For the last night of my Wilton decorating class, we had to bring in a cake pre-frosted and ready to decorate. I chose this seemingly-simple layer cake, originally seen in this gorgeous variation.

I had a bit of a tough time. For one, of my three layers, only two came out. (One was way too thin.) Two, I forgot to color the layers in gradually darker shades of red, like in that gorgeous variation. But it wouldn’t have mattered; I didn’t make enough layers for impact, either. None of these things were the original recipe’s fault (the recipe on the gorgeous variation’s website doesn’t give instructions for the coloring, though), and the cake ended up tasting very good.

I like that it’s called an ‘old-fashioned’ cake; it definitely doesn’t have that out-of-a-box texture that most party cakes of today have. It also held up very well to my frosting and barely created any crumbs at all. (more…)