Giant Birthday Cupcake

Giant Birthday Cupcake
Originally uploaded by L.TON

So I realized I haven't posted in a while in general or really post a recipe at all. So let's remedy that.

June is the month of birthdays. One of my best friends, Kristina, was turning 23 (okay, so its come and gone by now). Anyhow, she is not an avid cake eater by any means unless it is Funfetti.

We both have fond memories of late night all nighters where I would bake us a pan of funfetti cake and we would eat that all night drinking cokes to stay awake to study. So in celebration of her 23rd birthday, I thought to make her the ultimate Funfetti Cupcake.

Here I used 2 boxes of Pilsbury Funfetti cupcake mix, 1 can of funfetti frosting, and topped it off with a homemade whipped cream cheese frosting.

You'll also want to make this delightful Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting first, so that you can let it set in the fridge

Giant Birthday Cupcake

Materials:
3 8 inch, round pans prepped with parchment paper
1 10-11 inch glass bowl (that can be used in the oven), coated with Pam or other non stick spray
Stand or Hand mixer
Aluminum Foil
Parchment paper

Ingredients:

2 boxes of cake mix (flavor of your choice)
ingredients to make the mix (eggs, water, oil)

1 can frosting (flavor of your choice)

Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting:

-1 pint (or 2 cups) of heavy whipping cream
-1/3 cup light agave nectar (if you do not have agave nectar, you can use 1/2 cup regular white sugar)
-1 tbl spoon vanilla extract
-1 8 oz package of cream cheese, softened

1. Into a stainless steel or copper bowl, cream together the agave nectar, vanilla extract and cream cheese until well mixed.

2. Turn your mixer on medium and slowly add the heavy cream. As the cream and sugar cheese mixture whippes together, it should start looking like whipped cream. Continue beating until stiff peaks form.

3. refrigerate for 1-2 hrs until stiff. This is especially important if you are using the agave nectar because the whipped cream is a little looser.


The cake:

1. Prepare the cake mix according to box directions. I make one box at a time to ensure that I do not over mix. It IS possible to over mix with box cake.

2. Fill each of the 8 inch round pan 1/2 of the way with batter. Pour remaining batter into the glass bowl.

3. Bake at 350F until tooth pick comes out clean for the 3 8inche pans. The glass bowl will take a bit longer. Once I take the rounds out, I turn down the temperature to 325F to prevent burning and bake until the toothpick comes out clean (almost 1 hr).

4. Cool on wire rack

5. While the cake is cooling, prepare the "foil wrapper". Roll out strips of parchment ~ 2.5 - 3 inches wide. Fold accordion style about 1/2 inch. Do the same with the aluminum foil

6. Layer the cakes and frost with can frosting. You can skip frosting the top because that is going to be topped with the whipped cream cheese frosting

7. Put a thick layer of canned frosting around the sides of the cake. This will help the parchment wrapper stick to the cake. Slowly wrap the folded parchment around the cake. Repeat with the foil.

8. Take your whipped cream cheese frosting out of the fridge and divide. Using food coloring (I used gel), lightly mix in the color of choice.

9. frost the top with color A, followed by color B. repeat until you have a "stacked" look.

10. Garnish with sprinkles or colored sugar if desired.

Serves 15