A Dose of Good Luck

Let me interrupt your social media feed to remind everyone that good still exists in this world..and it's in the form of cake. This mint chocolate chip cake with Baileys mint buttercream frosting and handmade solid chocolate shamrock may not solve a crisis, but it is an excellent way to take your mind off the outside world. Considering we're all supposed to be social distancing and self quarantining, you can make this cake and not even have to share a single slice. Leprechauns don't share their gold, and you don't have to share your cake--true St. Patrick's Day spirit!

It may not be as pretty as a fully-stocked toilet paper aisle in these trying times, but it is super festive, so this cake has that going for it.

I adore St. Patrick's Day celebrations, but they've all pretty much been canceled this year, so let's meet up again in April and drink green beer and eat Irish food for Saint Paddy's Day Part Two: Greener and Cleaner. I realize COVID-19 isn't something to take lightly, but as a seasonal allergy sufferer, I am tired of people looking at me like I'm Typhoid Mary every time I sneeze...thanks, pollen. I'm indoors today and marveling over how delicious this cake is...stuffed with Andes mint chips, complimented by Baileys and mint extract, this is like the chocolate version of a Shamrock Shake, but even better because you don't have to find a McDonald's with a functioning ice cream machine to get it (plus, booze). And at only 323 calories a slice for 10 slices or 269 calories a slice for 12 slices, it's even healthier than a Shamrock Shake...Baileys included. And I feel like in times of panic, everything needs a Baileys chaser.

Plus so simple to make!

Since most grocery aisles are bare, I hope you have a lot of this stuff on hand already. As someone who drinks lactose-free milk, doesn't eat gluten, and bakes sugar-free, I've gotta say all these weird digestive issues that force me to eat this way have helped ensure what I need is always in stock at Publix. Mostly because no one else wants to touch it, so there's that. To make this cake, you need:

• 1 box Devil's Food cake mix (I used sugar free--it's amazing)
• 3 egg whites (could attempt with flax eggs to make vegan)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 1/4 cups skim milk (can use dairy free or vegan varieties)
• 1 1/2 tsp mint extract (not peppermint)
• 1/2 cup Andes baking chips or chopped mint chocolate baking bar

Preheat your oven to 350, grease three six-inch round baking pans and use bake even strips to finish pan prep. Dump all ingredients except for the mint chips into a stand mixer and blend on medium-high for 2 minutes. Add the mint chips and mix on low until totally folded in.

Bake even strips are a godsend.

 Pour batter evenly into prepared pans and bake for 25-30 minutes. Since there's chocolate chips in the cake, it's harder to get a good read with a toothpick on doneness. The cake shouldn't be jiggly at all when it is done cooking, and the top should spring back quickly when gently pressed. Place cakes, still in the pan, on cooling racks for 10 minutes.

Dotted with chocolate mint chip goodness.

After 10 minutes, remove from the pan and let cakes cool completely. I give it a good thirty minutes, then I level my cakes. With the stripe technique I used here, you want cakes that are uniform and completely level. Plus, this way you get to eat the cake scraps, and they are delish. While the cakes cool, you can make your frosting and the chocolate shamrock.

And maybe drink some Baileys.

The frosting needs to be thick and firm for this stripe technique, so I had to make a regular American buttercream instead of the nice, light, whipped buttercream I've been fan-girling over. You need:

• 1 cup of butter at room temp (I used 1/2 cup regular and 1/2 cup 50% reduced fat butter from Land O' Lakes because it was the only thing left at my commissary...hoarders..)
• 4 cups of Lakanto powdered monkfruit sweetener or Swerve confectioners (Lakanto doesn't have the weird cooling effect Swerve does, so this is my new secret weapon in sugar-free frosting)
• 1 tsp clear vanilla extract
• 1 tsp mint extract
• 4 TBS Baileys
• If frosting is too thick and you want it to be whiter for stripes, use a TBS of skim milk or so; otherwise, if coloring isn't an issue, use more Baileys until it's smooth enough to frost

Whip the butter until fluffy, then add in half the sweetener and the two extracts. Blend on low until well mixed, then add in the remaining sweetener and the Baileys. Add more milk or Baileys as needed until you get the consistency you're looking for. I needed something sturdy but spreadable, so I did end up adding 1 TBS milk in at the end.

Like a Baileys-filled Oreo dream.

