Thursday's glorious fog and cold rain made me do it. It was my "day off" (aka no computer screen time, but I admit there was more than enough phone and TV screen time). Penelope was on Fall break and we needed something to do. So we made a cake. Correction. I made a cake while I ordered Penelope to watch. I guess my desire for making a pretty cake overcame the desire to make it fun for Penelope. I'm ashamed to admit this, but I do that all the time. I crowd her out so she ends up watching or getting bored and going to her studio to craft. Hanging out with the kids Thursday opened my eyes to two (okay more than that, but I'll only mention two here) shortcomings of mine as a mom. I take over our creative projects and I rarely get the kids out of the house. My mom took us to galleries, museums, symphonies at least once a week growing up. Time for some resolutions. Back to the cake. I used what I had on hand, which worked perfectly for Lizzie's Orange White Chocolate Cupcake recipe. I have no idea what happened to my regular cupcake tins so a tiered cake was in order. I also didn't have a white box cake, oranges or white chocolate. I substituted butter pecan box cake, clementines and dark chocolate for the missing ingredients. And it was a major win. I also filled the middle tier of the cake with blackberry preserves. I could've done the ganache in the middle, but I love how the dark chocolate lattice work could be mistaken for a spider's web. This quite possibly beats out the delicious cake served at our wedding. And that was an amazing cake. Chris and his brother kept sneaking bites throughout the evening and next morning. Between the 5 of us, we devoured the cake in a matter of hours.  I felt triumphant.

Orange Chocolate Cake

Adapted from Your Cup of Cake (the book) by Lizzie Early

Cake Ganache