My Lover....

What you might not know, is that I have a lover. My husband knows about the relationship, so

it's okay. Sometimes this secret relationship is healthy for me, and sometimes I know that its just soooo bad that it's good.

My lover's name is called Kit...It's short for KitchenAid. Out time together is usually fun and magical.

For Valentine's day, I decided to make a pink ombre cake. I made a cake similar this summer for a friends birthday, but it was lots of different colors.

I make cakes from scratch. I am not knocking box mix cakes, I have a couple in the pantry for emergency needs...you know late at night when I am craving cake!! Most of the time, I pull out everything and start from nothing. I pulled the cake mix and icing from two different places.

The cake layers came from a book titled Delightfully Southern Recipes by: Lucy M. Clark. My Grandmother gave me this book several years ago, and it's got some good stuff. The Icing came from the KitchenAid Manual's recipe section. It's the best damn chocolate icing you'll ever have!!

1-2-3-4 Cake Layers

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

3 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

3 tsp baking powder

1 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Blend butter and sugar until light and fluffy (I softened butter for 5 sec. in the microwave, but you don't have to). Add eggs one at a time, beating after each just until egg color disappears. Sift flour once, add salt and baking powder and sift a second time. Add dry ingredients alternately with milk. Stir in vanilla and pour into 3 layer cake pans and bake at 350 until light brown, about 25 minutes. Cool in pans for about 10 minutes and turn out on rack to finish cooling.

Kelly Notes- I made four thinner layers for this cake. The one I did this summer, I did a cake making and a half for 6 layers. I cooked each layer for about 20 minutes instead of the full 25.

Chocolate Frosting

1 cup butter, softened

2 tbsp light corn syrup

4 cups powdered sugar

2 squares (1 oz. each) unsweetened chocolate, melted

These instruction are specific to the stand mixer speed. Place butter in mixer bowl. Attached bowl and flat beater to mixer. Turn to speed 4 and beat about 1.5 minutes. or until creamy. Stop and scrape bowl. Add corn syrup. Turn to speed 2 and mix well. Stop and scrape bowl. Turn to Stir speed. Gradually add powdered sugar, mixing until blended. Turn to speed 4 and beat about 1 minute. Stop and scrape bowl. Turn to speed 2. Slowly add melted chocolate and mix about 1.5 minutes. Stop and scrape bowl. Turn to speed 4 and beat about 1 minute.

Final instruction I give you is...just lick the beaters...you'll thank me!!!

So a day later I realized I didn't share my secrets of the colored layers. This one was easy, as I started with a few drops of red, mixed it well and poured some batter into a round cake pan. I then added more drops of red for a darker color, then poured some batter into another cake pan. The process just repeats until you are out of batter. The one I did this summer with 6 different colors was a PROCESS!! Six bowls of equal batter mixed with desired colors. The ombre is SOOO much easier since its just a process of adding more after each pour.

The world is your rainbow...might as well eat it!!