Cake Trial #1

I am making a little wedding cake for my BFF Sarah's wedding. So I started my trials for the best type of cakes, frosting, and fillings this weekend. For the first trial, I used this recipe for sour cream almond cake from Paula Deen, and a almond butter cream frosting. Here's the process of the baking . . .



Layer 1 - this turned into the tester cake, because it stuck so badly to the pan.

Layer 2 - still sticking to the pan. ARGH!

Layer 3 - finally used parchment paper.






I was too lazy to make more of the butter cream so it really is an unfinished cake. Once I get better tools, I will focus more on the frosting aspect, I would like it to look really clean, like this (except for no ugly pink flowers on top):




Here's a breakdown for our overall thoughts:

Good:
- the taste was amazing, super dense and delicious
- the filling, lemon curd & raspberry filling, perfect!
- parchment paper; use it, love it.

Bad:
- buttercream frosting, I needed more of it, and was too lazy to make more of it to finish the cake, but it has to stay at room temp otherwise it is too hard
- cake + frosting = too rich, I will be trying a lighter cake, or a lighter frosting for trial #2
- my crappy resources, I only had 1 cake pan, and despite flouring & buttering the pan, my first 2 cakes stuck to the pan, so I will be getting new pans so & more parchment paper