Assemble your cakes, taking time to make sure everything lines up just right so your edges aren't overhanging anywhere and everything is level. Stripes will show any weirdness, so I took longer than usual to place a layer upside down, slather a thin layer of frosting, place another layer upside down and take time to center, etc. until I finished with a thick layer of frosting on the top final layer.

Crumb coat-shrum coat.

 I've not crumb coated a cake in eons, which is terrible, but I didn't have much issue with chocolate crumbs here, so I forged on. You want a layer of frosting as thick as the teeth on the cake comb you use to make the stripes, so this has a LOT of frosting on it, which did help cover crumbs. You don't need to worry about smoothing the sides out too much since the cake comb will do this for you.

Speaking of combs, I found this Wilton cake comb on Amazon. It came in a pack of 3 different combs with 6 sides total, so this is how I do cakes from now until I've tried every combination. I used the right side of the comb for this cake.

Swipe, swipe, and swipe again. Like Tinder, but for cakes.

Make sure you have your cake on a turntable and slowly glide the comb around the cake until you get deep grooves. I passed over my cake about 3-4 times before I ended up with the above result. It doesn't need to look pretty or smooth yet since you'll take care of that when you add the second color. But once you have your cake completely frosted, set it in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up the frosting and prevent color bleeding from the green lines. I put mine in the freezer and took a nap, and that was WAY too long...everything was frozen and nothing would smooth out, so once it thawed enough to smooth, I had some color bleeds because of it. I'd say no longer than 15 minutes in the freezer. Now is a great time to make that solid chocolate shamrock...

All green, all the time.

 Dye your remaining frosting green with a Kelly green gel dye and set aside. You'll need green chocolate melts, a shamrock cookie cutter, green sprinkles, and a really good bench scraper or cake scraper to finish this entire cake. I melted a few tablespoons of green chocolate melts according to package directions in a small bowl. I added a little bit of oil to thin it out, and then I put a layer of wax paper down, placed my shamrock cookie cutter on top, and poured the chocolate inside of the cookie cutter. I used a spoon to even things out, then I carefully transferred to the fridge to set for 30 minutes. I used a sharp knife to cut around the edges of the cookie cutter, but I did have a crack form right down the middle of the whole thing (naturally). I used a lighter to melt the crack and swiped it with an angled spatula to smooth out the broken piece, and it was good as new.

Mmm, melty chocolate.

It is a BRICK of chocolate, and I LOVE it.

Now, grab that cake and the green frosting. There are two ways to do this: smother the entire outside of the cake with green frosting and swipe off until you have clean lines, or the beginner's way. I chose the beginners way since I had never done this before. I put my green frosting into a piping bag fitted with a small basket weaving tip. I then piped the green frosting into the indentations left by the cake comb:

It gets prettier, I promise.

Then I took one swipe around the entire cake with my bench scraper. It left me with this:

Do not freak out and panic. Save that for the Corona Virus.

The more passes you take around the cake, the more even the coloring will get. I probably went around my cake 7 or 8 times, scraping once, removing excess frosting from my bench scraper, and then scraping again. You will have a ton of leftover frosting because of this, but save some for cake borders or topping decorations. This is after the final pass:

A little wonky, but still much, much better.

I was pretty pleased with how this turned out for a first attempt. If I hadn't over-frozen the cake, I wouldn't have had such issues with bleeds or uneven lines in a few places. But overall, you can tell there is a clear delineation and a pretty snazzy green and white stripe pattern. Kind makes me want an after dinner mint. The green kind are superior to the red ones anyway.

It's not finished if there aren't sprinkles.

 To finish, I placed my shamrock on center stage and then switched to a #21 open star piping tip to pipe little green swirls around the top of my cake. I dusted in between each swirl with green glitter flecks. I am so happy with how seasonal and celebratory this cake looks. It's a different kind of March Madness out there these days, so it was good to put the massive amount of worry and stress that working in the tourism industry during a virus outbreak is making me feel right now and focus on something completely within my control. There was Love in the Time of Cholera, and now there's Cake in the Age of Corona Virus. And with a cake like this, I truly believe there's still good in the world. A testament to the delicious powers chocolate + mint chips + Baileys possess. This isn't a very dense cake, but it is solid, and every forkful has a burst of mint chip that works with Baileys in a way that should probably be illegal. At least I don't have to feel badly for refusing to share with any of you right now, but I'm telling ya, make this cake, and you'll still have a reason to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. If Saint Patrick could rid Ireland of snakes, you can survive the craziness out there, too. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

A little extra luck never did hurt, after all.

