bake my cake 2012 – group 2

UPDATE! Winner declared! Carol Anne’s Boozy Cake edged out Lan’s Cake Trilogy in a nail biter of a finish! Congrats, Eliza! See you in The Finals…

More sugary goodness! Here is the second grouping of cakes – you can cast your vote at the bottom of the post…

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emily’s clementine cake

My friend, Emily, sent the following note with her entry:

Dearest Movita!

For the first time since we both lived in crazy-ville, I will be in the vicinity of your royal fabulousness around your birthday. It is therefore theoretically possible that I could bake you a birthday cake in person but, given that I will have a baby attached to my hip (and likely my boob… we will not speak the dreaded “n” word), baking is very unlikely. So, I have baked one of my favourite cakes for your contest. It is easy, it has four ingredients, it is gluten-free (not a problem for me, but for many others), it is kosher for Passover, it is actually kind of healthy (horrors!) and, most importantly, it is delicious! Enjoy!

Oh, and if I don’t win, I may be forced to leave the baby at your house overnight… just sayin’.

Em 

Emily sent me the recipe for this cake – it has a base made out of clementines and almonds and is then topped with a chocolate glaze. Look. At. That. Glaze. It’s genius. I want to press my face into it’s shiny goodness. And you know how I loves me a one-bowl cake. Emily is one of the best friends a gal could have, people. She’s an über busy, super sassy, guru of educating-your-arse mother of two, and she still managed to bake me a cake. I loves her hard. But people? I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the thought of a baby in my house OVERNIGHT chilled me to my core. If that doesn’t convince to vote for her cake, nothing will.

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toby’s butterfly cake

Toby is one of my students. You might remember her from Ginger 2011, when she and her dad, Ron, went head to head with my other ginger-crazed fans. Toby was in charge of the labor intensive decoration of this brightly coloured butterfly cake, with baking support from her family.

Look at that cake, people! All ballet teachers love flying things. It’s what we do. Look at the colours. It’s like spring barfed all over that cake. That’s festive, baby! Also, I’m thinking that cake wouldn’t have been easy to shape – it probably involved blueprints, laser levels and a team of caterpillars armed with bevel protractors. That, my friends, demonstrates some skill and vision. No square cake here. No way. Yippie!

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lan’s cake trilogy 

Lan writes a blog. It’s called Angry Asian Creations. You should consider voting for her cakes. Mostly because she’s been a total badass since grade four, and still seems capable of mayhem today. She also has a cool Live It List, which I find pretty inspiring given that I am now officially… middle-aged.

Lan sent the following note with her cake:

Recipe: Dependable/Sure Thing Chocolate Cake

I couldn’t decide what design to do for your cake, so i made three mini ones instead.

Pros to this:

• you get THREE cakes 
• they’re miniatures, even if you ate all three in one sitting, they won’t hurt your girlish figure
• if someone tries to steal any from you, they’re small enough you could shove all three in your mouth and still be able to curse them out for trying to mug you.

Cons:

• there are none. unless you count that fact that you can inhale all three in one sitting.

happiest of birthday wishes to you!

Lan

I like the way Lan thinks. Why shouldn’t I have three cakes? Look at those little suckers! Don’t you just wanna shove them in your face? Yah, you do. I’d probably fight a bear off for one of those cakes. Lan has baked me a classic, one-bowl cake. Deep, dark and chocolatey. Each cake looks a little different – did you notice that? One for each decade I’ve survived on the planet. And have I ever told you how I feel about things that are sprinkled with a little confectioner’s sugar? Cake perfection.

(Want the recipe? Check it out here on Lan’s blog – you’ll probably want to stay for a while. Because she’s pretty awesome and stuff.)

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carol anne’s boozy cake

Carol Anne has a lovely blog called Rock Salt. She’s from Glasgow, Scotland, so she probably hangs with Billy Connolley and Mark Knopfler. Also, Carol Anne is the complete opposite of me – she’s cool.

Here is the note she sent along with her entry:

Here is my entry for Bake My Cake. I am sad, because I love the cake very much, but I am not good at photos.

On the outside, the cake is pretty, if a bit edgy – it’s black and white, it’s got little stars on, it looks every so slightly like a Tim Burton forest. Still, it’s three tiers of pure class. On the inside, it’s full of chocolate and booze. I am not making any direct comparisons, but if someone were to describe me as classy on the outside and full of chocolate and booze on the inside, I’d be pretty happy about it.

It’s a Guinness and chocolate sponge, filled with Guinness vanilla frosting and finished with a plain vanilla buttercream – the piping work is all buttercream, too, I much prefer it to royal icing. I decorated most of the cake with a burst piping bag, desparately trying to cover up the hole with my palm as black icing oozed down my arm.

Also the cake is infused with the music of The Proclaimers.

Oh and it has a surprise Movita on the top! She is drawn right on there with an icing pen.

Happy birthday,

Carol Anne

First off, when I opened Carol Anne’s email and saw MYSELF ON THE TOP OF A CAKE, I did a grand jeté in the living room. That’s ballet speak for havin’ my freak freaked. It has three tiers! And also, BEER! Or stout, as they probably call it over on Carol Anne’s side of the ocean. The buttercream looks soft and sweet. The scrollwork is oh, so lovely. And she overcame adversity to Bake My Cake – holes in piping bags are no joke, people.

I’d probably walk 500 miles for this cake.

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Okay, kiddens, get voting!

Votes must be cast by 8 am Atlantic Standard Time (7 am EST), Monday, April 30. The winner from this heat will proceed to the final round of voting on Tuesday, May 1st. For more on how the voting is gunna go down, click here.

Have you cast your vote for Group 1? Click here to get on it! And don’t forget to come back on Monday to vote for the competitors in Group 3 and Group 4.