Shark Cake, Ooh Ha Ha!

Did you know you're more likely to be killed by a cow than a shark? Not in a "When Burgers Bite Back" situation, but these are still good facts to know. And if you're somehow unaware, SHARK WEEK STARTS TONIGHT! I am obsessed with sharks, so next to Halloween, this is the absolute best time to be me (or maybe a shark). But sharks definitely get a bad rap; they can't help the permanent resting shark face or the fact that they're the perfect eating machines...parallels I can definitely relate to...but it's important to learn about sharks and respect their habitat since they were there before we were. And definitely before those killer cows, too. I wanted to mako something great to kick off the start of my favorite week of the year, so enter, Shark Cake, Ooh Ha Ha!

You could say its Jawsdropping.

 Look, I've been covered in a severe poison ivy rash for two weeks straight. Is it testing the limits of my sanity? Do I look like a plague-addled nightmare? Yes and yes, but there was no way I was going to shark my baking responsibilities. I figured a day in the kitchen keeping my hands from itching temptation would be just the ticket, and it was. This gorgeous Oreo-flavored chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting is something I've been kicking around in the ole' noggin for a couple years, and I finally wanted to execute my shark-scape. I couldn't be happier with how the ocean depth painting turned out, but let's be reel here, this is definitely a cake worthy of whipping people up into a feeding frenzy. At only 284 calories a slice for 8 slices (or 227 calories for 10 slices), you can pound like 12 burgers, some fries, a license plate or two, and still get this to fit in your macros for the day (might leave out the license plates if you're not an actual shark though).

Watch out for that cow.

The cake and frosting are super simple to make. All you need for the Oreo cake is:

• 1 box of chocolate cake mix (I use Whole Food's gluten free mix)
• 1/4 cup + 2 TBS (64 grams) egg whites or 3 whole eggs
• 1/2 cup (111 grams) unsweetened applesauce
• 3/4 cup fat free or skim milk
• 1 ounce of black cocoa (this is what makes it taste like an Oreo, don't skip it!)

Preheat your oven to 350 and prepare three 6-inch round pans with Parchment and cooking spray. Two 8-inch rounds would also work, but your cook time will vary. Dump all your ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer and give it a whirl on medium for 1-2 minutes until things have come together. Pour out the batter evenly into each pan and bake for 24 minutes. A toothpick should come out mostly clean.

Don't forget bake even strips if you've got 'em!

Once cooked, remove your pans from the oven and place on top of a cooling rack. Give it 10 minutes before you turn your cakes out of the pan and onto the cooling rack to come to room temp. I speed this process up by shoving the cooling rack into the fridge for 30-45 minutes. While that's cooling, you can make your shark templates. 

Excuse my dungeon lighting...it was storming and this house is like a cave without natural light.

To make my sharks, I used pencil to draw some shark outlines on Parchment paper in varying sizes and types; Great White and Hammerhead to be precise. I didn't think a Goblin shark would translate well...

Hammerheads were difficult enough, but that would've been hilarious.

Once drawn, I grabbed my X-acto knife and carefully cut out the outlines. I have yet to seriously injure myself with my X-acto knife, but those blades are probably as sharp as a shark's tooth, so, give it time because I am a disaster.

I mean, you can definitely tell it's a shark, and I didn't lose a finger to make it happen.

Small, sharky miracles.

Now, you want to keep the full sheets, not the pieces you cut out. These will work as your templates. Once I had my cakes frosted and knew how much overlap I needed, I cut each into smaller squares so I could move them around the cake easily.

That black cocoa came in clutch with this whole cake, TBH.

This is just a basic cream cheese frosting, so feel free to play with different extracts to flavor your frosting. Coconut extract, caramel extract, or even root beer extract would probably taste awesome with the Oreo cake flavor. This makes a lot of frosting (I only used half and froze the rest). You need:

• 8 ounces 1/3 the fat cream cheese at room temp
• 1/2 cup (112 grams) light butter (leave cold)
• 4 cups (a whole bag) of Lakanto powdered monkfruit (or regular powdered sugar)
• 1 TBS (36 grams) vanilla extract
• 1 tsp black cocoa powder
• Gel dyes in black, light blue, blue, and navy
• Absolutely fintastic shark cupcake toppers (Amazon!)
  

Start by whipping the cold butter and cream cheese together until fluffy, 2 minutes. Add in half the powdered sugar and all the vanilla extract. Mix well, then add the rest of the powdered sugar. Hold off on the black cocoa for right now. You'll use this later once the cake is fully covered for the sharks.

But first, you must frost.

Stack, fill, and cover your entire cake in plain white frosting first. Set this in the fridge while you dye your frosting to make the ocean background.

I'm blue, da ba dee da ba daa...

In two bowls, place a heaping amount of plain white frosting. Dye one light blue, and then in the other, mix blue and navy blue gel dyes to achieve a rich, dark blue hue. Now, grab your cake!

