Why do I do this to myself??? While wanting a child for three years I envisioned myself as the "perfect" mother. Well, we all know that was never going to happen. I guess as part of this image I was always going to make Raleigh's birthday cakes. Last year I wanted to make her first cake, did and said I wouldn't do it again. This year I got another vision of the cake I wanted for her and decided it would be easier than last year so I'd make it. Well at 2:30 last night or should I say this morning Jason and I went to bed and the cake looked NOTHING like my vision. My vision was beautiful...a rectangle cake board with a piano base (pretzel rods dipped in white and dark chocolate), a drum cake, fondant drum sticks, and maracas (rice krispie treats shaped as maracas covered in fondant). I had the pretzels dipped on Thursday, cake made and "crumb coated" Friday, maracas shaped and iced (to hold the fondant)...no problem, Jason and I would work on the fondant Friday night and get this thing done. When I finished the final layer of icing on the cake I was already disappointed as the cake was leaning despite me putting skewers in it. Jason helped me to attempt to get it looking straight with icing. After coloring the fondant and rolling it, attempting to cut it, re-rolling it, attempting to cut it, and finally re-rolling it and cutting it we made the bands to go on the cake at the top and bottom of the "drum." The bottom band was fine, but the top was not...it started sliding so we used toothpicks to hold it up and ended up using those all around to make the cake look more like a drum. Ok, put the cake in the fridge to help the icing set without the fondant falling off completely...now onto the maracas. I can laugh about this now, but not last night. I made the maracas way too big to begin with. We put the fondant on them and I had no idea how to really seal it around the maraca or how to smooth it out. I thought I could just lay it down and not worry about the seam...we'd do better on the second one. Went to fondant the second one and the same thing...horrible! This morning I decided they looked more like an ice cream cone than a maraca. Not only did they look horrible, but they were almost bigger than the drum!! So since I didn't want to use those I would just use the pretzels I had dipped for the piano...put those on the cake board and again...did not look good at all! We made the drum sticks for the drum and left it. Not the cake I had planned, but it was still sort of cute...not as cute as the snowman from last year, but still cute. Jason has informed me that I watch too many cake shows and I'm not going to make cakes like them. I have since decided that I can still be a good mom and not make Raleigh's cake...until next year!
The finished cake
The humongous maracas...or ice cream cones!!
They are as tall as the cake...3 layers! HUMONGOUS!!
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