One of the other special education teachers at work had to move mid-year to Florida because her husband took a job in that area. She is one of my good friends at work and when the staff decided to put together a luncheon to say goodbye I was asked to make her a cake. Knowing that she was moving to Florida, I immediately got to work researching beach themed cakes.
In the end I decided on making a marble half sheet cake. I've never made a marble cake in my life, but found two recipes that looked tasty and went from there. I made the yellow cake first, then dotted it with the chocolate cake and swirled. The end result was a beautiful marbled cake.
The cake itself wasn't too hard to make, but the decorating took quite a long time. I tinted icing blue and iced the entire cake. While the icing was still wet I covered half the cake with crushed up graham crackers for sand. I used royal icing to make bikinis, swim trunks, and sunglasses on teddy grahams and set them up on fruit by the foot beach towels, gummy saver inter tubes, and underneath beach umbrellas. A lot of detail work went into it, but it was a crowd pleaser. My friend absolutely loved it and numerous co-workers came by my room to tell me I should open my own bakery. At the end of the day I went to pack up the leftover cake to bring home for my husband. Boy was I surprised when the entire thing was gone!
Lazy Daisy Cake (yellow cake) (adapted from So Tasty, So Yummy)
3 eggs
2 c. sugar
2 c. flour
2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
⅔ c. lowfat milk
⅓ c. plain yogurt
2 T. butter
1 t. vanilla
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 11 x 15 rectangular baking pan with cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl beat the eggs. Add in the sugar. Beat until light. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix well.
3. Heat the milk and butter for 45 seconds in a microwave safe bowl. Remove and add to the flour mixture. Add in the yogurt and stir until everything is combined. Just stir in the vanilla.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and set aside.
Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake (adapted from Hershey's)
1 c. sugar
1 c. flour
½ c. Hershey's cocoa powder
1 t. baking powder
½ t. baking soda
1 t. salt
1 egg
⅓ c. milk
⅓ c. plain yogurt
⅓ c. vegetable oil
1 t. vanilla
½ c. hot water
1. In a large bowl stir together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
2. In a medium bowl beat the egg. Mix in the milk, yogurt, oil, and vanilla. Stir until well combined.
3. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and stir well. Mix in the hot water; cake batter will be thin.
4. Pour batter by 3-4 T. onto the lazy daisy cake. Take a knife and swirl the chocolate cake into the yellow cake, making sure you can see the swirls and the yellow cake.
5. Put the entire pan into the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out of the center of the pan clean.
6. Immediately place the cake in the pan on a wire cooling rack. Allow to cool for 10 minutes then remove from pan. Completely cool on racks then decorate.
For the Decorations
-Graham Cracker Crumbs (for sand)
-Red and White Mints (for beach balls)
-Teddy Grahams (for the people)
-Gummy Life Savers (for Intertubes)
-Sour Candy Strips (for beach towels)
-Cocktail Umbrellas (for umbrellas)
-Swedish Fish (to decorate sides of cake)
3 c. buttercream frosting tinted blue (to cover cake)
1 c. buttercream frosting tinted green (for underwater plants)
1 c. royal icing, tinted various colors, for piping on Teddy Grahams sunglasses and bathing suits (recipe HERE)
Jacqui'
adorable cake!!! New Follower from the hop =]
Miranda
How cute is that! Makes me want to go to the beach. Thanks for linking this up to Fat Camp Friday! Hope to see you next week!
Nicole, RD
Life saver gummy rafts?! This is too, too cute! I do think you're missing your calling as a baker 😉
FromTheHeartsOf
Thats really cute!