A Coconut Flavored Disaster

Sigh........... People, this is what happens when you don't: #1-Have the right pans, #2-Line the pans you do have properly, #3-take the cakes out of the pans before they cool, #4-reheat the pans when you warm them up the morning after you bake them but don't get them out while the pan is still warm, #5-Have time to rebake cakes that have fallen appart when you took them out of said cooled pans, #6-make enough frosting to spackle the broken cakes together, then nice thick layers of frosting between the broken layers to support them, #7-use Crisco in your frosting to give it some structure instead of the butter just melting and taking the cake down, #8-get much effectiveness when you try to stick straws into the cake to hold it upright when the right side of the cake decides to declare civil war on the left side and seced from the nation and when you DO #9-feel so sad for the cake and the giant fissure opening up in the top that you just cover the whole damn thing with coconut and hope no one notices.

The sad, saggy cake:

What is apparently the cake equivalent of the Mason-Dixon line:

On the right side: the rebels. (Yes I'm from Texas where rebel flags aren't exactly uncommon). On the left: the rest of the nation. And smeared all over it: the valient coconut buttercream trying desperately to hold this little nation together.

It took a trip to the fridge and some squeezing and cussing on my part, but though the rift remained, it never was able to fully break the cake apart. War averted. And it sure tasted pretty good too! Even my "I don't like coconut" hubbin ate a slice or two. I'll try this recipe out again soon. And I will avoid the cake sins I commited on this poor little fellow.

Thing 1 and Thing 2

I haven't posted anything in a while, not because I haven't been baking or finding ways to use up those leftover supplies but because almost everything I've tried has been a dismal failure. I have an oddly short loaf of banana bread sitting on the kitchen counter. I like banana bread, but this one just wasn't right. Too sweet. Guess that's what I get for deciding it needed brown sugar, it messed up the taste.

My saddest failure, however, was a birthday cake for the husband of a friend, though I suppose you should probably consider him a friend as well. He does like the Seahawks and I'm a huge fan of those bright green uniforms they wore this weekend while getting stomped by the Bears. This couple had visited San Francisco recently, so Melinda and I stuck our little heads together and we decided that using San Fran as a theme would be awesome. And I decided that I needed to make a cake in the shape of the Palace of Fine Arts. This is the happy couple during their vacation. You can visit her blog for a long-winded account of the trip, but you may want to block out a few hours to get through the whole story. I stole this picture from her blog, I suppose I should have asked permission first. Oh well.

This should have been a fairly easy project. I have a Wilton ball pan, so dome was done. That fit nicely on my tiny little 6" pan, so I could just fill that three times and I'd be done. Then a 9" to which I was supposed to add the lake complete with fondant swans (it's like Play-doh but you get to eat it). The Palace itself was just going to be covered with fondant with cutouts to mimic the arches. I even bought little cardboard rounds and dowels to create the internal structure.

But things went awry when I baked the cake. Erik had asked for carrot cake. I've baked these before with success, but didn't really note where I got that recipe, so I turned to the interwebs and that's where I went wrong. The first batch of cake never rose so they were sad little layers that wouldn't make the palace tall enough. So I made a second batch with a different recipe. These rose a little too nicely in the oven, overflowing the pan, but then sank so that the cake was definately concave.

I did try to stack these up and go with it, using the dowel rods to hold it all up, but it was to no avail. And I was pissed off, so I decided just to deconstruct the cake and make two. These shall henceforth be known as Thing One and Thing Two since I refuse to refer to them as "cakes." I did my best to salvage the day and they still tasted pretty good, sunkend middle and unrisen layers and all. I didn't get any photos of the process since I was too busy cussing at the cake to take pictures, but I give you the results:

I decided to keep the dang swans that were supposed to be in the lake by sticking one big one on the top of the dome cake. Odd for a dude? Yes. Something I find great pleasure in anyway? Of course! But I had made up a whole bunch of white fondant and needed an excuse to use it up anyway. And the picture doesn't show how even the swan was lopsided, but it does nicely show off the swan cleavage. :)

The birthday dude (felt bad typing boy) still ate at the cake anyway. And yes, he's going right for the swan with the knife.

Of course it's just not a party at my house without the cat. So here she is trying to convince Erik that she really needs a slice of cake too. Yes, she does sit for treats, she's very strange.

So happy birthday Erik, even though it's been a while.