Space: The Most Delicious Frontier

 I know it seems weird to most people that I make my own birthday cake, but baking is my hobby, not my husband's. I'm sure if I relinquished control (ha!) and let him bake my birthday cake, it would turn out absolutely fine (but oh would there be hovering). Alas, then what would I have to blog about? Trust me, you guys don't want a blog about my thoughts regarding anything other than baked goods because it could get real weird, real fast...and there would be even more terrible puns than usual. I started thinking about what I wanted my birthday cake to be a few weeks ago. Usually I go for dark humor (see: tombstone cake for my 30th birthday) or something silly (like Kevin the minion or Kowalski from the Penguins of Madagascar). Since I was turning 35 and feeling older than dirt (why does everything crack or pop when standing?!), I thought it would be totes apropes to make a birthday cake in homage to something else that's older than dirt: space.

It's also very sparkly, and you all know how I feel about sprinkles...they're out of this world.

A yes, the night sky: now featuring my age in the form of a constellation! Like fireworks but brighter. Look, if I had to get another year older, I wanted to do it with a big splash. I am now solidly in my mid 30s and feeling, well, okayish about it, but I knew I'd feel better if there was peanut butter involved, so I decided to make this a funfetti peanut butter birthday cake. I am never depressed when eating cake OR peanut butter, so I figured combining the two would Sa-turn my frown upside down. I think my 2nd goal of 2022 (wearing more plaid than most Canadians do is still solidly planted in the top spot) is finding a way to incorporate peanut butter in a baked good at least once a month. THIS. CAKE. Full stop--it is a baking super nova of deliciousness. The frosting is a peanut butter cream cheese frosting to boot, so peanut butter + more peanut butter = a flavor brighter than the dang Milky Way (galaxy or candy bar). I somehow managed to make this possible for only 278 calories a slice, 12 slices total. 

Ju-pit-er believe it.

I'm still testing out gluten free box mixes easily found in Clovis, and while I've found a great cupcake replacement, I needed a mix large enough to make three 6-inch rounds, so I tried Pillsbury's GF funfetti mix this time around. Fun fact time! I did a food sensitivity test...turns out, my body can handle gluten just fine. But wheat, barley, rye, brewer's yeast, and baker's yeast...not so much. Find me a cake mix or bread without any of those things, and you know what they are? Yup. Gluten free. Sorry, that was more of a sad fact than a fun one. Anywho, to make this peanut butter decadence, you need:

• 1 box of funfetti, white, or yellow cake mix (GF or regular)
• 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 cup of egg whites 
• 1 1/4 cup of fat free or skim milk
• 1/2 cup of peanut butter--I used American Dream Nut Butter Breanne's Blend because it is a gift from the macro gods. High protein, low fat PB? Sorcery, for sure, but delicious sorcery.
  

Preheat the oven to 350, dump all these ingredients into a stand mixer and blend on low 1 minute before turning to medium-high for 2 minutes. Prepare three 6-inch pans or two 8-inch round pans with cooking spray and bake even strips. Evenly distribute the batter between pans and bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Leave in the pan and place on a cooling rack for 10 minutes before turning out of the pan and letting cool completely on a cooling rack. Your house will smell like the inside of a peanut shell (this is a good thing, unless you're allergic to peanuts, I assume).

Look at that volume. Bigger than...Don't make a joke about Uranus. Don't make a joke about Uranus.

The cakes are very large and dense, that's all I'm saying. You can move these to the fridge or to the freezer to cool completely while you make your frosting. Definitely make sure they are COMPLETELY cool before frosting. It's all sun and games until you frost a still warm cake, then things are gonna get sloppy, sad, and depressing, like Pluto after it lost its planetary status. Don't worry, Pluto, I still believe in you.

As a child of the 80s, there will always be nine planets in my heart.

I gotta admit, I was a little worried about how this frosting would turn out. We had a ton of leftover plain Greek yogurt from a soup recipe, so I decided to use it in place of vanilla Greek yogurt, but now I'm a convert. This let the peanut butter flavor shine without any interruptions. So, to make, I used:

• 8 ounces of 1/3 the fat cream cheese, softened to room temp
• 1 cup of plain Greek yogurt, strained overnight
• 1/4 cup of PB Fit or PB2 peanut butter powder (I used chocolate PB Fit, but plain would work even better, I think)
• 3 cups of Lakanto powdered monkfruit sweetener or regular powdered sugar
  
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp butter extract (this helps bring out the PB flavor even more, but if you don't have any, use another tsp of vanilla)
• 1 TBS skim or fat free milk

Start by whipping the yogurt and cream cheese until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Then add in the powdered peanut butter, the extracts, and half the monkfruit sweetener. Mix on low until blended, then add in the other half of the monkfruit sweetener and the milk, mixing well. You want a stiff frosting, but I found it was too stiff without the TBS of milk...that made things just right. Now, split your frosting into three bowls. One bowl should have a bit more than the other two since it will go on the side and top of the cake as the purple/violet layer. More on that in a second! Let's get to the rest of the tools you'll need for a space cake so pretty, you'll forget the sadness and existential despair of turning another year older.

