Jill from Hollandale, WI (2018 Week 1: Cakes)

Baker

Jill

Location

Hollandale, WI

Baking Challenge

Hidden Showstopper Cake

Give your cake a name based on the ingredients and decoration – and tell us about the origin of your recipe.

Lumberjack Plaid Cake: I was trying to do a plaid design inside the cake, which I nailed (I think). Having a checkerboard cake pan on hand, I had also thought about doing green and gold Packer colors, or red and white Wisconsin colors. But instead, I thought that plaid might look interesting. I googled different ideas and was actually surprised to see that plaid cakes are thing. This one has a chocolate, red velvet and white cake (tinted a deep pink). I could have probably added chocolate stripes on cut slices, but it was labor intensive already.

Tell us about your proudest moment – or humble failure – in this week’s baking challenge.

I got to the point where I wanted to decorate the cake to look like a tree stump, and then I had no idea what to do. It was so hot outside and the house was heating up from the oven being on – I didn’t want to mess around with fondant or other major frosting recipes, so I just said "forget it."

Describe how you added a Wisconsin twist to your creation.

I wanted it to be a Father’s Day/masculine cake, and also thought of the lumberjack/paper industry in Wisconsin as fitting. So the plaid inside the cake was meant to draw the logging history into the story.

How did you do?

Rocked it.