Birthday Cake . . . The Rest of the Story

I'd asked Elise for a couple weeks what she wanted for a birthday cake.  I've noticed my kids are getting more daring with their cake ideas, and knew I would need time to make whatever she choose.  So far I've been able to make whatever they've thought up, but Elise took the cake (HaHa!) when she finally chose her design.  I really shouldn't let them watch Cake Boss anymore.

She wanted a topsy turvey cake.  That was by far more difficult than anything I'd yet attempted, so I started googling.  I spent at least 2-3 hours looking up the right way to make the cake, how to make a box cake mix dense enough to carve, and the best way to make a smooth frosting (since I am not ready to try fondant yet).  Then I bought the supplies: 3 cake mixes (with the dense rich recipe made it more like 6 mixes) and 3.5 batches of frosting (2 lbs powdered sugar each), 2 cake pans each of three sizes.

And then I started baking.  9 layers baked, frozen, stacked, carved, frosted, re-frozen, stacked again, frozen again, frosted again and then decorated.  I made it early (just in case I couldn't do it and needed an alternative cake).Oh hubris, I even took pictures as I went.  I knew from the beginning it would be either spectacular or spectacularly disastrous and thought the documented journey would be fun either way. 

It was spectacular!  Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm the next cake decorating diva.  What I mean is that it was the hardest cake I'd ever made and it turned out better than I expected.  Elise loved it, I loved it, and that made it spectacular.

Without further ado, here is the cake:

And here is how it looked the next morning:
(2 days before I needed it)

I guess the boxed cake with extra dense additions wasn't strong enough.  Or I moved it too often trying to get pictures, or I should have kept it frozen until we ate it.  You can see the dowel sticks stuck in for support.  They failed.

This is the first time I've had a cake that was both spectacular and a spectacular disaster.

I'm thinking I might smack the candles on top of the mess and still use it (no friends party just our family).  What do you think?

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I can't believe I forgot to do the beautiful blogger last post!  The next person on my list is Jane at Seagull Fountain.  Jane writes beautifully and thoughtfully.  She is able to give her opinions directly without being offensive (I don't always agree with her but never feel attacked), probably because her ideas are always so well thought out.  Her writing is a wonderful mix of the angst and joy involved in motherhood and life in general.  She also twitters as @SeagullFountain

I must confess I have extra love for her blog because she was my first.  That's right, back when I was checking friend's side bars trying to find long lost friends I clicked over to her blog.  Back then I would usually move on if I didn't know the person, but her writing drew me in and I read and read.  I found I was always searching for her blog on that side bar to check for new postings and finally added her to google reader.  About 6 months later I finally had the courage to comment on her blog. I still get excited to open google reader and see that she has posted.  I'm excited to meet her in May.


Please note I am not some sycophant stalker, I just believe in giving credit where credit is due.