A Mountain of a Cake

I live in a state full of beautiful sandy beaches (I also live in a state of denial, but that's a whole different blog post)...the ocean is a gorgeous shade of emerald, and the sand is pure white. Sounds like paradise, right? Well, I'm sure it is, if you're a beach person (I refer to them as 'basic beaches'). I, however, am a mountain person. I have a body made for flannel and awkwardly long feet that only appear normal in size in boots. I love to watch the sun cascade over the mountains in the morning for a few moments of what feels like magical, limitless possibilities. The air is crisp, the outdoor adventures are awesome, and being in the mountains is the only place I can truly consider myself optimistic (see, without all that humidity, I have *great* hair days, and that makes any woman happier than usual). After our August trip to Portland, trekking through the Columbia River Gorge and generally enjoying an active, significantly cooler paradise, I was inspired to try something new. I know, me, true lover of routine. See, the mountains really do make me an adventurous little thrill seeker. I had been studying Instagram and YouTube videos of cakes decorated with palette knives and painted buttercream for ages. I knew it was finally time to go for it and create a buttercream painted cake as an homage to my preferred outdoor scenery. I mean, most of the planet's surface is covered in water. Beaches-schmeaches. Gimme those mountains!

I was bear-y excited how this turned out. Sorry. I made an edible chocolate bear, so this pun was going to happen eventually.

 

I mean, you can tell they're mountains, so I feel like for my first attempt, not too bad. I'm certainly no Bob Ross. I wasn't painting happy little trees...more like demented little shrubs, but still. The cake itself was also another foray into adventure, and what a delicious treat that ended up being. It's a caramel cake with caramel buttercream because fall is close, but not "pumpkin everything" close. It's the right amount of sweet caramel notes paired with buttery yellow cake, and it leaves a nice lingering taste that makes me think of Michigan cider mills and delicious caramel apple cider. Then I remember it's still 95 degrees outside and the dream shatters, but in that moment, I am in pure Autumnal bliss. And for only 324 calories a slice for 12 slices, no guilt to be found anywhere!

And super easy to throw together.

 As always, doctoring a box cake mix and turning it into something bakery-counter worthy is not difficult. For this scrumptious caramel cake, you need:

• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 3 egg whites
• 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup of skim milk
• 3 TBS caramel sauce (could also use dulce de leche, trying this next time)
• 1 tsp caramel extract

I made a maple cake not long ago that required, obviously, maple syrup; however, this much stickiness made the cake very delicate. It was a 9x13 sheet cake, so I didn't need it to be strong enough to hold up several layers. But this cake needed to be able to withstand the weight of multiple layers, so instead of using a 1/2 a cup of caramel sauce, I swapped in caramel extract to taste to get the right amount of caramel flavor while keeping the cake dense enough for stacking.

She's a tall one, alright.

Preheat your oven to 350, add all ingredients to your stand mixer, and blend on medium-high for 2 minutes. Turn batter into three 6-inch rounds that have been well greased with cooking spray. Bake for 28 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let these rest in the pans on a cooling rack for 10 minutes before turning out on to the racks to cool completely. Level your cakes and freeze for a few hours. I wrapped mine in plastic wrap, placed in a Ziplock, and froze overnight.

Ah butter, basic element of all things delicious.

The frosting is incredibly simple to throw together as well. Once your cakes are frozen, you'll need the following for frosting:

• 1 cup of butter at room temp
• 2 cups of powdered sugar
• 2 cups of Swerve confectioners
• 1.5 TBS of caramel extract
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 TBS skim milk (could totally go for Baileys Salted Caramel here if you do NOT need a pure white frosting, but I did, so..sadly Baileys free)

Blend the butter until fluffy and silky looking, then add in 2 cups of powdered sugar, the extract, and the vanilla. Blend, scrape the bowl, and add in the Swerve and milk. Mix well until everything is incorporated. I ended up with 26 ounces of frosting, but painting with buttercream surprisingly doesn't use much frosting, so I had a little over 8 ounces leftover (totes putting the leftovers on top of a waffle at some point this week).

Smoooooth.

