Bursting With Flavor

ROOT BEER BUNDT CAKE - TESTED AND APPROVED!

Or, Where's Your Sense of Adventure?
Guest Post by Lisa Parker, Cakes for All Seasons

It makes me sad when a bride contacts me to order a wedding cake and says she wants a white cake with white frosting. “Where’s your sense of adventure?” I want to ask her.

My favorite kind of cake to bake, fill, frost, and decorate is chocolate. It’s rich, moist, and delicious and goes with so many other flavors. What’s your favorite flavor to mix with chocolate?

There’s vanilla, of course, and coffee. What about nuts? Hazelnut, almond, pecan and walnut are all good. Do you like fruit with your chocolate? Raspberry is excellent, orange is good. Some people add chilis to their chocolate, think Mexican hot chocolate and those lovely gourmet chocolate bars with a kick. I’m partial to coconut with my chocolate . . . well, I like coconut with anything.

But have your ever tried root beer with chocolate?

I never had until I received a marvelous cookbook from my daughter for Christmas a few years ago, Baked:  New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. It holds a special place on my bookshelf. Their recipe for Root Beer Bundt Cake with Root Beer Fudge Frosting is a favorite around here.

I have fond memories of going to the A&W drive-in when I was a kid and for purely nostalgic reasons I use A&W root beer in their recipe (along with the schnapps!).  I bet one of those new local, artisanal root beers would be marvelous, too.

This is a Calendar of Days post - today is Chocolate Cake Day!