At the end of 2023 I set a goal—make one cake every month. Cake is something I love to bake but often wait until there’s a special occasion, so I set this goal to give me a reason to make more of them.
Little wedding cake in progress
I still started the year with a special occasion—my friend & former housemate’s wedding 🥲 She asked for a small & simple funfetti cake. I had so much fun making it. I bought 6” cake pans and finally invested in a turntable that I know will come in handy all year. I had been planning to frost the cake with cream cheese frosting but last minute I switched to a swiss meringue buttercream. It tasted so good & held up beautifully.
For February’s cake, I made Smitten Kitchen’s chocolate raspberry pavlova stack. I’m gluten free for a few months, and I liked that this cake was naturally gluten free.
For March, I was going to make a simple chocolate layer cake but I got influenced by NYT Cooking’s Instagram and made an almond cake with cardamom & pistachio. This was pretty good but I was kind of underwhelmed. Despite having so much almond extract I just didn’t think the flavor was very strong or interesting. But my husband took some of the cake to his coworking space to share & it was apparently a big hit there :)