voila! mon deuxième gâteau!
I’m feeling so French* today… as such, I had to title my blog post ‘en français’!
Responding to Friday’s emergency cake request from Cake4kids, I whipped up two layers of chocolate cake for a boy named Raymond last night. I had posted a Facebook request for chocolate frosting recipes and got great suggestions from friends Jill, Ricardo and Puja (thanks all!). However, I was busy and stressed this morning and wasn’t sure I could pull off any of their directions in my super-short time frame: 45 minutes to make frosting AND decorate cake.
Since my last frosting attempt – vanilla cream cheese – was so tasty, I decided to Google “chocolate cream cheese frosting” in the hope of finding a fast, easy recipe.
Voila! I found the Cupcake Project (beautiful photography, great ideas and clever writing to boot) and Stefani Pollack.
Guess what her all-time favorite frosting is? Yep. Chocolate cream cheese. It couldn’t be easier and it was SO good! I followed the directions to sift the powdered sugar and (yeah!) no lumps this time. It was also the right shade of light brown to go with my desert/succulent/lizard theme. If you want her recipe, please go to:
http://www.cupcakeproject.com/2008/04/my-favorite-chocolate-cream-cheese.html
I highly encourage you to check out her ten favorite frosting recipes… I will be working my way through them one way or another!
*Flower arranging always makes me feel like a French girl; I used my Le Jacquard Français dishtowels to wrap his ‘n hers Valentine’s flowers (photos tomorrow), then enjoyed a quiet cappuccino with the newspaper, did some brisk walking at the park with Scout, then put an EmersonMade beige fabric flower on my black cotton cardigan and headed to the Farmer’s Market with Paul, Tate and my chic black Reisenthel tote (gift from Gabriele).
UPDATE: Here is the feedback I got from the social worker about the chocolate cake I baked for a 12-year old named Raymond.
Thank you so much for being able to provide a cake for one of my families at such short notice. I had informed the family that it may not happen. I met with them on February 15. Raymond was present and he was soooo excited about having the cake delivered. According to Mom and Raymond, the decorations were great, the cake was the ” best he ever tasted.” The other children are looking forward to receiving their cakes. Thanks again for making this birthday a very special one for Raymond.
It doesn’t get any better than that, does it?
To make a difference in the life of a child is truly a gift for the giver.