Happy Birthday Tuesday!

This is Tuesday:

Technically, today is Monday.

But today is all about a pup named Tuesday, a 10th birthday, and a Milk Bar Monday Birthday Layer Cake.

This gluten-free adaptation from Christina Tosi’s Milk Bar Cookbook is incredibly rich and buttery, shocking sweet and incredibly festive. She strove to encapsulate the joy of funfetti box cake (the Confetti Cookies from the same family were possibly my favorite of the bunch that the Milk Bar Mondays ladies have baked up). This one doesn’t quite take the prize in my mind, but as I sit here noshing on a slice with a scoop of dairy-free honey ice cream (look for it in my feature in next month’s Easy Eats magazine), I still can’t help but shake my head in “oh my dog” mode.

A layer of incredibly dense, buttery cake flecked with sprinkles
(not hard to find gluten-free).

A wash of milk and vanilla (almond milk, in this case).

A layer of frosting that truly tastes like you got it out of a tub, only a million times better.

A sprinkle of Birthday Cake Crumb.
The whole “crumb” aspect of Tosi’s work is quite genius.

Then two more layers of that combo.

When I made this, I had a whole slew of recipes to pop through for several venues, and a special friend with a little dog coming over for dinner on my unexpected day off. So I whizzed through this recipe. Here are my thoughts:

– I used an “all-purpose gluten-free flour” instead of mixing my own.  The cake was incredibly heavy, but that’s not the flour’s fault; I’ve found Tosi’s recipes don’t adapt particularly well ratio-wise for gluten-free flours. As I did with my Apple Pie Layer Cake, I would use my basic ratio to re-do this cake and blend my own flours to make it lighter and fluffier. I think hers just flat-out have too much fat or sugar.

– The cake as a whole was way too sweet for me. Others might argue, but as the special friend put it, this might be better layered into a 2-inch wide stacked cake that you might see alongside two others on a sharing plate. Don’t get me wrong – I ate it. And it’s scrumptious. But I’d cut down on the sugar

– Sprinkles are way fun.

– I did use butter in the recipe, as I don’t have a negative reaction to it for the most part. But I substituted the milk with almond milk and added a tablespoon of “cream cheese” when the recipe called for buttermilk.

Now, back to Tuesday.

This little pup is a fireball, a new (somewhat reluctant) friend to Mitra. She knows the different between barking and talking. She likes to crawl under spaces to chill out in the dark by herself. She freaks out when her master-buddy is out of sight. And today she turns 10. While she didn’t get to actually eat this birthday cake, a candle was lit in her tiny honor.

Happy Birthday, Tuesday. Bark on.

Butter and sugar and sprinkles, oh my!

I normally post my adapatations of these recipes in the posts, but because I didn’t remake the cake to my specifications or anything, I’m gonna sit this one out. But for the full recipe head on over to this Milk Bar Monday host Audra at The Baker Chick, and check out all the brilliant creations of…

The Milk Bar Mondays Ladies!

Erin of Big Fat Baker

Meagan of Scarletta Bakes

Audra of The Baker Chick

Nicole of Sweet Peony

Cassie of Bake Your Day

Krissy of Krissy’s Creations

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