Adventures in Baking

Eventually, at one point in my life, I WILL make a 4-layer cake. QUOTE ME! Countless times for people's birthday's, I've had good intentions about making a beautiful, four layered cake. Naturally, when my mother's birthday rolled around the corner (MAY 01...HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAPSIE!) I was obviously going to go for the big kahuna. I had the random, epiphanic moment of deciding that the cake was going to be coconut cream! Why? No idea. I don't even like coconut very much. Whatever. I thought my mom would like it.

SOOOOO....I looked at a few recipes online and sort of got a gist for the type of ingredients they needed. I obviously failed to write these down, and headed to the grocery without so much as a written, or mental list. (insert a subliminal plea for an iphone). I came home with some random food shenanigans, complete with three limes (they were a great price). I set off to make the cake; mentally combining a few recipes I remember looking at. I have a psuedo problem of making recipes up. This can, at times, be disastrous.

Mistake number 1: Did not take the high altitude into consideration. I mean, even if I had thought to, I would have had no idea what changes to make. Maybe add more flower? Whatever.

Mistake number 2: I used 8 inch cake rounds, rather than 9. Doesn't sound like a big problem, but let me paint you a mental picture of what the cakes looked like. I would say we had about a 2.5 inch vertical from the top of the pan, to the apex of the cake. There was also some additional horizontal cake action that kind of lipped over the pan edges.

Mistake number 3: I apparently, did NOT grease and flour the pans in such a way that would ensure a clean exit from the pan. This was frustrating to me, as I took a painstakingly long time to try and insure the aforementioned. I think the fault lies in the 8 inch rounds, rather than my greasing abilities.

Mistake number 4: After I had finally gotten the cakes out of the pans (I will spare you the details of how cake number 2 literally fell apart in my hands), I didn't want to wait until they were completely cool to start frosting. Result: structure failure.

Mistake number 5: I did NOT make enough frosting. But what can you really expect when you make up a recipe from your mind grapes? I mean, at least it tasted good.

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I will say, however, the toasted coconut on top really did an excellent camouflage job to cover the frosting, or lack thereof. All in all I would say it was a roaring success! My favorite was the reaction of Kapsie. "Oh Sarah! My goodness, I love it! It's really quite unique!"

BAHAHAH

Don't question the candle.

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