Adventures W/ The Birthday Cake From Heck! (Now W/ Pictures)
Decorating By mrsright41401 Updated 23 May 2006 , 12:28am by mrsright41401
My husband's aunt calls me last night at 4 PM and asks me to do a birthday cake for her daughter-in-law for the family get together tonight at 6PM. The ONLY direction she gives me is that she wants it to be super yummy, chocolate and have roses on it.
So, I make a chocolate fudge cake (Toba Garrett's recipe), fill it with dark chocolate ganache (Toba Garrett's recipe), ice it with White Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream (Toba Garrett's recipe) - this is my first time making a Swiss Meringue Buttercream too, so I have no idea what to expect, and make 20 buttercream roses - which I was not happy with but by this time it was 3 AM and I wasn't going to do anymore.
The ingredients for all of that cost me well over 70 dollars and my husband informs me that his aunt is never going to pay me for the ingredients, which is what I had agreed to charge her. Granted this cake is going to feed 30 people and is better than any cake you can get at a grocery store, etc but apparently this Aunt is a bit of a tightwad and I already know she's got a stick up somewhere dark and smelly, if you know what I mean. Well, I call my mother-in-law and tell her my conundrum and she calls her sister-in-law and they make some "arrangements" that she is not allowed to discuss the terms with me. 
So this morning, after 3 hours of sleep, I made the White Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream and I iced the cake, did a basketweave on the side - which came out less than perfect, piped a rope border which came out semi okay and place 17 of the 20 roses around the edge. I wrote the "Happy Birthday Mariela" message, and now it is sitting the freezer because it was super soft icing and the party is 6 hours away and we're going to have to drive, in the hot Arizona summer, 20 miles away. Oh, and I can't put the lid on my cake carrier because the cake border interferes.
Well, it was a learning experience and the cake came out pretty, though not perfect. As soon as I get pictures, I'll post them. *sigh*
Rachel
Wow, well, you have fun ok? I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that party!
We've all been there. We feel you pain!
Just a quick update...
My husband's aunt paid full price for the cake and I got some MAJOR compliments. It was a great experience overall, and she totally saw how the cake that she got was worth MORE than 76 dollars.
Rachel
Husbands have such a way of ruffling our feathers don't they? And then they claim we're 'moody'.....what's up with that? I"m so glad it all worked our so well for you!
Your cake is nice and you're a peach to do a last-minute order, but God Almighty, where do you shop?? $76 in ingredients for a what, 10" cake??
I was thinking about ordering Toba's book but making her cakes might bankrupt me. LOL
Glad it all turned out well in the end. And isn't meringue buttercream heavenly? Yummmmm....
glad everything worked out well - btw, very nice cake - great roses
LOL - I got the ingredients at Whole Foods cuz I wanted to get good quality chocolate. It would have been less expensive if I had gotten them elsewhere but there were some specialty ingredients in it, so I got it all there just so Id idn't have to run around to a thousand stores.
And I highly recommend Toba's book. It is the best book I've got and I've learned SO much from it.
Rachel
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