Clearwater Cottage: Chocolate Upside-Down Cake

Two Moms & Two Birthdays in One Week right before a big camping weekend, sure I can bake you both a cake! I did too! And both had sad fates....

Both cakes were made from Duncan Hines Chocolate Fudge cake mix. I made my own butter cream icing from scratch using the Wilton recipe but then I decided to flavor them differently.

Cake #1
For my Mother in Law and Step-Father in Law (their birthdays are less than a week apart).
This cake received the new Duncan Hines Frosting Flavor Creations icing treatment! I stumbled upon these while walking through Target, and just had to try them!
The chocolate outer icing was flavored with: Chocolate Almond
I found it to be a bit too sweet for my preference, and probably won't use this flavor again.

But the filling was regular butter icing flavored with: Mint Chocolate

This was delicious! I will definitely use that flavor again!

Here is Cake #1 all done and ready for action!

Even though my husband carefully held it the entire 45 minute car ride to their house, it slid around in the cake carrier and all of the sides were completely destroyed! Luckily I married into a very loving family and they didn't mind one bit! Sorry for the lack of pictures, I was too horrified/embarrassed to take any....

Cake #2
For my Mother and Brother (their birthdays are 4 days apart)

This time I filled the cake with canned cherry pie filling that I mashed up (since the cherries were whole).

The outer frosting was again homemade butter cream that I added dutch baking cocoa to, it was perfect, not too sweet and nice and chocolatey!

This is the last picture you will ever see of my beautiful cake!

I had learned my lesson from cake #1 this week, and I taped the cake circle to the carrier bottom so that it wouldn't slide around - this worked perfectly, no smooshed sides! But we were running late, so I quickly grabbed the cake and gifts from the car to hurry into the restaurant to meet my family. I did not check the cake carrier, I should have, from now on I will ALWAYS CHECK THE CAKE CARRIER, because dun-dun-dunnnnn it came undone!!!!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen here we have: Chocolate Upside-Down Cake:

I couldn't believe it, there she lay in the middle of the parking lot in all her glory! Literally I began to throw a childlike tantrum in the parking lot - stomping my feet with frustration at the situation. (Wouldn't you too?) The hostess at the restaurant saw me sadly scoop her up and put her back inside the cake carrier and then stand there wondering now what. She kindly brought me out some napkins to wipe off my very chocolatey hands.

The restaurant was very nice and provided us with a very large slice of cake for the whole family to share after hearing our sad story. In the end we were all able to laugh about it and smile while taking pictures of the disaster. Maybe next year my mom actually get to eat a homemade cake from me, because I will try again!