Surprise Inside Buffalo/Lumberjack Plaid Cake

Merry Christmas! Or Chris-Moose if you prefer! Hope you are loving life and the season and taking time to savor a special moment now and again.

Not sure WHAT possessed me to finish this cake so late in the game with the big day only two days away. No more room in the freezer perhaps?

The layers have been chilling out for some time while the oven door was overworked with loads and loads of Christmas cookies. My favorite holiday activity is baking. Anything. (Could you guess?) Mostly cookies because they're such a happy treat but I've been known to indulge in cupcakes, tartlets, cinnamon rolls and special breads from time to time. And with all of those baked and safely delivered and the Christmas packages mailed and the snow shoveled, well, mostly shoveled, I finally took time out to put this together. The snow just had to wait today. By the way, what exactly happened to December? I turned around twice and it was just g o n e. 

My first attempt at this design was "okay" but I wanted this second try to be a little closer to what was in my head. Didn't even bother to finish or frost the first try but once I fully defined the exterior elements I couldn't wait to finish this one! After thinking I'd get it done for November or Movember and then having that deadline slip past, I just couldn't bear to have it looming into next year. So my Christmas gift to myself was to finish this project.

I will never admit to how many hours, wait, minutes. It was just minutes, right? Anyway, the moose took WAY longer than I'd planned. Tried him out of peanut butter chips then caramel then peanut butter candy melts and finally got one that worked. And I thought that was going to be the simple part. Silly girl! Just when I thought I had a beautiful caramel shape all finished, some very cute deer decided to pop in. On our upper deck. Not their usual hangout. So I dropped what I was doing to take some (lots) of video of them eating anything they could find in the snow laden pots and planters. When I returned to the task at hand I discovered I'd set something on top of the moose in my haste. Sticky mess so I decided to try something else. The peanut butter candy melts were the winner. Right color. Tasty. And easy to pipe when heated. The peanut butter chips were much more temperamental  during the melting so go with the easy stuff if you decide to give this a try.

The rosemary sprigs and cranberries were the simple part. Simple yet striking somehow. Love them very much. I was going to hand cut the squares for the plaid strip but decided it would be quicker and as effective to use an edible image. Didn't love the way it warped or decided to be green instead of black but kept on going in spite of the hiccups.

Want to see it being cut?

inspiration for the next madness

And now hopefully I can finally sleep a full night without visions of checkerboards and  plaids dancing through my head. Right. Like that's ever gonna happen. Now it's back to visions of triangles. Lots and lots of colorful triangles. Up next. But probably not until after New Year's.

Until then, rest up, eat yummy stuff and take lots of pictures of those special smiles in your house.

Sweetest dreams!

xoxo,

Deborah