Happy Easter!

It was a relaxing holiday for us at the Patwoman household. M had to work until 3, so we planned to have Easter dinner once she had a chance to get home and change out of her work clothes before coming over. Her bf was still working. And Bre was out of town with her folks, so it was just the four of us.

Just like old times.

All that time gave me some time to get fancy with dessert.

This is sloppier than I planned, but I had used a couple teaspoons of orange jello powder to flavor the frosting. It worked really well, flavor-wise (the rest of it, I put in the cake batter to make the cake moist) but my frosting tips kept clogging up. Eventually, I just switched to a medium star tip and just starred concentric circles around the top.

Oh well. It was really good. And really simple to make. I'm going to give you my personal recipe here:

Orange Dreamsicle Cake

One white cake mix (any brand, really)
4 egg whites
1 Cup water
1/2 Cup vegetable oil (I used Canola)
1 small (4 serving) pckg of orange Jello (minus about 2 teaspoons)
1 teaspoon orange extract

Mix all that together and bake in one round layer pan. If you have them, use those baking strips that you soak in water and wrap around the sides of the pan. That makes it bake evenly. But, even if you don't have those, it doesn't matter. We can trim the cake flat. (The bonus to doing that is that you'll have a chunk of cake that somebody will have to eat.)

So bake that cake at 350 until a toothpick comes out clean. You know the drill. Let it cool about 10 minutes and then turn it out to cool all the way on a rack.

Meanwhile, make the frosting. I make it this way.

One stick of not-flavored Crisco (or one cup, whichever you prefer)
About 4 Cups of Powdered sugar
The reserved 2 teaspoons of Jello
1 teaspoon orange extract
1 teaspoon powdered egg whites
Almost 1/4 Cup water (whatever it takes to get a really fluffy frostign)

Now beat those ingredients until they are fluffier than fluffy. You won't need any coloring because the Jello will do that for you. Once you have a cloud-like consistency, fill your frosting bag. I used a speed coupler so I can change tips often.

Once it's cool--and this is very important, if you don't want your cake to crumble, let it cool--use your torte saw or a sharp knife if you're skillful and cut this cake into two layers. You may notice mine are not perfectly even. And my top is not perfectly flat, either. My method is to just cover it up with a ton of frosting. It ain't according to Martha, but you know, Martha Stewart ain't wrecking this train. I am.

Now set aside that top layer for a minute. Put some kind of large opening tip on your bag--a round or a star, whatever, something the thickness of a pencil. Now pipe around the inside edge of that bottom layer. You are making a "dam" so the filling doesn't squish out the sides.

The filling is a small jar of orange marmalade. Use your favorite. Just spread it over that layer, inside the dam. Then put the top layer back on.

Then frost and decorate your cake with the rest of the frosting.

This cake is awesome. It tastes like a Dreamsicle. Or maybe like a Dreamsicle that you are eating at the same time you're eating those Orange Slice Jellies.


Yeah. Exactly like that.