A Shot of Tequila and a Dose of Delicious

One of my husband's (and my) favorite video game series is Fallout. I got to thinking about it the other day, and there are quite a few parallels between the post-nuclear world of the Fallout series and the state of Florida (go with me on this, it's worth the ride). In Fallout, radioactive bugs the size of children exist. In Florida, the cockroaches are easily larger than a toddler. In Fallout, you're not *quite* sure, but everyone seems crazy and like they *may* be trying to kill you. In Florida, you're *definitely* sure that everyone is crazy and they are *definitely* trying to kill you. In Fallout, areas of toxic clouds hang around and really ruin your day. In Florida, we call these "tourists." See? Eerily similar. Maybe the game creators were from here. This would make a lot of sense because the entire state is already in the throws of total chaos, so it's an easy jumping off point creatively. We're not bartering for bottle caps (yet) like in Fallout, but Disney Dollars are currency here, so yeah. I swear all of this relates to cake. We're celebrating my husband's birthday early since we'll be traveling on his birthday, so I made him a Vault Boy birthday cake to celebrate making it to Level 32:

Surviving the last two levels in post-apocalypse Florida has been no easy task.

 Right, so it's a birthday cake with everyone's favorite post-nuclear poster boy, but it's also a birthday cake filled with everyone's favorite summer booze: tequila! This is a margarita cake with tequila lime buttercream, and it is the best parts of summer (get out of here, child-sized mosquitoes!) all in one slice. Tart, tangy, sweet, and packing a punch of cool flavor, I wish I could tell you it's super low cal, but it's just regular low cal (all things margarita are worth a few extra calories). For 12 slices of an 8-inch cake, 1 serving is 428 calories. If you serve 16 slices, you hit the super low cal territory for 321 calories a serving. Not bad either way you slice it (sorry, I had to). It is fun and flavorful and also very easy to throw together. Whether or not you choose to adorn your margarita cake with Fallout decor is totally optional, but I'd like to think a booze-laden cake would be a delicacy people would pay thousands of bottle caps for in a post-apocalyptic universe.

You're gonna juice a lot of limes, so it's a good thing there's tequila nearby.

With booze, all things are possible--in this case, I mean via baking a damn good cake, not waking up in strange land with really freaky people everywhere (Is she talking about Florida or the Fallout series?). This is actually an easy cake to put together, minus zesting the limes. I've never met a grater I liked that didn't try to snatch off my knuckles, but maybe your kitchen accoutrements are kinder than mine. For the margarita cake, you need:

• Lemon cake mix
• 4 egg whites
• 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce
• Lime zest, to taste (I'd recommend 2 tsp to 3 tsp max, or your cake might pack *too* much of a punch. If you don't like sour, nix altogether or use 1 tsp max for flavor.)
• 1/2 cup of skim milk
• 1/4 cup of lime juice (about 3 large limes)
• 1/4 cup of *good* tequila (like, it costs more than 7.99 at Walmart)
• 2 TBS of triple sec
• 1 TBS vanilla extract
• Optional: a drop or two of green food coloring

Start by preheating your oven to 350. Add the mix, eggs, apple sauce, and lime zest to the bowl of your stand mixer. Give a quick whirl to barely blend ingredients together, and then add in the milk, lime juice, tequila, triple sec, and vanilla  (and green dye if adding) and blend on medium-high for 2 minutes. Prepare two 8-inch cake pans with Parchment paper and cooking spray.

I want to drink you with a straw.

Pour your batter into your prepared pans, tap on the counter to release air bubbles, and bake at 350 for about 25-28 minutes until done. Place cake pans on a cooling rack for ten minutes before turning out onto the cooling rack to finish cooling completely. Once my cakes were cool, I measured out the size my buttercream transfer needed to be, and then a wrapped each round in 3 layers of plastic wrap. I put each round into a gallon Ziplock and left in the freezer for later in the week when I'd decorate and assemble everything. I knew I'd need a few days for my buttercream transfer, but I wanted it properly sized to the top of the cake, so I needed to bake my rounds first. This method of wrapping and freezing cakes works extremely well--each slice tastes like it was baked yesterday and not last Monday.

