Joy the Baker

Before I made this cake on Sunday afternoon, I sat down with a nice, tall root beer float.  Sure, it was 10:30 in the morning.  I suppose that technically that means I had a root beer float for breakfast.  That’s one of the great thing about being an adult, you can have a float for breakfast with no resistance.

Something about a root beet float puts me on a conveyor belt back to some really random childhood memories.  The taste, the bubbles, the increasingly creamy soda… it take me back to constantly skinned knees, playing in a beat-up old red wagon with my sister, and sitting in front of an old black and white television watching baseball with my grandfather.  Funny what a little ice cream and soda can do in your brain, right?

But cake!?  Root Beet Float Cake?  I have so many questions.  Will it have the same memory inducing effects as the real deal?  Is that asking too much?  Wait, is this cake chocolate or root beer?  Can I eat it for breakfast?  Will it change my life for the better?

Answers and cake, just a click away.

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So sneaky!  This cake is nothing but sneaky.   It may not have the looks of a world class chocolate cake, but please don’t underestimate me when I tell you that this is one of the best chocolate cakes I’ve ever experiences.

If this chocolate cake were your blind date, you might think to yourself, well…. he’s not as tall as guys I usually date, and he’s a little dorky.  But by the end of the night, you’re both laughing hysterically, he’s taken off his glasses to reveal quite a handsome man, and you’re already thinking about the cute pair of flats you’re going to buy so you’re not taller than him.

This is that cake.  It’ll surprise you.  It might seem a little short, and a little dorky, but trust me when I say it’s worth the leap of faith.

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Chocolate and orange are like a dream to me.  Although my dream last night had nothing to do with chocolate and orange, and everything to do with watching some bizarre alley cat trying to eat giant hissing grasshoppers, or something.  I woke up wanting a thick slice of this cake for breakfast.  You know, to make everything right in the world again.  It’s that simple.

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This is one of the recipes in my collection that invariably makes me raise one eyebrow in suspicion.  It’s a Bundt cake that’s is not only flavored by orange juice, it’s flavored by the whole darn orange- pulp, pith and peel.  I’ve made this cake twice now.  It not exactly the effortless Bundt cake you might expect. But a dozen eggs, and two pounds of butter later, I think I have figured out it’s little quirks.  Once the little hiccups are managed, this turns out to be a delightful cake with loads of  kick-you-in-the-mouth orange flavor.

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