How to Make a Birthday Cake in 10 Easy Steps

I make a horrible house wife. 

I am terrible at cleaning and vacuuming in lingerie and mostly I suck at baking. But it was The Mad Scientist's birthday and I wanted to make a cake for him. So I rolled up my sleeves, mentally prepared the cat and bought a LOT of butter.  So I'm proud to present... 

How to make a 4 layer white cake with red velvet heart-shaped core and red velvet crumble top with royal icing in 10 easy steps or your money back! 

1. Bake 4 round cakes. Remember oven mitts. (Fire hot. Indeed.) 

2. Take a can of icing, use like glue to stick two layers together. Don't use real glue. You should have 2 two layered circles of glue-free cake. Bake two round red velvet cakes. Crumble one once cool. Eat the other one with one hand like it were a fluffy red frisbee.

 

3. Start carving. (The cake, not a shive... That comes later.) Carve a cone into the center of one (concave), then dig a little pyrimid into the other(convex). Yeah, just look at the photo.   

Concave and convex, bitches.

4. Run out of icing. Decide you are awesome enough to make icing from scratch. Coat the kitchen in a delicate layer of powdered sugar. Make 'snow' angels on the kitchen floor. Fill in caves with crumbled red cake.

Fun fancy mixer.

5. Stack cakes precariously. Lapse into diabetic coma from all the icing testing. 

6. Briefly reevaluate your life choices.

7. Realize that you've come too far and ice the entire cake. Add remaining crumbled cake on top. Try not to think about how it kind of looks like ground beef.

8. Add candle.

9. Sing "Happy Birthday" to my dear sweet husband. (Remember to send AOL Time Warner royalty check tomorrow.)

10. Burn the kitchen to ashes since there's no going back after the horrible mess you made.

Nothing says 'love' like a blood red core to your cake.

Cake: the prefered food of celebration

I have nothing against cake.

In fact, I've enjoyed cake quite a bit. Birthdays, bat mitzvahs, even the occasional 'yay you broke up with that asshole' cake. But after a knock down, drag out fight with not one, but two people about cake, I'm ready to swear it off. Forever.

mmmm, cake?

Both my mother and my husband-to-be feel that cake is necessary for our wedding celebration. I, on the other hand, feel it's too traditional and I would prefer something more fun. Like chocolate bacon. Seriously, two of the best things together at last?! Who would turn their nose up to that? No one, that's who. Or ice cream. Or chocolate bars. Or anything besides traditional cake.

My mother is usually appalled at me in general. I curse, throw my opinions around and generally shock her but this idea of mine was apparently over the line. We were having cake. Period. It's traditional, people expect it and she likes that cake at a local bakery where her friend works.

Fine. Let them eat cake. I informed her that I would be slipping out of the reception with my best friend for about 20 minutes to walk down the street to get an ice cream cone. Because that's what I want. (Because I'm the bride and it's my day... dammit.) This is when her head exploded. I won't go into details but there was lots of talk about my needing to be a grown up and how to be a hostess. It was like being 13 again. So I left my parents house in a huff, much like a 13 year old.

Now, my fiance is usually embarrassed by me in general. I'm loud, dress inappropriately and generally doing the wrong thing but this fight with my mom was apparently over the line. He sided with my mom! (Rookie mistake, right?) He thinks cake would be great and that if I happened to disappear to get an ice cream cone (on MY OWN wedding day) that it would be inappropriate.

And so, dearest evil minions, I impart on you this knowledge.

aka - inappropriate

The cake is a lie. It is neither celebratory or fun. It is yelling at me and filled not with butter cream, but with shame.

Go, my pretties, and get some ice cream, don't share, and just be happy if you don't balloon up like Ricky Lake. Do it for me!  I'll be 60 stories up, looking down at you in my wedding dress and a plate with cake on it, dreaming of pistachio and waffle cones.

I think I'm diabetic now...

Just spent the last hour reading about cake... Bad cake. Hilarious cake. Hideous cake. I've been laughing so hard... at cake. It's amazing. No one knows how to spell "Congratulations". Ha! I love the world.

Mmm, now I need cake. Be right back...

Go check it out. Do it now.

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/