Explore 2019 #219 + #220: Homemade churros + churro cake

I asked Laurel if she had a birthday cake preference and she said SURPRISE ME. I love trying new recipes and/or techniques so I decided to follow Laurel's love of churros and make a churro cake topped with homemade churros. OMG WHAT?!

The cinnamon cake + Mexican chocolate frosting + general design is from a recipe at thekitchykitchen.com; however, I skipped the praline crunch because of Violet's tree nut allergy. The churros are from Gemma Stafford's gorgeous new Bigger Bolder Baking cookbook. I was pretty psyched about Gemma's churro recipe because the churros are baked not fried and look how gorgeous and legit they came out! (I made them smaller than the recipe called for so the proportions would work with this small, tall cake.)

The biggest tragedy is that I'm legit scared to eat this cake. I'm on day 11 of totally clean eating (whole foods with a focus on anti-inflammatory food...no sugar, gluten, junk etc.) and OMG it has made a massive difference in resolving my allergies (this is a huge deal for me), irritability, etc. and I don't want to regress. I don't know....maybe I'll take a tiny bite....or maybe I'll just live vicariously through Jon and the girls! At any rate I'm thrilled with how it came out!