I finished the Barney Birthday cake that I made for a little girl turning two.
I have to see it was an experiance in the least. I made the Royal icing flows about a week ahead to make sure they would work and not break when dried - those were fine. The cakes took for 4 boxes of mix and baking 4 seperate cakes as I have a small oven and I didn't want to put 2 cake mixes in the pan as I didn't know if it would over flow or not and how it would cook so I did it the slow way. My biggest problem was that my cakes are so moist that when I am trying to place them on the cake board they are always trying to crack on me The number two was easy to cut out but broke in half and hade to be placed in tow pieces - good thing for icing to fix things! My icing that I had made a few days before was ok and I mixed it really well but when spreading it on the cake I saw a small dark blob of something, picked it off and took a tiny taste to see what it was and oh the taste was so horrible I had to rinse my mouth 4 or 5 times and drink some pop to get it out. I figured it was a small amount of coloring that hadn't mixed as the taste was bitter beyond this world I ended up scraping the icing off the cake even though the rest of the ising tasted fine, I didn't want to take any chances. Now I had to make some more icing. I went and bought 4 lbs of butter the other day and they were from a different store and a no name quality - big mistake
The first batch I made turned out lumpy and looked gross so I thought that maybe it was me and the butter wasn't softened enough before I started so I made another batch but it happened again, the butter kept getting tuny clumps and would not turn smooth I went out and boght my normal name brand butter and had no problems with that stuff. I now was ready to ice the cake and found that the number 2 was not going to be so easy to do and I ended up just doing the large star tip of the different colors and by now I was getting tired of doing the cake so i just threw the rest together. It turned out ok but not what I had envisioned so my next one will be better for sure

Your cake looks fantastic...I'm sorry it gave you such a fit..can't tell by looking at it though! I believe that we learn something with each cake we make. Watch how much easier you next cake will be! You did a great job!

So sad to hear of your trubles. But I know how you must have had it.
Anyway we learn as we go, and it will allways be better by time. Hold your motivation up, and try again. The cake looked so fine. Can't see any truble with it from here.

What trouble you had...so sorry. I looked at it though and it looks wonderful so you triumphed in the end!

The cake went well without a hitch and because it was two different flavors, everyone had 2 pieces and really liked it. I got 2 cake orders out of the party so that makes everything worth it!

So glad to hear that all of your trouble was worth. Congrats on the two cake orders!

Charlotte

Butter note - Get butter that is dated with the furthest away in date you can find, as close to four months away as you can. According to Alton Brown, name brand is not anywhere near as important as freshness. Honestly I have no idea if it was the brand you used or the date, but check on that next time, too.

Glad your cake finally came out well!

Hugs,
Angel Wendy

sgirvan,

I have problems every time I do a cake! It usually comes out good in the end. The Barney cake is very pretty!! I'm glad you got through the aggravation!!!!! Sometimes I'd like to throw everything in the trash I go sit down!! Thank goodness I hand in there & keep trucking!

YOUR CAKE IS FINE!!! And cute as can be~~

I thought your cake looked great. I love how you did the 2, very colorful. Good job

Yeah I thought it was pretty great too......

Thanks for all the great replies, the cake although a lot of work was fun to do, here is a picture of the little figures I made to go along with the cake.