So... my friend at work has his birthday tomorrow. I wasn't really planning on making him a cake, but at the last minute figured I would go ahead and do it since he's one of my best friends there. He really loves the Cincinnati Reds baseball team so I figured I would go with that theme. Since it was so last minute I figured I would do something simple and just get an edible image of the Reds logo, add some borders to the cake, and write Happy Birthday on it.

I left work today headed for home to start the cake. I stopped at the gas station, got out and pumped my gas, got back in the car.... and it wouldn't start! AH! Had to call a friend to come help me push the car into a parking spot, go to the store and buy a new battery for my car ($82!) then come back and change the battery out. It took forever and was a mess. Finally get home around 8:30 and still planned on making the cake. I ice them and smooth the buttercream (so far so good).

I had already made my red icing for later, next I am going to apply the edible image of the Reds logo. I put it on and it cracks!!! There is a big hole in the middle! Now, this was my first time using an edible image and I hadn't thought ahead enough to get an extra one just in case! I figure I will see if I can fix it later after it has mixed in with the buttercream. Next I start writing "Happy Birthday" on the cake. Too late I realized that the red of my icing doesn't look red at all next to the logo. It looks downright orange!!!

Still trying to push through... I attempt to fix the edible image crack. It cracked on a red part of the image, so I think that maybe I can some how paint over it with icing coloring. This just made things worse.

Now... the whole thing looks so ridiculous that I can't bare to bring it in for him tomorrow. I am totally embarassed by the way it looks. I just wasted that time and money... and have nothing to show for it.

The worst part is that after my awful day, I really thought this cake was going to turn out great. I am so disappointed. I don't know if maybe I should wait and try it again this weekend? Maybe bring him a "belated" birthday cake? But that just sounds stupid to me now. Blah.....

((((HUGS)))) For you. I'm sorry you are having a bad day. But I would totally do a belated birthday cake. I'm sure he'd still appreciate it, i know i would!

Aw. I'm sorry. It's so hard to decorate when stuff like that happens to stress you out. If he's a good friend who you don't care about impressing too much then I would still give him a cake on his birthday. It's nice to get a treat on a workday. If you're really embarrassed about how it looks, I would scrape the icing off and just ice it in white. He'll be happy you even thought to make him a cake. It seems a shame to waste the cake you already baked.

I hate it when that happens.

I would cut into that bad boy, get a cup of tea and have myself a treat for such a stressed day and then make him a new belated one!!! That would make me feel better

i think it's still salvageable!! take a deep breath...

scrape the image off.

do you have any icing left, or any in the freezer that you could color green? use the grass tip and pipe a baseball diamond! you could even cut the sides off your cake to make it actually a diamond shape. leave spaces for your paths between the bases, and suddenly you have a baseball themed cake.

if he loves the cincinnati reds, then that also means he loves baseball in general. he doesn't know it was supposed to be more specific, so he'll love it.

use your red icing to write on the board "happy birthday, (name)! against the green and the white on the cake, it'll probably look red, and if you make a mistake or realize it still looks too orange, then just scrape it off the board.

you're a great friend!!

(((Hugs!)))))))
Days like that are SO tough. And it always starts out with one thing and keeps on going. You just want to go to bed and start back over tomorrow!

Sorry this happened...

Thanks for being SO nice guys! Luckily for me... I went into work today and he had called in sick! (That's not so lucky for him though). But... that gives me time to come home today and try to see if I can fix it!

I almost cut into it last night and ate a piece myself because I'd had a bad day and even though it looked awful, I knew it would taste good. haha.

Glad it worked out for you! Don't feel too bad for him though. I doubt he was really sick.

Well, i had thought about scraping the whole thing an starting over, but I just didn't have the energy for that today. So, I tried to fix it the best I could. Still doesn't look good, but not nearly as bad as yesterday. I'm having trouble attaching it here. But it's in my photos.... you'll definitely know it when you see it. Thanks for the support and ideas!!!

On my monitor, it looks fine, it doesn't look orange at all.
Give it to him as it is, he'll love it!