Beaver Round-Up

Editors note: This post was written by Erin. Samara made comments in italics.

Every year in Dillingham they celebrate Beaver Round-Up. I believe at some point in history it was a time when trappers came into Dillingham after collecting their beaver pelts? I could be wrong. Now it's more of a reason to get out of the house because winter has gone on too long and everybody has cabin fever kind of celebration. Either way, there are dog races, turkey bowling, the infamous Beaver Buns contest, and most importantly, a bake off.

This was my first bake off. I was scared to enter my baked goods into a contest. Luckily, Samara wanted to join in on the fun and this made the whole thing less intimidating. Samara and I decided to make a 14 layer cake. We figured this would be impressive and the recipe didn't sound all that hard. So, here is the story of our 12 layer cake (somehow, we lost two layers). However, 12 layers are just as impressive as 14, and if you consider all the chocolate goo we added between each layer, it's almost like 24 layers, 25 if you count the butter cream frosting.

12 Layer Cake

First, we preheated the oven to 350. Then we cut circles of parchment paper to fit inside the ridiculous amount of cake pans. Do this! I had no idea that parchment was my friend. It seems like regular waxed paper would work, but this stuff is pretty awesome.

Basically we just made the recipe for two yellow cake mixes, using butter instead of oil and adding roughly a tablespoon or so of vanilla. (In the future the recipes will be more precise, I promise.) Erin promises. I make no such promise.

We put about 3/4 cup of batter into each cake pan. We ended up with about 12 layers instead of 14. Oops!

We baked them for about 15 minutes and then let them cool. The parchment paper was a lifesaver. Also, we sprayed the parchment down with pam and then floured it. Nothing was going to stick to the pan.

We then made a sort of icing (more like chocolate goo) to put in the middle of the layers. We were not entirely pleased with the consistency of the icing, but it tasted okay. It was just way too thin and runny. Here is a good action shot of Samara putting the icing on the layers.

This is how you can leave the cake if you like. We thought it was pretty ugly, so we wanted buttercream. (Plus, what is a cake without buttercream?) Here it is before we put the buttercream over the top. It looks like pan cakes. It's not. It takes like cake. And it's really moist. I attribute it to all the extra butter.

To save yourself some mess, place the cake on a cooling rack with a pan underneath it to catch the icing. This was a tremendous help.

We let the cake set up in the fridge and made the buttercream. We made a chocolate cream cheese buttercream to cover the gaps and make the thing pretty (and chocolately). We weren't in love with the buttercream at first. We made some changes (noted below in the recipe) that seemed to help. The cream cheese gave it a slightly interesting taste and we felt wasn't the greatest on its own, but with the chocolate icing in the middle and the yellow cake, I think it was a good choice. I am still not in love with that buttercream. And to make it look fancy, I shaved chocolate bars on the top. It was rustic.

After putting on the buttercream we let the cake sit in the fridge over night. The next morning I rushed the cake over to the church for the bake off. Stupid daylight savings time almost made me miss the deadline, which would have been tragic!

We arrived back at the bake off later that afternoon to find out how we did. We were pleasantly surprised to have won second place! For our first bake off, I think we did well. We also entered a couple other baked goods. Here we are in all our glory:

And here is a close-up of the cake:

We won second in the cake part of the contest, there was also a dried fish category and an akutaq category. In case you have never heard of akutaq, it's also called Eskimo ice cream. It's make with a fat (usually crisco), sugar and berries. And for the more traditional version adds salmon to it.

It wasn't as pretty as the one Bakerella did, but it was magnificent. I didn't even want to try a piece because I was still recovering from a sugar coma from the previous day's baking. After Samara asked me to try it for her (she was sick), I broke down and tried a small sliver. It was hard to cut, but so pretty with all the layers. The thing was good! It was so moist and had a good chocolately flavor. I love yellow cake and chocolate frosting, so this cake was right up my alley.

After the people of Dillingham were able to sample the cakes, they voted in a people's choice award for their favorite baked good. Samara and I were pleasantly surprised to win the people's choice award at the bake off! (The people's choice is actually the over all winner of the contest. Yes, we even beat out some of the smoked fish strips and the akutaq) I think people were having pity on us as we had slaved away our entire Saturday on the cake. Either way, it made my first bake off experience a good one and made me excited for next year's Beaver Round-Up. We're still anxiously waiting for our big blue Beaver Round-Up first place ribbons!

Icing for the layers:

3 cups sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder , preferably Dutch process

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut up

1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons of corn starch--add more if it is too gooey for you

Bring the sugar, cocoa, butter, and evaporated milk to a full boil in a large saucepan. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until the icing has thickened slightly (it will resemble chocolate syrup but will thicken as it cools), about 3 minutes (For some reason it never really thickened for us, so we decided to boil it again and add some corn starch). Stir in the vanilla. Let the icing cool until thick enough to spread, but still pourable.

Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting (from Bakerella)
1/2 cup butter, softened to room temperature
8 oz. cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (We used Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa)
1 box (1 lb) confectioner's sugar (We didn't use quite this much)
1 tsp vanilla
1-3 Tbsp milk

1 tsp salt

Cream the butter and cream cheese with a mixer. Add the cocoa and vanilla. Add the confectioner's sugar in small batches and blend on low until combined. Scrape down sides with each addition. Add 1 tablespoon of milk at a time until you get the consistency you desire. We added salt to cut down on some of the sweetness. For some reason salt makes everything better.

It was good. I was happy with the results and I was happy for it to be over. I had also entered the easy-way out apple dumplin's. Which also got a second place in the other dessert category. Here is the recipe:

1 apple--peeled, cored and sliced in to 8 pieces
1/2 stick of butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup of sugar
1 tbls of cinnamon
crescent rolls--see, the easy pastry
1/4 can of sprite zero (or favorite citrus soda)

Open the can of crescent rolls and fold 1 apple slice in to each triangle to make little pockets or envelopes. Place them in a casserole dish (a 9x11 pan works well) In a small sauce pan, melt butter, sugar and cinnamon. Cook just until melted. Pour over all the dumplings. Next add the sprite zero. (I have no idea what the soda does, but it makes it awesome) Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before you eat them. They are ugly and when I first made them I was really skeptical. But now people ask me to bring them to potlucks and to work related dinners. They are just so easy to make. Try it. You won't regret it. (2nd place says it all.)