Mas tequila!

Full disclosure, this is *not* a good frosting for buttercream transfers (but dear GOD is it delicious) because the citrus in the lime keeps the buttercream from fully crusting. I did not know this when I made it, so thankfully I was able to hobble together a decent-looking transfer even with this problem. I had to make some alternate decoration plans, but more on that later. Remove the citrus if you're doing a transfer so it will crust. If you're not doing a transfer, this is still stiff enough to pipe with and tastes like the first sip of an ice-cold margarita. The heavens will open, you'll hear mariachi music, and you will be transported to the best Tex-Mex restaurant of all time with each bite. To make this margarita magic come to life, get:

• 1/2 cup of butter
• 1 1/2 cups of Crisco (if not making a transfer, use 2 cups of butter and nix the Crisco for richer flavor)
• 3 cups of powdered sugar
• 3 cups of Swerve confectioners
• 1 TBS clear vanilla extract
• 2 TBS lime juice (I recommend milk instead if you're making a transfer)
• 1 TBS tequila
• 1 TBS triple sec

Mix the butter and Crisco in a stand mixer until fluffy. Add in the 3 cups of powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and lime juice. Blend well on medium before adding in the 3 cups of Swerve, tequila, and triple sec. Frost whatever designs your heart desires on fully cooled cakes or cupcakes. If you're interested in transfers, feel free to read my extremely detailed transfer tips and instructions, but I'll also cruise through how I made Vault Boy come to life for this birthday cake.

Vault Boy does not wear mauve. My printer was out of blue ink.

 I always print out whatever my transfer design is going to be, sized exactly how I need it for the top of my cake because being a perfectionist comes in super handy when you bake. Being neurotic has to have the occasional perk. I then trace my design on Parchment paper, flip it over, and tape it to a clear cutting board. For this design, I dyed and divvied my frosting up into a tiny amount of black in one piping bag with a #3 round tip, a tiny amount of beige in another with a #2 round tip, a large amount of royal blue in another bag with a #5 tip, a medium amount of yellow in a bag with a #3 round tip, and the rest of my frosting stayed white. I put a large amount into a bag with a #12 tip (for the background) and a tiny amount into a bag with a #2 tip (for the mouth). I worked on this over the span of a few days, so my frosting lived in the fridge while it was between uses.

He's not so much winking at you as he is making sure he's a safe distance from nuclear radiation.

 I outlined Vault Boy, clearly way too cheery considering his circumstances, and wrote in my LEVEL 32 before peeking at my work up to very bright kitchen lights:

Also, I was spell-checking.

 If you see any bits of light poking through what you've piped, come back in with a small paintbrush and press your frosting together. You want to make sure there are not tiny gaps anywhere, so I pretty much take a paintbrush to the entire outline and make sure it is smooth and even. Black frosting runs terribly, and since I knew it would be next to white, yellow, and beige, I left my transfer in the freezer overnight to set as best as it could. But it refused to fully set; proving anything with tequila in it is bound to cause you grief eventually.

Stop smiling, it isn't funny, Vault Boy!

Frustrated and eagerly eyeing the frosting I could potentially use to eat this problem away, I soldiered on and piped in his teeth, the white in the crook of his arm, and all the yellow my transfer needed. I was hoping he wouldn't end up looking like he was a Fallout ghoul that didn't make it to his vault in time before war were declared (yep, I can put a Futurama reference into anything). I held up to the light and used my paintbrush to push frosting in to any tiny open spaces, cleaning the brush between each swipe/press. I froze this for two hours before coming back in.

Oh yeah, he's definitely got some nuclear fallout effects from this angle. Bubbling skin? Nose fell off? Missing an eyebrow? This poor boy. Get him a Stimpak and RadAway, stat!

 I piped in his blue jumpsuit and gave the man some skin (only ghouls need to exist skinless in this and any universe).

