Cake Slice: (Not Quite) Cappuccino Chiffon Cake

This is the first entry for Cake Slice, a new baking blog dedicated to baking from one cookbook, once a month, for a year. The first cookbook we are baking from is "Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes" by Alisa Huntsman. This book has so many gorgeous cakes in it, please do yourself a favor and find a copy.

If this first cake is any indication, we are in for some mouth-watering eats over the next year.

The premier cake was Cappuccino Chiffon Cake, which consists of an espresso-laced vanilla cake, spritzed with espresso sugar syrup, enveloped in a cloud of sweetened whipped cream. Don't forget the sprinkling of cocoa on top.


Sounds delish. But sadly, I don't like coffee. At all.

The one and only cup of coffee I've had in my life was an act of desperation. After pulling an all-nighter in college, studying for a test on some stupid subject that didn't matter that I've subsequently completely erased from memory, I drank that foul liquid. I was obviously out of my mind, as studying all night will tend to make you. Why didn't I just have a Pepsi? I don't know. There is no obvious explanation. So, not only do I not like coffee, I have a bad experience associated with it.

(Wow, got off on a tangent there...)

And (also sadly), most of my family don't drink coffee, so I had no one to pawn this cake off on. So I did what any coffee-hater would do, I substituted Dr. Pepper. (My only other change was halving the recipe and using 6" pans.)

Interestingly, it tasted more of cinnamon and rum than anything else. And it was darned good! The chiffon texture was soft, the cake was moist, and the whipped cream? Pure heaven!

I used my food-only spray bottle to apply the Dr. Pepper/rum sugar syrup. I picked that trick up somewhere along the line and I'm so glad I did. It's so much easier than trying to brush syrup on with a pastry brush.


So there you go! Please stop by and visit the other Cake Slice bakers to see their cakes. Next month we will be baking Sweet Potato Cake with Chocolate Cream Frosting. How interesting does that sound?