A Cake Fit for a Viking

Fathers teach their daughters many important lessons in life: how to change a flat tire, why you should never date a musician, and the importance of rooting for your sports team, among many, many other things. As someone who comes from a long line of Vikings fans that bleed purple and gold, by proxy, I also learned how to cope with loss, sadness, anger, and bargaining thanks to the birthright passed down to me by my father. While being a Minnesota Vikings fan has its ups and mostly crushing downs, more than anything, we appreciate being a part of an extremely fervent fan base. Since my dad and stepmom were coming down for a visit just a week shy of his birthday, I knew exactly what I needed to do: bake a birthday cake fit for a Viking. And thus, this extremely purple and yellow beauty was born...

Skol, baby!

It had been a while since I made a buttercream transfer (like almost two years), so I am pretty proud of how this cake turned out. Most importantly, my dad positively loved it, and while he usually grins when encountered with any kind of cake (it runs in the family), the look of sheer joy when he saw this was merit enough. I had to work ahead of time, so I also mastered the art of freezing and preserving cake rounds, buttercream transfers, and frosting--tips and tricks I shall gladly share with you on this blogging adventure today. I also tried a brand new sugar substitute in my frosting: Swerve. This powdered sugar replacement cut one slice of cake down from well over 650 calories to a mere 373 calories (14 servings total). I added most of a bottle of Disaronno to the cake and frosting, so this accounts for the majority of the calories. I'm obsessed with yellow amaretto cake and matching buttercream frosting. I'd apologize, but I'm not even remotely sorry.

Pictured: the holiday bottle of Disaronno from 2016 that finally met its end.

I did my usual method of hijacking a box cake mix to make it decadent and bakery-level yummy (we all agreed I could've lied and claimed this was made from scratch because it was so decadent, but I'm a notoriously terrible liar...I'm lazy and lying requires way too much effort and energy). To make the cake alone, you need:

• Yellow cake mix
• Eggs called for on the back of the box plus one additional egg
• Substitute the oil for butter, double the amount, and melt it
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 1/2 cup of Disaronno

The recipe called for 1 cup of water, so I used half milk and half Disaronno to substitute and yield a denser, moister cake. I preheated my oven according to package directions and prepared two 8-inch rounds with Parchment paper, cooking spray, and bake-even strips.

They're even purple.

I've been using these for a few cakes now, and I absolutely love them. They really do help even out the cake batter. I hardly had to level these cakes because of the bake-even strips. I soak them in cold water for 10 minutes, wring them out a bit, then fit them to my pans. I pour my batter in, bake my cakes in the middle rack of the oven for 30 minutes, and bam, golden, even bake.

Thank you, Wilton.

 Once finished baking, let your cakes rest in the pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Then gently remove from the pan and allow plenty of time to COMPLETELY cool on the cooling rack. Like to room temp or below. I then leveled my cakes to ensure they'd fit together perfectly since this was going to be a naked cake, and frosting couldn't hide much of anything (as a woman who 1. Appreciates a good cover-up, and 2. Is incredibly clumsy, this technique is still slightly terrifying in concept). I wrapped each round separately in three layers of plastic wrap and placed each round into a Ziplock freezer bag. These lived in the freezer for five days before we ate them, and no one even knew. Until now, I guess. Still completely soft and melt-in-your-mouth amazing. I will definitely use this technique to freeze cakes again.

This Crisco is also probably from 2016.

To make a buttercream transfer you can smooth out, you need a lot of Crisco. Crisco is positively terrible for you, but damned if it doesn't make a pretty crusting buttercream. I ended up making WAY more frosting than I needed by like twenty ounces, but if you wanted to crumb coat a cake and frost it completely, this would've been the perfect amount. For a naked cake with a small buttercream transfer, I could've cut it down by half. I used:

• 1 stick of room temp butter
• 1 1/2 cups of Crisco
• 3 12-once bags of Swerve powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon of CLEAR vanilla extract
• 5-6 tablespoons of Disaronno

Blend together the Crisco and butter until soft and fluffy. Add in one bag of Swerve, the vanilla, and a tablespoon of Disaronno. Blend on low until mostly mixed. Add in another bag of Swerve, three tablespoons of Disaronno, and blend until mixed. Add the final bag of Swerve and remaining two tablespoons of Disaronno. The frosting will be very thick, so feel free to add in more Disaronno if you want an easier to pipe frosting and/or just really love Disaronno (definitely both). I split up my frosting, dying one large bowl purple, a tiny glob black, and split the remaining frosting, dying one bowl yellow and leaving the final bowl white. Then I gathered up Wilton 2, 3, 5, and 12 round tips fitted to piping bags with couplers to easily change out tips as needed. I outline a very detailed step-by-step with buttercream transfers, setting up images on Parchment paper, tips, tricks, and more here, so excuse me while I cruise through these instructions without reinventing the buttercream transfer wheel extensively.

After affixing my stenciled image onto a clear cutting board with some tape, I used my black frosting with a #5 tip to outline my viking horn. I used a small paintbrush as needed to smoosh down the frosting and ensure everything was connected, there were no gaps in the frosting, etc. I froze this for one hour, which was not long enough. It budged around on me a bit in the following steps, so in hindsight, should've frozen it for several hours.

