How to Make Cinnamon Roll Cake

There are two things in life that are perfect, in my opinion: cake and cinnamon rolls. I can't get enough of either. So when I saw Chef-in-Training put together this recipe for cinnamon roll cake, I thought it would make an ideal breakfast option for an out-of-town guest. Before you start gathering your ingredients, though, I must warn you of two things:

#1) This is baked in a 9x13 pan, which will make more than enough! The three of us could barely tackle a third of it so if you're planning on making it, make sure enough people are there to enjoy it (or be prepared for leftovers!)

#2) When it's right out of the oven, it tastes exactly like nirvana. Absolute bliss and perfection. You have been warned.

To get started, here what you'll need for...

The cake
3 cups of flour
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of sugar
4 teaspoons of baking powder
1 1/2 cups of milk
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1/2 cup of melted butter

• 
  

The cinnamon swirl topping
1 cup of softened butter
1 cup of brown sugar
2 Tablespoons of flour
1 Tablespoon of cinnamon

The glaze (totally optional but I recommend it!)
2 cups of powdered sugar
5 Tablespoons of milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Start by preheating your oven to 350 and spraying the inside of your 9x13 pan with PAM or some other cooking spray. In your mixer combine all of the cake ingredients, leaving the melted butter for last.

Once everything is combined, add it to your pan.

 

Next comes the topping. In the same bowl (unless you like doing dishes, you can use a separate bowl), mix all of the topping ingredients until it's creamy. Take your Tablespoon and drop spoonfuls of the topping into the cake batter.

Take a knife and start swirling it around until the topping is evenly distributed. Bake at 350 for about 35-40 minutes (or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean).

While the cake is baking, you can make your glaze. In a medium bowl, combine the powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla extract with a whisk until thoroughly combined.

Once the cake is out of the oven, evenly distribute the glaze over the top of the cake.

Cut the cake (be careful if you can't wait - it'll be quite warm!) and devour. It is so fantastically good while warm but if you refrigerate it and eat it cold, it's just as yummy! It's still moist and not dried out!

Right out of the oven with the cinnamon oogy-gooeyness

After being in the fridge overnight - just as delicious!

TOTAL COSTS: About $22 (if you don't have any of the ingredients - prices from Vons)
$3.29 for flour
$.99 for salt
$2.69 for sugar
$1.99 for baking powder
$2.29 for milk
$2.79 for eggs
$.99 for butter
$4.79 for cinnamon
$2.49 for powdered sugar
Vanilla extract and brown sugar made from scratch

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About 50 minutes

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5
The "hardest" thing might be just making sure it doesn't burn but really, 35-40 minutes should do the trick. Other than that, it's just a matter of following direction (thought I doubt you need instructions for the "enjoying" part!

How to Make a Volcano Cake

My friend Laurie was having a Hawaiian-themed birthday and needed an appropriately themed cake. I wracked my brain trying to come up with something that would be easy but would still be impressive (I love the "wow" factor when it comes to cakes). A hula girl in the shape of a cake? No. Desert island? Maybe. Desert island with a volcano that has smoke coming out of it? Heck yeah!

Here's what you'll need to make a volcano cake (inspiration taken from this post by The Bake-Off Flunkie):

1. A cake (obviously). I went with two 9" round cakes on top of each other but a 9"x13" cake would give you more room to play.
2. Rice Krispies (I just followed the instructions on the box regarding how to make the treats with marshmallows, butter, etc.)
3. Frosting (I used both buttercream and chocolate buttercream - recipe below)
4. Brown sugar (for sand)
5. Food coloring (green for grass, blue for water, brown and orange for under the sand)
6. Candy (I used chocolate rocks, gummy sharks, and sour starfish)
7. Tongs/gloves and dry ice (make sure you bring an ice chest with you if the store won't supply it for you!)

Step #1 - Make the volcano
I recommend making the Rice Krispies first so you can build your volcano. Once they've cooled and hardened (usually after an hour), use a water bottle, a soup can, or something similar (I used an old Republic of Tea tea bag canister) as the center of the volcano. Start to mold the Rice Krispies around the can to form your volcano. I recommend going with something smaller than what's pictured here because:

Mistake #1 - The taller the bottle/can/etc., the more likely the Rice Krispies and gravity will have it melt off. And don't try to wrap your canister in plastic wrap - that'll only make things worse!