Berries as Black as My Heart

I realize that most normal people celebrate Valentine's Day, but I have never been on board. I'm a "Day-After Valentine's Day Chocolate Sales" celebrator. So don't take what looks like a romantic, berry-laden cake as a sign I'm jumping on the Valentine's Day bandwagon. After all, I made this cake with berries that are as black as my heart.

No matter how romantic it looks, I swear the timing was purely coincidental.

So, this is actually the third time I tried making this blackberry cake with whipped mascarpone frosting and chocolate bowl topper. I've gone gluten free, so I was trying to make this fit my diet. Gluten-Free Attempt #1 wouldn't fully bake in the middle no matter how long it was in the oven. Gluten-Free Attempt #2 baked but tasted like it was made solely of chalk. Attempt #3 said, "You know what, the digestive distress is worth it for cake," and not a single attempt at removing gluten was made. Every single bite is absolutely amazing. It's got a sweet, slightly tart flavor thanks to a combination of fresh blackberry puree and blackberry preserves, and it is an incredibly light cake. As someone who had never really had mascarpone cheese before (tiramisu is an insult to all desserts), I can say with certainty I've pinned at least 50 new recipes. Why did no one tell me how amazing this stuff is? I just want to live in a tub of it. It's also not as calorie heavy as you'd think, and because of that, you can eat a slice of this cake for only 275 calories (10 slices total). No box of Valentine's Day chocolates can say the same thing.

Don't worry, there is chocolate involved though. Just later.

The hardest part of making and decorating this entire cake is making the blackberry puree, so it's *literally* a piece of cake to create. You only need:

• 1 box of Pillsbury sugar free yellow cake mix
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup of unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup of skim milk
• 4 ounces of fresh blackberries, pureed and sieved
• 2 ounces of blackberry preserves
• Optional: purple gel dye

Start by preheating your oven to 325. Using a blender or a food processor, puree the blackberries until liquid. Strain the puree over a bowl with a mesh sieve and discard the seeds. Add the blackberry puree and all the other ingredients into a stand mixer bowl. Blend on low for a few seconds then switch over to medium-high for 2 minutes. I added a few drops of purple gel dye since I wanted to make this a naked cake with a vibrant hue, but without the dye, it's a nice lavender shade.

Prepare 3 six-inch round baking pans with cooking spray and bake even strips. Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out of the cake completely clean. Set on cooling racks while still in the pans for 10 minutes before turning out on the cooling racks. Level your cakes with a leveler while they're still somewhat warm, but don't frost until they are completely cool to the touch. I throw my cakes in the freezer for a half hour to speed this up.

Mascarpone, you complete me.

 I adapted my whipped cream cheese frosting from last month to try out mascarpone, and I am absolutely thrilled, perhaps for the first time ever, that I branched outside of my comfort zone. It's sinchy recipe, and you only need:

• 4 ounces mascarpone cheese at room temp
• 1/2 cup of Lankato sugar free powdered monkfruit sweetener (or Swerve confectioners)
• 1 tsp of vanilla 
• 1 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream COLD
• Extra blackberries for layering and adding to the chocolate bowl (I used 8 ounces)

Whip the mascarpone for a minute or two in your stand mixer before adding the vanilla and the powdered sweetener. I switched over to the Lankato because it doesn't have as much of a cooling effect aftertaste that Swerve does. I got it from Amazon, and I highly recommend it for sugar-free frostings. With the mixer on low, take the cold heavy whipping cream and add very slowly to the bowl. Once it is completely added and mixed in, switch to a whisk attachment and beat on high for 2-3 minutes, until stiff peaks form. Stop mixing the second those peaks form so the frosting doesn't deflate. Place your bowl of frosting into the fridge until the moment you're ready to frost.

Purple is just the best color.

 I wanted a fun, cute chocolate topper for this cake. I tried a few variations with balloons that failed spectacularly, so I ended up covering a small bowl with wax paper, melting a third of a bag of lavender chocolate melts, and placed them into a piping bag.

As an added bonus, you can squeeze any leftover chocolate straight into your mouth from the piping bag!

 Then I just swirled squiggles and lines all over the wax paper to make a whimsical bowl:

Or something like that.

