Life With Luc & Via: Cake-tastrope at Midnight

Holy moly, it has been 11 days since I last blogged. Where did the time go?? I know I've been meaning to blog Via's birthday for a few days, but man! I must be super busy or something ;)

Anyway... I came home Monday night from work - the day before V's first birthday - and started making her cake. I only bought one 8" round from the dollar store because I was too cheap to buy 3, so I spend the whole night baking three separate pieces for her cake. I also baked a carrot cake to make cake pops. Well, I figured out how to get cakes to bake evenly. I tried three different things that I found on Pinterest (of course): 1. When the cake is done baking, if it has that mound in the middle - or in our case just on one side because I discovered either our oven or floor is slanted - cover it with a kitchen towel and gently try to smash it back down and make it even. or 2. Only fill the cake pan about 1/2 full so it all stays "in" the pan, not raising over the rim. or 3. Cut a cloth to the height of the pan and long enough to wrap around it, soak it in cool water, wring out so that it's not dripping but not enough that it will dry out too quickly, then wrap and pin it around the outside of the pan.

The first tip worked okay. I got a little more evenness out of them after smushing; the second tip didn't really work for me, but my oven is jacked, so it could just be that, but... the third tip worked like magic!! Who knew?? Not me. If you know me, though, I cook. I don't bake. (I really don't even cook much right now, but that's a different story.) I'm not a cupcake, brownie, dessert kind of baker. I like pasta and chicken and soups. Anyway... super cool tip! Try it out sometime :)

Well, once I had all three layers *evenly placed one another, I started to frost. And it was a disaster. I don't frost, either. I smother... in gravy and cranberry sauce (can you tell I'm excited for Thanksgiving?) I started frosting with some of the Wilton's tube stuff. Definitely not what I was going for. Wrong frosting/icing/whatever, wrong tip, wrong color. Blah. So, it's about 11:30 pm on Monday night when I decide to go to Wal-Mart to figure out this cake-tastrophe. So glad we live in Pocatello now where things are open all night :) I got different frosting, found the right tip, felt good about it, and took a huge leap in planning to do it right before the party after work the next day. It worked!! Turned out as well as I had expected. I was expecting magical perfection because I'm well aware of my confectionary skills, but it turned out! See???

That's the crappy side. Don't know why I didn't get a better pic of the top... The color was a lot cuter and brighter in real life, too. The picture greyed it a bit.

Looks better from this side... not a complete Pinstrosity!

Overall, I loved it; Via, not so much. She wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Lucas was like that as well. Apparently my kids just don't like being messy. At least when they realize they're messy, because, let's face it... my kids are messy a lot. Via was also tired, too, so about halfway through the party she decided she could cry if she wanted to!

My grandma sent some frosted animal cookies as part of Via's birthday gift. She liked the cookies much better than the cake. Did it bother me? Surprisingly, no. I was a big girl and realized the cake was really mostly for me and my pictures ;) And she loved those animal cookies so much I just couldn't be upset... they also made for great pictures...

Yeah, that's a cookie stuck to her shoulder...

Despite being tired, I think Via had a lot of fun :) She played with Grandma Dawn and Grandpa Terry, Daddy, Lucas, and I even got a quick picture with her when I wasn't behind the camera!