Once your volcano has been formed, stick it in the fridge to harden. I left it in the fridge overnight, just to be safe!

Step #2 - Make the cake
As I said, I made two 9" round cakes but you're free to make the cake however you want!

Step #3 - Make the buttercreams
To make the chocolate buttercream from scratch, you'll need:

* A bar of Ghirardelli unsweetened chocolate (4 oz.)
* 1/2 cup of softened butter
* 1/3 cup of vegetable shortening
* 1 teaspoon of vanilla
* 4 cups of powdered sugar
* A couple tablespoons of milk, depending on the consistency you prefer

(To make the buttercream for the grass, water, etc., it's the same ingredients and process, minus the chocolate.)

To make the chocolate buttercream, melt the chocolate in the microwave for 30 seconds and then 10 seconds spurts after that, as you don't want to burn the chocolate. Let the chocolate cool completely before adding to the creamed butter and shortening. Add the vanilla, then slowly add the powdered sugar until combined. I only used 1 Tablespoon of milk before I got the consistency I preferred but you can use up to 4-5 Tablespoons.

Step #4 - Frost the cake
The chocolate buttercream will cover the volcano but will also go in between your layers of cake and also around the sides (you can see that if you don't melt the chocolate completely, you'll have little pieces of chocolate showing but eh, it kinda looked like dirt!)

I sculpted one side of the cake to slope down so the water would have a place to crash on the beach. Just cut off a piece off the top cake on a diagonal.

As for the non-chocolate buttercream, divide it into three bowls - a little bit for the green grass, and then half-and-half blue water and tan sand. In order to get this sand color, I mixed brown and orange Wilton gel food coloring. Frost the top of the cake and the slope you carved out.

To give it a 3-D effect, cover the top with brown sugar or Sugar In The Raw to have it look like sand.

To make the water, I used sky blue Wilton gel food coloring and Wilton piping tip #108. Using a toothpick, I flicked the blue frosting in different directions so it would look more like waves.

Mistake #2: The blue frosting was too warm so it started sliding off the sides of the cake! Make sure the frosting is a bit on the cold side so it doesn't melt off.

Stick the cake in the fridge so the frosting can harden. However, if you wait too long...

Mistake #3: ...you'll end up staining your cake board because of all the butter and shortening in your frosting. So don't put the cake on your cake board until you're absolutely ready to assemble the rest of the cake!

Step #4 - Assemble the cake
Once you're ready to present the cake, carefully place your volcano on top and using Wilton tip #233, pipe the green grass around the volcano, on the volcano, wherever you like! I found it was very helpful in covering up mistakes!

Gummy sharks, chocolate rocks, you could even add palm trees to help this desert island cake feel a little more realistic!

Now in order to make the smoke come out of the volcano, fill up half of the canister with hot water. Very carefully drop in your dry ice (either with gloves or tongs) and note that if you have birthday candles below where the smoke is pouring out from, the candles will be extinguished!

And that, my friends, is how you make a volcano cake. Anybody want a slice??

TOTAL COSTS: About $36
$10 for 10lbs. of dry ice from Tym's
$8 for gummy sharks, starfish, and chocolate rocks from Sweet! Hollywood
$3 for two boxes of cake mix (that's right, I didn't make the cake from scratch!)
$1.99 for Rice Krispies
$1.50 for marshmallows (for the Rice Krispies)
$3.99 for Ghirardelli unsweetened chocolate
$.99 for butter
$4.39 vegetable shortening
$2.49 powdered sugar (I used an entire 2lb. bag!)
Vanilla and brown sugar made from scratch, milk and food coloring already on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 2 1/2 hours + overnight
15 minutes to mold the volcano + overnight to harden
1 hour to make the vanilla and chocolate buttercreams
1 hour to decorate the volcano, dirt, sand, and water
15 minutes to assemble the volcano, candy, and grass

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 4 out of 5
Warm weather will not be your friend when making this cake, as the frosting will want to melt off the cake. As long as you keep the cake cold until it's ready to be eaten, you'll be fine. It's easiest to break it into sections so it doesn't seem as daunting: make the volcano, make the cake, make the frosting, assemble. And be careful with the dry ice - do NOT touch it with your bare hands or you'll burn your skin!

