My husband has so much more faith in me than I ever will. That’s one of the many reasons I love him so much. The guy really believes in me and despite my lack of confidence, many times he makes me believe in me, too. Take for instance this three-tiered Over the Hill themed cake, or cake wreck if you prefer. Ok, it wasn’t really that bad, but I still felt like I let the birthday girl down. I think it’s the Virgo in me. Virgos are perfectionists. Perhaps that explains my lack of confidence and the reason I am so picky. *sigh* I’d like to say it’s getting better with age, but sadly it’s not.
So, back to the story…hubby’s co-worker needed a cake for his wife’s 50th birthday party. Because I like this particular co-worker so much, I gladly volunteered and sent him some sample cake pictures to get an idea of what he wanted. I hoped that he would pick the two-dimensional tombstone cake, not the stacked one. It’s my own fault, I know. I did send him the picture after all. Soooo, there I was with a three-tiered monster challenging me to a fight and my husband cheering me on. I took a deep breath and after deconstructing the beast, I felt like maybe I could do this after all. Here is the inspiration photo ( I apologize for not knowing who made it, but I can dig around and find out if you want me to. It was on cakecentral.com.)
Inspiration cake
I didn’t have enough fondant to cover the cake and no time to order the one I like. Yes, I could have picked up the Wilton fondant, but I wanted the cake to taste good. Sorry Wilton, but your fondant is gross. Fondant covered cake is really delicious if you have the right kind. In my case, I like the Satin Ice brand. I have heard you can make your own, but I have not tried that. Yet. My cake was going to be covered in just buttercream instead. I did have enough fondant to make the tombstones and the reaper. The one in the above photo is plastic. I couldn’t find one near me. So, I decided to make my own. I was pretty happy with him.
Coffee cup, wooden skewer, rice krispie treats and fondant.
Draped in black fondant and fondant covered wooden skewer complete the look.
The three cakes were baked and assembled. One chocolate Guinness cake with Bailey’s ganache center, one strawberry cake with strawberry swiss meringue center, and one vanilla cake with raspberry preserves in the center. All were covered in different shades of gray. Yes, on purpose. 😉 Cakes were stabbed with straws and wooden skewers for support and then carefully stacked in the “close your eyes and drop it” method. Success! Yay, me. I added some decorative edging and admired my slightly lopsided creation. Now to get this beast to the party in one piece. Good grief was it heavy! We got it in the car and the first bump we hit sent the bottom layers insides sliding around and trying to ooze out the sides. Ugh! I got it stabilized – hubby was driving and I was holding the cake – and we made it to the event. Slightly lopsided became very lopsided. I fixed it as best as I could and successfully fought the tears that threatened to flow. Tombstones were carefully placed to hide the scars and the reaper was placed on top.
The finished wonky cake.
Much to my surprise the guests were amazed by the cake. They loved how I made it wonky and lopsided – like I had done it on purpose. 🙂 They were all so sweet, that I quickly forgot about the mishap, and enjoyed the party. The birthday girl seemed to really like the cake, too. Yay. And the best part – they loved how it tasted. Especially the strawberry cake. Taste is equally, maybe more, important than how it looks in my opinion. Ever bite into a beautiful cake and find out it tastes like ick. Last two weddings I attended had cakes like that. Very disappointing. But I’ll save that rant story for another day.
Stay sweet,
Kate
Sweet Mia's Desserts 