I Just Swanna Eat Cake

Well, as I take an introspective look back at my 33rd year on this planet, I guess I'd have to say I am thankful for those three or four times I was able to leave my house in 2020. In all seriousness, it was a rough year for everyone, but as an introvert, 2020 had its perks. I was able to spend most of it in sweatpants hanging out with my dogs, and I didn't even have to open the door when food was delivered to my house. These small miracles kept me going. That and a huge serving of dessert every evening. I've decided to remain cautiously optimistic as we enter 2021 for VERY OBVIOUS REASONS, but there's nothing like having a January birthday that somehow manages to sneak up behind Christmas and punch you in the face when you're not expecting it (getting old is fun). As much fun as the "Ode to My Youth" tombstone cake was, I realized I hadn't made a big fuss over making my own birthday cake since turning 30. I'm pretty important to, well, me, so this year I knew I needed to make a cake that was a swan song to my early 30's because we're rolling straight into the mid's now. Naturally it needed to be heavy-laden with booze to cope.

You're the swan that I want.

This beautiful Swan Lake Cake is a super moist gluten free chocolate made with Skrewball peanut butter whiskey, and by made, I mean positively swimming in it, as swans are wont to do with large bodies of liquid. It's also covered in an exceptionally amazing vanilla Greek yogurt cream cheese frosting, a recipe I am going to be using again and again because sometimes my need to reduce sugar and calories births ideas so crazy they actually work. Enough tooting my own horn (I'm not a goose, after all), this three-tiered cake comes in at only 281 calories a slice (10 slices total); so that's like having a peanut butter Old Fashioned after dinner but more or less in cake form. Oh, and if you hate whiskey? Don't worry. I find whiskey to be the most repulsive beverage in the world and believe drinking straight kerosene would burn less. But there's something about taking whiskey and making it peanut butter flavored that completely changes the game. I absolutely am not a whiskey drinker; but oh sweet Jif-peanut-butter-gods, this stuff is amazing. Give it a shot (or take a few). It lends a rich flavor to the chocolate cake, almost like you're eating a dark chocolate Reese's.  

Pro tip: mix an ounce of Skrewball with an ounce of Chambord for a liquid peanut butter and jelly sandwich. My birthday gift to you.

I have become a Whole Foods junkie. I took my husband with last time I went, more or less to keep me from trying to buy the entire store but also to show him the Whole Foods World- shining, shimmering, splendid. He enjoyed fresh pressed juice, I bought 25 boxes of gluten free cake mix. Their cake mix is the only one I have used that allows me to play with the ingredients, so I cannot guarantee this recipe will work with other gluten free mixes. To make, you need:

• Gluten free chocolate cake mix, Whole Foods brand
• 2 egg whites
• 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce
• 3/4 cup Skrewball peanut butter whiskey (if you want to use less whiskey, use 1/2 cup and add 1/4 cup of skim milk; I said Skrew it, and used 3/4 cup of whiskey)

Start by preheating your oven to 350 and greasing three 6-inch round pans, lining with Parchment and bake even strips. Mix all ingredients on low in a stand mixer for 30 seconds before turning to medium-high for another 30 seconds, just until everything comes together. Pour batter into the prepared pans and bake for 24-26 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out of the cake clean. 

Leave your cakes in the pan for 10 minutes to cool before removing from the pan and placing on a cooling rack to completely chill before frosting. I recommend putting in the fridge or freezer to keep crumbs to a minimum when frosting. Now, time to work on that Ugly Duckling! Don't worry, it has a happy ending (I mean, if you don't eat it, anyway).

See, you're beautiful, little swan!

I found an image I liked on Canva, sized it to make sure it wasn't going to be too tiny or huge for my cake, and printed it in mirror images so my swan had two sides to her head. I figured she'd appreciate that. Then I put my design down on a baking sheet and covered with Parchment.

Ahh, playing with chocolate. My happy place.

You will need white, black, and orange Wilton chocolate melts (I find these work the best over other brands). Start by heating your white melts up according to package directions; I used half a bag for the head and feathers. If you have trouble with it seizing up, add a tsp of vegetable oil and it should thin things out again. I put this into a piping bag fitted with a medium-sized round tip (I alternated between a #12 and a #5). I used the larger #12 to flood the neck and most of the head before switching to the #5 to fill in the smaller end of the head close to the beak.

You'll want to use a food safe paint brush, an angled spatula, or a palette knife to smooth the chocolate out and give a little bit of feather-like texture (just make little swirl motions). Place this in the freezer to set for 15-20 minutes.

Now, time to get artsy fartsy.

Put the #12 tip back on your piping bag and lay out like, a lot of Parchment. Gather an angled spatula, large paint brush, and then pipe a really large mound of white chocolate. I used a BIG angled spatula to create my largest feathers by pressing down in the center of the white chocolate mound and pulling in one direction. I pulled this one section out a few times to create a long feather, and I used a paintbrush to give it texture by lightly stroking over the top of the feather. I did this twice for two large feathers, but for the smaller feathers, I used a rounded palette knife:

And took an upside down photo, sorry.

This would also work with a small angled spatula. I used up all of my chocolate creating feathers of various sizes from large to medium to small. I think I had three leftover. You could eat those, but I find chocolate melts to taste even grosser than every whiskey in the world minus Skrewball, so I did NOT include the feathers in the calorie content for this cake. You'd need to add like several bajillion calories to this if you eat the chocolate melt feathers; I'd also recommend a COVID test because if you eat these and don't find them repulsive, I assume you've lost the ability to taste. Whomp, whomp.

Back in black!

