Bee Cake

I made a cake for a friend's baby shower at work. She is my coworker, but that sounds so distant. I prefer the term "friend" so much more. Funnily enough, we went to the same high school, though, I'm a few years older than she is so we never crossed paths. Last year, she married a lovely guy and now she's expecting a baby; her due date is actually in a week. This cute couple has decided to wait until the birth to find out the gender, which is fun.

I have a little secret about this cake.

I used box cake mixes! I know, I know, sacrilege. But hear me out. I was a bridesmaid in a wedding over the weekend (and a Sunday wedding at that) and I had to make this cake for the party on a Tuesday. So, I needed to be able to whip this up together quickly. I didn't have time to cream butter and measure sugar and all that jazz. However, I substituted the water with cream for a richer and more moist (and fattier) cake. And I added a little melted butter and vanilla extract to the batter.

For the filling, I used a little instant pudding and some sliced strawberries.

This was a nice, tall cake.

Instead of frosting, I made a fluffy mascarpone whipped cream. The mascarpone adds flavor and it helps to keep the whipped cream stable and prevents it from melting.

I love this clean white canvas.

The theme of the shower was "bees" so I was given little candy bees to decorate the cake with. I figured it would look a little weird to just have bees so I also piped on some flowers, using a little food color tinted mascarpone cream. The centers of the flowers are yummy chocolate chips.

The baby shower was so cute!

Here's cutie pie mama-to-be J slicing into the cake.

And here's a look into the cake. Can you see why I used the yellow cake and chocolate cake? I wanted the inside of the cake to look like a bee too. Everyone seemed to be super into the cake so I'd say it was a success.

Cute, right? Even though it was only partially handmade, I think it came out quite delicious and it was a success.

xoxo.