Fourth of July Flag Cake!

I can't believe a year has gone by since the last time I tried to make this cake.  This time around I think it came out SO SO SO much better!  Last year I made cake from a box...this year, given all the cakes I've been working on, I decided to do the whole thing from scratch.  While I'm still on the search for the perfect white/yellow/butter - call it what you wish - cake...the recipe that I stumbled on in the May issue of Real Simple certainly did not disappoint! 

I made five - nine inch cakes to pull this one off.  The blue layer was baked all at once while the red and white layers were split into two 9 inch cake rounds and then sliced in half. 

This is such a fun cake to make and I just love how surprised people are once it is cut open.  At first it looks like a very simple...maybe even boring cake.

Then...TA DA!!

Hope you all had a Happy Independence Day!!

Now...on to make myself a birthday cake!! 

P.S. - Here's a peek at what the cake looked like last year...

Week 15 - Chocolate Chip Cake

We were invited to our neighbor's house for dinner and naturally, I had to bring a cake!  I cheated a little on this one...if it wasn't for me telling you my secret, no one would ever know!  Last week's Baptism cake didn't require as much actual cake as I had thought.  I still had frozen chocolate cake left and decided that I would somehow use it.  I cut the cake up so that I would have two square layers.  It was perfect.

I didn't take the time to have a crumb coat...so you can see some chocolate crumbs peaking through.  Honestly, I didn't think that it looked bad.  I used a brown sugar buttercream that tastes like cookie dough and then went crazy with the chocolate chips.  I even sprinkled mini chips on the buttercream inside of the cake.

We had a great time with our neighbors and judging by how much of the cake was left...everyone liked it!