The cake I baked yesterday morning.....I had not used my Christmas Tree pan in about 3 years, so I wanted to make a cake with it this year. We had too many desserts already for Christmas Day, so I decided just to make it for New Years as a white sparkly cake! The only hint of glistening snow we will get around here.
I used to always use a box cake mix (funfetti holiday) for this pan (gasp!), but no more of that! I wanted chocolate cake so I used the Hershey's recipe that I have almost memorized. With the tree pan it took somewhere around 50 minutes to bake - I lost track of how many times I set the timer for 5 more minutes after the 30 minutes I started with.
I started using this frosting recipe a few years ago with other flavorings, but made it strictly vanilla with the chocolate cake and was amazed by the flavor. Little C had gotten straight A's so I made her a celebration layer cake (below) and wanted white icing as the background for the A+ decoration. I cannot describe how it tastes with the chocolate cake - just dreamy!
After all my talk about the hand mixer and the chocolate frosting yesterday, I still used the stand mixer for this frosting. I think I can get it a little smoother with the hand mixer (less air pockets). I recently discovered that there is white food coloring! I used about 30 drops to lighten up this butter icing, but I stopped there because I think it would have taken the whole little bottle to get it perfectly white. The white food coloring looks like white-out, but it is neat to see it work.
I frosted the chocolate tree with the white vanilla frosting and decorated it with white pearls, silver foil stars and silver disco dust. Delicious and pretty!
Vanilla Frosting
1 cup of unsalted butter (2 sticks, softened)
4 1/2 - 5 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3-4 tablespoons of milk
Cream butter in mixer, add half of the powdered sugar and mix until incorporated. Add half the milk and mix; repeat with the remaining sugar and milk. Add vanilla and coloring. This frosting is great for piping or spreading.
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