Normally, I order my daughter’s birthday cake from a bakery. Why? Because I’m a terrible cook. Let me take a moment to allow the irony of having a recipe of mine published in the Passionate Cooks cookbook sink in for a moment. (I promise, though, that recipe is good! It’s the only thing I can make and it’s yummy!)
Due to a series of events, however, I failed to get a cake ordered timely. Throw food allergies into the mix and we can’t just run to the store and buy any old cake. I desperately tried to go the usual routes, but two bakers had retired (one to get a full time job due to the economy, and one because “God has led me in a different direction”–dang it, God!) and the other was overbooked. It became clear that God–or circumstances–were leading me to bake this cake.
My very good friend, Huntress, agreed to help me decorate it, but she said that with her very special bowl from Pampered Chef, and if I followed the directions on the cake mix box, then I could totally handle baking the actual cake itself. “It’s easy! I made my son’s volcano cake this way!”
Ahahahahaha!!!! Righto, then. When I called Huntress to tell her about the above situation, she was flabbergasted and speechless. “It shouldn’t work like that.”
I’m now waiting for my sweet friend, Huntress, to come over (on her own birthday! bless her wonderful heart!) to help me fix this problem. Truth be told, once I cut the baked ooze off, the cake itself looks salvagable. I’ll keep you in the loop about how it all transpires from here on out.
ETA: Well, many hours later I’m here to tell you that the Monster High Doll cake came out…not as bad as it could have considering the above. The skirt was supposed to be chocolate icing, but the cake was too damaged to hold together when applying the thick chocolate. So, we went with white, fluffy frosting. We also made some cupcakes since half the cake ended up in the ‘baked ooze’.
