The Baking Queen - that's me!

Yes, I was a baking queen (fool) last week! I made some cakes/cupcakes for a surprise birthday party and got a little carried away. Sometimes I do that. Brad says I go "overkill" or "over the top" on some things. I don't know ... is 4 different kinds of cake and 4 different freezers of homemade ice cream overkill - I don't think so, I just like to give people options. You know what they say, "variety is the spice of life". How boring to go to a party where there is only a white cake and vanilla ice cream! Or worse no ice cream at all!!!
So, I decided I wanted to make a Red Velvet cake since that is one that all of my brothers and sisters had at our weddings, and probably never since. I found a recipe and went for it. I made a triple layer Red Velvet cake with cream cheese filling between the layers and then had my friend Emilie decorate it with a buttercream frosting. This was the main cake. Morgan chose the colors to decorate it with (pink and purple, go figure) and Emilie did a nice job making it pretty. I also tried another new recipe: Peanut Butter Fudge Cake which was a round double layer chocolate cake with chopped up Reese's peanut butter cups in it and then a chocolate peanut butter frosting with peanut butter cups on top. Yum! Although I didn't actually eat it, everyone said it was good. So either they were lying, or ... I'm sure it was rich, but really how can you go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter! I tried another new recipe for "Sprite Cake". It was super easy and super moist! All it was is a box cake mix, eggs, oil, sprite and an instant pudding mix. I made cupcakes out of it and frosted them with the leftover buttercream frosting. Tasty! I also made a carrot cake and cupcakes out of it with cream cheese frosting. I had a good time baking and making all of it and was glad I didn't just do it for us and end up eating it all myself! I did end up trying the Red Velvet cake the next day and thought it was pretty yummy, although I'm not sure that all that red food coloring going through your body can be very good for you! Who knows, maybe it helps to keep your blood red!