You Can't Decorate A Cake With One Hand
Decorating By Nic611 Updated 4 Oct 2007 , 3:43pm by 4Gifts4Lisa
I had the hardest time yesterday trying to get my MIL's cake ready for today. I had this cake planned for two weeks now. I wanted to make a cake similar to Biscat's (pink with daisies and fondant balls at the bottom for a border) but with a fondant loop bow on top.
I made my daisies and my bow a week ago and thought that would give it plenty of time to dry out and be ready for yesterday. I baked my cakes Thursday night. So far, everything was going well. My only problem is that I wanted to make white chocolate IMBC but wasn't sure how to incorporate white chocolate ganache into the IMBC and couldn't get an answer from anyone on here. So, I decided to go with regular IMBC.
My oldest daughter said she was tired and I figured she had a long day at school (she's 6) so I told her to lay down for a nap. My 2 month old had just fallen asleep so I thought perfect! I can get this cake done with no distractions.
I unwrapped my cakes and started to torte them. One of the cakes had a tiny bit of undone cake in the middle and so there was a small hole there. No big deal, just use that in the middle. I whipped up my dark chocolate ganache and used it for my filling. So far so good! I started my IMBC and everything came together great. I go to throw the box from the butter away and I realize I just added a pound of SALTED butter instead of unsalted!! OH NO! I taste the IMBC and it is very salty...ick. What do I do? So I decided to add some powdered sugar thinking it would help and it actually did help some but it's still a little salty, but not disgustingly salty.
At this point, my oldest wakes up and runs to the bathroom to throw up. So I go in there to calm her down. The baby then wakes up and wants to be held. I look at the clock and see my husband should have been home over 45 minutes ago! I call him and he says he has to wrap something up at work and will be home in 20 minutes.
I then go back to my cake, holding the baby in a sling around me. I crumb coat my cake, then later go back to ice it. It's impossible to do with the sling on. DH still isn't home and it's been over half an hour! The baby is tired of the sling, I can't leave her in the room with my oldest because she's sick so I figure I'll hold her and get my icer tip out and try that one handed because I HAVE to get this cake done tonight because I don't have time to do it in the morning before we go to MIL's.
I start with my icer tip and it is fine on top, go to go around the bottom and the bag blows. It's my last ziplock bag so now I have no way of getting the icing on there easily while holding the baby who will not let me put her down. Still no dh! I try to ice the cake as best as I can with one hand and it doesn't look terrible, but it certainly isn't smooth as I would like it to be and would have gotten it to be with both hands to turn my turntable, lol. I start putting the daisies on. Then decide to put my bow on the top. I pick it up and it just falls apart. The weather was really rainy and humid yesterday and I think it just ruined the bow. Great. Lucky I have extra daisies to put on top! The icing starts to get too warm because I'm baking dinner in the oven at the same time and the kitchen is getting hot and daisies are falling off of the cake, messing up the icing. So I throw the remaining daisies on and toss the cake in the fridge to let it harden up and because I'm sick of it at, lol!
At this point I'm ready to cry because everything has been one disaster after another and the cake doesn't look anything like I wanted it to. DH gets home and asks me why didn't I put the bow on? I lost it at that point. Handed him the baby and went to take a warm bath.
I'm sure it will taste great, but it could definitely look better. I just needed to vent because dh says "it's just a cake". UGH!
I can relate with you on holding the baby and trying to get things done, whether it be decorate a cake or clean the house. I am sure your cake looked awesome though.
I hope you are feeling better today!
I felt so bad reading your post...I have had days just like that with my four kids running around driving me nuts. I know in the back of my head that in the grand scheme of things, it really IS just cake...but it is also my "outlet". I am a stay-at-home-soccer-mom, and it can get tedious and monotonous and it can sometimes feel like I have nothing good to offer. The cakes allow me to create and dream and lose myself for awhile, and create something beautiful. Then I am not just Lisa-the-homemaker-wife-and-mom, but I am Lisa-who-makes-cool-cakes. And that is fun.
I hope your day is better today!
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