Julia Child, I am not

Julia Child...Martha Stewart....Rachael Ray....the Barefoot Contessa....I am none of these.

This past weekend was my dad’s 75^th birthday and, of course, who gets cake making duty?  Me!  And its only normal because I have made all the cakes over the years.  Although lately we have not really gone for having cakes except for milestones.  Wow, doesn’t that sound like we are all getting old? Yikes!

Anyhoo, as some of you know already, I used to be somewhat of a cake decorator….but that was a long time ago. I haven’t really done it much in years.  And the last time I made and decorated a cake?  Zero clue…..but not in the last couple, for sure. 

Now, because of the fact that I haven’t baked or decorated a cake in such a long, I have been quite nervous and super a tad neurotic about this whole thing.  I had to go through the whole checklist of what I needed because I had thrown out a ton of things when I moved 1.5 years ago.

So, for your amusement, here are the highlights of me making a cake on Friday, the day before my dad’s birthday.

Leading into cake making day:

Sweated for 2 weeks trying to decide on how I am going to decorate cake.

Afternoon before cake making day:

Found my cake decorating box. Check.

Oh….some of the pastry bags are disintegrating…turf those….need new ones.

Ew…..the paste colours are old and have leaked all over the box…turf those….need new ones.

Night before cake making day:

Rushed out to the baking store and made it 30 minutes before closing….phew….got new pastry bags and paste colours!

Mixer dying…need new one. Eeek!

Took Hubby to store to look at new mixers. Hubby tries not to throw up at prices of mixers.

Hubby buys new mixer for Wife.

Wife take Hubby for sushi dinner to console him.

Go to store for cake ingredients.

Morning of cake making day:

Discover forgot to buy butter for buttercream. Ummm..how did that happen?

Spend 10 minutes wrestling with and trying to dislodge new mixer from box. Damn Styrofoam. That was tiring. Need nap.

Spend 20 minutes trying to figure out how to take off and change beaters on new mixer. Oh, its in the instruction book….

Wipe out oven and piece falls off something inside. No clue what its for. Worried. Have to wait for husband to come home in afternoon to fix.

Dishwasher broken so wash all dishes for last 2 days by hand while waiting for husband to come home.

Afternoon of caking making day:

zesting lemons

Oven gets fixed by husband. Piece was a clip to something not major. Feel silly.

Finally start cake making 6 hours after scheduled “start time”.

Zest lemons for lemon cake and grate finger. Test out the new Band-aid water block bandages. Cool, they work.

cake batter

Put cake in oven. Oven light not working. Great. Baking a cake with no oven light is like baking by braille.

While cake is baking, put lemon rinds into garburator. Garburator stops working. Crap! 

3 minutes before cake due out of oven, realize that I have no toothpicks. Eeeek!

Rummage around kitchen looking for something to substitute for a toothpick. Contemplate skewers. 

Luckily, find an official cake tester in back of drawer. Excellent. Thanks to Mom for giving me weird stuff that I forget about.

Cake is done but not very fluffy. Read new mixer book and discover that new mixer beats thing faster so I didn’t need to beat as long as normal. Great. Wonderful.  I just dropped money on a new mixer to make a lead cake. Fabulous.

Put cake out to cool.

Evening of cake making day:

Wrestle with decision on whether to frost cake now or in morning. Decide better in morning due to heat as I have no space in fridge.

11:30pm, suddenly remember that butter is still needed for buttercream. Too late to get tonight. Must get in morning.

Morning of birthday:

the tool chest is open!

Get up super early. Leave warm bed, with sleeping Hubby, and stumble into kitchen.

Sift icing sugar and keep forgetting how many cups have been sifted. Keep having to pour into 2^nd bowl and recount. Sigh. Must find “on” button for brain.

Get shortening out. Crap! Its old and smells funny.

Need butter and shortening. Still in pajamas.

Go cuddle and sweet talk to hubby (still in bed) to get up and go to store for Wife. Yay, it works. I have a fabulous Hubby!

Hubby goes up street to get shortening and butter for Wife.

Finish making icing.

Oooh and aaah over new mixer’s ability to make icing fluffier with less effort.

Icing is fluffy but soft due to heat. Decide not to get too fancy as icing is too soft.

ooh aah icing!

Realize I should have bought more pastry bags as I don’t have enough to match the dye colours. Crap! Must decide on 3 colours vs 5.

Can’t find my leaf tip which defines the whole cake. My dad is a gardener so I am making the cake look like one big overgrown garden wall with vines and leaves all over and flowers dotted all around.

Still can’t find leaf tip so decide to improvise and use another tip that is for ribbons but can also be sort of like a leaf.

Start decorating cake.

pre 75 - side view

Got green “leaves” all over cake. Add in small yellow flowers.

Decide to do blue flowers in the formation of a “75” in middle of cake.

Make “7” ok.

Lost concentration when making a “5” and ended up with a “1”.  Crap! Damage control required.

Scrape up icing and redo “5” and make some more leaves and flowers to cover up messed up area. I love icing because you can always icing over mistakes!

75 finished - front close up

4 comments

11:30 am and cake is done. Sh*t, I am supposed to be helping set stuff up at noon. I am still in my pajamas and I still haven’t had a shower. It takes 30 minutes to drive there.  Oh well!

finished - front view

finished - side view

The result:

I was worried because I had overbeat the batter.  And I was right. It was like VERY lemony poundcake with lemon buttercream.  I didn’t like it. Normally my cakes are light, fluffy, and moist. I apologized to everyone. They said I was silly. Oh well! 

But I still make the BEST buttercream icing, ever, hands down.  :: shakes fist in victory ::