I'm not 100% thrilled with the result since I had something completely different pictured in my head, but it worked for it's given purpose: to hold fruit and chocolate. I placed this in the freezer to harden while I assembled my cakes.

Publix has literally the best blackberries.

 Take a cake layer, flop it upside down on a cake board, and then slather a decent helping of the whipped mascarpone frosting on top. Add a large handful of berries to this. Go heavy on the berries--since this is a whipped frosting, it doesn't provide much structure between layers. The berries help support each cake layer. Repeat for the second layer, and finish the top layer with a thick layer of frosting on top. I used about 3/4 of my frosting. If you don't want a naked cake, there's definitely enough frosting to completely cover the cake. But I'm using my leftover frosting each morning at breakfast with berries or in yogurt because it's flippin' fantastic.

Not enough purple!

 So this is what it looks like before scraping a bunch of frosting off. I love the blackberries poking out, and I wish I had put more closer to the edges to peak out and add a little more purple color to the cake. I took a large angled spatula and swiped off a bunch of excess frosting until you could clearly see all three purple layers:

Because it's the best color--and it's not a Valentine's Day color, so there's that.

 Now, take that chocolate bowl out of the freezer and carefully remove the bowl from the middle. Then very gingerly remove the wax paper from the chocolate. You'll be left with a device to hold more chocolate, and that's about as romantic as it gets in my book.

Hey there, good lookin.

 Now, add more blackberries, white chocolate chips, fancy chocolates, strawberries, whatever you want to this cute little bowl.

Think of it like sprinkles, but better, because...chocolate.

 You don't want to make it too heavy since that whipped frosting doesn't hold up very strongly. I recommend placing some wooden dowels in the cake to help support the weight of the bowl, or remove it until you're ready to put the cake out for the "ooh and ahh" moment before serving immediately.

It really is a showstopper.

 I am so glad the third time was the charm with this cake. It is everything I was hoping it would be in the flavor department. I feel like blackberries always get pushed aside for blueberries or strawberries, but to me, they're the best berry. Not too sweet, not too tart, just right--the Goldilocks of berries, really. This cake gives them an excellent opportunity to shine, and it's so delish that just thinking about it makes me happy. That light sweetness from the mascarpone whipped frosting is the perfect addition to this cake, and yeah, it definitely looks like something you'd want to serve for a romantic date night, I'll give it that. But since this is the kind of yummy cake you'd want to eat multiple fist or shovelfuls at a time, it kind of ruins that moment, so eater beware...you also won't feel much like sharing a slice after you've had a bite either, so things could go from blissful romance to Thunderdome really fast. I pray you come out victorious, because this cake is definitely worth it. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

The truest love known to man...a really great cake.

Because It's a Feelings-Eating Weekend

It's been *a week*... between having to leave the chilly, gorgeous Smoky Mountains of Tennessee to come back to flat, sweaty Florida, to then get home and caught up in the tail end of a police standoff during a dog walk, to then find out my husband's deployment was slightly extended, to finally watching the Vikings go down in flames yesterday, this was a week made for feelings-eating (did I also mention I turned another year older? C'mon!!). I was looking for one sliver of hope, and it came in the form of a cupcake. A cranberry-filled vanilla cupcake with whipped cream cheese frosting. Because it's still winter everywhere else, just not here where it's 75 degrees.

Finally, a winter scene in Florida.

I had a lot of feelings to eat, so these had to be low in calories and sugar. At only 200 calories a cupcake, I can be seen with a cupcake in each hand quite frequently! The cranberry filling is so nice and tart, the vanilla cupcakes are a wonderfully sweet offset to this, and I would be willing to fight a bear to get more of that whipped cream cheese frosting. I stumbled upon this frosting recipe on a Keto website, and since I'm pretty much sugar-free as can be (but you'll have to take carbs out my cold dead hands), I decided it was worth a shot. I know we're only 12 days into the new year, but this frosting recipe is probably my greatest discovery of 2020. It is so airy and light since it is whipped, but still tangy thanks to the cream cheese and has a nice finish with a hint of sweetness thanks to Swerve. I am going to try it with various extracts and cocoas, and well, boozes, because, why not? It's the 2020's, not the 1920's, so prohibition need not apply.

Easy ingredients to boot!

