Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Setting the bar too high

Maybe this should go for Wisdom Wednesday, but, I just love giving unsolicited advise. LOL No, really, the intent of my post today is to copy my new friend Nettie who posted in her blog today about the Tea Party she threw for her daughters birthday. I was thrilled to see that she made the same cake that I did when K turned 4!

Anyhow, I've always made a special cake for the kids for their birthday. It's my thing. I've made license plates for the big 16, Tweety Bird, numbers, just whatever came to mind. And for all the creativity, they weren't difficult or spectacular. But then I made a Barbie cake, and my adventure into 3-D cakes began. Now I've been faced with the pressure of coming up with better and better cakes each year! I will show you what I mean:

Here's the cake that came after Barbie:


Next came the Dragon Cake:




Then I was asked to make a wedding cake:



Who can forget the Pink Mini Cooper?


I can't find what I did with the photo's, but there was also a ladybug cake in there somewhere. Black and Red frosting is cute, but it's also a clean up nightmare.

And this last year, B wanted a Dragon Castle Cake. I totally cheated on this one! LOL


I really love Nettie's idea about only having "friend" parties every other year. I knew this last year as I was sticking Imaginext peices to the Dragon Castle cake that I was approaching burn out level. The wedding, car and castle cake were all within the space of a month and a half. Given that each cake takes most of a week for me to complete, I was beginning to feel like an indentured servant. Slave to the cake. And we've already established that I have issues with keeping the house up. Adding cake baking, making and decorating to the fray doesn't do that situation any favors.

I have people telling me all the time that I should sell my cakes. To them I say "NOT"! It's something I enjoy doing (most of the time) and the surest way to kill a hobby is to try and turn it into profit. Anyhow, my mouth preceded my brain again, and I offered to make my sister's wedding cake. So now the question becomes: The last wedding cake took 11 batches of batter, 4 batches of custard and 3 batches of butter cream; What can I do to top that?! :O)

8 comments:

Nettie said...

Wow! So talented you are! I never would be brave enough to try a wedding cake. I love the dragon cake, too. And I think your teapot cake turned out better than mine. (If you look closely at mine you can see I had to prop up the pouring spout with a clear medicine doser. It kept drooping!)

momofalltrades said...

LOL The car cake is propped up with a plastic fork! I liked your flowers better. I tried cutting them out freehand and that didn't go so well. I used reaaaallllly long skewers to hold up my spout and handle. The wedding cake really isn't hard to decorate, it's the multiple batches of batter and trying to get everything perfectly level before you frost. The frosting was the easy part. That cake was Devils Food on the bottom, Lemon Chiffon with lemon filling in the middle and Cherry Cake with Almond custard on the top. The brides cake didn't make the trip in the car because it was all organic, and they wouldn't let me use enough Crisco to keep the frosting on it. So the frosting slid off in the car! LOL That was a case of "Beggars can't be choosers!" LOL

Alicia said...

So cute! I made a ladybug cake for Fat Girl's birthday last October. It was cute, but in no way really great or professional looking! I tried a Fish cake a couple years ago and it failed miserably. I ended up getting sheet cake at Albertsons 2 hours before the party! I'll have to blog some party pics...I like to throw big parties for my kids.

Unknown said...

Wow, look at those cakes! They put my grocery store cakes to shame. I can understand you not wanting to make cakes all the time, especially if they take a week to make. Your kids are lucky to have such fun cakes at their parties!

bon said...

too cool! I love me some cakes... but I'm with you, I wouldn't enjoy it all the time or for selling.

Amber said...

I do cakes too! We are twins! I've got some of my cakes on my sidebar. I love the dragon! I do sell my cakes- but to date I've only sold 3. I'm doing my BIL's wedding cake this month. But I do those for our 'gift'.

momofalltrades said...

I *told* you we're twins Amber! LOL Didn't take me very long in your blog to figure that out!

Stoopidgirl said...

I sooooooo need the pink Mini cooper cake!!! It matches my car!!!!