It Could Be None More Green.

We're only 5 days into March, and you better believe we've been amping up for Saint Patrick's Day in this house for all 120 hours of it. I mean, I ditched my strict 8 p.m. bedtime to go to a Dropkick Murphy's concert with my husband last weekend, and there is nothing like a little Celtic punk music to really put you in the mood for a St. Patty's Day celebration...and to remind you that after the age of 30, standing for long periods of time at a concert with result in several day's worth of back aches and fond memories of pain-free concerts in your early 20s. However, I was feeling inspired to celebrate one of my other favorite baking holidays (T-minus 240 days until Halloween), and I decided to go as big and as wild as the day deserves. This means there would be plenty of booze, plenty of cake, and plenty of green.

And plenty of shine because I have a large addiction to shiny things. Maybe I was a crow in past life.

Mirror glaze Saint Patrick's cake may be my crowning achievement in a list of the 20+ St. Patty's themed desserts I've made since I began this baking blog 5 years ago. I mean, this baby is so shiny it was hard to get a photo without a ton of glare, but I suppose that's kind of the point. I'm pretty sure in that bottom right photo you can see the faint reflection of my smug look of self satisfaction for out-caking myself. Four tiers of green ombre caramel cake coated in salted caramel Baileys Swiss meringue buttercream and all ensconced in mirror glazed chocolatey goodness...for under 400 calories a slice. I'd attribute it to the luck of the Irish, but it's really just because I'm insanely devoted to having my cake and eating it, too, this close to swimsuit season. I sectioned my cake into 12 servings for 365 calories a slice; you could easily turn this into 14 or 16 slices since it's such a tall cake for 313 or 274 calories respectively. I, however, went more feast over (potato) famine (too soon?) on my servings because I have other Baileys-laced desserts that aren't going to make or eat themselves this month, so I can't waste too much time on one cake, even if it is a green, shining beacon of festivity.

And the cake practically makes itself.

So I fell down the rabbit hole looking at extracts on Amazon, which is either a new low or a new high for me, still undecided. I came across caramel extract and thought it would be a great way to add to the Baileys flavor without adding to the Baileys calorie count. I will now be adding this extract into everything I eat for the foreseeable future (that good). To make this 4-tiered, 6-inch round cake, you need:

• 1 box vanilla cake mix
• 2 egg whites
• 10 ounces diet creme soda
• 2 tsp caramel extract
• Gel dye in leaf and Kelly greens

Preheat your oven to 350 and prepare your 6-inch round pans with cooking spray. Dump all ingredients together and blend on medium-high for 2 minutes. Divide your batter into 4 equal servings, each about a cup. Place plain white batter from one portion into a prepared cake pan. Dye another portion with a tiny, teeny amount of leaf green dye, then place into another prepared cake pan. Bake these for 22-24 minutes and set to cool on a cooling rack while still in the pan. While these bake, take the remaining batter and dye one half of it with several drops of leaf green and place into a prepared pan. Dye the last bit of batter with plenty of Kelly green and place into a prepared pan. Bake at same time/temp. Let all your cakes cool in the pans for about 10 minutes before turning out onto cooling racks.

It will be a colorful cooling session.

I knew I was making my cake over the course of a few days, so once my cake rounds were completely cool, I wrapped each in plastic wrap and placed in a freezer bag before freezing overnight. I do recommend this to make frosting easier.

We meet again, Swiss meringue...

So after that incredibly detailed blog post about how I FINALLY won over Swiss meringue buttercream, I'm going to keep this nice and brief. I pulsed my Swerve in the food processor this time though, which did help make it a little less grainy, but no matter how long I cooked my Swerve and egg whites together, I could not get it to dissolve all the way. Since I did not have this problem later with melting the Swerve in the mirror glaze, I'm going to try using more egg whites next time to up the amount of liquid that the sugar has to dissolve itself in. For this recipe, I used:

• 3 egg whites
• 1 cup Swerve granular
• 1 cup of butter at room temp
• 2 TBS salted caramel Baileys (could've even done 1 more and the frosting would've been firm enough for the glaze to stick to...hindsight)

 Definitely see the link above for the play-by-play if this is your first time making meringue. It's a long process, but worth it for the end result. This was buttery-rich with a smooth Baileys aftertaste. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

The photos aren't helping.

 Take your frozen rounds, prepare for a crappy photo montage, and start by plopping the white layer on a cake board and frosting with a thin amount of buttercream. I ended up cutting a new cake board to fit the cake's exact diameter later--do this first and not last like I did to make your life easier when you mirror glaze it. Picture me trying to transfer a fully frosted cake to a new cake round without ruining everything to remind you to do this FIRST. While a funny mental image, I do not recommend. I was cursing in several languages; some of which I did not even know I knew how to speak.

Top with the lightest green cake round, add more frosting, and go!

Add the leaf green layer on top of this, frost, and guess what?

