Birthday Party I: Teaser

As with most of my baking adventures, I like to do a trial run to ensure that what Betty Crocker tells me to do is what I really should do to make something taste (and look) as good as it does on the box. So why should Jack's 2nd birthday cake be any different?? It shouldn't.

After working on Chase and Renee's wedding cake I have been in the decorating spirit. I have seen the ball cake in pictures and it didn't look all that hard so I figured Jack needed a baseball cake for his birthday.

I baked the cakes, let them cool over night seeing as it took me 2 hours just to do that. Somehow making cakes takes twice as long as expected when your assistant is a toddler - weird.

I had class the next day and night so my mom "helped" by stacking the cakes and adding frosting. Unfortunately, she read the directions after she spent major time attempting to make the frosting stars stick to the cakes surface. She didn't level the bottom either so the cake slid about an inch to the left by the time I got home. So I did some crafty rescue work to cut off the large clumps of frosting to make a smooth, mostly round, cake.

Again, Jack was my helper and we whipped up a new batch of white icing. I put it in my decorator's bag and went to work while he licked the beaters clean.

Since I knew this cake wasn't going to be displayed I varied the sizes of the stars to see what would look best and concluded that the smaller the better (I bought a smaller star tip for the real cake to be made tomorrow). Once I was finished, I turned to place the frosting bag in the sink and turned back to find that Jack had put his big booted foot into the cake. I repaired what I could before deciding that there would have to be a back side to the round cake - whoops!

Realizing that I didn't have any red decorating icing, I ran to Wally-World in the snow to get some to find that the Wal-Mart in town does not carry cake decorating icing - it has cake, and it has cake stands, but there was no icing to be found. Thats where I had the bright idea to use pull-apart licorice for the laces of the ball - sometimes I am so smart I scare myself :D

I am glad I did the trial run. I will be sure to post the real (completed and never-kicked) masterpiece after the party on Sunday.