1 handmade holiday: part four.

I like to gift my coworkers with calories. I make cakes on their birthdays, bring in cupcakes for fun, and usually bring in boxes and boxes of cookies during the holidays. This year, rather than baking 20 different kinds of cookies, I decided to bake little cakes for everyone. I made mini cardamom cakes like I did for our wedding favors, and packaged them up in little kraft paper boxes wrapped with green yarn and a little glass ornament. I also made a few larger cakes for a few "special" people, i.e. my bosses and our office manager. 

Each of those cakes was placed in a large white box wrapped with the same green ribbon and three pretty ornaments! 

I can't share the recipe for the cakes since it's top secret in our family, but this recipe is very similar if you want to make one. You can substitute 1 tsp. regular vanilla extract for the vanilla bean paste.  I use a cathedral bundt pan and sprinkle powdered sugar over the top to make it look like a church covered in snow.

The jury is still out on whether or not making these cakes saved me any time compared to baking a ton of cookies, since I had to make five batches of cake total for all the mini cakes (48) and the three big cakes.  They definitely didn't save me any money...the ingredients are expensive!  They were a hit though, and one of my bosses liked it so much he took his cake home with him and then brought it back to work the next day so he could have it for a snack!  Most importantly to me (aside from the flavor), they are pretty and festive, so I will probably make them again next year.