I knew it was just me, and me with a full two-dozen cupcakes is a recipe for disaster, so I made only 12 cupcakes for this recipe. If you want a full 24 cupcakes, simply double the ingredients. To make a dozen, you need:

• 1/2 box of white/vanilla cake mix
• 2 egg whites
• 1/4 cup of unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 cup + 2 TBS skim milk

Preheat your oven to 350 and line a muffin tin with cupcake liners. Mix all ingredients on low for 30 seconds, then turn to medium-high for 2 minutes. Use a cookie scoop to put 1.5 scoops of batter into each cupcake liner. Bake at 350 for 18 minutes. Let cupcakes cool in the pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes before removing from the pan to finish cooling completely.

Soooo pretty...found those red foil liners on Amazon, so I now have a lifetime supply of 500 liners.

The things I had to do to find cranberries after December.

So, in hindsight, I SHOULD have made these in November when you can't even walk into any grocery store without getting hit in the face by a ton of cranberries. I had to go to several stores before I found cranberries, albeit frozen ones, to make this recipe possible. WORTH IT. The filling is insanely good. To make, get:

• 1/4 cup Swerve granular (if you want a sweeter and less tart filling, add a tablespoon or two more)
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup of frozen cranberries
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp corn starch
• 1 tsp water

Dump the 1/4 cup of water, Swerve, vanilla, and cranberries into a small pan on medium-high heat. Stir everything together frequently and bring to a low boil. Cook for 3 minutes until the cranberries start to get mushy as you stir. Then in a small bowl, mix the final teaspoon of water and cornstarch together before pouring into the cranberry mix. Stir until everything thickens, another minute or so. Take this off heat and let cool fully before using.

Heavy whipping cream is the MVP of this recipe.

 While cupcakes and cranberry filling finish cooling, make your frosting. You need:

• 4 oz reduced fat cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup of Swerve confectioners
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/4 cup + 2 TBS heavy whipping cream, COLD

With a paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese until fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Then add in the sugar and extract, blending well. Scrape the bowl and change to a whisk attachment. With the blender on low, VERY slowly pour in the COLD heavy whipping cream. Once all the cream is incorporated, turn the mixer to high and whip the frosting for 2-3 minutes until stiff peaks form. Once stiff peaks form STOP mixing so you don't deflate the frosting. If you wanted to add color, fold it in by hand. Keep this frosting cold until you're ready to pipe. If you're worried about things being cold enough for the heavy whipping cream to work, chill your mixing bowl in the freezer before you get started on the frosting.

Now, back to those beautiful blonde cupcakes.

 When totally cooled, take a large piping tip (I used a 2D), and gently wiggle it into the top of each cupcake until the tip is about half into the cake, then gently take the piping tip out of the cupcake.

I hate destroying something so pretty. But it's for a good, tasty cause!

 Remove the cupcake filling from the center of the piping tip and wipe any crumbs from the tip's base. Save a bit of the cupcake filling (eat the rest, obviously).

Mmm, jelly-filled like a donut.

 Take a heaping teaspoon of the cooled cranberry filling and place into the hole. You will have a little filling leftover, and I can tell you it goes excellently on an English muffin at breakfast (I can't live life without carbs, sorry, Keto people. Carbs are joy.).

And necessary to complete our baking!

Take a tiny bit of leftover cupcake scrap and place on top of the filling to keep things anchored in and to keep any bleeds in the frosting layer. Repeat for all remaining cupcakes, then grab a bowl, some sanding or granular sugar, and a handful of frozen cranberries. I put 36 frozen cranberries on a paper towel while I piped all my frosting. By the time I was finished piping, they had thawed out a bit, leaving water and some of their juices on the outside of the berries.

So I dumped these wet cranberries into a bowl with sanding sugar.

And I rolled them around like crazy until coated.

 Now, let me backtrack a moment for the piping instructions!

Swirly!

 I used a large French tip, the Ateco #869, to make these pretty swirls. I loaded up a piping bag with HALF the cold whipped cream cheese frosting, keeping the other half in the fridge while I worked. I simply started in the middle of the cupcake and piped clockwise down and around (as a lefty, I do everything backwards...righties might find up and around counterclockwise easier).

Then I gently put a few cranberries on top.

 I had a ton of cranberries though, so I decided to use the rule of three here, and I think these turned out absolutely darling:

So, so wintery. Sigh.

