The Cake (dessert and a lesson)

Once upon a time there was a mom with a food allergic child. She had a brilliant idea to take up cake decorating and "wow" everyone with her exceptional cakes. Everyone would want her to make these cakes (that were not only beautiful but also dairy free) for their children's birthdays. Then when her precious T attended these birthday parties he could eat the same cake as his friends and not feel left out. Good plan, right?!?

I recently became obsessed with cake decorating shows. While spending hours on the couch recovering from surgery and an allergic reaction to bandaids (long painful story) I watched lots and lots of cake shows. They make it look soooo easy. So when my mom asked me what I was planning to bring to my sister's graduation party I offered to bring the cake. She asked me if I was serious. Sure I was, how hard could it be?

I spread the process out over 4 days because I have a tendency to get overwhelmed. Wednesday I made the fondant. Thursday I bought the cake mix, icing, and other cake making necessities. Friday I made the cakes (double chocolate fudge w/ whipped chocolate filling). Everything was coming along great. Saturday was left for decorating. I told everyone who would listen about this wonderful cake in the making. I had a vision of the completed product. A two tiered cake, covered in white fondant and decorated with yellow fondant stars with a black and yellow (Lindenwood University colors) piped icing trim. Simple.

Saturday I rolled out the fondant and covered both tiers, easy. I put straws in the bottom tier and carefully put the top tier in place, easy easy! I started piping the yellow and black trim around the bottom of the top tier. Did you know when black and yellow icing mixes it looks like baby diarrhea? And then it started dripping down the bottom tier. I tried to color the baby poop icing yellow, then black, nothing. Then panic set in. Roy came to look and offered a few suggestions. I cried. He said to make the bottom tier black. I hate black icing. To make a long story shorter I ended up with a beautiful blue color instead of black. So I used it to cover the bottom layer and from there came all new ideas. Roy told me the end product was probably better than my original plan.

When I was young I envisioned my future as having a wonderful loving husband and 3 or 4 children. Finding the perfect man , I thought, would be difficult. Having the children would be fun and easy. Falling in love with Roy was easy (almost too easy), kind of like the first 3 days of cake making. The part with the kids has been challenging and not what I expected, kind of like the cake decorating. Hopefully my life will be exactly like this cake process, not what I expected or planned for but better then I could have ever imagined.

I will post a picture as soon as I get a chance to upload my pictures. When my sister cut into it at her party I wanted to slap her. All that hard work and she just cut into it. How dare she?