Novel Baking: The Book Cake!

Edible fiction

One of the few things I enjoy more than baking is reading - especially a good, old-fashioned book. Fiction, nonfiction, tomes, novellas... stories of all kinds are welcome on my bookcases. So, when I found a baking pan in the shape of an open book, I simply could not resist. 

Book armor (+42)

My test run with the new pan began with an already hungry audience, so I decided to go the quick route of boxed cake mix. I also decided to sweeten the deal by making a few modifications. 

Going bananas!

 Taking a simple yellow cake box mix, I followed all the directions as listed, but added to the concoction two ripe bananas and...

Chocolate makes everything better.

...Chocolate chips! This way, instead of having a run of the mill boxed cake, you have a delicious semi-homemade banana chocolate chip cake. Yum! 

This story isn't even half baked.

After mixing everything thoroughly, I poured the batter into the book pan and set it to bake, again following the box directions for time but checking intermittently to test for doneness.

A cooked book!

You can't tell it's a chocolate chip cake from this angle, but flip the cake out of the pan and voila!

Chips ahoy!

Leaving this cake unfrosted would undoubtedly taste delicious given the extra moisture and density from the banana. But, since this was my first go using the elusive book pan, I wanted to make it look the part.

Tabula rasa

Vanilla frosting is not always my top choice, but I had to admit it was ideal for the bookish look I was aiming for. For extra effect, I used a specialized frosting tube tip to give the illusion of pages on the edges.

Short and sweet, literally!

Unfortunately, I was not able to give much time or thought to the icing job (or the story line) as I had an eager audience chomping at the bit. So while this literary baked good was admittedly one of my less polished creations, let's just call it a first draft. 

Taking a page from this book.

As expected, the banana chocolate chip book cake was a hit, and will definitely be added to my library.  

To be continued!

Location: Sacramento, CA, USA

Comments

  1. TASHLANDIAFebruary 2, 2015 at 12:01 AM

    love this! it's made me quite hungry! lol

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LydMcJanuary 16, 2016 at 1:20 PM

      Me, too! Looks like I'll be baking another one this week if you want to come and visit...!

      Delete

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