Monday, November 15, 2010

A cake

Well, it's that time of year again where I get to attempt at making a yummy birthday for my amazing hubby. His 31st birthday is tomorrow so we're celebrating tonight with our church community group.
I made them last night, but something went very wrong. I have no idea why, but my first batch ended up in the garbage:


My last batch finally turned out, but I tell ya, I may never bake a cake from scratch a.g.a.i.n.
I gave RJ a couple of different cake options and he chose a chocolate and caramel cake. 
I used the same cake recipe I used last year. It's so good and far from dry. In fact, it's so moist it makes it kind of tricky to frost. For the caramel portion, I used a caramel buttercream frosting.


Then I looked at my kitchen:


I mean, really. Baking a cake is easy. Making this big of a mess takes some real talent, right?

I meant to do this on both layers of frosting, but forgot so just did it to the top and added Heath bits and a drizzle of caramel.


 I've done a lot of 2 layer cakes, but this is my first 3 layer one. I'm hoping it isn't currently collapsing in the fridge...


So there's this trick to icing a cake where you do a "crumb coat" and then do another coat on top of that that will end up lovely and smooth.
I can not figure that stupid step out. 
One of these years I'll do it!
And for now my crumbly frosting will have to do.
(I used chocolate buttercream for the outside)


One trick I love is taking Whoppers and putting it all around the bottom. It hides a lot of my mess. 



Now we'll have to see how it tastes....


RJ, I love baking you cakes, but not near as much as I love you.
I hope you all had a fabulous weekend and Happy Monday!!


5 comments:

une autre mère said...

You are such a good wife - and cake decorator! I love the malt balls around the bottom - pure genius!

I've heard the trick to frosting a cake is to freeze it first. However, I've tried that and still manage to get crumbs in the frosting.

And the mess... that's why I hate baking. Love cooking, hate baking. So if when I bake stuff for my family and friends, they know I must really love them.

Amy@My Front Porch said...

That cake looks soooo yummy! Trying to think of an excuse to make it :)

I heard the same thing Katie said about freezing the cake and frosting it -- but I'm not really the best person to ask about decorating cakes. I could tell you stories for hours about my disasters :)

And dude -- making a cake might be easy but it's still messy -- my kitchen usually looks even worse than that when I'm done. Which is why I don't do it often :)

The Sneaky Mommy said...

RJ's birthday cake looks so YUMMY! What a lucky guy!

H-Mama said...

Your first picture cracked. me. up. I convince myself that mess is a sign of intelligence. Works, right? ;)

Glad to have you follow our journey... Looking forward to following yours.

By the way... his cake looks divine. And Whoppers = brilliant. :)

Julie said...

Cake was awesome! Hope RJ has a good birthday!

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