Okay, so you may remember that I said I wasn’t good at making fancy cakes. If you don’t remember because this is your first time or you didn’t read that post, then I will tell you that I am not good at making fancy cakes. I have all of the accouterments to make fancy cakes, I just lack the skills.
I will start this story by telling you three things. First, I am on a diet. And not an easy one,either (not that there are any). There is just NO cheating on this diet. Second, I AM a good cook. I promise. I am even good at baking cakes! There are two things that I haven’t had a lot of success with and that is divinity and boxed brownies. Weird on that last one, eh? Third, I am an over-doer. If there is anything I can make harder than it needs to be I will. If I can make something fancier or more expensive, I will do that, too. It is something I have been working hard to change, but change is slow.
Anyway, I got a call last week from a friend asking me to make a two-layer birthday cake for a church activity. I have been half dreading and half looking forward to making this cake. I spent a lot of time online looking at recipes and decorations trying to decide what to do. I decided to do a fondant cake. Over-doing? You betcha! So I looked for a cake recipe that would be sturdy and hold up to that kind of torture. I have made a commitment to myself never to try a new recipe when failure is not an option, but I threw caution to the wind and started in on a new (not to mention expensive) recipe. I made two batches, both of which came out hard as rocks. I knew it was supposed to be a dense cake, but….really?? I will interject that I had to taste some to make sure it was okay. Then I felt bad about myself for cheating. SO, cake round 1? Fail. I sent hubby to the store for cake mix.
I mixed up the cake mix (chocolate) and licked the spatula (why?????) and poured the cake mix into the two round pans. Stuck them in the oven to bake. A bit later…..”What’s that smell???” and “is the house on fire?”. No, I had overfilled the tins and cake mix was dripping all over the oven. Pretty soon, the whole oven was filled with smoke. Then the whole house. This is where a wise person would give up. Not me! I made ANOTHER trip to the store for more cake mix. As I get out of the car when I arrived home, the whole outside of the house and inside of the garage smell like burnt chocolate cake.
Finally, I got the cakes to work. Got them cooled and went to frost. I know how important it is to level a cake before you frost it. But since I haven’t done anything right so far, why start now, right? So I go right ahead and frost the cake. What do you think happened next? The top layer started to slide! OH NO! I am panicking now. I hurry and put the fondant on, thinking that will hold it in place. Frosting starts oozing from under the fondant. Quick! To the freezer!!!!! Needless to say, that didn’t help. So I just finished it. I guess, when you consider all the mistakes, it didn’t turn out TOO bad. Me on the other hand? This is me after I had already changed my clothes once. Am I going to do this again? Probably. AND can you believe I have the guts to post of picture of this cake? I must say I am a little embarrassed. But I can’t tell you the whole story and not show you a picture, right??
