Peep Cake: A Tutorial

...or Why Baking Is My Hobby And Not My Profession

1.  Take one easy chocolate cupcake recipe and bake it in round cake pans. Pour the extra chocolate glaze you made over each layer and hope it sets up faster than you know it will.

2.  Plan on piping a sentiment on top of the frosted cake. Fold parchment paper into a small cornet and fill with remaining glaze. Set aside in a small glass.

3.  Transfer the glazed cake layers to a pretty vintage cake plate, breaking the top layer in half while maneuvering it into place. Make sure to get lots of cake and glaze stuck to your fingers in an attempt to reunite the two halves.


4.  Whip up a batch of the Espresso Buttercream Frosting that was with the cupcake recipe. Start to frost the sides of the cake. Immediately regret using the chocolate glaze. Drop some frosting on the top of the cake. Curse silently.

5.  When sides of cake are passable, gauge the amount of icing remaining in the bowl. Since there's not enough left to frost the top of the the cake, pat yourself on the back for using the chocolate glaze.

6.  Surrender your box of Peeps in order to create a "focal point" on top of the cake to distract from the large fissure that cleaves across it. Cram as many on top of the cake as you can while still leaving a few to snack on later (or now... you're a little stressed). Regret reading ingredients list on box of Peeps. Vow to only buy the white ones without any artificial coloring from now on and never again feed them to people you love.

7.  Scoop the remaining frosting into a sandwich bag and squeeze it into one corner. Snip the very tip off and then snip some more. Make sure you cut it just past where you wanted it. Create graceful loops and arabesques of piped frosting in the center of the cake top. Or, not so graceful loops and arabesques. You gave it a shot.

8.  Take the cornet of chocolate glaze, snip the very tip of it off, and artfully drizzle chocolate all over the whole mess. Words on a cake are over-rated anyway.

9.  Drive to a friend's house 7 miles away holding the cake on your lap. Hope for the best.

My Notes: After the cake layers finished cooling, I wrapped them in plastic and then foil, and stuck them in the freezer until I was ready to assemble and decorate three days later. The cake was very moist and had a large crumb. Probably not really suited to the treatment I gave it. The buttercream recipe was great and I know I will be using that again (if I use it for a layer cake, I'll double the recipe though). I really liked the combination of chocolate and coffee together but perhaps the chocolate glaze AND the buttercream together was too much of a good thing.

Important! Only attempt the last step (#9) if someone else is actually driving the car.