in the square pan, or in a springform pan (which would have had taller edges, allowing the cake to rise higher?) that it might have grown a bit taller and been more airy. But we're all short in this house, so I guess the cake fits in.

For the frosting, I used 62% Cocoa dark chocolate instead of the unsweetened the recipe suggests because that's what I had on hand. I don't know what the unsweetened version tasted like, but this was amazing. I did manage to frost the cake, but I for sure licked the bowl when I was done. It wasn't too sweet as cake frosting usually are and, like the donuts, the flavor of the frosting complimented the spice in the cake in the most delicious way possible.

I was pleased with the ease of preparation and flavor of this cake. It was a bit on the dense side for me, but still moist despite me baking it into obliteration. I was a bit hesitant while frosting the cake as it seemed like a crazy amount, but was glad I went all out. Because the cake is so dense, for me, the added frosting helped balance out the cake to frosting ratio, especially since there are no layers to get a bit more frosting in there.

We served this with a dinner of homemade calzones (as requested by the hubs), sauteed french beans and of course, a glass of champagne to celebrate our one year and toast many more to come.

To see how this turned out for the other bakers, check out this link. For the Sunday Night cake recipe, check out Julie's blog, Little Bit of Everything. Thanks, Julie for hosting!