Now, let your feathers set up for 30 minutes (I did not bother moving these to the freezer since they were so thin). Grab the swan from the freezer, melt a teeny tiny bit of black chocolate melts, and place in a piping bag with a #2 or #3 round tip. Pipe the top of the beak, then gently use a paintbrush or angled spatula to smooth and make sure the black band is touching the white completely. Let this set for 5-10 minutes; it's a small piece and will dry very quickly.

Plus, the black band keeps it from looking like the worst, most ravenous, violent animal to ever exist: the goose.

You can also draw on eyes with the black melts at this point, but I got distracted by melting a teeny tiny bit of orange chocolate melts and forgot to do this until later. I also put my orange melts into a piping bag with a #2 tip. I carefully filled in the orange part of the beak, using a paintbrush to ensure it was smoothed out and touching the black band.

Stop looking at me, swan!

Now, let your pretty, graceful swan (in your face, man-eating goose) set up completely before handling. While this and the feathers are drying, you can make a REVOLUTIONARY frosting. Seriously, it's probably going to be the best thing I do all year, and we're only 10 days into 2021 (though it feels more like 100).

Apparently I don't have high hopes for this year. Go figure.

I found a delicious vanilla Chai Greek yogurt by Wallaby Organic at, you guessed it, Whole Foods. I wanted to try making a cream cheese frosting that wasn't filled with butter and powdered sweetener, and this truly fits the bill. To make:

• 8 ounces reduced fat cream cheese at room temp
• 1 cup (about 1 1/2 of these 5.3 ounce Wallaby brand containers) of vanilla or plain Greek yogurt, no sugar added (important) and kept cold; I went with a low-fat variety, but a full-fat variety would be even thicker
  
• 1 TBS Skrewball
• 1 tsp CLEAR vanilla (it's a pristine white swan, not a dirty, evil goose, so go with clear)
• 1-1 1/2 cups of Lakanto powdered monkfruit

Trial and error time! I only used one container of yogurt, and this frosting was very loose. I did NOT need to pipe with it, but if I did, next time I would use two containers. I would also strain them overnight (place yogurt in a strainer, on top of bowl, and keep in the fridge overnight to rid it of excess liquid). You can add in more powdered sweetener if things are still too thin.

But I found 1 1/2 cups of Lakanto was still firm enough to hold on to my beaters, so this was all I needed.

Start by whipping the cream cheese until fluffy, 3-4 minutes. Then add in the yogurt, Skrewball, vanilla, and one cup of powdered sweetener. Mix well, and if things are too loose, add in another 1/2 cup of powdered sweetener to thicken things up. It should be able to hold on to your beaters, or it'll slide right off your cake.

A peanut butter whiskey Oreo..I need this to be a thing.

Work fast with this frosting since it needs to stay cold. Place a cake round face down on a cake board and slather a layer of frosting down before placing the second cake round face down on top of this.

A Double Stuf peanut butter whiskey Oreo *drooling*

Slather frosting on top of this before adding the final cake round on top. Then go wild and cover the entire cake with frosting--be sure to save a little bit to stick your swan heads together and to adhere the feathers to the sides of the cake.

And get swirly.

I used a rounded palette knife (this thing saw a lot of action for this bake), and I gently swirled little S's all over the top and sides of the cake to give it texture. Swan feathers have texture, so just go with it.

Now comes the fun, yet slightly terrifying part.

So, pretend you're handling a baby hummingbird, Monarch butterfly, or something else that's way more delicate than it should be (like my feelings), and gently, ever so gently, peel your dried feathers off the Parchment. Place the largest feathers on the bottom of each side of the cake. I used a little dollop of frosting to really help things stick.

Is it a cake or an exploding marshmallow?

Things will look strange and very abstract before you add the head. But basically, stick feathers from largest on the bottom to smallest on the top only on the sides of the cake. Now, you will need to carve a shallow hole out on the very front of the cake in order to have somewhere to put the swan head.

Again, pretend you're trying not to hurt my feelings. Be gentle.

Very gingerly slide the head into that little carved out space. I found it helpful to "glue" my swan heads together with the last of my frosting, then I held the neck since it was the thickest/most heavy duty section and carefully pushed this end into the cake--I held the cake board with one hand and the base of the swan's neck with the other to do this.

IT'S SWANDERFUL!

I have no doubt this will be the cutest cake I make all year. It's on point with my flamboyance of drunken flamingos I made last summer.

However, the swan is much classier and clearly can hold her booze better than those flamingos.

Definitely keep this cake in the fridge until you're ready to serve it, and for however long it lasts (it won't be long). Since the frosting is like 87% dairy, you don't want it to curdle and give everyone that eats it the 2021 version of the plague.

I know she looks unassuming, but she could go goose-dark at any moment if you leave her out too long.

Seriously, I HATE whiskey (and geese, apparently). Truly. I would rather go to the dentist than be forced to take of shot of any whiskey in the world except for Skrewball. It's great over ice, mixed into an Old Fashioned, but best enjoyed, in my humble opinion, in cake. And since it's MY birthday dessert, you're going to have to appease me and agree. Because I just swanna eat this delicious cake. It is so chocolately, and that vanilla cream cheese is the perfect amount of sweet and tangy thanks to the Greek yogurt. A forkful of each is enough to give me 5 seconds of uninterrupted pure happiness. My actual birthday was a little rough since my sweet baby Frey was having a mast cell tumor removed from her back leg, so the well wishes and cake definitely helped me cope. I am hoping she makes a  full, speedy recovery and is back to begging me to drop pieces of cake and other baked goods on the floor again soon. I'm definitely not sharing crummies since its 1. A chocolate cake, and 2. Too good to share anyway. This cake is the swan for me. Did I turn 34 or into a dad? God these swan puns are terrible. I'm swanstoppable. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

She's too polite to tell me to stop making awful jokes.