Since I don't usually do the baking, I did a couple of tests first. My original thought was to mix the meat with the batter. So I added cooked sausage to the batter next time I made pancakes. That came out fine, though I would need to chop my sausage into smaller bits. Next I tried baking a trial cake layer using a single batch of batter. This cooked up and tasted fine, but had a large hump. Since I would need more layers anyway, I ended up using two batches split among three pans. With the smaller amount, it still had a bit of a hump, but it was easy to slice off and would be covered before completing.Oh , and I also added an extra egg per batch. Not sure if it added much.For the syrup, I had thought of just spreading honey between the layers. It was pointed out that this would probably just soak in and not spread. I probably could have worked with this. In fact, it might be worth trying a single layer cake with the soaked in honey sometime. But I was also thinking some butter taste would be nice. Which putting me on the path to butter cream frosting, which I replaced the sugar water with maple syrup.
The only other change was that I moved the sausage to between the layers. What follows are the basic steps I used.
Cook up one tube of breakfast sausage, working to get the bits as small as possible. I probably only used about half of this.
Mix up two batches of batter (that's around 4 cups of Bisquick, in my case). Grease and flour three pans and spread the batter evenly between them. Bake as per a yellow cake. Once cool, slice off the hump to make them level. Better bakers might have a better idea for the batter! :-)
Get a hold of some maple butter cream. Ok, that's not what I did. But making the butter cream took me forever. The recipe I used is below.
Frost the top of one layer. Sprinkle with the sausage. Top with the next layer. Repeat. Frost the top layer and then the sides. Sprinkle top with sausage. It would probably be worthwhile to chill the finished cake for a while. Slice and serve.
Maple Butter Cream Frosting
I went back and forth between a online recipe from Martha and the regular butter cream in Joy. I think I mostly used the formers ingredients and the less time consuming directions in the latter. I also doubled the recipe. Which made a ton. Which I used anyway. Made the cake really rich. A single batch would probably work. Or make both and save some. It is really good! The parts in orange below are, I believe, for food safety. Skip them if you aren't worried. Anyway, here is roughly what I used:
4 cups pure maple syrup, preferably dark amber
A dozen egg yolks
2 lbs of butter
All ingredients need to be at room temperature. Cook the syrup until soft ball stage. Heat a skillet with an inch of water to simmering. In a metal bowl, beat the eggs on high until thick and pale yellow. While beating on medium, slowly pour the syrup down the side of the bowl, not directly into the eggs. Set the bowl into the skillet and bring the temperature up to 160 degrees. (I'm not sure this step is needed, since I was already at that temperature). Remove from heat and wash beaters. Beat until cool (or stick in the fridge and come back later). At medium speed, beat in the butter, one tablespoon at a time.
