THE CAKE
Let's start with last Friday - Feb 24th. I decided that I was going to make Matthew's birthday cake. We had originally planned to have his party on Feb 18th, the day before his birthday, but we got snowed out. So we switched it to the next Saturday. The cake that I had ordered for the 1st party date was very tasty but I didn't like what she did with it - at all. So, since I had most everything together for the party and would have Friday free, I decided to make the cake. I don't really like the decorations on the store-bought cakes and I'm a little picky when it comes to what I want anyway so I figured why not do it myself - that way if it stinks there's no one to blame but me! Anyway, I never knew cake making could be so expensive! Thanks again to Keith for buying the supplies. I had some decorating tips but I needed an icing spatula, food coloring, a little beginners book, meringue powder, bags, extra couplers, a pan, a cake box and cake squares - those things the cake sits on in the box. I'm sure there was probably something I left out of that list too - and this is all besides the eggs and flower and over 6lbs of powdered sugar! I got the cake and icing recipes from Wilton web site, got all my stuff and first thing Friday morning I started on the cake. A little ways into it I realized I was going to have to make 2 cake batters to have enough. This was a bit of trouble so I made a batch of cupcakes first to make sure it was going to taste good enough to be worth it. The cupcakes were AWESOME and gone before we went to bed that night. The cake turned out good except it fell in the middle. I tested it with a toothpick and even gave it extra time but I don't think it was done enough. It was still good though. So after 2 cake batters it was on to 2 batches of icing. One white to ice the cake then the other was divided into 4 bowls and colored red, blue, yellow, and green. It was between 5 and 6:00 before I finished icing that cake. It was really good though, and everyone loved it. I decided I still want to take the classes so hopefully they will help me finish a little quicker.