Snickerdoodle Cake & Snickerdoodle Icing

Hey Y'all!

So this is the last thing Andrew cooked, but is not the last thing that I cooked. I'll update with those after this, because this is shorter and from a recipe book, vs. the kind of thing that I made, which is not from a recipe, but passed down through the family etc etc etc. So yeah, the post after this will be gumbo and then some potato salad (because you can't have one without the other, unless you're at a picnic or having fried chicken etc, then you can have potato salad). Anyway, I digress. So if you've got a hankering for something delicious, there is a simple snickerdoodle recipe headed your way via this post!

Snickerdoodle Cake

Ingredients

-Solid Vegetable Shortening (aka Crisco or an equivalent)

-Flour

-1 package (18.25 oz) plain white cake mix

-1 c. whole milk

-8 tbs (1 stick) butter, melted

-3 large eggs

-1 tsp pure vanilla extract

-2 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease (with the Crisco) 2 9'' round cake pans, and then dust with flour. Shake out the excess flour. Set these pans aside. (You can surely use just one pan if you want, but this recipe assumes you want to make a layered cake)

2. Place the cake mix, milk, melted butter, eggs, vanilla, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl (IGNORE THE DIRECTIONS ON THE BOX OF CAKE MIX). Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop and scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping the sides down again if needed. The batter should be/look well combined. Divide the batter between the pans, and smooth it out with the rubber spatula. Put in the oven.

3. Bake until golden brown and spring back to the touch (generally 27-29 minutes). Remove and let cool for 10 minutes. Run a butter knife around the edges of the pan and remove them from their pans. Let cool for an additional 30 minutes.

*Prepare the Cinnamon Buttercream (aka Snickerdoodle) Icing*

5. Place one cake layer right side up, on a serving platter. Spread the top with frosting. Place the second layer right side up on top of the first, and frost the top and sides of both.

6. Let the frosting set for 20 minutes in the fridge.

*Recipe for Cinnamon Buttercream Icing

Ingredients

-1 tsp cinnamon

-1 container of buttercream frosting

1. Mix them together...and you're done with your Snickerdoodle Cake & Icing!!!

Okay, well, that's what we did for icing, but if you want to "really" make the icing yourself, you can do this:

Ingredients:

-8 tbs (1 stick) of butter at room temperature

-3.5 c. confectioners' sugar, sifted

-3-4 tbs milk

-1 tsp vanilla extract

-1 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Place the butter in a large mixing bowl and blend with an electric mixer on a low speed until fluffy (~30 seconds). Stop and add the confectioners' sugar, 3 tbs milk, vanilla, and cinnamon. Blend with teh mixer on a low speed until the sugar is incorporated (~1 minute). Increase the speed to medium, and beat until light and fluffy (~1 more minute). Blend in up to 1 tbs milk if it seems too stiff.

2. Use to frost the top and sides of the cake of your choice.