Princess Ebbie getting ready for school. Since she's in a pre-k program instead of actual school pre-k, she can get away with get ups like this. We're enjoying it, it's her last year to freely dress as she chooses for school. Kinda like in Big Daddy, when Frankenstein wore all that crazy stuff lol.
*Note: You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them*
Here's where the fun begins, note the picture of this cake I'm supposed to make. Pretty isn't it? It's a vanilla cake with chocolate icing. All made from scratch. YAY!
While making the batter, I notice the consistency is more like whipped cream instead of cake batter, but that must be how it's supposed to be.
Oops, she wanted PINK cake. Gotta make that happen.
After pinking the cake and putting it in the cake pans to bake, I begin making the other stuff, here's the vanilla syrup, which I'm told by the recipe I will need to baste the cake layers before icing them.
Creamy Chocolate icing. The recipe called for bittersweet baking chocolate, of course I couldn't find any anywhere. So I used semi sweet. What kid doesn't like a super sweet cake?
Finished chocolate icing. When I tasted it the first time, it was still warm and overwhelmingly sweet. After it cooled to room temperature, it tasted like the kind you buy at the grocery store. Pretty cool :)
Of course she picked out the same lettering we used last year, her 2 favorite colors. And what 5 year old's cake isn't complete with a wee bit of leet speak? (note the word five) For those not fluent in leet speak... It's when you combine letters with numbers that LOOK like letters. Like "leet" is actually spelled L337. In this case, Five is instead spelled F1V3. But I put the 3 backwards. I had no choice, they just don't give you enough letters!
Cooked cake pieces. They don't look so pink anymore.
Nope, no pink at all! I'm gonna be in trouble now.
At this point, Izzy comes in the kitchen yelling "CAKE!". Never knew a 19 month old knew the smell of cake lol. My little piggy.
Now the fun begins. The recipe told me to use parchment sheets in the bottoms of the cake pans. Now I'm using silicone pans, they are nonstick, why on earth would I use parchment? I now know I am NOT smarter than the recipe. Also, it called for 9 inch pans, I used 10 inch. Makes for cutting the layers in half a bit more fun. I swear, it was just absolutely delightful. Promise, no sarcasm. *rolls eyes*
Also note, upon further inspection, the INSIDE of the cake is kinda pink. I'm calling it her "Barely Pink" birthday cake lol.
Here's 3 of the layers done. I didn't take pictures of the first 2, well, because they were horribly atrocious. Which is why they were the 2 BOTTOM layers. Of course, I did much better with the top 2 layers. I had to brush each layer with the syrup to moisten it, I allowed 5 minutes for the syrup to soak in before icing. Total time spent on this cake at layer number 3's brushing was about 3 1/2 hours.
I took a picture of the final layer. I had to. It was a perfect layer and perfect for the top. It made me happy.
The final layer is on the cake. Brushed with the syrup and soaking.
After icing the final layer, I put the letters on, how cute! Now let's get a side view.
Wait a minute. Kinda looks like a stack of sloppy chocolate covered pancakes. What? It's not supposed to look like that? Let's take another look at the picture from the magazine.
Hmmm. It looks the same to me :) She's 5. She's not gonna care as long as she can eat it lol. I think I did pretty good.
Next time, if there IS a next time, I will be sure to follow the recipe. I am NOT smarter than the recipe lol. I will also invest in a cake knife. I think that would have made cutting the layers a whole bunch easier :)
Total time spent on cake from beginning prep to end result: 5 hours. Yes. I know. It's just a cake.