 While we were going through a short monsoon season yesterday that left me with VERY large hair (thanks, 90% humidity), I at least had these cupcakes to give me the winter vibes I so desperately desire.

Inside AND out.

The filling takes these to the next level. And while, yes, they are more appropriate for a Thanksgiving or Christmas dessert, I am a grown woman, and I bake what I want when I want. Sort of. If I REALLY baked whatever I want whenever I wanted, you'd be getting a spooky Halloween dessert 12 months out of the year. So at least these are seasonally appropriate? And they're so delicious, I almost forget about the intense level of sadness I feel today as a Minnesota Vikings fan. Excellent job covering the depression, cupcakes! I think it's the whipped cream cheese frosting. It is so incredibly delicious that it gives me reason to believe in miracles, like making it to a Super Bowl once in my lifetime. As Marge Simpson once said, "My greatest sin is that I dare to hope," and I feel that in my Vikings-loving soul.

The best therapy sessions should always end in cupcakes.

Happy Little Trees

Due to the Black Friday sales gods, my husband was able to gift me a gorgeous matte purple KitchenAid mixer without selling any organs. I was beyond thrilled to test it out this weekend (I logged about 12 hours on the mixer alone yesterday for holiday baking). How was it compared to my old Walmart mixer, you may or may not have asked? Let me explain it to you like this: it's like that moment when you go to the optometrist and put on glasses for the first time and have that, "Wait, so THIS is what sight is supposed to be like?" moment. Clarity mixed with magic. I didn't realize it wasn't supposed to sound like a freight train was coming through my house when the mixer was on, or that I shouldn't have to hand mix a bit after I turn off the mixer. I'm so happy I could cry. Now, if only I could get into the holiday spirit. Tis the season to be sweaty down here in Florida. I put up Christmas lights last week in shorts and a tank top and still came in drenched in sweat. I felt more like a margarita than an eggnog for sure. I was feeling extra Grinchy since I have jury duty tomorrow, so I thought about scrapping baking altogether, but like any adult around the holidays, I forced myself to pretend to enjoy Christmas until I actually did...all thanks to this classic hand-painted Christmas tree snowscape cake.

Well now that's just adorable.

This cute little cake that in no way represents winter in Florida is a vanilla peppermint cake with peppermint buttercream. It tastes like a candy cane, and it's absolutely perfect. I haven't done too much baking since D deployed, and if you're wondering whether one grown woman can eat an entire cake by herself, I can assure you with no one around to judge me, I eat breakfast cake regularly. Needless to say, this had to be a low-cal bake since I take a slice out of it pretty much every time I walk by the fridge. This recipe will only set you back 289 calories for 12 slices.

Oh hey, super sexy KitchenAid mixer. I see you.

It's a truly simple recipe, and the cakes themselves can be made and frosted in like three hours tops including bake time, even with the hand-painted treescape. To make, you need:

• White cake mix
• 4 egg whites (I am missing an egg in the photo)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup of skim milk
• 1/4 cup of water (or you can use more milk)
• 1 tsp of peppermint extract (trust me, a little goes a long way)

Preheat the oven to 350 and prepare three 6-inch baking pans with cooking spray and bake even strips. Mix all the ingredients above in a stand mixer (I am sorry for you if you don't have a KitchenAid because they are glorious) for 2 minutes on medium high. Evenly pour batter into your prepared pans. I had 275 grams of batter in each pan. Bake for 30 minutes or until the rounds pass the toothpick test. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes then turnout onto a cooling rack to fully cool. Be sure you level your cakes before frosting so everything is nice and flat. Bonus, you can eat the cake scraps to tide you over! Small Christmas miracles!

I mean, that mixer looks good from every angle.

 The frosting is also very quick to make and surprisingly, booze free. But go ahead and replace the milk with peppermint schnapps if you can't survive the holidays without alcohol in some form. No one will blame you. For the frosting:

• 4 cups of Swerve confectioner's
• 1 cup of butter at room temp
• 3 TBS skim milk or your peppermint booze of choice
• 1 tsp peppermint extract (omit if using peppermint booze)

Ready? Mix it all together until smooth in your awesome, super quiet, luxurious KitchenAid (I am not being paid by the company to say this, but I probably should be). Now, get those painting tools ready so you can get your inner Bob Ross on and paint tons of happy little trees.

