would this have come out better if it were baked in a mobile home?

GRAND CANYON CAKE
from White Trash Cooking

2 boxes plain white cake mix
2 cans of chocolate icing
1 c. whiskey sauce (see below)

Mix cake mixes like they tell you on the box. Then divide each cake mix into half and color each one of the four layers in a different color, such as red, yellow, green and blue.

Then bake them separately in 8-inch cake pans until done. Cool them off before you start to put the icing on. Now put a layer of cake and a layer of icing until you've used up all the cake. You should have enough to cover it generously; if not, run to the store and buy another can. After it's covered, take 2 big forks and stick them in the middle of the top of the cake and force on it until it cracks open and you can see all the colored layers. Now pour your whiskey sauce into the crack and let the cake absorb it. Let it stand for 3 or 4 hours before serving.

This is a wonderful treat for someone that's going to, or just got back from vacationing at, the Grand Canyon. It's also very educational for children.

Whiskey Sauce

2 cups of sugar
1/2 lb. of butter (2 sticks)
1 tsp. pure vanilla
1 cup of Jack Daniels Black Label
1 pinch of salt

Blend sugar and butter and vanilla until mixed completely. Then add whskey bit by bit until it is a nice, loose creamy sauce. The sugar is supposed to be grainy.

let me just say that this cake was in NO WAY educational for children. it is a disaster waiting to happen. i wish now i had been wearing safety goggles or something.

charo's boyfriend tom not-so-subtly suggested that this cake would be a great birthday present from her to him. she (afraid of baking) asked for my help.

it all started innocently enough, giggling and adding food coloring to plain white cake mix. once the cakes came out of the oven, though, we knew we had a problem... they weren't flat. they were sort of humped in the middle. how they were supposed to rest on top of each other was beyond me. we figured we'd just fill in the gaps between the layers with frosting. [link is to a 2MB quicktime movie.]

of course that was a bad idea. the weight of the massive amounts of frosting caused the layers to crack and spilt. but we figured, "hey, the recipe actually calls for the cake to be cracked later on... so how bad could it be?" we felt a little better once we realized that the frosting itself has amazing adhesive qualities. we used it as glue.

but then the frosting suddenly began acting as a lubricant and the layers started sliding off of each other. we pushed on the layers, our hands getting slimy and chocolately, and tried to realign everything.

the REALLY exciting part was making the crack in the top of the cake. once everything seemed basically sturdy, i gently inserted two big bread knives and made the slightest of slits in the top... then we poured in the white, goopy whiskey sauce and watched that little crack get wider and wider and wider...

until finally the whole four layers split in two down the middle, and the entire right side of the cake started to slide off the plate. it all happened in gooey, slow motion, and charo managed to grab the whole chocolate mess with her hands (as if she were spinning clay on a pottery wheel) and shoved the two halves back together again.

as soon as she removed her cake-covered hands, though, it all began to disintegrate once again. there was nothing we could do... so we just slammed the lid on the whole mess to keep it contained.

then we put it in the back of the refrigerator with the hope that the coldness will somehow make it less precarious.

the whole thing was pretty much a disaster. believe it or not, though, the trickiest part is still to come... transporting the cake to the party saturday night will be --i predict-- a comedy of errors. i have my doubts that 1) it will make it in one piece, and 2) that anyone will actually want to eat it.

happy birthday, tom! :^)

Posted by xta at May 28, 2004 12:37 AM | TrackBack