Bake One, Take Two: The Piñata Cake & Bonus Trifle

Glamorous Cake Shots courtesy of Frank!


Another birthday, another baking adventure. This time the lucky birthday gal was my wonderful great aunt Linda, one of the sweetest, craftiest people I know. I wanted to make a cake as lovely inside and out as her, so decided on an angel food piñata cake with fun surprises inside.

My great grandmothers' bundt pan.

First things first - baking. To make things extra special, I used a bundt pan my grandmother, great grandmother and great aunt all used to bake dating as far back as the 1930s. I guess they had bigger ovens back then, as I actually had to supplement my creation with a bit of store-bought cake when I lost the top after it exceeded the capacity of my toaster oven. What can I say, I'm adding memories!
Every day I'm tunnelin'.

 Moving right along, construction of the cake was surprisingly simple thanks to how cleanly angel food cake carves. Just cut off the top of the cake and dig a nice little moat into the rest of it. The process works well with the bundt cake shape, but I'm sure any pan could yield fun, surprising slices.


Cake moat!

While you could fill your secret cake tunnel with all sorts of deliciousness, I chose to go with a Cool Whip/Jell-O combination with chopped up fruit thrown in the mix. When chilled, the mixture sets up nicely and has a cool, creamy, refreshing texture. Perfect for an evening BBQ party on the patio.

Stacking the cake.
Ice, ice baby.
All dressed up and ready to go!

Keeping with the light, summery theme, I decorated the cake with some plain Cool Whip and lots of fresh fruit. I also dropped extra chopped up fruit down the well in the center, giving the cake two surprises and making it a true piñata.
Bonus trifle!

The great thing about making a tunnel/piñata cake is that you actually get two desserts for the price of one. Since I had leftover fruit, filling and cake (from the tunnel excavation), it seemed the natural course of action to throw it all into a pretty, layered trifle. Zero effort, totally delicious. Win, win, yum.

As for the original dessert...

Swirly candles make any cake better.
The cake is a lie!

Well, apparently the cake turned out too good, as people dug right in before I could get a satisfactory sliced photo op. Not to worry though, it was so tasty and easy, I decided to go ahead and make another the next day, complete with another bonus trifle.

Cake Take 2
Strawberry avalanche!
Just desserts.

Four desserts in two days... What's a girl to do? 

 Share, of course! Who wants dessert? :)

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