Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Adventures as Hippie Betty Crocker*

Song of the Day:  The Lego Movie - Everything Is AWESOME

Yesterday was my wonderful husband's birthday.  Birthdays equal cake.  But we didn't have any cake mix in the house.  I didn't want to go to the store because we are trying to use up everything in the house.... so I decided to make one from scratch... Perfect!  Because we have all of those ingredients!  ....  Except milk.  ....  No big deal.  I'll just make my own almond milk (because we have a ton of almonds).

So, I made my own almond milk.  I went with just straight almonds with no sweetener since it was going in a cake anyway.  Since I needed the milk right away, I only soaked the almonds for 2 hours instead of overnight.  Maybe that is where this all went wrong....

The milk was super easy to make, and at the end of the recipe it tells you how to make almond meal/flour.  Perfect!  I could even use the almond bits for part of the cake!  So, I dehydrated the pieces for 2 hrs on low, then put them in the food processor and ground them up into tiny tiny pieces.

- at this point, I'm feeling pretty impressed with myself.  I have avoided the grocery store, am making a cake from such a level of scratch, that I'm making my own milk and flour!  Come on!  Who is this woman?!  I could totally survive in some "live off the land" type show!  Pioneer woman, here me roar!  I am AWESOME?!  Right?!!   

The almond flour gave me about 3/4 cup and I needed 1.5 cup flour, so I used regular all-purpose flour to get me to the 1.5 cups.  The cake recipe makes 1 9x9, so I decided to use my 6" round pan and do a double layer circle cake....  grease the pan, put the cake batter in, bake for 30 min....

Not done.  Add 3 more minutes.... done.  Let cool.......   ......  ...... try to take it out of the pan.  Sticking everywhere.  It comes out in chunks and those chunks are barely sticking together.  That's okay, I tell myself.  I'll just pipe some frosting and stick it all together.  It will work.  This will just be the bottom layer.  Maybe I just need to spray the pan more so it comes out easier.

Try 2.  Nope.  In fact, this layer may have stuck worse.  I had already piped a layer of frosting onto the bottom layer, and was now taking chunks out of the pan for the top layer and mushing it onto the frosting.  Maybe I could mold these chunks into a cake!  Forget pioneer woman, I'm an artist!  I piped some more frosting onto the "top," tried to smooth it a little, then threw on a crap ton of sprinkles to mask the destruction.

Take a step back to examine the cake filled with so much love that it is bursting, and ....





HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!  I. Could. Not. Stop. Laughing. 

Kyle walked in about 30 seconds later and I tried to stop him before he saw the cake, so I could explain about the love, but it was too late.  His words - "What happened to that cake?  Did the kids get into it?"

This was one of those times where I am glad I have learned to laugh at myself.  I could have been upset, sad, pissed... instead, I just laughed.  The cake looked like a disaster, but still tasted wonderful.  

Happy Birthday Kyle <3 p="">


*Hippie Betty Crocker is coined by Alyson, Trademark pending ;)