Haven't used these cookie cutters since my sister turned 30...

I might have gone a little crazy at Hobby Lobby when I was picking out sprinkles for this cake. I mean, you see seven different types of sprinkles here...four of which were purchased solely for this cake (and because, purple sprinkles). For my space background, I used varying star sprinkles, pearls, and plain purple sprinkles. All of these can be found at your local craft store like Hobby Lobby, Michael's, etc. I used electric purple, violet, and navy blue gel dyes.

As I mentioned above, divide your frosting into three bowls.

In one bowl, I used several drops of electric purple plus two drops of violet to make the color on the far left. I used a ton of violet for the bowl in the middle, and the final bowl is mostly navy blue dye with a couple drops of violet. I placed all three into their own piping bags to make life easier. No tips needed! Just snip the edge of the bag.

This color palette is life.

LOOK at these acrylic cake plates my in-laws gifted me for Christmas! You can "ooh" and "aah," I did.

Honestly, these new cake plates were a huge inspiration because the swirls reminded me of space. I am trying to bake greener this year, so that includes reusable cake plates, silicone cupcake wrappers, etc. These are so, so gorgeous.

Time to assemble that space cake!

Take a cooled layer, place it face down on the cake plate, and use a little purple and a little electric purple to swirl a layer of frosting. Smooth out with a spatula before adding another cake layer, also face down, on top. Repeat the frosting layer with a little navy and a little purple before adding the final layer (you guessed it, face down).

You will have a giant cake monolith before you.

IDK what it is about that Pillsbury cake mix, but it yielded TALL layers, and I am here for it as a short person dying for more tallness...I will take it where I can get it. Heels, hair, cake layers, whatever.

Obviously, this is just a starting point.

My husband chose the moment pictured above to enter the kitchen and see what I was up to...naturally. I swore things would look edible eventually. To make your night sky layer, start with the electric purple, and pipe two-three lines on the bottom cake layer. Then take the purple, and pipe two-three lines around the middle cake layer. Use the navy to pipe two-three lines of frosting around the top layer of cake. Switch back over to the purple, and pipe your remaining purple frosting on the top. I had NO purple frosting left, and enough navy and electric purple leftover to eat exactly two spoonfuls of frosting to 1. Taste test, and 2. Eat my feelings.

Why couldn't my spouse have walked in during this part?!

Now, take a bench scraper, and make one pass around the sides of the cake. Swipe off any excess frosting collected on the scraper into your empty mixing bowl. I went around my cake three times to get an even, blended spread. I used an angled spatula to smooth my top layer.

Space needs texture?

I decided to swirl my angled spatula, flat against the cake, while turning my cake table with my free hand to create lines and blend the color layers a bit more. This is totally optional, but I love the way it turned out.

Now, shamelessly show your age!

I gently placed my cookie cutters into the top of the cake, pressing in carefully but firmly.

Whilst holding my breath, I then added in my sprinkles of choice.

I pressed the sprinkles down into the frosting layer while the cookie cutters were still in place. I took my time doing this and was very, very gentle. Once firmly applied, I carefully took the cookie cutters off by lifting straight up slowly to reveal my age-stellation:

Do I wish that was a two instead of a three? Maybe.

I made a three-layer cake because I'm three decades into this life. If I was only in my 20s, I only would've earned a two-layer cake. If this is the logic I'm using to mentally justify my age, boy, I am SO looking forward to my 40s!

Now comes the absolutely fun part.

I then took small stars, big stars, and beads in white, purple, teal, and pink, to make constellations and such all over my cake. Absolutely random in pattern, but totally fun to do. To finish off, in what I refer to as a a sneaky moon-euver, I took a small handful of plain purple sprinkles and literally threw them at the cake:

But it worked.

Sometimes you have a "now or nova," moment, and this was definitely that.

Space: the most delicious frontier.

In Neptune with these vibes.

I may be another year older, and this may be the first year of my life without Betty White in it (we're still not over that, nor will we ever be), but damned if I didn't knock it out of the park with the flavor of this cake. This box mix definitely passes my picky "Whole Foods GF cake mix or bust," mentality. It's a very tall cake, but it is still very light, springy, and moist...it is a dense as a brick without somehow tasting like one, which is no small feat. I am so in love with the peanut butter flavor here inside and out. The addition of powdered peanut butter into the frosting helped keep the macros and calories in control without losing any flavor. This means I get to eat all the slices without guilt or a gut bomb (thanks, 30s). Getting older may not be easy, but it can be delicious. Here's to another trip around the sun. Thank you all for your birthday well wishes! It has been a magical week (and not just because of the cake, although that certainly didn't hurt). 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

This recipe was a stroke of pure Venus.