So, I plead temporary insanity. I went a little overboard for my kid's second birthday party. Not only did we have a jumping castle, balloons, pizza, ice cream, and TWO Cars cakes-I made most of the cakes by myself. As if you couldn't tell-if Heather had made the cakes they would have actually looked good.
The first cake, as you can see, is Lightning McQueen in all his sugar-frosted goodness. The second cake was a creative collaboration that Heather and I came up with. It is a re-creation of the race between Doc and McQueen around Willie's Butte. Charm City Cakes-look out! Just kidding.....
This a shot of me in the A.M. about the time I was wrapping everything up. His party was on a Saturday, and I spent until 3 in the morning baking, frosting, and cleaning up. It was quite the mess, too.
The frosting recipe was really good. (Thank you Julie Colby!) And if I never taste any frosting again in my life, that will be ok as I probably consumed a cup of it as I was making my cakes. Hey, I needed the sugar to stay awake.
We were only going to make the diarama/race scene cake, but we were at the craft store the Wednesday before (Roberts) and there was a sale on the all Wilton stuff, plus another 30% off for some reason or another, so we got this $13 cake pan for 7 bucks! I couldn't resist, much to Heathers' chagrin and consternation. Man, I've always wanted to use those words in a sentence, and I just did-in the same sentence!
This is what happens when I spend until 3 in the morning (following a 12 hour clinical shift at the hospital) baking and frosting a cake for my kid-I take a lot of stupid pictures of frosting.
The raw goods. The cake was a delectable mayonaise cake (also from a recipe graciously provided by Julie), that formed the base of the race scene and the body for McQueen. We used regular box red velvet mix for the cupcakes.
It was quite a mess to clean up. Plus, the kid is only two-like he's gonna remember, right? My reasoning goes like this-when the twerp turns into a teenager and complains that I never loved him enough, I'll have these pics to defend my-self with. See, it's not parental insanity, it's forward thinking!
I love Wilton! I have a leaf tip, and I know how to use it.
We used a sugar cookie recipe provided by Amanda for these, which turned out to be a big hit-all the kids wanted one. Of course, the first time I tried to make the recipe, I looked at it and decided that I didn't need that much dough, so I halved the recipe. Except that I halved everything except for the butter! So imagine my surprise when I looked in the oven to check on my cookies and THEY WERE MELTING!!! Augh! So frustrating...So Heather made a second batch, and frosted them as well. These are from the good batch.
More frosting pictures.
Look, I know many of you out there in reader-land could make WAY better cake than this, but I'm actually proud of the way it turned out. After you free the cake from the mold to refrigerate and cool the cake, you're supposed to lightly frost the entire cake in white so that when you do the frosting-flower thingy, the frosting has something to stick to. Well, as soon as you do that, you lose all the contours of the cake! So I had a heck of a time drawing in the black outlines for stuff, and almost quit right then and there. How amazing am I-not only am I incapable of drawing a straight line with pencil or pen or crayon-I can't make a straight line with frosting either! Is there no end to my super-power??
However, I discovered that once you start doing the red flower thingy's, they are actually very forgiving, and I started to get into a little rythym, and I think it turned out great. Jack was able to recognize it for what it was, so thats all I needed.
More mess. Food dye-yeah, it's messy. It's also quite fun. See you again next year?
More "before" footage. I know, I can't get enough of it either. This counts a keeping a journal, right?
So, I plead temporary insanity. I went a little overboard for my kid's second birthday party. Not only did we have a jumping castle, balloons, pizza, ice cream, and TWO Cars cakes-I made most of the cakes by myself. As if you couldn't tell-if Heather had made the cakes they would have actually looked good.
The first cake, as you can see, is Lightning McQueen in all his sugar-frosted goodness. The second cake was a creative collaboration that Heather and I came up with. It is a re-creation of the race between Doc and McQueen around Willie's Butte. Charm City Cakes-look out! Just kidding.....
This a shot of me in the A.M. about the time I was wrapping everything up. His party was on a Saturday, and I spent until 3 in the morning baking, frosting, and cleaning up. It was quite the mess, too.
The frosting recipe was really good. (Thank you Julie Colby!) And if I never taste any frosting again in my life, that will be ok as I probably consumed a cup of it as I was making my cakes. Hey, I needed the sugar to stay awake.
We were only going to make the diarama/race scene cake, but we were at the craft store the Wednesday before (Roberts) and there was a sale on the all Wilton stuff, plus another 30% off for some reason or another, so we got this $13 cake pan for 7 bucks! I couldn't resist, much to Heathers' chagrin and consternation. Man, I've always wanted to use those words in a sentence, and I just did-in the same sentence!
This is what happens when I spend until 3 in the morning (following a 12 hour clinical shift at the hospital) baking and frosting a cake for my kid-I take a lot of stupid pictures of frosting.
The raw goods. The cake was a delectable mayonaise cake (also from a recipe graciously provided by Julie), that formed the base of the race scene and the body for McQueen. We used regular box red velvet mix for the cupcakes.
It was quite a mess to clean up. Plus, the kid is only two-like he's gonna remember, right? My reasoning goes like this-when the twerp turns into a teenager and complains that I never loved him enough, I'll have these pics to defend my-self with. See, it's not parental insanity, it's forward thinking!
I love Wilton! I have a leaf tip, and I know how to use it.
We used a sugar cookie recipe provided by Amanda for these, which turned out to be a big hit-all the kids wanted one. Of course, the first time I tried to make the recipe, I looked at it and decided that I didn't need that much dough, so I halved the recipe. Except that I halved everything except for the butter! So imagine my surprise when I looked in the oven to check on my cookies and THEY WERE MELTING!!! Augh! So frustrating...So Heather made a second batch, and frosted them as well. These are from the good batch.
More frosting pictures.
Look, I know many of you out there in reader-land could make WAY better cake than this, but I'm actually proud of the way it turned out. After you free the cake from the mold to refrigerate and cool the cake, you're supposed to lightly frost the entire cake in white so that when you do the frosting-flower thingy, the frosting has something to stick to. Well, as soon as you do that, you lose all the contours of the cake! So I had a heck of a time drawing in the black outlines for stuff, and almost quit right then and there. How amazing am I-not only am I incapable of drawing a straight line with pencil or pen or crayon-I can't make a straight line with frosting either! Is there no end to my super-power??
However, I discovered that once you start doing the red flower thingy's, they are actually very forgiving, and I started to get into a little rythym, and I think it turned out great. Jack was able to recognize it for what it was, so thats all I needed.
More mess. Food dye-yeah, it's messy. It's also quite fun. See you again next year?
More "before" footage. I know, I can't get enough of it either. This counts a keeping a journal, right?
5 comments:
I think maybe I'll pay you to bake our cakes next year =-). Awesome job!!
I think maybe I'll pay you to bake our cakes next year! Awesome job!!
I still think you are nuts. And I have to tell you, I am going to be super-offended if you don't bake me two cakes and get me a bouncy castle for my birthday. I know I'm cooler than Jack! Well, maybe not. But I would remember it!
I wonder if it seems strange to you that I don't have any cake decorating stuff, and you have a ton. Maybe I make up for it with the number of tools I own.
Jason,
Jared and I are highly impressed. Now, however, we are expecting you to bring a Lightening McQueen cake when we have you over for dinner. Are you guys free anytime June 22 through the 25th?
Post a Comment