Monday, June 6, 2011

Watermelon Cake


My kids insist on testing my culinary art skills when they decide on their birthday cake... this year Lincoln decided he wanted a Watermelon Cake. I dug around online and finally combined three different recipes to get what I wanted. Here's the recipe I ended up using:

1 box white cake mix
1 box (3 oz) watermelon jello
2 eggs
1/4 cup oil
1 1/2 cup water
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Combine cake mix, jello, eggs, oil, and water. Mix on low speed until moistened. Mix on high speed for 2 minutes. Gently fold in chocolate chips until well distributed. Pour into two 8 or 9 inch round cake pans (greased and floured) and bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes until it passes the toothpick test.

And here is how we constructed the cake:

Let the cake layers cool for about 10 minutes before removing from the pans. Place in the freezer for about 20 minutes. After freezing, sandwich the layers with 1/4 cup frosting between each and cut in half. Frost each half with a thin layer of white frosting and allow to dry.

Frost rounded edges of cake with dark green frosting. If you want, you can pipe light green frosting lines around curved edge and use a knife to smear them to create the mottled look of a watermelon rind. Use red-orange frosting to frost the top and straight sides of cakes, leaving about 1/2-inch border of white frosting between the green and red. Use raisins or chocolate chip as the seeds, placing them on the red frosting as desired.
Enjoy!