Nailed it!
I have spent countless hours browsing Pinterest and one of the funniest things I've seen is the "Nailed It!" pictures where people attempt to try things they see on Pinterest and fail miserably.
Nailed it!
We planned to celebrate a co worker of mine for becoming a citizen and I volunteered to make a patriotic cake that, of course, I found on Pinterest.
Sure it was intricate, but I had spent a week reading over the steps and to me, it seemed to be just a little more work than making a regular cake.
How many times have I ranted about how I hate Martha Stewart (secretly love) and how I know she leaves out the most important tips when giving recipes and crafts just so she stays superior and people say, "well I tried, but it didn't turn out as good as yours..."
When will I ever learn...
I had a plan.
I came home from school Thursday afternoon and immediately began making the cakes...the recipe called for five cakes.
This guy was ecstatic...
When the cakes were made, I thought, awesome...Now all I have to do is put it together with icing tonight when we get home from dinner.
We took Sara to a belated birthday dinner, came home, put Alex to sleep and I began to re-work on the cake at 9 PM.
Nowhere did it say: make the cakes 1 day before and/or freeze them to make them easier to ice or cut.
My cakes were too fresh, too crumbly, and I ended up with sad falling apart layers.
That's okay, I thought. I'll fix it with icing.
So I began making homemade icing that I had absolutely no business trying to make. The stand mixer is amazing though and it did all the work. I never knew icing was just a bunch of sugar and fat (like, really knew...). I was using butter but the store brand icings probably use lard. It was a disturbing thing to discover as I really love icing. As I began to ice between the layers and mend the crumbling tower, I realized the icing was too thick and was just making things worse. Back to the freezing of the cakes that I did NOT know to do...
By the time I realized it was a true failure, real talk*, it was 10 PM. I just stared at it and then began to laugh hysterically for five minutes or so.
I jumped in my car and raced to Kroger, bought an edible cake, and bought 3 cans of frosting still hoping I could make it work.
I used all three cans so the cake was pretty much just icing, but it turned out like this:
So then I was faced with a dilemma. Do I bring both cakes even though the one I made was crap? Was anyone going to be offended? I mean, I thought it was hilarious still, but I think most things are hilarious and some people disagree.
Everyone was really excited at work because I had talked it up for a week. I wrote an apology email to the staff and said it was just to prove that I put in a good faith effort, but we were sadly not going to cut into that bad boy.
They did anyway and it was a hot mess, but not as much of a hot mess as I thought it would be. There were layers...
I will try it again some day with my new found knowledge of cake baking.
Welcome to America, friend.
*real talk is teenage (at least at the alternative school) slang for "for real" or "seriously"
Nailed it!
We planned to celebrate a co worker of mine for becoming a citizen and I volunteered to make a patriotic cake that, of course, I found on Pinterest.
Sure it was intricate, but I had spent a week reading over the steps and to me, it seemed to be just a little more work than making a regular cake.
 |
| ok, I knew it wouldn't look as good as this...but still seemed manageable |
How many times have I ranted about how I hate Martha Stewart (secretly love) and how I know she leaves out the most important tips when giving recipes and crafts just so she stays superior and people say, "well I tried, but it didn't turn out as good as yours..."
When will I ever learn...
I had a plan.
I came home from school Thursday afternoon and immediately began making the cakes...the recipe called for five cakes.
This guy was ecstatic...
 |
| this is what he's going to be for Halloween... |
When the cakes were made, I thought, awesome...Now all I have to do is put it together with icing tonight when we get home from dinner.
We took Sara to a belated birthday dinner, came home, put Alex to sleep and I began to re-work on the cake at 9 PM.
Nowhere did it say: make the cakes 1 day before and/or freeze them to make them easier to ice or cut.
My cakes were too fresh, too crumbly, and I ended up with sad falling apart layers.
That's okay, I thought. I'll fix it with icing.
So I began making homemade icing that I had absolutely no business trying to make. The stand mixer is amazing though and it did all the work. I never knew icing was just a bunch of sugar and fat (like, really knew...). I was using butter but the store brand icings probably use lard. It was a disturbing thing to discover as I really love icing. As I began to ice between the layers and mend the crumbling tower, I realized the icing was too thick and was just making things worse. Back to the freezing of the cakes that I did NOT know to do...
By the time I realized it was a true failure, real talk*, it was 10 PM. I just stared at it and then began to laugh hysterically for five minutes or so.
 |
| Nailed it! |
I jumped in my car and raced to Kroger, bought an edible cake, and bought 3 cans of frosting still hoping I could make it work.
I used all three cans so the cake was pretty much just icing, but it turned out like this:
 |
| when you mess up a cake, just use a lot of icing and put on decorations |
So then I was faced with a dilemma. Do I bring both cakes even though the one I made was crap? Was anyone going to be offended? I mean, I thought it was hilarious still, but I think most things are hilarious and some people disagree.
Everyone was really excited at work because I had talked it up for a week. I wrote an apology email to the staff and said it was just to prove that I put in a good faith effort, but we were sadly not going to cut into that bad boy.
They did anyway and it was a hot mess, but not as much of a hot mess as I thought it would be. There were layers...
I will try it again some day with my new found knowledge of cake baking.
Welcome to America, friend.
*real talk is teenage (at least at the alternative school) slang for "for real" or "seriously"
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