Hello all! Let me introduce myself. My name is Debby and have had an interest in decorating cakes for over 30 years (dang I'm old!).

The first cake I remember doing was Smurf - not sure which one - for a friends child's birthday. I used the simple, yet effective, star method and became hooked.

The next one was for another friend's wedding shower. It was, shall we say, detailed??? That was an experience let me tell you! But it was a big hit with the girls.

For years I've flirted with cakes and finally, about 20 years ago took the first two, of three, Wilton decorating courses. I tried four times to take the third one, for tier cakes aka wedding session, but there were never enough participants and I finally gave up.

Now, today, I am finally making my first wedding cake. . . and it has been adventure. . .

Imagine. Making a wedding cake - while having your kitchen remodeled!!! Oh joy!

But, let's up that ante. . .how about TWO wedding cakes (I must be a masochist) with a kitchen sink that is NOT hooked up and, to make matters more complicated, the water in the bathroom just turned brown. . ..

I am going to be blogging my day because it's the only way I can stay sane!

Stay tuned for more. . .

So while the cream cheese is creaming. . . by the way, I hate cream cheese frosting and have never made it. . .yet that was the filling requested so I am making cream cheese frosting. . .hope it turns out okay. . .

So, back in January, my best friend's son asked me to make his wedding cake. We've known him since he was 4 he has always loved my cooking. And since I had always wanted to do a cake I said sure. The date for the wedding was set as May 14th.

At the same time we decided to remodel the kitchen. With our original plans, everything was supposed to be done by April 20th.

Yeah. Right.

It took twice as long to pick out tile because we couldn't come to a decision (even though we ended up purchasing the very first one we liked - 6 weeks after we saw it) and then my husband found out he had to replace the entire floor of the kitchen, not just remove the old vinyl. Because of all of that, we had to delay the cabinets three weeks.

So. That means the cabinets were delivered 10 days before the wedding. Okay. No problem. Especially since the counter (Corian) guy had said - back in March - that it was a 1 -3 day turn around time.

Wrong. They were so busy I had to beg him to install the counter. . . a week later or yesterday.

But the drains have to sit for 24 hours. . so no water in the kitchen.

Okay, fine. I can work around this. . .I can boil water on the stove, I can use dishpans (I set up a sawhorse in the back with plywood over it and bought two dishpans) to wash dishes - outside.

Of course the kitchen contents, my baking and decorating tools, are spread out over the house. The fridge is in the living room, as is the microwave. . .I did get the stove in.

Anyway, it took me from 7 - 10 before I got my first of 8 cakes in the oven. . .

did I mention I had to clean the counters before I could start? The counter guy didn't leave until after 8 last night. . .than hubby tried ( bless him) to get the drains in but finally had to give up.

And, at 10:30 am this morning, the water turned dark brown.

To be continued. . .

Oh. Yeah. While I was making frosting and letting my 10" cakes cool, they decided to grow very long cracks. . . Guess I'm not going to torte them. . .

Three layers I guess is going to be the plan. *sigh*

Nothing is going to be simple today. . .

should have put this under cake disasters. . . .

My bottom two layers completely fell apart. . .

Time to start over. . .

I wouldnt even attempt anything in that kitchen. I would suggest you find a friendly neighbor and do everything over there....I can just imagine all the stuff flying around in the air from construction...

Wish it was that easy. . . I would have to pack everything up and drive about 45 minutes, up a mountain, and then hope I don't forget anything.

But I am being very careful. . .I cleaned all the counters twice, wiped off all the cabinets and am using bottled water. . .

If the cake was for someone other than what we consider family, I would have backed out long before now. . .

Got to run down to the store and buy more eggs and cake mix. . .my fault on the first two layers for trying a new recipe. . .they do taste good though!

Hang in there! We remodeled about 2 yrs ago, luckily I was not heavily into cake decorating yet and could work around it in the small kitchenette we had downstairs. But, oh my, have you got a lot of work on your hands. I still complain about not having my kitchen for 4 months (we did a complete tear down and did all the work ourselves and ran into a few familiar problems you have described). Best of luck to you and I'm sure that your cakes will taste and look great!

Thanks Becca. Under normal circumstances I would have done a trial cake. . .but I didn't have that option.

At least I have my counter tops - there for awhile I thought I would be using plywood tables!

The water problem seems to have cleared up but I'm still using bottled water to wash and cook with.

I am going to be baking until midnight though - only one set of pans so it takes forever to wait for the pans to bake.

Oh and I did I say that at work we're writing a grant that is due in 9 days and that my supervisor (who is getting the second cake) is getting married on Saturday and going on her honeymoon and the grant is only a rough draft.

STress, stress and more stress! Challenging times!