Don't forget the sprinkles. I have a feeling Mr. Ross also loved a good sprinkle.

 I picked up star sprinkles, red, white, and green circle sprinkles, and snowflake sprinkles from A.C. Moore because it's going out of business so I figured everything would be on sale. Everything was on sale. Except for the baking tools and accessories. This is my level of luck or lack there of (I am so getting picked for jury duty tomorrow because of it). I also used a Kelly green and a brown gel dye (I didn't use the red, but you can if you want to pipe a border...I was unsure if I had enough frosting to do so). Not pictured but definitely needed are crushed candy canes or peppermint crunch. Last but not least, you will need palette knives to paint.

I always put a hefty amount of frosting into a large bag with a #12 round tip, pictured on the right above, and pipe rounds of frosting in between my layers while assembling my cakes. I didn't take any photos of this since I was delirious on hour 8 of baking, and because I am pretty sure if you're here, you know how to stack a cake. I did, however, take pictures of the fully assembled cake with peppermint crunch sprinkled on top as seen below. Once you have completely covered your cake in frosting, get a little wild and sprinkle that peppermint crunch on top, pressing gently into the frosting. Freeze your cake for 30-45 minutes before painting on it.

I received my third wind after this and was super ready to paint.

I draw like a three year old.

Unlike my buttercream mountain cake, I didn't think freehand Christmas trees were really going to work out too well for me, so I used a toothpick to draw tiny trees on my cake. I had to look outside a few times to be reminded what a proper pine tree looks like because A. I cannot draw and because B. Northwest Florida is absolutely covered in pine trees (yet it's still summer in December anyway). 

My painting palette.

 After covering my cake in the white buttercream and freezing for half an hour, I took a glob of frosting, plopped it on a plate, and dyed it brown, mixing with a palette knife. I took a larger glob of frosting and dyed that Kelly green. I ended up having quite a lot of both colors leftover, so I definitely could have done a border around the top of the cake since I ended up throwing this and some leftover plain frosting out (after I ate most of it with an unused palette knife...I told you, with no one around to judge, it's like a "Cathy" comic in this house).

I really need adult supervision.

I started by using my smallest palette knife to swipe on a brown tree stump, then I used the next size up to swipe on green for my pine trees. I swiped up and to the left to make the right side of the tree, coming back in after each swipe to add more frosting to the back of my palette knife.

I mean, it's definitely a tree, so mission accomplished.

 I swiped up and to the right to complete the left side of the tree. I found it way easier to paint when I put my cake stand on top of a large, flat mixing bowl so it was eye level but stable.

SPRINKLES!

To finish this tree, I added round sprinkles for ornaments and a silver star on top. I lightly dusted the base of the cake board with powdered sugar to look like snow. This will be the only snowfall I experience this winter...

I really miss snow. The real stuff. Powdered sugar's great though.

 I ended up painting several more trees, most of them a lot smaller and shorter and dusted with "snow." I only did one other larger tree with Christmas ornaments on it on the opposite side of the cake from the first tree.

So darling it almost makes my Grinch heart grow.

Remember what I said about freehanding trees earlier? This PERFECT example of a pine tree was the LAST tree I made and the ONLY ONE I freehanded. So, go figure. Now I know to just go freehand when it comes to painting with buttercream. 

It really makes me feel like the holidays are near when I look at this cake. But then I step outside and get very confused because it feels like it's September.

To finish, I added tiny little snowflake sprinkles all around the cake (a great way to cover up any errant green paint). Fun fact! Living the heat-soaked South, this cake is the closest I will get to walking through a winter wonderland this holiday season!

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, you are so very yummy.

 I am really digging how this turned out. It's simple but it's cute. It's also extremely delicious. I had never done plain peppermint cake before because I am hugely obsessed with peppermint mixed with chocolate, so I am happy I branched out and tried something different says the woman who lives her life with the assistance of three different planners. The peppermint vanilla cake is very light but packs a good amount of peppermint flavor. It's nice to be able to eat a dessert at Christmas time that doesn't weigh as much as a small child or a fruitcake. I could (and did) eat that peppermint buttercream all on its own and be perfectly satisfied, but pairing it with that airy peppermint vanilla cake is positively divine, so happy birthday, Baby Jesus! I will really use any reason to bake a cake around here... I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, and I'll see you back here in 2020. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Bold move, putting a cake in front of a mixer that visually stunning...