Cake Postcard

With spring comes birthdays and with birthdays come cake. So what do you do if you can't be there to see your friend or family member blow out the candles? Why not send them a piece of cake through the mail! It may not be edible but it's the thought that counts, no? I saw this DIY cake postcard on SheKnows and just had to see if it was as easy (and yummy!) as it looked.

Head to your hardware store to pick up these supplies:

* 1 large sponge (they sell 2-packs at Home Depot if you want to make two at the same time!)
* A serrated knife
* An x-acto knife
* Spray paint (I opted for brown so it would be a chocolate cake)
* Acrylic latex caulk (again, I went with brown because chocolate cake must have chocolate frosting!)
* Spray adhesive
* Paper for the "postcard" (I used an old manila folder)


First, take a sponge and using your knife, cut it at a diagonal as centered as possible. You would think it's easy to cut through... it's not. So go slowly and as evenly as possible.

If you don't cut evenly and slowly, it may come out like this. Whoops.

I also opted to cut off the end so it didn't have rounded corners.

Next, use your x-acto knife and make a shallow rectangular cut in the middle of the sponge, so as to emulate two layers and "frosting" will go in the middle.

Spray paint your sponge in a well ventilated area (i.e. - outside) and from every angle (and I mean every angle!). I missed some areas around the bottom so the yellow sponge was visible but I ended up covering most areas with caulk later. Wait for it to completely dry before doing anything else.

Once the sponge is dry, measure out how big the paper "postcard" should be. You can use card stock, a folder, scrapbook paper, whatever you like.

Cut out the card and using your spray adhesive, glue it to the unpainted side of the cake.

Now I have zero experience with caulk but by a wonderful mistake, I found a fast and easy way to apply the caulk. First, make a diagonal cut at the top.

Next, put the caulk gun in a big plastic bag and using your foot, slowly apply pressure. What will happen is the end of the caulk gun will pop off and all the caulk will come out the back, instead of through that little slit you made. Now you can just squeeze it out with your hands into the plastic bag! Neat, huh?

Do NOT try this on carpet. I was extremely lucky and didn't get any caulk on the carpet but you might not be so lucky. So again, do this activity outside or on newspapers to protect your floors.

Once the caulk is in the bag, cut a small corner off and squirt out the caulk into the shallow sections you created earlier, to resemble the "frosting" between layers of cake.

And this is the fun party - apply caulk to two sides of the sponge and swirl it around to make it look as realistic as possible. You can use the plastic bag, a paintbrush, or a toothpick to make the desired effect.

Now comes the waiting game. Put your "cake" in a safe location and let it dry for 3-5 days (mine took 4 days, though I played it safe). If you don't move the piece around on whatever you've set it on, the caulk might attach itself to it. For example, I put mine on a piece of cardboard and didn't move it at all... so... cardboard was attached to the "frosting":

If this happens to you, get off as much as you can and using a damp paper towel, you can rub off the rest.

Add a cute message (I wrote, "Hope this year turns out to be a 'piece of cake'"), run to the post office, and get your stamps (mine cost $2.70... did you know you can't take pictures inside of a post office? Random fact of the day).


Once it's addressed, put your cake in the mailbox and voila! Your cake postcard is ready to be devoured... by the United States Postal Service.

TOTAL COSTS: About $25 to make 4 (supplies from Home Depot)
$3.89 for a 2-pack of sponges
$9.99 for 3M 77 Super Multipurpose Spray Adhesive
$3.76 for spray paint
$4.33 for caulk
$2.70 for stamps to mail the postcard
Serrated knife, x-acto knife, and manilla folder already on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 3-5 days to dry + an hour and a half of prep work
10 minutes to cut the sponge
5 minutes to cut the center line
1 hour to let sponge dry after spray painting
10 minutes to add caulk
3-5 days to let dry

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5
This was surprisingly easy, especially considering I had never used caulk before, but the plastic bag really did help with applying. Be very careful not to get caulk, glue, or anything else on your workspace because this can get messy very quickly!

Buttermilk Baked Chicken and Buttermilk-Chocolate Bundt Cake

I recently wrote a post about how to make Irish soda bread and had a lot of leftover buttermilk. "What the heck do you do with leftover buttermilk?", I asked myself. Sure, there's buttermilk pancakes but it was almost dinnertime and I didn't want breakfast for dinner. I want a hearty meal and dessert to boot! So when I found this post by TheHungryHoarder for buttermilk baked chicken and this post for chocolate-buttermilk bundt cake from a Weight Watchers cookbook, I knew my stomach was in for a treat. And if you are nervous because you saw the words "Weight Watchers", need not fret. You're either nervous because you're afraid it will taste awful and trust me, it doesn't... mainly because I made a chocolate substitution... or you're nervous because it might be hard to make, but I promise you it's not! However, lets start with dinner because we're "adults"...