I place my cake layers face down, use a piping bag full of frosting with a #12 round tip, slather a few circles on top of a layer, smooth, add another layer, and repeat until all my cake rounds are assembled and the top of the cake is frosted. I refill my bag and pipe around the cake to create a nice thick layer that I then smooth out with a small angled spatula first, then come in with a bench scraper for about 7-8 passes, removing excess frosting with each pass, cleaning my bench scraper, and going again until I have a completely smooth surface. It sounds like way more work than it is, and you don't even have to freeze for 15 minutes and come back in and smooth out with the paper towel trick because the thick layer of frosting you pipe on first helps cover up any weird or uneveness, and the scraper takes care of the rest. Now, freeze this for at least an hour. Painting on the buttercream will tear the frosting layer up if it isn't frozen. I froze for 3 hours (the cake. Not me. I melted in Florida heat while waiting).

And I made a tiny bear friend.

While the cake is freezing, you can make your bear topper by tracing out an outline of a bear on Parchment paper, flipping it over, and melting a few chocolate melts in your preferred color by following package instructions. Place your melts into a piping bag fitted with a small round tip and let cool for 5 minutes.

I used a #3 tip to trace my outline.

And then a #5 tip to flood/fill in the rest.

I used a toothpick to blend everything together. I set him aside to firm up for a half hour on the counter. Then I got even artsy-ier.

Behold, my palette knives!

I ordered a set of palette knives off Amazon. Was not remotely sure what I was looking for, but I went for it, and these worked out decently. I only used #1 and #3, and honestly, I needed one that was even smaller than #1 in some places. I knew I wanted light blue mountains, blue mountains, dark navy mountains, green trees, and rock candy accents, but not surprisingly, I have amassed all these things thanks to this never-ending sweet tooth and desire to bake.

My painter's palette was tasty.

I dropped a few dollops of frosting onto a large plate and mixed my colors with the palette knife. One drop sky blue in one, several drops blue in another, and several drops navy in a third. I also kept some plain white for snow, and later on I added green to that to create trees. I practiced maneuvering the knives on some Parchment for a bit before going for broke on the cake. They're pretty easy to handle, but since the cake was frozen, I had to work quickly to paint because the buttercream I was using to paint chilled and firmed up very quickly on the cold cake.

I started with the light blue and made my tallest mountains first.

 You just need to apply a smattering of buttercream to the back of the palette knife and softly paint it on the side of the cake. I used the larger knife for these mountains. I went with mountains for my first attempt because they're large, not uniformly shaped, and easier than flowers for sure. Once I had randomly smattered my first range of mountains, I froze the cake for 30 minutes.

Then I came back in with my blue buttercream.

 I used the smallest knife for my next range, and once finished with that, I cleaned my knife and came back in to paint snow caps on my tallest mountains with the white buttercream. I froze this for another 30 minutes.

I finished my mountain-scape with navy blue.

 The thing I liked best about this (aside from the fact that I was seated comfortably the whole time and not on my feet like most cake decorating techniques) was that there was huge room for error. If I saw a spot where I had a gap or something needed to be filled in, everything was frozen so I could come back in with the right color and paint in any holes. It was also neat to just let my mind wander and see where a mountain would end up. I froze the cake for another 30 minutes after my last range.

Teeny-tiny trees.

For my trees, I used a small paintbrush and quick little strokes to just dot the bottom of the cake with trees in random places.

Makes me miss the Pacific NW!

I finished off by placing random rock candy around the bottom of the cake and gently securing my bear to the top of the cake.

Getting photos was time consuming because each angle had a new look.

But I beared with it.

And it was worth it to try something new.

I really enjoyed learning and executing this technique, and I will definitely be trying to paint new cakes in the future. It really has a great learning curve, and as long as it looks cool, you've done it right in my book. For now, I'm enjoying this delicious mountain of a cake in all its caramel, fall-adjacent glory. Football is back on TV, the sun isn't bothering me until 9 p.m., and Publix bakery has pumpkin donuts out now. It's happening people! Fall is upon us...which means October isn't far off, so I'll be back soon with spooky Halloween bakes that are to die for...'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Gotta love a good adventure.

Take me back to the mountains!