Orange Dreamsicle Cake

Let me tell you a story. Several years ago, T and I had some delicious orange cake at a restaurant. It was the most awesome orange cake you can imagine. T loved it so much, he asked if I could recreate that cake at home. And I said yes. Because, at the time, I was absolutely certain that I could. I mean, how hard could it be? But all my efforts have fallen just short. Good cake, but not great cake.

Flash forward to this past week, when I was trying to decide what to make for my final cake decorating class.

"Orange cake." He says. I tell him I could maybe make a chocolate cake with fudge filling and chocolate frosting. "Orange cake." I could make a Black Forest cake with cherry filling and chocolate frosting. "Orange cake." I could make a lemon cake with lemon curd filling and a light vanilla frosting. "Orange cake." I could make...

"Orange cake."

So I decided to try it again. This time, I got it right. (The trick is orange Jello, if you can believe it.)

I also flavored the frosting and tinted it this lovely shade of orange. Here, you see the paper towel trick makes the cake super smooth. There are some uneven places, but I'm going to cover those up with frosting.

One of our last lessons was Making Ribbon Roses. I made several. Most of them look like ribbon roses. I ate the others.

I thought maybe the cake had a little too much orange on it, so I also added some shells around the bottom border and some Swirled Rosettes to the top. I like the Swirled Rosettes. They are fun and easy to make.

Here's my finished cake. Not too bad.

Of course, the most fun thing about this class is taking it with M.

She is a little more creative with her skills than I am. I stuck with by-the-book decorations, but M used those lessons as a building block to do a more original cake design.

This is her Ombre Waves cake. Lovely!

And the true test of the cake came later this evening, when T sampled the Orange Cake.

He loved it!