Orange Cake and a Happy Anniversary to Tim

Happy Anniversary to my wonderful husband, Tim!

Two years ago today we had the most enjoyable wedding on the beach in Florida. It was laid back and just right. I’m so very happy to have married my best friend and an all around wonderful man. I love you, sweets.

And as unhappy as she would be with me for sharing this with the world. . . today also would have been my mom’s 60th birthday.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

We lost her 4 and a half years ago. It’s been hard to not have my mom around. Tim and I used her birthday as our wedding date to honor her memory and make her a part of our day. It made me feel better to consider her a part of things for my wedding. I miss her everyday and wish I could be throwing her a huge birthday party for her 60th.

In honor of these two important people in my life, I made mini orange cakes with raspberry filling and orange buttercream.

My mom loved all things orange and so does Tim. He and my mom had a lot of favorite and hated  foods/flavors in common. Actually, neither of them enjoys raspberry. . and yet I used it anyway! Such a rebel. It’s the seeds they both object to. Good thing this filling is simply a seedless raspberry preserve.

Mini desserts are Tim’s favorite. And really, mini personal sized foods are super fun. You can use washed out tin cans to make tiny cakes but I have some itty bitty cake pans so I used those. (I made tiny pineapple upside down cakes in them once  for Tim’s birthday at his request and he loved them.)

And when I say mini, I mean sort of HUGE-mini cakes. I got 3 little layer cakes out of a whole box of cake mix so you know they are sort of bigger than single serving!

This cake was very simple. 2 ingredients. I love to bake from scratch but I am not opposed to cake mixes. I am in favor of them actually! A lot of times they make your life simpler. I always keep a few kinds on hand.

This cake is a box of orange cake mix and a can of diet Sprite. That’s it. . . 2 ingredients and you have cake.  Pour the mix into a bowl and add the soda. Stir to mix. It will foam up a little at first but then incorporate. Pour it into the pans of your choosing and bake according the directions on the cake mix box.

You could do this with any flavor cake and any kind of soda. Chocolate cake with cola or cherry soda, maybe? White cake with cranberry soda? The possibilities are endless.

Once my mini cakes were cooled I sliced them in half and spread them with raspberry preserves and stacked. I used 2 mini cakes per ‘mini layer cake’ so I ended up with 4 layers.

You could use any flavor fruit preserve you wanted to fill this cake. Or if you are more of an icing person just slap some icing between the layers.

(Don’t mind all my slightly blurry pics. What was wrong with me the night I made these? Yikes!)

Then I made a buttercream icing to cover the whole cake. Very basic.

Orange Buttercream Icing

1 stick room temp butter

1 tsp vanilla

Juice and zest of 1 orange

1 lb of powdered sugar

Using my hand mixer I whip the butter until fluffy and then add the extract, juice, zest and powdered sugar. Mix until it is smooth and has all come together. You can use more or less powdered sugar if you want the icing a different consistancy.

I used a bit of the leftover icing and colored it green and did a little bit of decorating. Then I sprinkled  the top with orange sprinkles.  It made them extra fancy.

Our anniversary is today but we ate the cakes on Saturday. We had a nice dinner out and came home to these baby cakes. A very nice celebration indeed! XOXO!