Cake Month!

Here it is the third day of February and I am JUST now getting around to spreading the word about National Cake Month. I know February isn't normally associated with pastries (oh wait, there IS Valentine's Day) but it is indelibly sealed in my mind as being Cake Month.

Several years ago I was staying with two lovely ladies (Sarah and Laura) at their apartment in California. Sarah, having an ever-so-cool mom, was the recipient of a glass cake dome. The very same kind of dome associated with day old donuts or day-glo cherry pie at those retro diners in movies and throwback-chic TV series. I don't remember exactly how we decided that the cake dome should be filled with, well, cake, but it seems pretty obvious.

So we did.

Boxed mix yellow cake to be precise. And it was frosted with canned chocolate frosting. While it was still warm. There was really only half a cake to put in the cake dome when all was said and done.

And about two days later, we made another one. And so February was designated National Cake Month.

I am still trying to find a homemade cake recipe that can convert my husband from the boxed yellow cake version, but I am proud to say that not a February has passed that I have not made at least one cake. The most recent was another yellow cake with chocolate frosting (see recipe here: http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/07/best-birthday-cake/) and it was pretty good. But I like the pictures from this cake better.

This cake was made for Courtney's wedding shower, and in honor of our love for Dolly Parton and the movie "Steel Magnolias." It is, in fact, a "bleeding armadillo groom's cake." The closest I could get was to bake a Red Velvet cake in a football shaped pan and then add some bread baked in shapes of head and feet. Frosted the whole thing with cream cheese frosting dyed a lovely grey (courtesy of some black food coloring) and called it good.

Happy Cake Month!