Yet, through all this, he remains smiling. That's courage.

 I finished up this day by piping a border around the entire design and placed the transfer into the freezer overnight. I had to work quickly and carefully since this would not fully crust, so there was a lot of breaking for freezing.

Now he's being eaten by a cloud of frosting. Still clearly happy about it, though.

 The next day, or as I was calling it, "Day 3 of the hostage situation," I came back in with my large white frosting with #12 tip and traced all around Vault Boy, using a larger paint brush to press in any gaps.

And then he vanished, like the mysterious stranger...Wait, is Vault Boy actually the mysterious stranger character in Fallout? Did I just jokingly stumble upon some deep, dark secret?

 I finished up by cover him up with frosting, smoothed things out, and did a check for gaps:

See top right where there are lines of light oozing through? That's what I'm talking about. Use a paintbrush to fix those!

 Once all gaps were smoothed, it was time for my transfer to go live in the freezer for a full 24-hours. I had leftover frosting of all colors, but I only needed my blue and yellow to finish the cake. I used almost all of both of these colors to finish assembling. I did not crumb coat since I was trying to save some calories, but definitely had enough frosting to do so if you need a thicker base. I may or may not have mainlined my beige frosting from the bag straight into my mouth because as someone who doesn't drink, I really needed a stiff margarita after working on that transfer for three days straight.

Like a giant, radioactive Oreo.

 After completing my transfer, I opted to stop eating bags of frosting and instead assemble the rest of the cake. I took a large amount of blue and filled the middle of my cake. I came back in and applied a thin layer of blue to the rest of the sides. Since this frosting would not fully crust, my dreams of using the Viva paper towel trick to smooth it out before slapping a giant Vault 86 sign for Derek's birth year on the side of the cake were dashed. Instead I used my angled spatula to create a pattern around my cake:

I placed my spatula on the cake and quickly swiped up before setting it down close to where I just swiped and repeated.

It gave a nice, festive edge to the cake. Kinda like a giant cupcake wrapper in what I call "Radioactive Blue."

I put this into a cake safe and placed into the fridge until my transfer was as frozen as it was gonna get the next day.

Thank God, he wasn't lost in the blast.

 I carefully took the tape off of my transfer to remove it from the cutting board before flipping over and so, so gently placing on the top of my cake. I slowly removed my Parchment paper to reveal the transfer it all it's glory. Thankfully it actually was glory and not horror. No Vault Boys were harmed in the making of this cake. I let this sit out for about 5-10 minutes before coming in with a Viva paper towel to attempt to smooth out. It just wasn't crusting, so I ended up using a small paintbrush to try to smooth out major roughness.

So bright! So cheery! So the opposite of my personality!

 I then placed #21 tips on my yellow and blue frosting bags and piped a simple border around the edge of my transfer to cover up the edges.

On Day 4, Kate Created Birthday Cake.

It may have taken most of a week and all of my sanity, but we do crazy, inexplicable things for the people we love. I knew Derek would see this cake and immediately be happy, and he was thrilled. I also let him mainline some of the extra frosting, so this was an extra birthday bonus. I am always happy to come up with birthday cake ideas for him. He's a fun guy with a ton of cool, nerdy interests, so this yields some epic cakes.

So green! I promise, non-toxic and no need for RadAway to eat a slice.

Minus the salted rim, this cake really does taste exactly like a margarita in food form. I thought I might have pushed the boundaries of boozy cakes too far this time, so I am really happy with how delicious this cake turned out to be. A margarita is still the only stiff drink I will have on occasion anymore because I fully believe that although the calories may be empty, a good margarita fills you with enough joy that it kind of evens out. Now that I've turned my favorite drink into my favorite dessert, I'm feeling unstoppable! That also might be because of our impending trip to Texas this week, where the 'ritas are plentiful and delicious. And while everything may be bigger in Texas, including the bugs and heat index, at least I never confuse it for a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The people are way too friendly and the driving not nearly Mad Max-y enough. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Thumbs up to another year of greatness!