Oh look, it's my poison ivy rash in cake form. SPOTS EVERYWHERE.

Itching intensifies. Okay, okay, with a small angled spatula, just plop drops of light blue and dark blue frosting all over the place. There's absolutely no rhyme or reason here, you just want a sort of even balance. Once you've done that, you just need to come back in with an angled spatula or scraper, and gently scrape the sides of the cake until your colors are blending together. I would make a pass around the whole cake, clean off my scraper, and make another pass. I did this 3 times and followed the same suit on top.

The ocean is calling...

But you might want to test the waters first.

I used an angled spatula to make swirls all around the top and top side of the cake to give it a wave texture. Now, chill this cake for 30 minutes in the fridge or 15 in the freezer so your black frosting doesn't bleed into it. To make the black frosting, take your leftover blues, dump them together, add that teaspoon of black cocoa and some black gel dye, and you're ready to get sharky.

Cue the Jaws theme!

To start, I obviously couldn't wait to use the cupcake toppers, so I stuck a circle of them around the edge and one in the middle of the cake. Was I giddy with shark-loving delight while I did so? Yes. I believe I also used my hand as a makeshift shark fin on top of my head and chased my dogs around for a second (there were no casualties). You could also use chocolate melts to make smaller dorsal fins, but I'm itchier than a thousand mosquito bites, so give me a small break (and scratch) for corner-cutting.

Take your stencil, you can see I trimmed the edges down so that I could easily place it on the side of my cake, and very gently press into the surface. I used a paintbrush to push the small edges down into the frosting layer.

This part is truly terrifying. Like, scarier than the idiot mayor from Jaws.

I was afraid I'd miss a spot and the whole stencil was gonna look more like a blob fish than a shark. But, I took a decent amount of black frosting and spread it evenly over my stencil. I used my scraper to make one pass over the whole stencil, then, whilst holding my breath, very gently peeled the stencil off the side of the cake.

Oh you big beautiful fish.

I repeated this process around the cake, making some sharks swim toward one another, others away, on varying heights. Just be careful you're not overlapping too much because pushing the template down in one area could mess up another design.

I've reached peak Shark Week.

This is Bruce. Fish are friends, not food.

But this guy is shifty and will eat literally anyone.

Like my derpy little Hammerheads.

Just dying to sink my teeth into this cake.

I am so happy with how this turned out. It's a little rough in places, but so are sharks, so just go with me on this one. You know, there's somefin for everyone. Sharks are absolutely fascinating powerhouses and sadly very misunderstood. Something actually called a Killer Whale gets to play at SeaWorld, while sharks get the short end of the stick. I mean, they can't help it that by default sharks kinda have to hug using their mouth. But I digress...I am glad I finally executed this cake. It was a lot of fun to use the templates, and depending on your design and color palette, you could really go into a design frenzy with this one for sure. Oh, let's not forget that Oreo cake. I'd definitely bite your arm off to get another slice, so fear me more than the shark (I have land capabilities). It is a rich, chocolatey goodness that's still nice and moist without being too heavy. And in my book, there's no better frosting than cream cheese, so together, these two really do make an Oreo cookie in cake form,so we'll be chowing down on this cake all week while we enjoy new episodes of SHARK WEEK! 'Til next time, my fellow eaters.

Stay jawesome!

'Merican as cheesecake.

 Ah 4th of July--let us celebrate our independence from those stuffy tea drinkers whilst blowing things up and pigging out. I loved Independence Day until we adopted a dog terrified of loud noises; my holiday now consists less of sparklers and more of sedatives (for the dog, not me, although...). While fireworks may not be in the cards for me any longer, the food still stands. It's been several years since I made a 4th of July dessert since we're typically still picking away at my husband's birthday cake. While I'm totally fine with the idea having multiple cakes laying about the house for me to eat, Derek's not big into dessert, so I would take it as a personal challenge to eat everything before it went stale. By the time July 4th rolled around, I would be red, white, and barfy. Luckily, I've concocted a dessert that while small, still packs a big bang of flavor, and well, freedom.

Red, white, and beautiful!

I may have out-Americaned myself here with these red, white, and blue mini cheesecakes. Each layer is bold and bright, and they taste like little cups of freedom...okay, so maybe freedom doesn't really have a taste. Some would say it'd be American as apple pie, but I've yet to see anyone make a red, white, and blue apple pie, so just go with me here. These are cute little vanilla cheesecakes with buttery crusts, and they are absolutely guilt-free at only 145 calories per cup (recipe makes a dozen mini cheesecakes). I'm pretty sure you burn more than 145 calories when you twirl around with sparklers for a hot minute, or during your mad-dash sprint away from the cadre of fireworks you just set off. And people say Americans are lazy.

We're just fans of working smarter, not harder.

