Pastel Layered Cake

There are certain areas of Osaka that are full of foreigners - my old neighborhood happens to be one of those areas. My new neighborhood, however, is quite different and primarily Japanese (to be expected, perhaps??). There are a few of us though! One of my good friends here is a Mexican woman and another is a Romanian woman, both are just lovely and such fun to be around. Unfortunately, our Romanian friend is moving downtown at the end of the month. This week we had a little going away lunch for her at my place. We decided, of course, that I would make the dessert.

As it was a special occasion, I wanted to make a special cake. I started by making up a chocolate cake using this recipe. I have made that recipe a few times before, but always in cupcake form. It never disappoints. The only changes I made were to half the recipe, given that I had plans to make a second cake, and also adjust the baking time for a full cake instead of cupcakes. It ended up taking about 40 minutes (I think), and one spot on the top got a little too dark. That being said, I ate that part with no frosting and it tasted just fine.

The next step was to make a vanilla cake. Again, I used a tried and true recipe. No changes were even necessary, aside from halving it.

I endedup with two cakes. As you can see, the chocolate one caved in a bit.

This wasn't such a big deal since the cake was to be four layers anyway.

I just sliced the tops off of each cake so they were the same height. 

Then I made a cream cheese frosting, the same as frosting that I used in the Oreo cupcakes post. I did make a few changes, however. Before adding in the crushed Oreos, I separated the frosting into two bowls, putting about a quarter of it into a smaller bowl. I crushed up about 5 or 6 Oreos and added them to the smaller bowl.

I sliced each cake in half lengthwise and then added the Oreo frosting between the layers. I was pretty careful with how much I added between the first few layers, ensuring that I would have enough for the top layer. It ended up not being a problem at all and the top layer even got a bit more than the others.

Once the cake was all stacked, it looked like this. I was thinking of stopping at the bottom three layers to mimick an Oreo, but I couldn't resist the top white layer - more layers, more drama...and I LOVE cake drama!

Then it was ready for the crumb coat.

Once that was ready, I separated the remaining white frosting into three bowls.

I colored two of the bowls - one lavender and one turquoise. I left the third one white, but just before frosting the cake, I decided to make it a light pink.

Starting with the pink at the top, I frosted and worked my way down with the lavender and finally the turquoise.

Where the colors met, I smudged the line a bit with a spoon to make it look a bit better. Then I used the spoon to add texture to the frosting. I love how it ended up looking, almost like a painting. I also love how the inside looked, all stripey and delicious.

Yum!!

For lunch we had delicious tacos made by our Mexican friend and dessert was delicious as well.

We definitely made a dent in the cake - not naming any names (nationalities would be more accurate, perhaps?), but a few of us even had a second slice. 

A few of K's friends came over that afternoon, so I helped myself to a second slice then. The next morning I gave away two more slices, so at this point, the cake is nearly gone. I'm a little sad. Maybe I will have to make it again sometime soon...

As a side note, I made this cake and showed it to K on Wednesday morning. He said, "Oh, is the cake for Jandro?" (Jandro, or T, is my little brother.) I was totally confused by this. "Uhhh...no. Why would it be for him?" "Because it's his birthday." "How do you even know that???" Turns out that yesterday was, in fact, Jandro's birthday! Happy birthday, little bro!! I still have no idea how K knew that. He says I told him a few days ago, but I have no recollection of this. More to the point, however, is that I LOVE how K associates pastel, extremely feminine looking cakes with my with my 24-year old brother. Ha!