Daring Bakers, July: Surprise Cakes

For the July Daring Baker’s Challenge, Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to bake a cake. But not just any cake; she asked us to add in a special surprise for our eyes as well as our taste buds!


Surprise! There really isn't anything to see here *sad face*.


I tried for the zebra-like patterning (as seen here), but I made the mistake of mixing two different batters, which meant two different batter weights, so they totally tried to combine. Plus, the root beer batter was lighter than I thought it would be, and the vanilla extract turned the vanilla ice cream batter darker than I thought it would, so ... heh heh? Tan!!!


The top view gives you an idea of what I was going for. It also illustrates why I wished I'd poured the batters in measuring cups with spouts instead of winging it and pouring them out of bowls--it was harder to control the pours' aims and amounts. The top pattern should have looked like a bullseye.


So problems aside, the cake tasted really good, and the outside formed a wonderful, delicious crust.

Because the root beer cake batter is a little more complicated than simply adding root beer to it, I can't really just make a batter, split it in half, pour a cup root beer in one half (it would destroy the batter), then vanilla extract in the other half. I might try other flavors where I could use a single batter and just flavor two halves of it differently.