The things I bake almost always turn out to be yummy (like the Cranberry Banana Chocolate Bread I made last year...mmm), but I tend to have a leeeetle problem with handling baked goods once they're out of the oven.
And sadly, that's what came to pass on Saturday, 24 hours before Kellan's Pre-Birthday Birthday.
First, I found some excellent inspiration online -- a killer-looking red guitar cake.
Then I traced the outlines of all my cake pans and cut them out of a JC Penney flier so I would have some idea of how to cut them all once they came out of the oven. (Never mind the fact that I was petrified by the idea of having to squeeze them all into my freezer so they'd be easier to cut, and/or attempt something called a 'crumb coat.' Yikes.)
I had to split the cake mixing into batches, because I couldn't fit it all in my KitchenAid mixer! But after dividing and conquering, I got all of the batter into greased and floured pans. I'm pretty sure my fingers were actually crossed as I slid them into the oven.
Then it happened. I let the cakes cool for about 10 minutes after they were done baking, and figured it was time to turn them out on the racks.
It was not time.
One of the sheet cakes quite literally fell to pieces. I wasn't really surprised -- I had anticipated some kind of major cake-making failure during the process -- and actually, I'm a little glad it happened early on so I didn't spend a ton of time buying special little candies for decorating and stuff.
After cursing my stupidity, I developed a Plan B -- create a stencil and dust powdered sugar over the second sheet cake. And if that failed....well, I still had two rounds I could just stack and frost.
It only took me about 25 minutes to carve out the stencil from the sweet birthday posters we made to decorate the house with:
Cool huh? Michael designed it based on the cover for U2's new single, pictured below.
And here's what we ended up with:
I was pretty sad about how the powdered sugar started to melt. (The cake was too moist to handle the sugar. See? I told you what I actually bake is yummy.) But then I started to see the coolness of the effect. Kinda looks rock and roll, don't ya think?
The cake looked totally cool. I just assumed that was the design. Much more rock and roll than plain white lettering!
ReplyDeleteToo bad about the guitar cake crumbling though. That was a ton of work it seemed.
If that cake isn't rock and roll then I dunno what is! Nice work on the b-day logo Michael! I may want a cool rock and roll logo for my b-day this year! I'm sure the Birthday Boy loved it and that's all that matters! Cake baking isn't easy. Every year on his birthday, Matt still comments that my stacked round cakes are not as neat has his mom always made it. Gesh. I actually had to go out and by him the round cake pans when we moved in together. Boys and their cakes. So the point of that story is, don't make Kellan hold his future wife up to some standard of rock and roll cake godliness that she can never full-fill b/c his mom did it perfect! I remind Matt that he's lucky to have a wife who loves him enought to put up with same comments year after year after year. Although, you'd think I'd get better at baking those damn cakes....
ReplyDeleteNow that's what I call making lemonade out of lemons. You rock the cake world!! And I'd put money on the fact that Kellan wouldn't have cared if the whole thing fell to pieces. But it's still disappointing when the plan falls apart!
ReplyDeleteGood Job!