Alabama Tracks

Wow!  This week has been a whirlwind of a week.  Monday while I was at work, Joel asked if I was ready to bake my first cake.  Not sure of what to say, I started asking questions about what he had in mind.  Before I knew it, I was on speaker phone talking w/ his bosses wife about specifics.  I was in.  I couldn’t back out at that point.  They requested a chocolate cake, white frosting w/ an Auburn theme and the words “Touch Down, Emily, Happy Birthday.”  This is what I came up with -

I really didn’t have a good idea regarding the time that I would put into this cake.  Monday night Joel and I went to Michaels to buy a new cake pan, food colors, and a few new decorating bags.  I made my pattern and got my plan together for the week.  Once we got home, I started to make frosting.  I wanted to make an all butter buttercream for the base and then use a standard buttercream for the decorating.  So out came my cookbooks and put some butter out to soften.  I started sewing for mom - yet another thing that had to be done this week.  Around 8:45 that night I realized that the recipe that I had found required whipping cream.  So out to the store I went.  Back home around 9:10 and in the kitchen right away.  As I whipped said frosting, it turned into “grits”.  Not good.  I gave up for the night.

Tuesday night, I made the cake.  The pan said to use 11 cups of batter for this pan.  As I was making a scratch cake, I had to make it twice to get enough batter.  Then I made my standard buttercream.  Joel said it was really sweet.  Paranoid about the overall sweetness of the cake, I found a new recipe online for a French buttercream.  It was fabulous.  I put everything in the fridge for the night and headed to bed.

Wednesday night I had choir.  I really wasn’t up to go as I had so much to get done but I hadn’t gone to choir for a few weeks due to my cold so I went.  I was glad that I did as my friend Rebecca (the one that just had twins) came back.  Home again around 8:30 and back into the kitchen.  First thing was to frost the cake.  I didn’t have enough frosting.  So I whipped up a half batch of the french buttercream.  Decorated as I watched American Idol and Project Runway.  Around 10:30 I had the dishes done, cake in the fridge, and found myself crashed on the couch for a few minutes of quiet time with my husband.  Midnight finally brought some shut eye.

Joel brought the cake with him to work on Thursday.  Everyone said that they liked it and that it looked like a professional did it.  I really don’t think that was the case but I’ll take the compliment.  The day ended with his boss asking how much I charged for cakes.  Apparently the overall taste of the cake won them over above and beyond the overall look.  A lady at work who has decorated cakes for years said that she would give me a “B” grade overall and a “A” for effort.  The mistakes that I made would be things that I would learn over time.

I’m so glad that the first cake is over.  Now I just have to come up with some kind of dollar figure for the future.  I plan on talking to some grocery stores prices into consideration as I don’t know what my overall cost is at this point.  We’ll see how far this goes. I plan on getting my instructors thoughts on the cake as well.

On a different note, my back is healing rather nicely.  It really itches so I know it’s healing.  I’ll get the stitches out on Wednesday.  Joel takes his certification test for his programming language that day as well.  This week proves to be a busy week but I sure hope it isn’t what this week was.  I do hope to get back into the gym next week if only for a day or two.  I’ve got an itch to go clothes shopping now - something that I’ve not had lately.  I have to buy some pants though before my kakhis split in the inseam while I’m at work and totally embarass me.  It’s time for something to be done.  Maybe the cake order will help in that arena.  We’ll see how it goes.

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