I mean, there's only one color left, so I feel like you get it at this point.

 Once the layers are filled, use the rest of your delicious Baileys Swiss meringue to place a very thick layer of frosting around the entire cake.

This weighed 15 pounds.

 Smooth out with a bench scraper and a large angled spatula before popping into the freezer for at least 2-3 hours before you pour liquid hot mirror glaze magma on top of it. I have only ever done mirror glaze once before using an American buttercream, so I was nervous at this point that the Swiss would once again be too neutral and not allow the mirror glaze to firmly stick to it. I put this in the freezer overnight while we enjoyed a concert so good, I forgot I had something to worry about. That's a true testament to the Dropkick Murphy's.

There's just so many ingredients...

It had been almost 2 years since my first and only successful attempt at mirror glazing in the form of a galaxy cake. I remembered lots of sweating, but I figured that was because I made it in June. Wrong. It's the last step in decorating a cake, and the one with the highest chance of things going wrong. I made this cake days ago, and even thinking about it now is making me twitchy. No, it's not really that hard, I'm just incredibly dramatic when I'm hungry, so I better eat some cake while I finish this. Mirror glaze for this cake required:

• 8 ounces of lime green or white chocolate melts (I used lime)
• 5 tsp Knox gelatine
• 1/2 cup of water
• 1 cup Swerve granular
• Additional 1/4 cup of water
• 1/2 cup of light corn syrup
• 1/2 cup of fat free sweetened condensed milk
• Lime green, leaf green, and Kelly green gel dyes
• Gold star sprinkles 

And every kitchen utensil you have.

 Please see my link above for a detailed account of how to make mirror glaze. It's blooming gelatin, then cooking your sugar/1/4 c water/corn syrup until bubbly, adding in the condensed milk and gelatin, and pouring on top of your chocolate melts before straining into a large bowl. I go into the minutiae in that blog link though and include a video you can watch. 

There's no galaxy here, though. Seems very Earth-adjacent.

 I split my glaze into three bowls: one dyed super lime green, one dyed a nice leaf green, and the base of the cake/bulk of the glaze a super dark Kelly green. Let this sit for a minute or two to reach 90-100 degrees.

Cakes elevated to the next level. It's what I do.

 While your glaze cools off just a bit, take your cake out of the freezer, put it on a vase or jar (I use my butter bell bottom) and place that on top of a pan lined with foil.

This part is as satisfying as it is terrifying.

Make sure you have all your glaze colors lined up, each with their own clean spoon, and work quickly. Pour the Kelly green base color all over the cake, ensuring every last bit is covered in dark green and no white is peaking through anywhere.

Tiger stripe success!

 Then take the other two colors and drizzle them one at a time on top of the Kelly green base until you get a look you like. You can use a large angled spatula to smooth out the top and even out the colors, but I liked how striped this looked. My lime green showed up well, but my leaf green faded into the background a bit. I'd recommend doing lime green and maybe white instead if you want more of a contrast.

Right, the sprinkles.

 Wait for about 5-10 minutes while your glaze continues to drip off your cake. Once this has stopped, top with *hopefully* gold star sprinkles. Because gold and Saint Patrick's Day are thing that go together. Sadly, my AC Moore was out of gold stars, so I had to settle for silver. I'm not sure any leprechaun is going to be looking for a pot of silver at the end of the rainbow, but it still looked pretty. Carefully transfer your cake to a serving plate and let it rest for a few hours before serving.

Clean and green, baby!

I put my cake in the fridge for a few hours to ensure I could get a nice, clean slice for a photo. I absolutely love how festive this cake is inside and out. There was no half-assing with this cake, only whole-assing for the sake of Saint Patrick's Day. I'm not even Irish, I just really like the color green. We'll say I made this for my Irish husband, but we know I'm doing the bulk of the cake eating here.

I did earn it, though. This was 3 days of my life!

 Granted, if you had a normal Saturday with several hours set aside, you could make this magic happen without the aid of four leaf clovers or tiny drunk leprechauns. It definitely would be a showstopper at your Saint Patrick's Day festivities before Irish Car Bombs start dropping, the Guinness starts flowing, and everyone starts seeing double. I'm sure it would look really cool though with all that shiny mirror glaze blazing in and out of boozy view. Bottom line is this--I will use any excuse to make a themed cake, but I will go above and beyond when it's a holiday I also happen to fancy. This is my ode to St. Patty's Day--and it is delicious. Caramel cake with buttery Baileys Swiss meringue and chocolatey sweet mirror glaze...every bite reminds me why Baileys will always be the best baking ingredient in my book. Rich but not too heavy, sweet but not overly so. Who needs a pot of gold when you've got an entire cake?! Enjoy your festivities, I'm off to drool over this cake some more and plot my next Saint Patrick's Day dessert. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

I mean, I would take the gold, too, but I'm fairly certain the cake might be a little lighter to carry...