Saturday, January 5, 2013

Finally! Baking on this blog!

I'm so glad to finally get some cake on this blog! Baking was really my thing for a few years and in the last few months, I really lost motivation. I was training for a marathon over the summer (which is a huge time suck) so I was too busy. Then, in the middle of training, I found out I was pregnant (energy suck) so I've simply lacked the motivation. Marathon + Pregnancy = no cake. I ran the marathon in October and I'm in the second trimester and feeling slightly more energetic, so here goes.

I got a request from a co-worker and fellow blogger to make a cake for her son's first birthday. I was really nervous. I had never made a cake covered in fondant before, but I was definitely up for the challenge. I'm sort of cheating, I also posted about it here, but I won't be posting as many pictures and I'm not pulling the post word for word :) So here it is:


I'll be the first to admit it's not perfect (that's actually a bad habit of mine), but as far as a first time with fondant goes, I think it's a really solid effort and I'm very proud of myself. I was kind of fueled by the fact that I thought my husband doubted me. Even he knew this would be hard. He bet on how many times I would cry during the process. His guess was twice. He's seen this enough when I sew. In all honesty, if he had never said anything, I might have cried during the process once.

I decided then, to stretch out the process a bit. I have a habit of trying to cram everything into too short a time frame, then getting stressed and I thought giving myself a few days would help. It went a little something like this:

Day One
8:00pm Toddler goes to bed. Start making lemon cake
9:00pm Cooling cake
11:00pm Wrap cake and freeze. Easy night!

Day Two:
8:00pm Toddler goes to bed. Make lemon buttercream icing
9:00pm Finish up dirty icing the cake and chill
9:30pm Roll the fondant and place on top of the cake
10:00pm Spend the next 1.5 hours trying to smooth wrinkles out of the cake
11:30pm Wonder why I thought I could do this. Refuse to cry because the husband CANNOT be right.

Day Three:
8:00pm Toddler goes to bed (are you noticing I can't do anything until this happens? ;)) Start making my own fondant
9:00pm Realize that the fondant is a fail. Text Jessica (friend, fellow blogger at BabyGotCake, and cake expert) to ask her if she's ever made buttercream fondant. She's never heard of this.
9:15pm Talk the situation out with my husband. Still refusing to cry out of frustration. Do I risk the unknown and try making buttercream fondant instead or risk waking up the toddler by opening the garage to go make a run to Wal-Mart?
9:30pm Decide on going to Wal-Mart. Text Jess again to tell her that fondant sucks
10:00pm Dye and roll fondant, cut out pieces for 1.5 hours
11:45pm Polka dots are on the cake and actually sticking. Internal celebration because I did it. Without crying! Breathe a sigh of relief.

Day Four:
8:00am Check the cake. Polka dots are still in place. Breathe sigh of relief.
11:00am Drop off cake. Everything still in place. Phew!

Almost forgot to add that the cake is modeled after the topper on this party post. I will update again when the mama does her post. It was SUCH a cute set up!

2 comments:

  1. Fondant does suck....LOve it though! It is gorgeous!

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  2. Awesome job Brandi! Don't know how you do it after 8PM - I'm usually tired by that time!!!!

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