So, a couple key parts of background information:
1) My friend is about to have a baby any minute now and we decided to surprise her with a baby shower. I was in charge of food
2) I had surgery of the sinuses in March.
3) My boyfriend is better at cake decorating than I am so we were trying to work it so I made the cake, but the put the final touches on it.
So, here's the tale of how cake defeated me.
Attempt #1: Tuesday morning, I woke up and attempted to make a cake in which each layer is a different color. Here's the before:
And out came this (picture taken after BF took a bite out of one):
Notice that they are nothing more than pancakes. So, I looked at the recipe. Oh, TWO boxes are needed to make it work.
Attempt #2: A trip to the grocery store later, I now have the ingredients to try again.
Notice how full the pans are? They came out beautiful! I frosted it and, that night, BF came over to decorate it. When he started working on it, this happened:
Which, I will add, is 100% my fault for not leveling the layer and for not using the proper frosting. I'm upset. I cry. I wanted this beautiful cake and I failed.
So, later on, I start saying how I don't want the cake to go to waste and I wish it was on a more disposable platter so I could take it to the fire station or hospital or somewhere else that someone would appreciate it. BF then says he could make that happen. All he had to do was devise a disposable platter and move the cake over. This is what happened:
Which led to this:
We didn't eat it all. He took most of it to work and his coworkers loved it.
Attempt #3: At this point, I gave up on the idea of a cake. I decided cupcakes would be a much better use of my time and made the plan that on Wednesday, after I took my friend to the airport, I would stop by the grocery store again and get the ingredients to make said cupcakes.
So, I made my plan happen, only instead of making the 24-30 that the boxes says would happen, it made 16, which is exactly the number of people who said yes to being there, making them not enough.
I would've just made more, only I had to go to the doctor's RIGHT AWAY due to me having multiple bad bloody noses. Remember that whole I had surgery recently thing? Apparently the doctor's office tends to not like it if the surgery site is bleeding badly a few months after surgery.
Since I couldn't make more, I decided at this point, I would just buy a small sheet cake and put it on the platter with the cupcakes. I could even use the decorations BF and I got for the layer cake I was trying to make.
BF did a beautiful job with the cupcakes (best picture I got, sorry):
Attempt #4: It's now Thursday, the day of the shower, and I picked up that small sheet cake a mere couple hours before the beginning time. I go to decorate it and discover that the sugar letters we got weren't the same colors as the outside describes. Actually they're neon. Baby shower colors, they are not.
Well, I give up. I went to the shower with the 16 cupcakes and the badly colored sheet cake and set up the display.
At least it's pretty on the inside.
And the kicker? Only 11 cupcakes were eaten due to 4 no shows and 1 guy being on a specialized diet. Yeah, so attempt 4 wasn't even necessary.
1) My friend is about to have a baby any minute now and we decided to surprise her with a baby shower. I was in charge of food
2) I had surgery of the sinuses in March.
3) My boyfriend is better at cake decorating than I am so we were trying to work it so I made the cake, but the put the final touches on it.
So, here's the tale of how cake defeated me.
Attempt #1: Tuesday morning, I woke up and attempted to make a cake in which each layer is a different color. Here's the before:
And out came this (picture taken after BF took a bite out of one):
Notice that they are nothing more than pancakes. So, I looked at the recipe. Oh, TWO boxes are needed to make it work.
Attempt #2: A trip to the grocery store later, I now have the ingredients to try again.
Notice how full the pans are? They came out beautiful! I frosted it and, that night, BF came over to decorate it. When he started working on it, this happened:
Which, I will add, is 100% my fault for not leveling the layer and for not using the proper frosting. I'm upset. I cry. I wanted this beautiful cake and I failed.
So, later on, I start saying how I don't want the cake to go to waste and I wish it was on a more disposable platter so I could take it to the fire station or hospital or somewhere else that someone would appreciate it. BF then says he could make that happen. All he had to do was devise a disposable platter and move the cake over. This is what happened:
Which led to this:
We didn't eat it all. He took most of it to work and his coworkers loved it.
Attempt #3: At this point, I gave up on the idea of a cake. I decided cupcakes would be a much better use of my time and made the plan that on Wednesday, after I took my friend to the airport, I would stop by the grocery store again and get the ingredients to make said cupcakes.
So, I made my plan happen, only instead of making the 24-30 that the boxes says would happen, it made 16, which is exactly the number of people who said yes to being there, making them not enough.
I would've just made more, only I had to go to the doctor's RIGHT AWAY due to me having multiple bad bloody noses. Remember that whole I had surgery recently thing? Apparently the doctor's office tends to not like it if the surgery site is bleeding badly a few months after surgery.
Since I couldn't make more, I decided at this point, I would just buy a small sheet cake and put it on the platter with the cupcakes. I could even use the decorations BF and I got for the layer cake I was trying to make.
BF did a beautiful job with the cupcakes (best picture I got, sorry):
Attempt #4: It's now Thursday, the day of the shower, and I picked up that small sheet cake a mere couple hours before the beginning time. I go to decorate it and discover that the sugar letters we got weren't the same colors as the outside describes. Actually they're neon. Baby shower colors, they are not.
Well, I give up. I went to the shower with the 16 cupcakes and the badly colored sheet cake and set up the display.
At least it's pretty on the inside.
And the kicker? Only 11 cupcakes were eaten due to 4 no shows and 1 guy being on a specialized diet. Yeah, so attempt 4 wasn't even necessary.
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