This recipe comes together super fast, so if you've got 2 hours before your backyard BBQ, you've got time to whip up a dessert that will make the Karen next door bow down to your baking dominance. All you need for the crust is:

• 1 cup (120 g) of gluten free Graham cracker crumbs (regular works if you're not GF)
• 2 TBS (28 g) light butter, melted
• 2 TBS (24 g) Lakanto monkfruit sweetener or regular sugar

Mix ingredients together in a medium bowl until everything is wet. Then line a muffin tin with cupcake wrappers and preheat your oven to 325. Dump a heaping tablespoon of crust into each liner, then use the back of the tablespoon to smooth out and smush down. Bake for 5 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack. Turn your oven temp down to 300.

Man, even my ingredient packaging was red, white, and blue. This is so American it almost hurts.

This is a really simple vanilla cheesecake recipe, but you could always up the ante and make it super American by adding some Jack Daniels or other boozy goodness to the base recipe. I used:

• 8 ounces of 1/3 the fat cream cheese at room temp
• 1/2 cup (96 g) Lakanto monkfruit sweetener or sugar
  
• 3 TBS of King Arthur gluten free measure for measure flour (regular all purpose works if you aren't GF)
• 8 ounces (226 g) Dannon light + fit vanilla Greek yogurt, strained overnight
• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs at room temp
• Red and blue gel dye
• Toppings: Cool Whip (I used sugar free), red, white, and blue sprinkles or stars
  

Start by mixing the cream cheese, sugar, and flour together on medium for 2 minutes in your stand mixer. Then add in the yogurt and vanilla extract, mixing on medium for another minute. Turn the speed to low, and add the eggs, one at a time, scraping the bowl after each addition. Now, divide the batter into three separate bowls. I placed 212 grams of batter into each bowl. I left one alone, dyed one red, and dyed the last blue.

Now grab those crusts!

Get your tablespoon, and plop a little under a tablespoon of the red-dyed batter on top of the crusts. I used the back of a teaspoon to smooth things out so the red batter was completely covering the crust.

Like so. Kinda want to go to Target after looking at this photo.

You can also gently tap the pan on the counter in order to even out your batter at this point.

I was sure things would start going wrong at precisely this moment.

Now, clean that tablespoon and dry it off before plopping a little less than a tablespoon of the white batter on top of the red batter.

My teaspoon became the real MVP. Like the George Washington of baking accessories--the Founding Father of making this cheesecake possible.

I VERY GENTLY, like I was pressing on an eggshell while trying not to break it, used the back of the teaspoon in circular motions to smooth out the batter without causing it to blend into the red layer. This was 98% successful...looking at you, bottom right cheesecake.

Thank God our flag only has 3 colors in it.

I was getting pretty stressed that since my red and white layers worked out, I would surely get too cocky and move too quickly with the blue layer and mess everything up. I used a level of patience and slooowwwwwness I didn't even know I possessed to finish the last layer with the help of George the teaspoon.

Red, white, and *whew.*

Now, bake at 300 for 20 minutes. Then, because all cheesecakes, even the small ones, are demanding divas (how properly American of them), turn off the oven, leave the door shut, and set a timer for 10 minutes to let these needy little beauties finish cooking. After this time has passed, crack the oven door and wait another 10 minutes before removing the pan from the oven and putting it straight in the fridge. These will cool off extremely quickly this way, so you can be ready to stuff your face once the deviled egg tray runs dry and there's nary a hot dog left in sight.

Oh look, sprinkles!

If you've only ever read one of my blog posts, you know sprinkles are not optional in my book. Once my cheesecakes were cool to the touch, I unwrapped them (c'mon, gotta show off those layers), and I used a total of 50 grams of Cool Whip free to pipe little mounds on top of each cheesecake using a 2D tip.

Peep that layer action. 'Merica.

The mounds kinda look like little stars, and I'm here for that.

Then, I added red and blue sprinkles and silver stars to finish things off.

I don't even care if you're Canadian--you have to appreciate how straight up American these little cheesecakes look. Sure, America is kind of a hot mess, but where else is it socially acceptable to eat meat in tube form all day, crack open countless watery beers, take in a NASCAR race, and still have time to blow stuff up at night? While these may not have been the things the Founding Fathers were concerned with, I think cheesecake existed back then, so they probably would've enjoyed the heck out of these little patriotic treats.

Next to exploding things, this is about as American as it gets.

While these look absolutely adorable, they taste 1,000 times better. A plain vanilla cheesecake is a reminder that sometimes simple is best, and this is a prime example of a classic outshining whatever the new flavor trends are, which, again, is pretty darn American. I also feel being able to eat them two at a time also meets American food expectations, so I'm just gonna out-freedom myself and go eat like six of them. I hope everyone has an amazing 4th of July. May your sparklers be bright and may you still have all 10 fingers tomorrow. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Cue the sparklers sprinkles!