Slight delay...

So I know it's been a while since I've made a post...so sorry! I know you hang on my every word, and I'm so sorry to have robbed you of that weekly pleasure. I guess we have some catching up to do!

Last week I made 2 cakes in 2 days...it was kind of intense. I made a second attempt at my cake from last post, and ran into some more issues. But this time I discovered the issue - my pan. Friends, take this piece of advice from me: DON'T BUY CHEAP CAKE PANS!! However with much determination I was able to make it work. I'll be honest, I kind of called it in on this cake.

When you have laundry to do, a house to clean, a co-dependent puppy to take care of and a cake for a customer to tend to, its kind of hard to dig in and find the motivation to go all-out for a cake for the office (gotta keep those co-workers happy, right?). So, let's all be honest, this first cake is not up-to-par with my potential, but I think we all deserve one of those once in a while...right?

This was a butter vanilla cake with blackberry icing. It needed more roses, but at midnight I was just ready to go to bed. The roses looked awesome, though (in my own humble opinion, of course).

But now, my pride and joy!

My friend Yo-yo was celebrating her 13 year anniversary, and her daughter Lani was also celebtrating her second birthday. So, Yo-yo and I collaborated to make a cake for her family that could tie both together. We decided on antique colors: mauve, ivory and gold. Yo-yo came up with the writing that would go on the cake, and requested a strawberry cake. So I created this:

I know, I know, the writing is off-center and kind of crooked. BUT this is my first attempt at writing on a cake, and I think it's pretty good for my first time. (Here's another piece of advice: wash your tips as soon as you finish using them! I WANTED to use a tip #2, but it was still dirty from the last time I used it, so I resolved to a #4, which resulted in fatter letters and a little bit sloppier looking writing.)

This indeed was a strawberry cake, with a butter vanilla filling. The base icing on the cake was strawberry, and the flowers were butter vanilla.

The cake had edible gold beads, and the border was ivory butter-vanilla "pearls." There were 13 roses on the cake, and I finished it all off with an edible glitter. When I put the cake in the box I almost cried I was so proud of my cake.

Yo-yo texted me a few days later and said she thought this was the best cake I've made so far. Without having a piece of the cake myself, I'd still have to agree with her. Happy Anniversary Yo-yo, and Happy Birthday Lani!

So, now my co-dependent 60-pound dog is trying to climb into my lab while I'm writing this. Be on the lookout for my next post...I'll be making my absolute favorite cake in the world for the first time: a German Chocolate Cake! Yum!

I had a bad experience...

As you may know, my birthday was on Monday. As most of you don't know, I had a horrible day. I won't get into all the details of my day, but there a a few things that are important about Monday. First, I took the entire day off...from both jobs. Second, I was going to make my most awesomely decorated cake so far. Third, I was sick all day and that ruined all my plans and intentions. (So I attempted the cake tonight instead of Monday.)

So on Monday I went to my favorite little cake supply store to buy things to make my awesome new cake. Since it was going to be my birthday cake (yes, shame on me for making my own birthday cake) I decided I wanted the same flavors I used on the last cake - white chocolate cake with blackberry buttercream icing. At the store it was suggested to me that instead of using melted white chocolate baking squares like last time, I could make life SO MUCH EASIER and use instant white chocolate pudding mix. "Hmm...that sounds simple enough." And so, eager to try new things, I went straight to the grocery store to purchase a box of instant white chocolate pudding mix.

Now, maybe I did something wrong tonight, maybe it was too humid today, or maybe I just looked at the batter wrong, but it did NOT turn out to be as wonderful as I was promised. This is how it went down...

First, I mixed my cake batter - so far so good, everything looks and tastes normal. Next I open the box of pudding mix and have a second fleeting thought that maybe I should be safe rather than sorry. But, as fleeting thoughts usually do, it fluttered away and in went the pudding mix. Instantly (funnily because it was INSTANT pudding mix) my cake batter got REALLY thick and kind of....gooey. I thought, "this doesn't look right..." but by this point my oven was preheated, my pan was greased, and my icing was mixed and roses were staring at me. Besides, the batter still tasted okay. So the batter went into the cake pan (against its will it seemed) and the loaded pan went into the oven.

20 minutes at 325 degrees later I check the cake...kind of looks like baked pudding. My oven bakes really hot so I always bake for less time than directed to keep from burning the goods. So I bake it for another 10 minutes. This goes on until the cake has been in the oven for almost an hour, which for this cake is almost twice as long as it should be, and guess what! No, really, you'll never guess. Come on, keep guessing. Okay, I'll tell you...

THE MIDDLE WAS STILL PUDDING!

At that point I took it out of the oven, turned the oven off, gave up and went to dinner. (You win some, you lose some.) The icing was still on the counter, roses staring at the ceiling dreaming of the day when they'd be upgraded to decorations on a cake, and a half pudding half cake monstrosity sitting on the stove cooling and deflating.

So this, dear friends, is what I made tonight:

(The part where cake is missing on the side is where me and my husband taste tested.....)

You can't tell very well from the picture, but its definitely still a puddle of pudding in the middle. It was supposed to be a cake shaped like this:

Covered with red roses:

And topped with a gold horseshoe sculpted from rice krispy treats:

To make a wonderful Winner's Circle Birthday Cake in honor of both my birthday and the Kentucky Derby coming up this Saturday. But, alas, all I was left with is a kitchen that looks like this:

I will try again sometime this weekend, though I *may* take the easy way out and make a boxed chocolate cake mix that I have sitting in my pantry...I'll let you know how it goes!!