Cake Disaster

This is why I don't do pastry.

And why I told my family never to ask me to make cakes again.

For my dad's birthday last October, I was commissioned to make the birthday cake.  Somehow, going to culinary school automatically means you can make cakes and pastries, even though I never once take any of those classes at school.  Apparently I can make puff pastry, Opéra cake, and probably spun sugar pieces because I was in the same building as the pastry students!

In any case, I was ambitious enough to try to make the Cook's Illustrated Lemon Layer Cake, which was yellow cake, lemon curd filling, and a light Italian-meringue type frosting.  I decided to switch the filling to my famous lime-ginger curd instead to make things more interesting.

Unfortunately, my cakes stuck to the bottom of the pan and cracked into pieces, plus they just didn't have much oompph in terms of flavor.  I resorted to good ol' Duncan Hines from the cupboard and luckily was able to have a replacement.  The frosting was light, but also didn't have much character to it, but at least it was spreadable and acceptable.

Then came the worst part: decorating.  My one class at Michael's on cake decorating taught me how to hold a pastry bag correctly, but as for actually creating things with it, let's just say you see the sad results above.  The most brilliant piece, however, must have been when I found Oreo cookies in the cabinet and thought they'd make a fine border.

Oh well, everyone liked it.  Or pretended to. 

Lesson learned: Oreos will always save the day.   And I will never make another birthday cake again.

Bon Appétit!

Comments

[Anne]

hey! you are being far too hard on yourself. i would be ecstatic to receive a birthday cake that looked like that.

[goldilocks bakery]

I want to know how to bake a cake and pastries, and I know it is not that easy specially in decorating process. I am proud of you because you made one for your father even though its hard to do. But what matter is your effort to do so. thanks for the post I enjoyed reading your post.

-missey