Dad's Birthday

Over the weekend we were talking about what my Dad wanted to do for his birthday this week, and I asked him if he wanted cupcakes or cake.  His reply was both.  And then he smiled and gave me his sad eyes and knew I would cave.  I mean my Dad doesn't ask for things a lot, and he is truly one of my biggest baking fans, so I said I would make both.  Cake on his birthday and cupcakes for the weekend.  Let's just say I was determined to make this thing as pretty as I could..........

this is the final product
but we'll get back to this later

.......so I got to baking the cake in my awesome new cake pans that I got from Ween for Christmas (shows you how much I actually make cake right?!  But they are from Pampered Chef and they are awesome....and if you have super dark tins [like dark grey or black] at home, make sure that you decrease the oven degree by 50 degrees, not 25 - and cut some time off -they come out perfectly this way). 

perfectly baked and cooling

I was texting my Dad throughout the day with the progress of his birthday cake.  I made the cake at my place and then frosted it at my parents since we were having dinner there.  I went over there with all I needed, but once I got there I realized that I left my pastry gun at home.  I didn't feel like going back and getting it so I improvised.....but we will get to that in a little bit. 

Time to frost this baby.  I put one layer on the cake pedestal and glob a ton of homemade frosting on top. I've always enjoyed frosting things - don't really know why.  Then I placed the other cake on top - and of course it broke - but the joys of frosting is that it hides everything and I quickly lost concern about it. 

cake sandwich

Time to really frost now.  I scoop out most of my frosting and go to town. 

kind of pretty cake

I have some frosting left and decide to put it in a ziploc bag and try to pretty this thing up.  I couldn't do what I had intended to do so I did what I thought would look best.......



i know - its just too pretty for words

 I'm laughing at how not pretty this thing is and my Mom is in the other room so I ask her if I should pipe my Dad's age in giant numbers in the middle of the cake.  She laughs really hard and says "I don't think your father would appreciate that".  I laughed and said ok we will leave it as is.  I texted a pic to my Dad of the finished product and he replied "Looks yummy cant wait".  That made me feel better - I replied that it's not the prettiest thing but it was made with love.  I had also posted the final pic on Facebook and the comments there were just as supportive - I've stated from the beginning that I don't have much artistic ability and you will probably only see a cake on here a couple of times, but I promise that I will try to make them pretty each time :) And if I can find a picture of the infamous Penguin Cake from years ago - I will post it.  But my Dad was so happy to have his cake - and it was really good.  He had seconds.  Now I get to make him cupcakes this weekend.