Peppermint Cake

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This is the 3 layer checkerboard peppermint cake I made to take to Steve's cousin's for dinner tonight. I borrowed the checkerboard cake pans from Jen. She told me she's used it once in 30 years. When she brought it in to work for me, I told her she could make a fortune on eBay with this! The box is in mint condition and so "retro". I should take a picture of the box but the camera is all the way in the other room. Sorry.

I used a white cake mix, flavoring the entire thing peppermint, tinting half pink and leaving half white. See below for how these pans work. You place the plastic form in one cake pan, pour dark/light/dark in the rings. You take the plastic form out, wash it, dry it, repeat. You take the plastic form out, wash it, dry it and pour light/dark/light. Bake the layers and assemble in an alternating fashion.

The cake mix really didn't make enough to fill the 3rd pan properly. And it tasted funny. Shit. Now what? So I dumped it down the sink and washed & dried the pans. No way in hell was I going to a grocery store today so I did what I should have done in the first place - made a delicious cake from scratch!

So it's not picture perfect. It was actually quite delicious. But I have to confess, I didn't even think of this until I was eating a slice tonight. So unaccustomed am I to making layer cakes, I neglected to spread frosting between the layers! Luckily it held together beautifully.

Mom, Dad and Gretchen - FYI - there is, as you can see, half a cake left. So instead of the almond pastry thing I said I'd bring over on Christmas, I'm regifting this cake for us to eat. And what we don't eat, I'll take to work on Tuesday. Along with every other employee in the building trying to unload leftovers. (I'm still bringing the vegetable, Baked Parsnips. After I bought the parsnips, I learned Gretchen doesn't like parsnips but she's willing to give this variety a try.)

Happy Christmas to all and to all, a good-night!
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