Desperate Measures

With a little help from a friend (Mike, the Bakery Owner)...I was able to get the Baby Shower cakes done - despite a sleepless night the night before.  Actually, it was a lot of help!  He brought two pre-made cakes from his Bakery to save me some time...blank slates for Decorating.  

I felt like a cheater since I've never used any one else's recipes, let alone cakes!  But desperate times called for desperate measures.  Plus for the first time, I was truly not in the mood to Bake...but people were counting on me and I had to get it done.  Deadlines show no mercy and my lack of sleep was no excuse.

My new Kitchen Aid Standing Mixer made it's debut appearance and boy, was it fun to use!  This was going to make life much, much easier when Baking Cakes.

Despite cheating by not making cakes from scratch - Mike's cakes introduced me to a different flavor and a different style of cakes.  These were four-layer, Strawberry Shortcake Cakes frosted with very light Buttercream Frosting (quite different from mine as it was much lighter in flavor and feel) and it was sans-Fondant.  Just smoothed over soft Frosting spray painted with Food Coloring - yet another Cake Decorating a toy I needed to buy! 

I hemmed and hawed over how to decorate these two Baby Blocks.  Mike provided a photo to serve as inspiration and supervised as I slowly ornamented the cake.  I felt a little pressure, as my process is not a refined one.  Here I was with a guy who runs a Bakery and is accustomed to Professional Bakers flying through cakes.  That was NOT me.  Not yet at least.

One great lesson was that my Pastry Bag Frosting needed to be thinned out a bit - this made it much easier to work with.  I still had a lot to learn.

Mike encouraged me to come in to work with his Bakers one weekend morning, assuring me that I would learn a ton.  My only concern was slowing them down!  But it was a great offer and one I surely needed to take him up on soon.

The cake went over extraordinarily well - which means I need to add this recipe (or some version of it) to my repertoire immediately.  Everyone raved about the flavor, the lightness and how great they looked!

One thing I recognized was the need to organize my Baking Supplies.  By having someone else there to witness me at work - I realized that I must look incredibly disorganized!  I got the job done, despite being tired, but I'll admit...it wasn't a pretty picture, to be sure.

Sweet Dreams,

Me

"Do it, and then you will feel motivated to do it." - Zig Ziglar