To make buttermilk baked chicken, you'll need:

* 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk (I used 1 1/4 C and it was plenty)
* 1/4 cup of butter
* 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast thawed
* 1/4 cup of flour (though I recommend 1/2 C if your chicken is big)
* 1/2 teaspoon of salt
* 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper
* 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (I didn't have any and it still tasted amazing!)
* 1 can of cream of mushroom soup
* (optional) 1 Tablespoon of dried parsley for sprinkling on top

First, preheat your oven to 425 and melt the butter in a 9x13 pan.

Next, in two bowls (or shallow plates) make the following:

Bowl #1 - 1/2 cup of buttermilk
Bowl #2 - The flour, salt, and peppers

Take a piece of chicken and dip it in the buttermilk...

...then cover it in the flour/salt/peppers mixture...

... and then finally place it in your pan to be baked for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, flip the chicken over and bake for an additional 15 minutes. While the chicken is baking, combine the rest of your buttermilk and your can of cream of mushroom soup in a bowl.

Once the 15 minutes are up, pour the mixture over the chicken and let it bake for an additional 15 minutes so the buttermilk/cream of mushroom soup turns into gravy.

Once the timer goes off, put on a plate and dinner is served!

TOTAL COSTS: Less than $20 (assuming you don't have all the ingredients - prices from Vons)

* $2.39 for buttermilk
* $.99 for butter
* $9.99 for a bag of chicken breasts
* $3.29 for flour
* $1.29 for a can of cream of mushroom soup
Salt and pepper already on hand and I didn't have any cayenne pepper. Parsley was in my spice rack.

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 1 hour, 15 minutes

15 minutes to prep the chicken

1 hour to bake

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5

The only "hard" parts are not making a mess during the dredging stage and keeping an eye on the time but really, it's not difficult at all!

Ahh but lets not forget about dessert! To make this delicious chocolate-buttermilk cake, first turn down your oven to 325 and gather these ingredients:

* 2 cups of flour
* 1 1/4 cups of sugar
* 2 teaspoons of baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon of salt
* 1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa
* 1 ounce of semisweet chocolate, finely chopped (or, you can be like me and have leftover Ghirardelli from black and tan brownies and use that instead!)
* 1/2 cup of boiling water
* 1 cup of low-fat buttermilk
* 1/3 cup of canola oil
* 1 large egg
* 1 large egg white
* 1 Tablespoon of vanilla extract
* 3/4 cup of mini semisweet chocolate chips


First, spray the inside of your bundt pan so the cake doesn't stick to the pan when it's done cooling. Also, start boiling your 1/2 cup of water so it's ready by the time you need it.

Next, find a small, medium, and large bowl.

1. In the large bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, egg, egg white, and vanilla.

2. In the middle bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

3. In a small bowl, combine the cocoa and the chopped chocolate. Pour in the boiling water over the cocoa mixture and stir until the chocolate has completely melted.

Pour the cocoa and the flour mixtures into the large bowl until the flour is no longer visible. Add your mini chocolate chips and pour the batter into the bundt pan.

Let it bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean. Let it cool for 10 minutes before taking it out of the pan and try not to eat it all at once!

TOTAL COSTS: About $30 (assuming you don't have all the ingredients - prices from Vons)

* $3.29 for flour
* $2.69 for sugar
* $1.99 for baking powder
* $1.59 for baking soda
* $.99 for salt
* $3.99 for unsweetened cocoa
* $2.50 for Ghirardelli chocolate
* $2.39 for buttermilk
* $2.99 for canola oil
* $2.59 for eggs
* $4.99 for vanilla extract
* $2.50 for mini semisweet chocolate chips

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 1 hour, 25 minutes

30 minutes to prep

45 minutes to bake

10 minutes to cool

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5

This is a very easy setup - you have your three bowls, you combine the bowls, and you pour into the bundt pan. The "hard" part might be chopping up the chocolate but that was only because I wanted to eat it right then and there!