Carousel Birthday Cake

 I have not been on my food blog for a while which does not mean that I did not cook. LOL I have been cooking lots of the recipes that I already have on my blog and I have been busy with life in general. I was also on a cleansing diet and I lost over 20 pounds and got back in shape. Go Here if you want to see my story, or go Here if you want to know more about what I did.

My baby girl turned one this week and I decided to do a carousel cake for her. I googled carousel cakes, but I am not an expert at decorating cakes so I just had to come up with my own version and I did.

• I made an angel food cake (out of a box this time), I put a vase in the middle,
•  I made some ginger bread cookies out of scratch (LOL). Go Here for the ginger bread recipe if you want it. You could probably half the recipe unless you make more shapes out of it and let the kids decorate it as an activity. We bought my oldest daughter some moon sand and it came with Pony shapes so I used them to make the ponies on the carousel. They turned out pretty cute and I just decorated them with frosting and nerds for the eyes. 
• I also sprinkled nerds on the angel food cake. 
• I put licorice in the vase to give the impression of poles
•  I used Lizzy's first tutu for extra decoration. 
• I thought about filling the vase with strawberries or candies, but licorice seemed a good choice too. I put the strawberry syrup in another container for the angle food cake.

The carousel cake would have looked good even without the top layer of cake, but I thought that there would be more people coming to the party, so I made another cake as well and it was a nice way to write my daughter's name on it and put a candle on it (which we couldn't even lit up because of the wind). This way the cake did not look to overcrowded. I used a boxed cake again because I did not want to stress about making a cake out of scratch; I had too much to decorate. I used a little cupcake to put on the top and I gave that to my daughter as her own cake to eat.This cake is easy to make and you could even buy the cakes already made from the store, just decorate it your own way.

Happy Birthday our little Lizzy!!!! You are so Loved!!!!!

Here is a recipe for an angle food cake that I used a few weeks ago and I really loved it. It is not that hard to make and it tastes so delicious too.

Angel Food Cake

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups cake flour
• 1 3/4 cups white sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups egg whites
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Directions

1. Beat egg whites until they form stiff peaks, and then add cream of tartar, vanilla extract, and almond extract.
2. Sift together flour, sugar, and salt. Repeat five times.
3. Gently combine the egg whites with the dry ingredients, and then pour into an ungreased 10 inch tube pan.
4. Place cake pan in a cold oven. Turn the oven on; set it to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Cook for about one hour, or until cake is golden brown.
5. Invert cake, and allow it to cool in the pan. When thoroughly cooled, remove from pan.