Recipe:Topsy Turvy/Mad Hatter Peanut butter Birthday Cake for Marcus

Goal: USA decorated version of the cake on the left.

Results: USA decorated GOP hat/submarine shaped peanut butter cake.

Recipe: (and I tripled this), or more accurately, I did this three times.

PB Texas Sheet Cake
Ingredients

Part 1:

-1cups Butter

-1cups Water

Part 2:

-2cups brown or white or mix Sugar  **i tried all three, and I think the white sugar actually worked the best, but the brown white mix was great, it was just the lighter coloring looked nicer).

-1tsp Salt (if using unsalted butter, otherwise omit salt)

-1tsp Baking Soda
Part 3:
-1/2cup Peanut Butter (Smooth, salted) ** originally I put this with part 1, but on a second try it worked better to add it to 

Part 4:

2cups Flour

Part 5:

1/2cup non-fat Yogurt ( I used greek for one and regular non-fat for another, they both turned out fine)

1tsp Vanilla

2 Eggs, beaten

Instructions:

1)Preheat Oven to 350F.

2)Heat p1 (butter, and water) in a large sauce pan on stove top until almost boiling.

3)Turn off heat.

4)Add part two (pb) and  (sugar, bs, salt) and stir until sugar is completely dissolved.

5)Add flour and mix in.

5)Stir in part 4 (yogurt, eggs and vanilla)

Marsh mellow Fondant:

Ingredients
-1 bag mini marshmallows - 

-1-2 Tbs Water (you can always add more later)

-1-2 Tbs Food Coloring

-2lb Confectioners Sugar, a few cups at a time.

Directions

1) Empty bag of marshmallows into microwave safe bowl and heat until melted (~90sec).
2) Add 1 Tbs of water and stir in food coloring (you can add more water alter
3)Add the sugar in, batter should start to stiffen to the point were you can knead it with your hands.
4)Cover your hands in butter/pam spray/crisco before handling dough.
5)Place dough in fridge over night. It will be ready to work with in the morning. (Or if you can roll it out flat, and put it in the freezer for an hour or so).

So this was an interesting one. Although I am a fairly adamant cook I dont' usually make cakes from scratch and I've never worked with fondant before. So this was a learning experience.

I am baking the cakes right now. I went with a peanut butter texas sheet cake because after making a vanilla texas sheet cake yesterday I realized that it is a very dense cake, which is recommended for a Topsy Turvy Cake. I put my vanilla trial it in the freezer yesterday after making it just to see how it would hold up, I am happy/unhappy to announce it was delicious and I am a little disgusted with how much I ate... all in the name of science!... er experiments... er... um... ok, it was just amazingly good.

This cake also didn't require an egg white fluffing or anything that would require a lot of beating or too much attention as I am doing it by hand and tripling the recipe. By tripling it, it also gave me an opportunity to try out theories of sugars and pb. In one batch, i did all brown, the second, half and half, and the third all white, so I'm excited to see how they each turn out. ** update: the white looked the best, but the mix of sugars, had the best texture. Although, they were in different size/quality pans, (which was not a part of the plan, human error), so I can't be certain the difference was all due to the pans, so I'd say to just go with what you have.

I also tried to make marsh mellow fondant. I did't have good dye (just typical food dye, which isn't strong enough) and I think I added too much water to the recipe. It never firmed up. It continually absorbed powedered sugar with out lessening the stickiness It could also be that it is 90+ degrees here. I may have to wait until tonight to make it and then roll it onto the cake early in the morning. I've made this fondant before, albeit not in the middle of a NJ summer, without a problem, so I'm crossing my fingers I just messed something up. ***Update: Went to the store and got the mini concentrated containers of food dye for $2 each, expensive, yeah, but wow the blue was gorgeous! Deep deep blue. One suggestion though is to add as little water as possible. I ended up using only 1-2TBS (instead of the recommended 4) because the dye added extra liquid.

But having the back-up batch of fondant was comforting... because knowing me, I might have needed it.

I make mistakes CONSTANTLY, whether it's forgetfulness or doing things too quickly... Even when I had all three batches laid out, with seperate bowls for like ingredients all pre-measured, I still kept forgetting to put everything in. The first batch, didn't add sugar, baking soda and salt (don't worry, I poured the batter back into a bowl and then mixed in the sugar later) - worked out ok.

The second batch, I actually got it all in correctly, but the third batch i forgot to add the egg/yogurt mix... also had to retrieve the batter from the cake pans. Which was actually a problem in itself, because like most of the baking population in America, I have two identical 9' rounds. One of them was filled with batch @2, and the other batch #3, so I'm not entirely sure I poured the one from batch #3 back into the bowl to get yogurt and eggs added to it.... So yes there is a 18% chance that one of the rounds has twice as much eggs, yogurt and vanilla as needed, and the other has none. But that's it goes when you are cooking with my genetics. ... Thanks mom.

Luckily nothing went into the oven before it was fixed.

Baking was uneven at best. I should invest in some nicer large round pans, instead of ones we found on a curb... but who's got the money? Not I. It worked out ok, because I trimmed down the sides to get the right shape, so the burning didn't affect the overall taste.

The fondant was tricky, and I should have taken more pictures during the process, but my hands were blue. And I was loosing patience quickly. At one point, I almost considered throwing it all away because I couldn't imagine how it was going to come out half way decent. Luckily, I didn't stop! And I was quite happy with how it turned out!