Shake and Bake Zumba Cake

Shakira was spot on when she said her hips don't lie.  Hips are very telling little things.  They tell whether you've got moves or whether you have had a few too many slices of cake in your day.  Me and my hips have battled as I have stumbled my way to finally being a salsera and as my rabbit food diet shed that cake off inch by inch.  I can also attribute the success of my diet to the party also known as Zumba.  In fact I might just be a Zumba freak.  It is only natural that when one of my favorite Zumba instructors had to move to California, I created a Zumba cake.  Brilliant colors and wild patterns? Yes please!

I began first with a marble touch.  Bright colors? Check! Wild patterns? Double check.

Came out of the oven and I almost peed myself with excitement because of the awesomeness.  (I am aware that that is not a lady-like thing to say but I just wanted to ensure you understood my excitement. Sorry.)  Please notice a small example of the Jenga that happens in my kitchen.  It gets interesting sometimes...

So the awesome Zumba cake high was there until I cut the first slice.  Bright colors? Still check. Wild patterns? Nope. Wah wah wah.  Lesson learned about marble cakes.  Only cool from a birds-eye view.  Now I know.

The good part of this adventure was that they moved the party a week back, so I got to do a take 2.  My students didn't mind the lack of pattern because there was not a lack of sugar as I pawned my cake off on them. 

Cake two?  Zebra pattern.  Two colors.  Blob-by-blob.  Baked into awesomeness.  Bright colors? Check!  Wild patterns?  Double check!  

Of course the frosting had to be bright too.  This cake is not meant for dull people.  In fact if you are boring?  Avoid this cake.  It will overwhelm you.  Stick to a vanilla cake with buttercream frosting.  All white.  All safe.  Hmmm.  Maybe I should make a surgeon's general warning for this cake or something...

When we cut into the cake?  It was a win!  I let out a big sigh of relief.  Zebra stripe success.  This cake even survived a mordida.  Wondering what a mordida is?  Well in the cake cutting of cakes in the Latin culture, the person in which the cake is in honor of is instructed to take a bite of the cake with no hands before it is cut.  Every time the person says, "OK, OK, I'll take a mordida but don't push my face in this time."  Every time the others promise, "We won't" Then someone comes from behind and shoves their face into the cake. They submerge from the cake with frosting all over and this shocked look, because they magically believed that this time they really weren't going to get pushed in.  That's a mordida.  And my cake survived it. 

All in all, my adventures into encapsulating the essence of Zumba in cake form was a success.  It provided some great inspiration.  We won't mention the fact that my usual union with these lovely Zumbera ladies does not involve such high caloric items like this 1-2-3-4 cake from Pie in the Sky (my go-to baking cookbook that I love more than a whole lot of other things that I love) with a brightly colored buttercream frosting. Every once in a while indulgence is OK (especially in the name of Zumba and one of my favorite Zumberas who is now safely to the beautiful state of California to shake her hips on some dreamy beach instead of in our compact lime green colored store-front room at a run down mini-mall on Sheridan). 

So shake and bake, it's what I do.  You know you want to join this party! 

You think King David would have done Zumba?...

"David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets." 2 Samuel 6:14-15