I came in with my yellow frosting coupled with a #2 tip to fill in the very narrow yellow band. I used a #12 tip to fill in the white, switching to a #3 tip in the smaller grooves. Once again, I used a paintbrush to push the frosting down and rid and areas of gaps. In doing so, my black frosting moved a bit, so definitely take your time to freeze between colors.

Then I took a #12 tip on a bag of purple frosting and slowly traced my circle outline and around the viking horn, coming back in with a paintbrush to smooth any gaps.

After each round of frosting, I held my transfer up to the light. Any areas that appeared thin or I could see through directly needed help with more frosting and the paintbrush to smooth it in.

I finished my purple border, and carefully smoothed as much as I could to even the layer out before freezing this for three hours.

Then I came in for the final touch and covered the horn with a thin layer of purple frosting so that my transfer would sit evenly on my cake and not sink in anywhere. I froze this for 5 days with it double-bagged in Ziplock freezer bags. I removed the tips from all of my frosting bags and placed them into a large Ziplock and into the fridge. My leftover purple frosting fit into a Tupperware and also lived in the fridge.

But not before admiring my handy work, of course.

Fast forward five days...

 I successfully managed to unwrap all three layers of cling wrap from each cake round without (entirely) losing my mind! I removed all my frosting from the fridge that morning to make my cake that afternoon. I prepared an 8-inch cake round with a small glob of purple frosting in the middle, and flipped one cake round upside down and placed it centered on top of this frosting glob so it wouldn't budge. I filled a piping bag with purple frosting and a 1A tip and created a border around the outside edge of my cake. I came back and swirled in frosting in the middle, and used a hot angled spatula (I just ran it under hot water and wiped it dry) to smooth out the frosting layer without applying too much pressure or causing the frosting to spill over the edge/border I had created.

Like a giant Vikings Oreo.

 I took my second round and placed it (also upside down) gently on top of my frosting layer without applying too much pressure. I used my angled spatula to create a crisp, smooth line of frosting in the middle by placing it horizontally on the frosting line and spinning my cake table around without moving the spatula at all.

Super clean lines for the win!

I refilled my #1A bag with purple frosting and repeated for the top layer so my buttercream transfer had something to adhere to. Speaking of, I nabbed my transfer out of the freezer at this point, and centered it on top of my cake before removing the Parchment paper. Things will look very rough and bumpy at this point. For once in your life, this is actually normal. Let your transfer sit out for 15 minutes before coming back in and smoothing out with the Viva paper towel trick. This is like giving your cake a 20-year age rewind (if only this worked on people, too). 

But I'll take that it works for cakes amazingly.

Could be frosting, could be a bag of my blood. A true Viking fan never tells.

I wanted a border to finalize things after smoothing my transfer out, so I fitted a large piping bag with a #1M tip and placed my remaining yellow bag of frosting and purple bag of frosting in it together. I piped out a bit of frosting on a paper towel until both purple and yellow came out at the same time.

I then piped simple stars around the edge of the cake.

Which was fun, festive, and left me with a ton of frosting. May have piped some out of the bag and into my mouth, but again, a Viking fan never tells.

I kept my cake in a cake safe at room temp. The cake itself tasted flippin' amazing, because yellow amaretto cake is still my jam. Now, let's discuss the Swerve frosting. Swerve does this weird thing after you take a bite when things taste perfectly sweet and just right...then along comes this cooling sensation (think: biting into a York Peppermint Patty). It didn't really bother anyone, and we certainly ate the hell out of this cake, but I did think it bore mentioning. I guess because what Swerve derives its sweetness from has this property when it is not dissolved in liquid or heated up that causes a cooling sensation on your taste buds. I think this would go perfectly with a chocolate cake with peppermint or mint frosting, to be honest. However, the cooling covered up the Disaronno flavor in my frosting too much, so that was disappointing. But I was also able to eat a boatload of cake because of how much it lowered the calories, so I'd say all is fair in love and baking and eating said baked goods. I definitely will use Swerve again, but I will cut it in a ratio with regular powdered sugar. Using it in an actual cake or pie where it will get dissolved in liquid will negate that effect anyway, so really this would just be for frosting purposes. Bottom line: Swerve is delightfully strange and a great replacement for regular powdered sugar in small amounts. Other bottom line: my dad loved his cake, and we had an amazing weekend showing them around Floribama. I mean Northwest Florida. It really is the same thing though.

Pictured: my dad about to apply the family principle of licking things to claim them as your own. My sister's favorite method.

As with all family trips, it went by too quickly, and so did the cake. Only two slices remain, and they both look equally terrified their existence will end each time I walk into the kitchen. They're not wrong. But I was incredibly happy to be able to provide my dad with a birthday cake that was next-level Viking decorated. Perhaps one of the greatest lessons I've ever learned from my father was that actions definitely speak louder than words, and being able to give him this cake was one of the best ways I could think of to say "thank you."..for everything. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters. And, SKOL!

Yes, I even have yellow candles. The fandom is strong. And pretty. Could you imagine how ugly a Packers cake must look? ;-)